50% of Payments Companies See Merchants Accepting Crypto Settlements Within 3 Years (Survey)
A joint study conducted by Ripple and the Faster Payments Council (FPC) estimated that more than half of payment company executives surveyed believe most merchants will accept cryptocurrencies as a payment method within one to three years.
Almost every participant suggests that blockchain technology will enable faster financial transactions in the near future.
Crypto can transform cross-border payments
More than half of the 300 respondents Think that global merchants will say “yes” to crypto payments in the next three years. Participants in the Middle East and Africa are more bullish: 27% believe this will happen in the next 12 months. Latin Americans seem most bearish, with 67% predicting this will happen more than three years from now.
Over 50% of the executives surveyed believe that reducing payment costs (both international and local) is crypto’s most important merit.
“In particular, domestic payment providers see crypto as an answer to transaction and processing fees – which are often up to 4%, according to the US Chamber of Commerce. Interestingly, while these providers cite lower costs of cross-border payments as crypto’s primary value proposition, only about half offer the moment transcends borders payment services today”, says the research.
The vast majority of respondents (97%) believe cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology will have a “significant or very significant” role in enabling faster transactions over the next 36 months. They also argued that digital assets could transform cross-border settlements.
The UK-based marketing company – Juniper Research – supported this view, saying that blockchain technology has the potential to increase the savings of financial institutions conducting international transactions to $10 billion by 2030.
“Observers should not underestimate the transformative opportunity here: Global cross-border payment flows are expected to reach $156 trillion – driven by a 5% compound annual growth rate (CAGR),” the analysis added.
Only 17% have already embraced crypto payments
Despite the general bullishness on crypto’s possible benefits, only 17% of respondents revealed that they had adopted cryptocurrencies as a means of payment. The main obstacles for organizations to jump on the bandwagon are regulatory uncertainty (87%), limited industry acceptance (45%) and customer protection concerns (24%).
However, Ripple believed that the US could be on the right track to set appropriate cryptocurrency regulations, outlining President Joe Biden’s roadmap to regulate the industry and ensure maximum investor protection. Susan Friedman – Director of Policy at Ripple – also said that communication between the blockchain firm and the US government has improved recently:
“We now have leaders in Congress on both sides of the aisle championing legislative solutions. The dialogue around crypto is much more sophisticated than it was two years ago,” said Susan Friedman – Director of Policy, Ripple.
