COVID-19 has impacted companies across almost every sector, accelerated the pace of changing consumer behaviors, and brought economies worldwide to a grinding halt. As stay-at-home mandates are slowly lifted and the economy tentatively enters the road to recovery, it is important that financial institutions and other organizations in the payments industry take advantage of crucial growth areas in today’s market.

To better understand the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic and why it remains important to actively engage with growth areas in the payments industry, PaymentsJournal sat down with Robert Misasi, President and CEO of Mercator Advisory Group.

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How COVID-19 is impacting the payments industry

Since founding Mercator Advisory Group in 2003, Misasi has observed many changes and areas of growth in the payments industry. In addition to having monumental impacts on the economy, COVID-19 has impacted the payments industry by accelerating consumers’ shift to digital payments. This has created the perfect storm of uncertainty and change in today’s world.

Certain sectors, such as the travel, leisure, and restaurant industries, have been hit particularly hard since the novel coronavirus was first detected in the United States in February. On a positive note, employment rates in the U.S. have begun to recover as the economy slowly reopens. Even so, “there is a long way to go, and it is hard to predict exactly where the endpoint is” for COVID-19, said Misasi.

Further, consumer spend has stayed relatively solid on a transactional basis, and the post COVID-19 world won’t be dramatically different in terms of overall spend. What will change, however, is where this spending goes. Travel, restaurants, and leisure will likely maintain a reduction in spending for some time, while medical and certain online services will see an upwards trend.

The worldwide payments model generates accurate industry predictions

Mercator Advisory Group’s worldwide payments model, developed by industry experts, is a credible source for predictions, trends, and growth areas in the payments industry. The model has been utilized by Mercator’s financial analysts in their respective areas of practice, which range from credit and debit to commercial payments and merchant services.

Recognizing that some of the numbers predicted using historical trends will be impacted by COVID-19, Mercator is continuously turning back to the model to adjust forecasts on a country by country basis...