Jason Oxman: The benefits of electronic payments

The benefits of electronic payments

Your editorial urging Valley residents to eschew electronic payments (“Before you charge that muffin, consider paying cash,” Sept. 12) ignores the huge benefits to both merchants and consumers of paying electronically. Safe, secure and reliable, electronic payments get merchants paid quickly and ensure consumers have zero liability for fraud.

Like wages, rent, and supplies, merchants do pay for the services of electronic payments providers. But cash has costs, too — employee theft, risk of robbery, accounting and transportation of currency, and counterfeiting, for example. If a merchant or customer loses cash, it’s gone forever. But a criminal using a stolen card results is no liability for either merchant or consumer. Such protection insulates merchants against billions of dollars in criminal fraud each year.

Electronic payments allow merchants to track purchase data, automate coupons and loyalty programs, and reduce return fraud. Merchants that have an e-commerce presence know that cash is not a purchase option, and integrating brick and mortar and internet solutions is only possible through electronic payments. With mobile payments, chip cards and new digital technologies, payments are more secure than ever. And even though I may not pay my credit card bill for months because I need time to pay off a big purchase, the merchant that benefited from my big purchase will get paid in full within days. In such a case, my bank extended me credit that benefited the merchant.

The fact that U.S. consumers generated 6 trillion dollars in electronic payments last year — 70 percent of all retail purchases are made with electronic payments — should convince merchants that a cash-only business model is less than ideal.

On a local note, at my reunion this year at Amherst College, our class spent tens of thousands of dollars at Valley merchants, including many small businesses, to feed and entertain hundreds of attendees. The use of electronic payments made those purchases easy and seamless, not to mention safe and reliable. We all benefited.

Jason Oxman, CEO Electronic Transactions Association  
Arlington, Virginia
Amherst College Class of 1993

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