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The possibilities are endless for how we may use credit cards in the future.
- Credit cards are quickly replacing cash, and credit card usage is at an all-time high.
- As payment technologies like mobile wallets, cash-sharing apps, and cryptocurrency continue to advance, credit cards are transforming to keep up.
- The ways we use credit cards today may look completely different in the future - here are four predictions by financial experts.
In the wake of mobile wallets, cash-sharing apps, and cryptocurrency, credit cards are transforming.
Consumers may seem to be tapping more than they're swiping these days, but credit cards aren't going away just yet. In fact, a TransUnion report from earlier this year found credit card usage to be at an all-time high.
According to the report, Americans have over 416 million credit cards, and almost 175 million Americans have access to at least one credit card. Those numbers reflect increases of about 77 million and about 25 million, respectively, since 2012.
Amnah Ajmal Sharma, the executive vice president of core products for North America at Mastercard, told Business Insider that she isn't surprised by the climb.
"People are excited by the experiences that a card payment can enable, such as a trip with loved ones, not the act of using the card itself," Ajmal Sharma said. "Making cards the payment of choice for how a person lives and works entails embedding payments seamlessly into their lifestyle and giving them ease, convenience, and peace of mind."
It's not just large expenses like hotels and flights that Americans are putting on plastic. A 2017 CreditCards.com survey confirmed that more people are using credit cards for purchases under $5 - especially millennials.
"Credit cards are slowly replacing cash, so in theory everything you pay for in the future would be with some sort of credit or debit card, or mobile wallet," Eric Brown, CEO of Aliant Payment Systems - a payment processing company - told Business Insider. "As payment technology continues to advance, cash will eventually only be in museums for people to look at."
That's where Adam Jusko, the founder and CEO of Proud Money - an online magazine focusing on financial news - sees opportunity.
"There is plenty of demand for doing small transactions between people or with very small businesses, but the mechanisms are still a bit clunky and require bank account access," Jusko told Business Insider. "There obviously is a technology hurdle to overcome, but it is easy to see how a convergence of existing technologies could make this happen eventually."
There are seemingly endless possibilities for what credit cards could be used for in the future. Business Insider spoke with six financial experts to get some ideas: