Survey: 85% of merchants see crypto payments as a way to attract new customers

Most merchants are leaning toward accepting cryptocurrencies due to the lower fees, but a fair number are having difficulty installing the necessary hardware.

Data platform PYMNTS partnered with crypto payment service provider Bitpay to conduct a survey among U.S. retail workers to find out consumer sentiment towards digital currencies.

Companies have published a Cryptocurrency Payments report, which states that among businesses with annual revenues of up to $1 billion, 85% use cryptocurrency payments to attract new customers. Also, 82% of all respondents named the absence of intermediaries as the main reason for accepting cryptocurrency payments.

According to the results, 72% of merchants surveyed tend to accept cryptocurrencies due to lower transaction fees. According to the sample, the commission for processing cryptocurrency transactions is only about 1%. This is more profitable than commissions from other, more popular payment methods: banks and acquirers, for example, take on average from 1.5% to 3.5% of the purchase when paying with cards.

However, not everything is so rosy. Despite the positive attitude of merchants towards accepting payments in digital currencies, some of them note that technical barriers still prevent them from fully accepting payments in cryptocurrencies. Of the respondents who do not yet accept cryptocurrencies, 68% said that they simply cannot install the necessary equipment at the checkout.

Earlier, the investment company Alto published the results of a survey, according to which cryptocurrencies are becoming more and more popular among millennials.