Over 75 per cent US retailers ready to accept crypto and stablecoin payment: Deloitte
As cryptocurrency adoption grows globally, retail merchants in the US are willing to accept cryptocurrencies as a mode of payment. In a new report, Deloitte said at least 75 per cent of its users reported plans to accept either cryptocurrency or stablecoin payments within the next 24 months.
The survey titled: ‘Merchants Getting Ready For Crypto’ surveyed 2000 senior members of retail organisations between December 3 and December 16 in 2021.
According to the report, merchants are eager to adopt digital currency payments for a variety of reasons. They see that the market is rapidly changing and want to support customer preferences. They expect to derive value from their digital currency adoption in three dinct ways: improving customer experience (48 per cent of respondents), increasing customer base (46 per cent), and the brand being perceived as cutting edge (40 per cent).
Over 87 per cent of merchants agreed that the organisations accepting digital currencies have a competitive advantage in the market. “An overwhelming majority of those who currently accept cryptocurrency as a payment instrument (93 per cent) have already seen a positive impact on their business’s customer metrics, such as customer base growth and brand perception, and they expect this to continue next year,” the company said in its report.Best of Express PremiumPremiumPremiumPremiumPremium
The report notes that big merchants in the US, who are minting revenues of around $500 million have already begun creating an infrastructure to support crypto payments. Investments ranging from $10 million to $100 million are being made different levels of retailers to establish a crypto-friendly ecosystem.
Surveyed merchants believe that cryptos and their stablecoins are an attractive technology for the business class. However, there is still misinformation about the crypto scheme, making it difficult to use on a large scale.
Meanwhile, merchants recognise several challenges in enabling digital currency payments. Among them, they consider the complexity of integration as the leading challenge. “Almost 89 per cent of respondents selected at least one of the two options alluding to integration complexity and integration with exing financial infrastructure and/or across various digital currencies. These challenges are seen consently across companies, regardless of revenue size,” the report added.