Initially, coins were the only means of exchange used between traders & consumers because it was easy to carry & exchange with exact value. Later the introduction of paper money & currency made it more convenient for entrepreneurs to function in the market. The recent development of plastic money in form of various cards that has replaced currency notes & coins has made it easier for consumer to carry & transact. In the last 10-15 years this mode has gained more importance for technology savvy consumers to use this cashless means of payment mode. Users in this group are working population belonging to age group between 15-60 having access to net banking, payment through cards, online transaction through internet & smartphones. This article will help to understand consumer’s behaviour in current banking industry & investigates some scenario showing the current progress to cashless transaction.
Two major factors of the change in behaviour are Demographic & Digitalisation.
Demographic: Availability of infrastructures like internet, delivery at door step, source of income etc. has largely influenced the purchasing behaviour of consumers.
Digitalisation : The main reasons behind change in consumers purchasing behaviour is internet, smartphone, net banking, e-commerce, etc.
Important Points
Net Banking : It is one of the popular service today used by large numbers of users making it more convenient to transact. Nowadays, banking applications in smartphone are offering banking activities to perform more conveniently & with more mobility. It also plays an important role in connecting rural population to online market, thus changing their behaviour pattern to use cashless feature.
E-Wallets : Nowadays, the newly introduced & most trending payment mode is E-wallets. Mostly used by young generations & technology savvy. It offers ease & mobility to consumers for payment. Because of its growing popularity among users, investors have shown interest in such a kind of payment mode, by providing many exciting offers to users in the form of cashback, discount etc. to attract more users.
E-Commerce: Recently E-Commerce is growing at a tremendous speed offering consumer various exciting offers & ease at their convenience. One of the main feature of this industry is the COD (Cash On Delivery). Consumers can also go for some other features of online payments & Wallets. Nowadays, smartphone has captured a large segment of market & many Brands has come-up with Applications to provide ease & convenient to consumers. Thus, E-Commerce industry is playing a major role in influencing customer’s behaviour to current online scenario.
Current consumer behaviour is more dependent on cash & is slowly shifting to the cashless payments with the availability of infrastructures. The main benefit of cashless option is that it is easy to carry & the consumer can transact at any time thus saving their valuable time. NEFT/RTGS/ECS, Payment through card, Mobile Banking, Smartphone, Internet, Wallet etc. are some other factors that determine cashless payment modes. All the above factors influence customer to adopt advance payment mode thus, enabling them to experience the same.
