William Adam Boyd is a former resident of Virginia Beach, Virginia, and leads VeriPay as its CEO. In 2014, Inc. Magazine recognized VeriPay as one of the fastest-growing credit card processors in the United States. William Adam Boyd’s efforts to keep VeriPay ahead of the curve with his push for the integration of contactless payments gave the company a competitive advantage at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In late 2019, as Covid-19 began to sweep across the globe, health officials raised concerns that the virus could be transmitted via contaminated surfaces. The World Health Organization warned that banknotes might be capable of carrying and spreading COVID-19. The result was a surge in consumer demand for contactless payment solutions. Brick-and-mortar stores had to act fast. Many business owners who relied on their banking relationships for merchant services were stuck with outdated point-of-sale (PoS) terminals. They rushed to providers like VeriPay to implement contactless payment technology that only months before had been seen as “trendy” or “unessential.”
Then in April of 2020, Mastercard released a study that reported a “significant majority of consumers turned to contactless card payments for necessary purchases.” The Amex 2020 Digital Payments Trendex survey also revealed that “84% of merchants agreed that using contactless was safer for personal health than using cash, swiping a card or inserting a chip card.” Adding further credence, Precedence Research estimates that by 2027 $4.6 trillion will be processed as contactless payments.
Digital wallets such as Apple Pay and Google Pay use EMV Payment Tokenisation Specification and Near Field Communication (NFC) to exchange information with compatible readers. According to data by researchers at Bernstein, Apple Pay, the market leader in digital wallets, currently makes up 5% of all global card transactions and could account for 10% by 2025. VeriPay offers a wide range of NFC desktop terminals and mobile readers for businesses looking to accept contactless payments.
Contactless payments make quick, convenient, and socially distant transactions possible, but there are some limitations. The technology does not work with antiquated PoS systems, which puts some smaller businesses at a disadvantage. And while the vast majority of the US population owns a cell phone, only 72% of those cell phones are digital wallet capable. Moreover, a 2019 study by the FDIC found that over 7 million or 5.4% of American households were unbanked and unable to shop at stores that had stopped accepting cash.
The benefits of using contactless payments, however, certainly do outweigh these drawbacks. From reduced transmission of contact-borne diseases to fraud and counterfeiting prevention, the current landscape is ripe for contactless technology to continue growing.
