The PAYTECH Book

Do We Still Need to Pay?

By Teresa Connors

Head of Market Engagement, RBS,

With frictionless payments embedded into buying experiences, do we still need to pay?

We might say “Yes” without batting an eyelid. However, the response begs further questions. Namely, why do we still need to pay? And why does it matter? After all, we don’t inherently receive pleasure from the act of making a payment. We hardly choose to spend our weekends making payments for the sake of it. The London Business School’s Associate Professor of Organizational Behaviour, Niro Sivanathan, went as far as saying that “Parting with cash is psychologically painful”.

The reality is that we make payments for exchange satisfaction. I give you money; you give me something to consume. From an employer’s perspective, you give me labour; I pay you a salary which you can spend (or save, or both). As technology makes this dynamic more fluid, the significant question is, must we feel like we are paying? This chapter will explore how technology has changed the process of exchange satisfaction, asserting that trust determines the extent to which we can detach from the sensation of making or receiving a payment.

Payment Works

For many of us the way to pay was enshrined at an early age. Sweets in hand and £5/€5/$5 note poised, you marched towards the till to pay. Approaching the shopkeeper, you gave them your note, collected the appropriate change and received your receipt.

Intrinsic to those simple steps are the fundamental ...