More contactless, less cash on delivery: Crisis impacting Czech payment methods, report shows
Czechs’ payments methods have been affected by the coronavirus crisis, with people increasingly preferring to use bank cards when making online purchases, rather than paying cash on delivery, according to a report released by the Czech Banking Association on Thursday.
Consumers in this country are making online purchases more frequently – and buying things on the internet that they hadn’t previously.
What’s more, there has been a decline in the use of ATMs. Five percent of respondents in the Banking Association’s study said they had been afraid of handling cash in view of the Covid-19 pandemic. One-quarter said they had needed less cash.
Seventy percent pay in cash, with one tenth – especially elderly people – only ever using cash.
Increasing numbers of Czechs are making contactless payments via mobile phone or watch.
Thirty-five percent of respondents in the study said they had not used the option before but had begun contactless paying in recent months.
Unlike in some other European countries, Czech banks did not increase the limit for contactless payments when no PIN is required. The report found that that almost 60 percent of people were satisfied with the current limit of CZK 500.
When it comes to cash Czechs most frequently withdraw it from ATMs, with 59 percent of respondents in the report saying they do so one a month. Twenty-one percent do so once a week.
The survey suggests Czechs would find the total abolition of cash to be more an infringement on their freedom than something that would simplify their lives.
Some 65 percent of those surveyed said they never lodged money via ATM.
Thanks to the closure of brick-and-mortar shops and restrictions on free movement during the coronavirus lockdown, 3 percent of Czechs said they tried online shopping for the first time.
Six percent said they had begun buying things on the web that they had never purchased in that way before.
