Gen Z Is About To Kill Cash

Despite the fact that for the most of their lives smartphones have been an extension of their very selves, Generation Z, like their older millennial cousins, love stores and cherish experiences — they even use bank branches more often than Baby Boomers. This sounds like a throw-back, an affinity for the vintage. So how many younger consumers are likely to pay with digital wallets? Probably more than most retailers are prepared for. “Do I think cash is dead? No,” said Peter Caparso, Checkout.com’s president of North America. “Do I think it’ll be greatly diminished? Yes. Until 2007, after the invention of the phone in 1876, you were tethered to a five-foot semi-circle to talk. Now this younger generation, they’re used to the convenience and the portability of the phone, and that’s translating to the retail arena.” Mobile payments have had a bumpy road to adoption, in part thanks to misconceptions about how they would evolve. A few years ago, for example, Apple Pay seemed poised to take the crown in what was deemed a winner-takes-all race to become a “universal wallet.” That helped fuel an ill-conceived effort by a worried group of retailers, (led by Walmart but joined by several of its rivals), to block Apple Pay and come up with their own digital wallet. That attempt, CurrentC, went down in flames before it ever got off the ground. Read more at Retail Dive.