Retailers across the country are preparing to accept cryptocurrency payments. Professional services network, Deloitte, recently conducted a survey titled 'Merchants Getting Ready For Crypto,' and it found that nearly 75% of retailers plan to accept either cryptocurrency or stablecoin payments within the next two years.  Zachary Aron, Global and U.S. Banking and Capital Markets Payments Leader for Deloitte Consulting, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.

Closing Bell

75% of Retailers Plan to Accept Crypto Within Next Two Years, Deloitte Survey Finds

well, despite the recent crypto downturned retailers across the country preparing to accept Cryptocurrency payments, professional services network Deloitte recently conducting a survey titled merchants getting ready for Crypto found that nearly 75% of retailers plan to accept either Cryptocurrency or stable coin pay me within the next two years while joining me now is Zachary, Aaron banking and capital markets payments leader for Deloitte consulting Zachary. Thanks for coming on the show. Speak to me more about this survey and the new insights gleaned from how retailers are planning to actually integrate crypto payments. Excellent. Well Kristen thanks very much for having me on the show today. What we wound up doing was in collaboration with paypal. We surveyed about 2000 executives who make decisions in the retail industry around currency and what they accept. And they spanned over 10 categories. And what we found was, as you noted, 75% of them expect that they will be accepting payments in digital currencies within the next 24 months. And I think the overriding one of the overriding data pieces that we saw was that 83% that that looked at it said they believe that accepting digital currencies be that crypto stable coin a C B D C type of format will be something that gives them a competitive advantage. So what do companies I need to build out Zachary in order to offer this to their customers. What sort of investment does this take on their part? Yeah, so so Kristen, we've seen a couple of things first, we've already seen in investment occurring in this space. So 54% of the respondents have already said they put over $1 million dollars specifically in investments uh to be able to accept crypto are accept digital currencies. What they've also, what a lot of that work has been in doing the financial integration piece so that they can help support and build out the Treasury capabilities, uh the ability for the To be able to store the digital currency or be able to exchange it as well. So that's a big piece and also looking at partnerships as a way to be able to advance their ability to accept digital currency. Do you think this will pay off for company Zachary 75% clearly is the vast majority they are making investments as you're outlining here any sort of data that you can share as to how this might lead to more business for some of these firms. Sure in the in the short term the belief is and that's that's how we saw that, you know, 83% said they viewed it as a differentiator. It's about extending brand, um improving overall reputation. What we found interesting was this was pretty consistent across all different 10 categories of of retail that that we looked at. And then what we also, so uh see is that the big piece of this is what we've seen broadly in payments, which is the ability to personalize the payment experience in the way that customers want to be able to interact and so it's considered a very big differentiator in terms of improving the customer experience and be able to provide that level of personalization. Uh, 64% have said that they already have strong customer demand for them to want to be able to accept digital currencies. So definitely something that we see is starting to become very big important and telling for for for merchants. So as 75% do plan on accepting crypto payments in these next two years for the 25% of merchants that don't Zachary, did they give any reason as to why they're holding off? Um I actually kind of across the board we saw some areas of concern. One aspect um has, has been around volatility. Another aspect is understanding all the different options that are out there. A third option. A third aspect is education and 1/4 aspect is the need and desire for greater regulatory clarity around digital currencies. Everything from tax implications of holding it, what it means from the Treasury perspective and just overall guidelines and regulations around the currencies. How there and and how they can be used. Yeah, I would wonder just from a safety aspect. I mean, unfortunately as I was mentioning before you came on during our crypto craze segment more often than not, we hear about whether it's fraud scams, hacking that do seem to actually be a bit more prevalent in the Cryptocurrency space than elsewhere. I'm just curious if the companies that you surveyed emergency you surveyed gave any more insight on that and and how they prepare in case that does happen and they do get targeted. Yeah, so a couple of aspects. One is the strong desire and sort of the preferred approach that we saw around partnership. So there's a big ask around partnering either with their traditional partners that have helped them in the acceptance of payments or or entities that have specialized in the ability to handle and process digital currency related payments as well. Well as as well as the aspect is noted around greater clarity around the regulatory aspect and just greater overall education, understanding and and fundamentally sort of just maturation of of the digital currency space. Zachary, we've got to leave it there. Great insight. Thank you so much for joining us. Hope you come back on the show that Zachary, Aaron, Banking and capital markets payments leader for Deloitte consulting