UK Consumers Need Better Education on BNPL & Crypto Payments: Research

A recent research study published by ECOMMPAY, an international payment service provider and direct acquirer of bank cards, on Sunday, July 31, shows that although 75% of U.K. consumers consider themselves financially savvy regarding their understanding of the impacts of using Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) payments, 24% still require a better understanding of such methods.

Besides that, the study highlighted that more than half of business leaders (54%) still experience several challenges in supporting online financial education for their customers and partners.

ECOMMPAY research also disclosed that 64% of consumers feel financially literate concerning opening up banking and understanding the impacts of payment options. Only 14% of consumers fully understood open banking compared to the previous year.

In terms of cryptocurrencies, the research showed that more than half of the respondents felt they were financially savvy about using crypto assets for payment. However, 46% said they do not understand cryptocurrency or know what it is.

Almost 50% of business leaders surveyed felt it was the responsibility of banks to educate consumers about online financial education, followed by governments (41%) and payment providers (40%).

Paul Marcantonio, ECOMMPAY UK & Western Europe CEO, commented about the development: “Our research has shown that consumers rely heavily on their financial education and are generally smarter when it comes to using the latest financial tools.”

“However, further education and support is still required to ensure that all new payment options can be used responsibly and that consumers are not left in the dark about the implications of trading cryptocurrencies or accepting BNPL schemes. As businesses work to recover and consumers navigate the cost of living crisis, financial education must be a constant to harness the potential of these innovative payment options,” the executive elaborated.

Leadership Taking Charge

While the benefits of crypto lending are clear, consumers must be aware of risks and ways to protect themselves as they navigate the growing new industry.

The recent market crash that has seriously hit several crypto lending firms and their customers warrants importance to consumer education.

With the recent growth of cryptocurrency lending, more consumers are realizing a new way of financial freedom. Thanks to the benefits of decentralized financial protocols and blockchain technology.

Customers who cannot get a traditional loan because of a bank’s minimum deposit requirement, fees, or a low credit score now have options available to them through crypto lending.

In the U.S., a new non-profit organization, the Digital Asset Advocacy Group (DAAG), was launched in April to educate consumers on the opportunities and risks associated with cryptocurrency lending.

In March, the Treasury Department ordered the Financial Literacy and Education Commission (FLEC) to form a new digital asset financial education subgroup to create consumer-friendly, trustworthy and consistent educational materials, tools and outreach to help consumers make informed choices about digital assets.

During that time, the U.S. Under Secretary of the Treasury for Domestic Finance, Nellie Liang, said that history has shown that, without sufficient safeguards, forms of private money have the potential to pose risks to the financial system and consumers.

Image source: Shutterstock

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Visa Customers Have Spent Over $1B On Crypto-Linked Cards This Year

Crypto-linked card spending is on the rise. Visa shared this week that consumer spending with Visa-based crypto credit cards has exceeded $1B this year, through just the first six months of the year.

Increasing Adoption Through Accessibility

Visa also shared this week that it plans on partnering with 50 different cryptocurrency platforms to allow ease of access for consumers converting and spending digital currencies at millions of merchants across the globe. These crypto companies include the likes of Coinbase, Block, Crypto.com, and more.

The transaction business moves quickly; it was just earlier this year that the company said it would allow consumers to use stablecoin USDC to settle transactions.

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Visa is also pairing up with FTX for the company’s FinTech “FastTrack program”. As part of the program, they will help facilitate FTX paying 50% of its employees in USDC. The partnership and program is nothing new for the credit card firm, as partnerships with firms like Circle have come into the fold in the past year.

Related Reading | Why VISA Thinks Bitcoin Has Potential In Cross-Border Transactions

More From Visa’s Report

Visa has also built out a “Digital Currency Roadmap” that was initially published last year. This week’s report highlights on progress from that roadmap, calling out three major sticking points: “an expanding and evolving ecosystem, rewards reimagined, and stablecoins come to the fore”.

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The company looks to continue to leverage relationships with crypto-first firms to expand growth in the aforementioned ecosytem. They cite an infrastructure that they believe will help “establish Visa as the network of choice for crypto native companies.” Interest accounts, lending, and direct deposits are major focal points for Visa and it’s partners.

With regards to rewards, partnerships continue to help build new avenues for Visa to grow. Users with partner programs can spend fiat to earn crypto rewards in the same fashion that we see airline and hotel points associated with consumer spending. Partner programs are already in place with firms like BlockFi and Circle, and have contributed substantially to this calendar year’s $1B in crypto card spending. These programs allow crypto-advocates to earn tokens from their typical spending, while also potentially exposing those less familiar with the crypto landscape with rewards that educate and inform them on the broader crypto landscape.

Finally, the company shows clear excitement around what they see as stablecoins “starting to live up to the promise of “digital fiat”: the developer-friendly characteristics of cryptocurrency combined with the reliability of fiat-backed reserves.”

While many argue that adoption from major firms is healthy for broader crypto, some long-time advocates believe that company’s that have long been ingrained with traditional banking compromises crypto’s decentralized nature.


Visa has seen strong stock growth this year, and continues to show long-lasting investments in crypto.  | Source: NYSE: $V on TradingView.com

Related Reading | Swiss Bank Sygnum Launches Ethereum 2.0 Staking

Featured image from Pixabay, Charts from TradingView.com

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Better, faster, cheaper: How DeFi will kill the retail bank

The world runs on consumer spending and consumer saving. It is everyday people who actually power the most important parts of the global economy and the global financial system. 

For consumers, this system runs through their retail bank. It is where most people save, spend and pay their taxes. This is the battleground for the coming fight: the battle for global consumer deposits.

Make no mistake, this will be the fight of the century. It will change the shape of the world more fundamentally than the internet has already. The internet was about information. DeFi is about capital — and as we all know, money is power.

Today, most people either hate or are indifferent to their bank. That is probably because they fine you for tiny mistakes, keep you on the phone for hours, give you the worst interest rates imaginable, and provide you with a user experience that borders on hostile.

That is not always the fault of the bank. Consumer regulation and controls have been mounting to the point that compliance is often one of the biggest cost centers for all retail banks. Such institutions cannot innovate because they are built to resist change, not to embrace it.

An irresistible opportunity

Decentralized finance has flipped the model on its head, delivering a new world of financial products, built using smart contracts that allow consumers to switch between providers in a matter of seconds, all at the click of a mouse.

Related: DeFi will bring global revolution to the traditional finance space

It is not that the DeFi model is just better — it’s simply fundamentally different. In the old world of retail banking, we had to trust the people that run banks. This trust is expensive. In the new world of decentralized finance, we trust the code that provides our financial services.

Protocols such as Aave, Uniswap and MakerDAO have the ability to directly control assets like USD Coin (USDC), Ether (ETH) and Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC), enabling the rise of financial products that can operate 24/7, 365 days a year, with 100% uptime and no staff. It removes the cost of checks and balances. It takes handcrafted financial processes and turns them into automated programs.

Decentralized finance gives entrepreneurs an irresistible opportunity to truly compete in the world of global finance — a place that was once the exclusive realm of multinational corporations with eight-figure legal teams on retainer. Not only this, DeFi lowers the switching costs for a consumer to almost zero: I can move my capital from Aave to Compound to Uniswap in a matter of minutes, with precisely zero paperwork.

Related: DeFi-ing the odds: Why DeFi could rebuild trust in financial services

On DeFi, capital can flow almost instantly to the best value opportunities, and it provides the thing that global finance truly needs: real competition and real innovation. This competition is why DeFi will kill the retail bank. If I can get 15% APR in my favorite DeFi savings decentralized application, why would I ever keep my money in a bank?

With opportunities come threats

But right now, all is not well in DeFi. To date, DeFi on Ethereum has seen over $285 million in hacks, rewards are unfairly shared, and Ethereum continues to be congested and expensive to use.

The trust model of DeFi is code, not humans. The community is essential to the success of any ecosystem. To win, a platform must never get congested — no matter how many people are using it.

Related: Smart contract exploits are more ethical than hacking… or not?

We need a decentralized network where developers can build quickly without the constant threat of exploits and hacks, where every improvement will get rewarded, and where scale will never be a bottleneck. Because only then can the retail banks be slain and we get to see what great consumer finance truly looks like.

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Piers Ridyard is the CEO of Radix DLT, a secure decentralized network. Piers also founded and exited Surematics, a YCombinator company, and was mining on the genesis block of Ethereum in July 2015. Piers graduated from the University of Manchester and the University of Law and has a CFA level 1.

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Good Morning from Germany where consumer sentiment deteriorated for 3rd mth as resurgence in Covid19 cases & lockdown cloud outlook. GfK’s forward-looking index drops to -7.3pts in Jan from -6.8 in Dec. Decline smaller than exp -7.6 due to generous state aid & resilient labor mkt

Good Morning from Germany where consumer sentiment deteriorated for 3rd mth as resurgence in Covid19 cases & lockdown cloud outlook. GfK’s forward-looking index drops to -7.3pts in Jan from -6.8 in Dec. Decline smaller than exp -7.6 due to generous state aid & resilient labor mkt https://t.co/z1IJ2YNa70

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Since incentives not to work and to close businesses will increase sharply under @JoeBiden, 2021 will be a far more painful economic year for average Americans than was 2020. Supply shortages and a collapsing dollar will make consumer goods hard to get and very expensive to buy.

Since incentives not to work and to close businesses will increase sharply under @JoeBiden, 2021 will be a far more painful economic year for average Americans than was 2020. Supply shortages and a collapsing dollar will make consumer goods hard to get and very expensive to buy.

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Bitcoin (BTC) $ 42,157.30 1.28%
Ethereum (ETH) $ 2,215.40 0.40%
Litecoin (LTC) $ 71.96 0.74%
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) $ 240.71 2.23%