Mastercard Austria boss sees cards and also cash becoming less important in the future.
2020 was a good year for Mastercard. The company does not want to reveal figures – especially for individual countries. But of course: digital payment has increased due to the Corona crisis. “The volume has increased,” confirms Christian Rau, Country Manager Mastercard Austria, in an interview with the KURIER.
Even if tourism in Austria and trips by Austrians – where cashless payments are popular – have only taken place this year to a small extent. Many have now also got to know the advantages of digital payment. Rau estimates that there will probably not be a large-scale return to more cash payments.
But he does not want to see his company as a “crisis winner”. This effect will probably only really take off in any case in 2022, when economy and tourism are largely unrestricted again. Will this be a great year for Mastercard? “That is the hope,” says Rau.
In any case, in 2021 Mastercard will continue to focus on the topics of security when paying, new payment options (keyword: paying via smartphone or watch) and also cash service. In other words, in more rural regions, empower landlords or regional traders to issue cash more than before.
No end of cash
For the future, Rau sees the importance of cash and plastic cards for payments to decrease. But both will continue to exist. “A swan song on the plastic card would be premature.” Nevertheless, payment devices such as smartphones or a watch would have only used a “digital clone” of a plastic card – and offer many advantages. However, Rau emphasizes that Mastercard has not started to abolish cash. After all, a customer also uses Mastercard services when withdrawing cash.
Incidentally, there is little reason for the limit for contactless payment to be lowered again after the pandemic, according to Rau. So far, Mastercard has not seen any argument why one should do that – neither on the part of banks, retailers and consumers nor from the regulatory authorities. For the vague period of the pandemic, the limit for contactless payment without entering a PIN (NFC) was raised from 25 to 50 euros in Austria.
Christian Rau, Country Manager Mastercard Austria
The endeavors to establish a European payment system (the KURIER reported) “touch” Mastercard “of course”, says Rau. The company is waiting.
In its current “Trust” study, Mastercard asked about people's behavior when shopping for Christmas this year. The result: 61 percent of people want to buy their gifts locally this year. More than a third buy from local dealers' web shops. But: More than every second person wants to spend less money on Christmas gifts. Conversely, however, 16 percent of those surveyed indicated that they even wanted to spend more.
In November 2020, 16,000 people (around 1,000 in Austria) from 15 countries were surveyed by the research company Fly Research.
