- Small and medium-sized businesses are budgeting up to $1 million to develop crypto payments infrastructure.
- Motivations behind such schemes are customer demand, expectations of customer growth, and “cutting edge” appearance.
About 74 percent of merchants in the US plan on integrating crypto payments in the next two years, a recent survey reports. Even more, 85 percent of retailers expect such payment schemes to be “ubiquitous” in their receptive industries in five years to come.
Published on June 8, the survey was conducted by consultancy firm Deloitte alongside payments firm PayPal, between Dec 3-16. It polled a total of 2,000 senior executives from different sectors of the merchant industry. They included electronics, cosmetics, fashion, digital goods, home and garden, and food and beverage. Others were from the transportation, hospitality and leisure, personal and household goods industries, etc.
Crypto payment’s popularity and expectations
Per the survey, over 50 percent of large retailers ($500M+ revenue) are now spending more than $1M to build such payment infrastructures. Small and medium-sized businesses ($10M-$100M revenue) are also getting in on similar developments. Among them, 73 percent plan on directing $100,000 – $1 million to develop crypto payment schemes. A separate survey showed a similar level of crypto enthusiasm among such setups.
Read More: Small and medium-sized businesses ready to institute crypto payments in 2022 – Survey
Meanwhile, 60 percent of merchants intend to use a $500,000 budget to develop digital currency payment policies within the year. For many merchants (64 percent), crypto payment policies have come in high demand from their customers. Around 83 percent of these retailers expect that this interest will only rise as the year progresses.
As for the benefits of such policies, about 50 percent of merchants say it will upgrade their customer experience. Around the same number expect it to multiply their customer base. 40 percent hope it depicts their brand as “cutting edge.”
Growth in customer numbers has already been reported as an outcome by 93 percent of merchants who already have functional crypto payment options. CNF reported that Gucci and Uber are among the companies leading in terms of cryptocurrency uptake.
Drawbacks of adoption
But even then, certain challenges stand in the way of crypto uptake among businesses, according to the survey. Merchants say the biggest of them all (45 percent) is system complexity, that is, the integration of cryptocurrencies. The issue even becomes more difficult where multiple digital currencies are involved.
Other obstacles were security vulnerabilities, regulatory evolution, volatility, and budget deficiency at 43, 37, 36, and 30 percent respectively.
To sidestep these issues, Deloitte says “continued education” among regulators will be necessary. This will promote wide adoption across various products and services.
In last year’s interview with Yahoo Finance, Rep. Jim Himes said, “Most of my colleagues don’t have a deep understanding of cryptocurrencies.” In the same year, Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis expressed similar concerns. She, however, said that certain efforts were being made to educate lawmakers about crypto for effective and fair regulation of the industry.
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