A future with digitalized payments only

World’s forward-looking innovative companies are already on the race about the digital payments. It is impossible to predict the future of digitalized payments, and even well-known companies such as Mastercard or Visa do not know exactly how the market will look like in fifty (50), twenty (20), or even ten (10) years.

   Without doubt, there are billions of people around the world who still deal exclusively in cash. However, credit and especially debit cards are becoming more and more useful in many societies. Furthermore, digitalized features such as by using a smartphone with near field communication (NFC) technology, or the next-generation biometric cards, serves both convenience and security to the checkout process.

   Fingerprint sensors are working considerably well in most cases. In fact, the concept behind NFC and biometric cards is to replace PINs and passwords during the transactions. That means that in terms of the NFC many smartphones and tablets are exploiting the advantages of their hardware and software, and on the other side the cardholder of a biometric card dips the last one into a retailer’s terminal while placing her/his finger on the embedded sensor.

   How it works? If the fingerprint is verified against the template, then the cardholder or the device holder is successfully authenticated, and the transaction can then be approved. Is it safe? Yes, it is safer than a PIN, a password, or the CCV number, but there are some doubts about the terms behind the use of these extremely sensitive biometric profiles.

   Biometric and in general digitalized shopping is maybe something more than just a vision about the future payment methods. These are critical elements in terms of unblocking the capitalism and financial crises. If we completely digitalize our money, then we will have the opportunity to rethink not only how we add value in a product, but how we can devalue a service or a tag price without actual financial loss.