More than two in five finance professionals see no advantages in using crypto currency as a means of payment

More than two in five finance professionals see no advantages in using crypto currency as a means of payment. According to 42 percent of finance professionals, cryptocurrency has no advantages as a means of business payment. This is according to the FinTech Barometer, Onguard's research into the financial status of Dutch companies, which was conducted for the sixth time this year. In it, 311 CFOs, financial managers, and finance staff were surveyed. Consequently, cryptocurrencies are still little used as a means of payment in practice. For only five percent of organizations and seven percent of their customers, cryptocurrency is preferred as a payment method.

Other payment methods

The preferred payment method among both organizations (37%) and customers (33%) is iDEAL. In second place is direct debit, which is the preferred payment method for 34 percent of organizations and 25 percent of customers. Third place for organizations goes to PayPal (19%) and for customers to do manual transfers (20%).

Advantages of cryptocurrencies

So cryptocurrencies are far from being found in the list of favorite payment methods. Nevertheless, 22 percent of finance professionals are positive about using crypto-currencies for business payments. Among CFOs, this is as high as 35 percent. Although nearly half of finance professionals do not see any advantages in using cryptocurrency as a payment method, those who do see it give two main advantages. They say the benefits are cost reduction due to the absence of the bank as an intermediary (17 percent) and programmability, which allows accounting rules and additional security measures to be incorporated into payments (17 percent). This is music to the ears of finance professionals, and as a result, 33 percent believe that in five years it will be commonplace for digital currencies to be on company balance sheets.

NFTs, smart contracting and tokenization

The financial sector will change when cryptocurrency becomes a mainstream technology. In addition to this technology, there are other recent developments that could transform the finance world, think NFTs, smart contracting and tokenization. Finance professionals are already positive about these developments. For example, 34 percent indicate that these innovations fit their corporate identity. In addition, 37 percent see opportunities to use NFTs in the areas of digital sales and community building. Smart contracting and tokenization are also welcomed with open arms. Indeed, 44 percent expect that the business use of smart contracting can benefit their organization, and 39 percent see opportunities for the business use of tokenization.