UK SMEs Give Customers the Cheap, Contactless Payments They Want

In the U.K., The Big Issue magazine is distributed by a network of around 1500 people who are either vulnerably housed or at risk of homelessness. The distributors are not employees but independent resellers who purchase issues for £1.50 each and sell them on for £3.

In 2018, when the social company noticed that many of the microentrepreneurs that make up its vendor network were investing in portable card readers, the street newspaper partnered with PayPal to roll out the Zettle contactless card reader at scale.

Fast forward to today: Zettle’s new Tap-to-Pay technology is aimed at further simplifying the process, enabling The Big Issue sellers — and small businesses more broadly — to accept contactless payments in-person directly from their mobile devices.

“For us, it’s just trying to make sure that we deliver on the promise for small businesses and make transactions as seamless as possible both online and in-person,” Ben Ramsden, Head of SME at PayPal, told PYMNTS in an interview, adding that small business owners typically need a solution that’s convenient, easy to use and quick to set up.

Read more: EU Encourages Contactless Payments to Reduce Coronavirus Risk

Affordable, tap-on-phone service solutions are even more critical today following the pandemic-induced sharp increase in contactless payments — particularly in the U.K., where contactless now accounts for more than a quarter of all payments, according to UK Finance, after the limit was increased from £45 to £100 during the pandemic.

Read also: Making Contactless Payments Acceptance Affordable and Flexible for European Merchant

Business Financial Health

According to SME data from PayPal’s latest Business of Change report, a quarter of the 1,000 U.K. small business owners surveyed are ignoring the financial health of their business out of fear of finding out the true reality of their business’ finances.

See also: PayPal Vets Launch $158M Fund to Advance FinTech

But while opening the books or managing the finances can be a difficult hurdle to get over, Ramsden said once a small business owner has got a handle on what their financial situation is, they feel more confident and more optimistic about the future.

He added that PayPal’s role is working with the partners that they support across the ecosystem to make it as easy as possible for merchants to know where the money in their PayPal account is coming from, for example, and make the processes around the transactions as simple as possible for sellers.

“The Tap-to-Pay is a good example of this, as it removes the need for a device and the barriers in terms of having to pay for a card reader and makes those tools more accessible to everyday people,” Ramsden said.

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