Cashless expenses – will the coronavirus change our way of paying?

By SimpledCard on 30th April 2020

Cashless – 4 min

The amount of cashless payments is increasing as the pandemic restricts the use of physical cash. Electronic payments are preferred over cash payments as people fear the spread of coronavirus. Despite the fact that there are no scientific studies proving this, a lot of retailers encourage to pay cashless as it is a safety measure to maintain social distance.

What once seemed like the oldest, most reliable way of paying now feels like taking an unnecessary risk. A World Health Organization representative stated in an interview: “We realize that cash changes hands every now and again and can get a wide range of microscopic organisms and infections and things like that”. After this statement, a lot of people wanted to turn to cashless transactions. Governments and retailers across the whole world took action.

The electronic payment method was already evolving as consumers are switching from cash to card payments. More than the risk of cash money itself, trade organizations recommend electronic payment to avoid close interaction between people. Some retailers now have banned the use of cash entirely in their stores to keep employees and customers safe, opting for electronic payments instead. Businesses are now facing problems with one of their most common activities: paying for business expenses.

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Cash vs. digital payments

Digital payments, once originated to simplify payment transactions, are becoming a necessity for a lot of companies, which can also be a major win. Some of the changes might be temporary, but cash has always been a big hurdle in companies.

Cashless payments will benefit companies in multiple ways. Organizations struggle with replenishing petty cash at office locations. Now that electronic payments are encouraged, this will not only help to keep social distance but also increase the security of your own employees. Simultaneously, the risks of fraud and administrative tasks may decrease significantly. When companies experience that digital payments are way more convenient and a lot cheaper to process, the switch to cash might be permanent.

Standardize cashless into your workflow

It will take a bit of effort from companies to work in a world without cash. The switch to digital payments requires an increase in the number of business payment cards. This might seem easy, but there will be a need for standardization in your systems and a way to keep track of all expenses to avoid bottleneck for the teams.

SimpledCard has already plugged some of those gaps. The SimpledCard payment cards are a safe alternative and support you with making changes in your cash management. Payments can be done fully contactless, you can set temporarily higher payment limits and track all your transactions in real-time. The cost administration can also be completed much faster.

The trend towards cash independence is clearly visible, proven by the rapidly increasing number of cashless transactions. It will be fascinating to see whether companies will remain cashless after the crisis. By the time we have won the battle from COVID-19, cashless payments might be so entangled in everyone’s workflow that there is not even a way back. The future will tell!