Visa believes consumer behavior has fundamentally changed due to the current pandemic; Charlotte Hogg, EVP and CEO of Visa Europe, tells the Financial Times, “It’s hard to say exactly what the economic recovery is going to look like, but we think it’s going to be digital, domestic spending is going to be important, and debit cards rather than credit are going to be important.”; data they are seeing shows that economic activity is picking up, though it is too early to say we are in a full recovery; travel was disproportionately hit by the crisis and it is not showing the same signs of activity, it will take the industry longer than others to get back on its feet; a new report by Accenture says cash usage is set to fall by 30 percent across Europe, Visa is working with various partners to speed up adoption of contactless payments to make up for the lack of cross-border spending; the company is also working very closely with banks to help SMBs make the shift to digital, tells the FT, “Many of their business models aren’t geared for a digital world — that’s not what they’ve had to do in the past, but now consumers are really calling for that.” Financial Times.
