Lockdowns across the globe have accelerated a shift in payment behavior among consumers, as people stuck at home have been forced to adapt their consumption habits to purchasing goods and services online, and a large share don't intend to switch back after the current emergency.
More than three-fifths of Singaporeans (66 per cent) now prefer to pay with cards or through mobile applications over cash, while 40 percent said they intend to increase online shipping in the future, Visa said in a report published on Thursday.
The study, which looks at consumer spending habits and behaviors as operating in the «new normal» takes shape across the globe, collated consumer data across 40 markets globally and 11 markets in Asia-Pacific.
Some 78 percent of Singaporeans said they intend to stick with digital payment methods instead of reverting back to cash, even after the Covid-19 pandemic passes.
New Habits
Visa noted that e-commerce was growing 10 times faster than face-to-face transactions – globally, one in five active Visa cardholders who have never made an e-commerce transaction in 2019 are shopping online for the first time this year.
«In this new normal, we’re seeing a shift – Singaporeans are becoming more digital, and the COVID-19 situation has forced consumers to adopt this change in behavior,» Kunal Chatterjee, Visa Country Manager for Singapore & Brunei, said.
Price Sensitive
Top of consumer concerns are the price of goods, as many are tightening their belts to weather the crisis – some 50 percent said they pay more attention to products on sale, and 64 percent said they pay more attention to prices.
Other findings include that financial concerns trump those about physical health, with 68 percent of Singaporeans saying the situation has forced them to be even more proactive about financial planning, compared to 53 percent saying they were worried about falling sick. At the same time, only 28 percent of consumers were optimistic that the economy would recover following the pandemic.
