One of Visa's top executives says we'll never go back to using cash in the same way post COVID-19

• The coronavirus pandemic has likely caused a permanent, irreversible shift to non-cash payments, one of Visa's top executives said.
• Charlotte Hogg, Visa's chief executive for Europe, said it was too early to predict what economic recovery will look like but established that the payments company thinks "digital, domestic spending is going to be important, and debit cards [rather than credit] are going to be important."
• She also confirmed that Visa is co-ordinating with banks and small-and-medium enterprises to adjust to the new normal.
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The coronavirus pandemic has ushered in a "permanent" transition of consumer spending as widespread usage of debit cards and domestic transitions have set in, a top Visa executive told the Financial Times.

In an interview with the newspaper, Visa's chief executive of European operations, Charlotte Hogg, said lockdowns across the world have halted cash usage and enabled consumers to adapt to online shopping.

"Behaviours have fundamentally changed," said Hogg, who is a former chief operating officer and deputy governor at the Bank of England.

While many economies have eased restrictions, and much of the world is returning to some semblance of normality, spending behaviors will be permanently altered by the pandemic, Hogg said.

She also told the FT it would be irrational to predict what economic recovery would look like as it is too early but said Visa thinks "digital, domestic spending is going to be important, and debit cards [rather than credit] are going to be important."

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On Tuesday, the US Commerce Department announced retail sales jumped to a record 17.7% in May as consumers returned to shopping after the darkest months of the coronavirus pandemic.

Hogg echoed the fact that retail and home improvement sales have improved, but she was less optimistic about the travel sector — a key revenue driver for many payments companies.

Visa, which processed 138 billion transactions in 2019, hopes to offset the downturn from cross-border payments by convincing more public transport networks to implement contactless payments and push regulators to raise the limits on such transactions, according to the FT.

Hogg said Visa is coordinating with banks and small-and-medium enterprises to adjust to the new normal.

"Many of their business models aren't geared for a digital world — that's not what they've had to do in the past, but now consumers are really calling for that," she said.

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