Increasingly digital payments for SMEs and Italian merchants

So far as Sme and merchants were to choose only one payment instrument ever, the preference would fall on the cards (27.9% of preferences) compared to cash (23.3%) and payments via smartphone or ‘wearable device’ (20.7%). This is what emerges from a research on digitization in small and medium-sized Italian enterprises carried out by MasterCard in collaboration with AstraSearch which involved a sample of 804 entrepreneurs at the end of May. In particular, to date cash transactions still represent the main payment methods (3.54 payments out of 10 against 3.02 out of 10 for cards) but in the immediate future cards are by now a consolidated and rapidly expanding reality.

In the medium and long term smartphone or ‘wearable device’ are, in turn, at the top of the preferences of SMEs as a payment instrument (with a look at 3 years for 48.4% and at 10 years for 44.2%). This is followed by payment cards (3-year terms for 45.7% and 10-year terms for 37.7%) and web apps’ that can be connected directly to current accounts (3-year terms for 33.6% and 10-year terms for 36.1%).

As for i commercial and business payments, the research shows that the most used instrument is the bank transfer (55.1%) followed by payment cards (30.4%), cash (29.6%) and Sepa debit/Rid (27.7%). Positive signs can also be seen with respect to smarter payments: smartphones or ‘wearable devices’ reach 16.8% while ‘web apps’ that can be connected directly to the current account account for 16.5%.

The popularity of payment cards is also reflected in business cardsconsidered fundamental by entrepreneurs who, moreover, expect additional services such as offers and concessions in purchases (49.6%), tools for digitizing the business (41.3%) and training support linked to the development of skills to improve own business (22.1%), safety in primis: 1 interviewee out of 3 (34.1%) reports, in fact, that they have been scammed and scammed.

Looking at the future, 59% of the sample say they are interested in learning more about the various digital solutions available on the market – with a large proportion having already used them – focusing on advanced websites and e-commerce (68.5%), IT security solutions (68%), digital solutions (64.4%), data analysis ( 58%) and generative artificial intelligence (51.7%).