FIS’s Worldpay, a leading worldwide fintech company, has released a survey with Crypto.com on public perceptions of cryptocurrencies as a medium of exchange. In 2022, it discovered a lot of interest from merchants and customers in adopting cryptocurrency to transact.
Customers and merchants transacting in crypto now have a 10X difference, according to the research “Crypto for Payments.” Only 4 percent of shops accept cryptocurrency, despite the fact that 40 percent of customers want to use it to make purchases. 60% of merchants want to accept cryptocurrency within a year, according to a report.
Real uptake, on the other hand, is likely to be far slower. Institutions will face significant problems due to crypto’s steep learning curve and the complexities of organizing these new payment systems among internal teams.
If these barriers are addressed, businesses can profit from decreased transaction fees and dispute costs while appealing to a wider customer base, according to the paper.
The price volatility that cryptocurrencies are prone to could be one factor contributing to the customer-merchant gap. Merchants may be hesitant to sell their items for these assets because they are concerned that their value would plummet the next day.
As a result, prepaid crypto cards from Visa and Mastercard have surfaced. Users can load crypto onto these cards and use them to buy goods everywhere standard credit cards are accepted by payment processors. On the back end, each will convert user funds to fiat currency before depositing them in the merchant’s account.
The crypto.com Visa card is being used by 65 percent of crypto.com members, exhibiting strong customer demand for crypto purchases. The study polled 110,000 Crypto.com consumers and 1.5 million WorldPay customers from FIS retailers. According to a Visa survey, 25 percent of small business owners expect to accept cryptocurrency this year.
Merchants are particularly interested in taking USDC and large-cap cryptos for payment, which is maybe unexpected. Customers felt the same way, but with a greater desire to use crypto.com’s native Cronos currency – however, this is most likely due to skewed sampling.
Among businesses, luxury goods merchants have expressed a strong desire to accept cryptocurrency as payment (80 percent ). Customer interest was more evenly distributed across market sectors, with a slight preference for utilizing Bitcoin for travel – albeit retailers proved to be the least accommodating in that area.
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