The online payments landscape is continuing to diversify, and COVID-19 has been an accelerant. Consumers have changed the way they pay online during COVID-19, and plan to make these changes permanent. In many cases, consumers now have a new preferred payment method, according to a recent consumer survey from Paysafe, a leading specialized payments platform that enables businesses and consumers to connect and transact seamlessly through payment processing, digital wallet, and online cash solutions.

Overall, consumers appear to be slightly more confident in the security of online payments than  this time last year—63 percent of consumers would advocate tightening security processes to make payments safer, and 40 percent are willing to accept whatever security measures are required if it eradicates fraud.

At the same time tolerance for being a victim of fraud is lower. Less than half (45 percent) of consumers agreed that a certain level of risk of fraud is inevitable when shopping online, compared to 56 percent that agreed the same in 2020. And this lower tolerance for fraud is universal across every market; even  in the U.S., where the highest percentage of consumers accept some risk (53 percent), this has fallen from 63 percent in 2020. 

Overall, consumers still prioritize the security of their transaction over its ease. When asked how they would assess competing priorities, 63 percent of consumers would advocate tightening security processes to make payments safer, and 40 percent are willing to accept whatever security measures are required if it eradicates fraud. However, in 2020 more than three quarters of consumers (76 percent) demanded more secure payments even at the expense of convenience.