Bogotá, November 5th 2020 – According to Latinia, company specializing in real-time event processing software for banking, the financial industry presented important changes during the pandemic, which confirmed that consumers have opted for the use debit cards instead of credit cards to have more control over your finances.
Data gathered from Clocktower Technology Ventures confirm what most vendors of technology for financial institutions are observing in the activity of the end customer: a conservative behavior caused by Covid-19, that has motivated the preference of debit over credit cards, “an exercise that requires control of finances in real time, a critical factor for financial activity and personal peace of mind,” said Oriol Ros, Latinia’s director of corporate development. For this, “The debit requires real time in the management of the finances of a client. They need to know what happens, when it happens, and even why it happens if the bank is able to add that layer of intelligence in their organization”.
According to Clocktower Technology Ventures, American consumers avoided using credit cards during the pandemic. During the second quarter of 2020, its percentage of use fell by 21%, for July and August it stabilized at minus 8%. For its part, payment with debit cards increased by more than 24% for these same two months and for the period in which the different preventive isolation measures began, it increased 8%. The data shows how consumers increasingly avoid the debt that a credit charge supposes to operate their activity in the debit format, which requires a control of the information of what happens in their finances more closely to real time. If the bank has an asset compared to any other type of competitor, it is the trust of the user and the client hopes that this value will also be extended to the information area.
The use of debit motivates the bank to demand more of itself in managing the real time of its clients’ financial activity. “People cannot afford not to know what is happening with finances in rigorous real time: the tranquility of day-to-day finances depends largely on this bank information,” explains the Latinia spokesperson. “In the pre-pandemic stage there was a very attractive debate, and it was whether the real time or the ideal time to communicate with the client was better; They were independent concepts, today they are fused, the requirement to make both flows coincide is mandatory”, concludes Oriol Ros. Today it is unthinkable for the financial industry that a client is willing to wait to see what happened to the finances a day or two later, because perhaps at that moment that information will be critical to their finances. It is more relevant to know it here, and now. There is no room for error because it has been paid by debit, not by credit.
