15 Digital Payment Upgrades That Would Improve The Customer Experience

Digital payment methods have seen increasing use in the past few years, and with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, consumer adoption has skyrocketed. In addition to convenience, digital payments offer contactless transactions—a safety feature many consumers are looking for.

With most purchases still happening online and more physical stores adding digital payment options, it’s a system that’s here to stay. Below, 15 tech experts from Forbes Technology Council look at the ways digital payment technology can be improved to cement its usage and improve the customer experience.

1. Standardize and secure payment options across the globe.

Digital payments need to be more secure and more widespread. In rich Western countries, digital payment solutions are common, but the potential for fraud is still high. In other countries, digital payment solutions are not available, so we need to improve the adoption of standard payments worldwide. – Gabriel Cian, Prestaleads

2. Make them easier to use.

Just as the best shoes are those you don’t feel when you’re wearing them, the best payment technology is invisible. The digital payment experience should be optimized by minimizing the effort needed to use the technology. A good example is the one-click purchase introduced by Amazon. It’s so crucial that the company tried to patent the technology. – Dmitri Lisitski, Influ2

3. Add more payment options to ‘unlock’ access to capital.

Increasing the number of payment options available and including alternatives such as loyalty points are two essential steps. This has the benefit of decreasing friction, increasing convenience and boosting the level of consumer engagement. Providing alternative payment options gives consumers access to capital that would otherwise have been “locked,” thus improving CX and increasing usage. – Len Covello, Engage People Inc.

4. Ensure compatibility across devices.

Payment technology can be improved by adding compatibility across devices. People use different brands of smartphones, computers and tablets to make payments. This can create complications when certain websites and apps work better on iPhones versus Androids or the Google Pixel. See what you can do to reduce potential barriers so that more customers will use the specific technology. – Arnie Gordon, Arlyn Scales

5. Allow consumers to set transaction amount limits.

One way digital payment technology could be improved is by allowing consumers to set transaction limits per vendor. To combat online fraud or unauthorized use of a digital payment platform, it would be advantageous for a consumer to be able to specify the maximum amount a specific merchant can charge their account—with the option of increasing the limit as needed. – Bob Fabien Zinga, Directly, Inc./U.S. Navy Reserve

6. Leverage QR codes.

QR codes have been facilitating new ways of “touchless” digital payments, thus minimizing the spread of viruses such as Covid-19. Offered by leading payment companies like PayPal and Stripe, QR codes are expected to be adopted further as they improve the user experience while also providing a safer way of in-person payments at any point of sale. – Ahmad (Al) Fares, Celitech – Cellular Data Platform

7. Prioritize customer safety.

Ensure proper security measures are in place to prevent security threats. Anticipating potential data breaches and prioritizing the safety of customers making purchases across e-commerce and mobile applications ensure a positive customer experience. It saves them the headache of worrying about their data being stolen. – Joseph Feiman, WhiteHat Security

8. Enable biometric authentication.

Customers want secure payment processing, and business owners need to protect sensitive customer data. Biometric authentication addresses both concerns through fingerprint scans, facial recognition, iris recognition and heartbeat analysis. Biometric authentication prevents identity theft and fraud, which can increase consumer confidence and lead to greater digital payment usage over time. – Roland Icard, Simply iCard Consulting Inc.

9. Adopt remote, video-based authentication.

Banks, insurance agencies and governments cannot conduct significant operations with just passwords or digital signatures. Widespread adaptation of reliable remote, video-based authentication of the person involved will be needed to avoid fraud. – Tsvi Lev, NEC Corporation

10. Provide passwordless authentication.

Over 30% of online shopping carts are abandoned due to lost or forgotten passwords. This is a huge problem for the e-commerce industry, particularly during Covid-19. The adoption of passwordless authentication would aid in a more secure and frictionless process for customers and therefore, more sales for merchants. It’s a win-win. – Arshad Noor, StrongKey

11. Implement one-time passcodes.

As people are starting to prefer making digital payments over handling cash, consider the role that mobile plays in your plan. When consumers make digital payments with their mobile devices, one-time passcodes can easily be delivered for an additional layer of security. This protects companies and consumers’ information and leads to secure transactions and increased customer trust. – Andrea Giacomini, Mitto

12. Incorporate automation.

One way to enhance the customer experience is to incorporate automation so that the process is completely touchless from end to end. If we’ve learned anything from our new remote environment, it’s that reliance on paper-based processes is not sustainable. Even complex invoices such as utility bills should be captured and paid fully electronically without introducing friction. – Sanjoy Malik, Urjanet

13. Adopt native methods for each platform.

By adopting the native method for each platform, you lower the friction for the user. Shopping online through Safari should use Apple Pay, but within Chrome adopt Google Pay or the credit card saved to the Chrome profile. In stores, support the native device mobile payments. Once these new habits are built up, users will prefer them because they’re quicker than digging out a credit card. – Luke Wallace, Bottle Rocket

14. Integrate proactive cybersecurity features.

Digital payments have exploded during the pandemic, and so has the fraud targeting the channel. Digital payment providers and banks that have mobile apps that initiate transfers should invest in machine learning, risk analytics, authentication and orchestration platforms that work in the background to monitor activity in real time and stop fraud attempts by cybercriminals before they occur. – Will LaSala, OneSpan

15. Build technology that can be read everywhere, automatically.

Digital payment technology can be improved through the use of mobile or wearable devices. If we can bypass the bridge of security and allow this technology to be read everywhere—at gas stations, grocery stores or even automatically as we shop—we will have almost fully optimized the shopping experience and digital payment methods. – WaiJe Coler, InfoTracer

This article was originally published on Forbes.com