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I learned options late in life, accidentally, trawling the pages of the ancient magazine Exchange and Mart in 1995. A full page article showed how an options trader could work from home, (actually in bed) using prices from the BBC’s teletext, back in the day. A lot has changed, but options have been around for centuries-pre-dating shares, being used for pricing ships’ cargoes. In the 1980s options became exchange traded, and fortunes were made. Warren Buffett is a keen options trader, Nassim Taleb was the most prolific. They are not idiots and neither are you if you have read thus far.

Investing is the word we use for a trade that went wrong! Investing is mostly passive and requires you to be right and/or to tuck your stocks away for decades. With markets hitting new highs and valuations stretched, you have to realise the stock market cannot keep going up. If you are happy with paltry dividends and the certainty that your stock will at some point in the future be worth half what it is today, then read no further. QE is no longer on the table and that is all that has separated stocks from realistic valuations.

So what are options all about? In our world we only trade the FTSE100 options. Why? Because the entire index is unlikely to get arrested for fraud/sexual harassment/bogus accounting/toxic products, and all the other nasties that can destroy a company’s rep in a heartbeat. So FTSE is the underlying on which our derivatives are based. Options are the right to buy or sell the underlying (priced by the exchange at £10 per point cash settled) but NOT the obligation. In the same way as insurance companies collect premiums, however, options can be sold. Did you ever see a poor insurance company? When you get it right, selling options can bring you a monthly income stream of a comfortable 2% per month, consistently. Nothing else comes close.

So who are the buyers of options if everybody sells them? Well that is the biggest part of education, and the reason I have traded profitably since 1999. Yes I have had failures, and panics- but I made nice profits in February while the market dropped 10%, despite being a bit dim! I learned about options from an expensive course and from much of the free training on the internet. A while ago I met a like-minded options trader, he runs the website to which I contribute every week, with a real trade, and general tittle tattle about our world. It’s utterly mind-blowing when you start to understand options and the endless combinations, and 20 or more strategies that we use. I love options trading and I want to reach those with a pot of cash who seek income, and a sensible method with risk management, but who don’t know where to start. We are not just about newbies though-there are insights for all. And… we don’t want your money.

In 2015, an elderly Louisiana gentleman cashed in at a nearby bank, a truckload of 55-gallon plastic water jugs of pennies that he had collected over the previous 45 years. After the last penny had been counted, Otha Anders received over $5,130 as the total amount for his pennies. That’s over 510,000 pennies. To the general public, this news probably sounded wonderful, but to every American numismatist who collects and buys coins for fun and profit, Anders lost a lot of money.

According to the News-Star of Monroe, La., Anders referred to each of his pennies was a “God-given incentive reminding me to always be thankful.” In Anders case, however, a “penny saved” may be more than “a penny earned.” Many of those that he cashed in to get instant money, would have been worth more money.

Since Anders began his penny hoarding in 1970, he would have picked up many “wheat” pennies that the Mint struck between 1909 to 1958. Even today, there are still many “wheat” cents in penny rolls and circulating change. When he started saving in 1970, he would have found many wheat cents in great condition. Over the last 45 years, most of each of those pennies would become more valuable than one cent.

According to the “Guide Book of United States Coins 2015″ by R.S. Yeoman, wheat cent values ranged from $.10 in “good” condition to several hundred dollars in “almost” uncirculated condition. Also, the guide records a few extremely rare pennies that were worth up to $5,000 in uncirculated conditions. However, it would be impossible to estimate how much the numismatic value of the entire collection might be; each coin would have to have been examined by reputable coin dealers who could have helped him sell his collection, but it’s easy to imagine Anders would have made over $20,000 if he had had the patience to get them evaluated.

In addition to numismatic value, there is a precious metal value for the price of all of the coin’s weight in copper. All American copper coins struck until 1981 contained 95% copper. According to the “InvestmentMine” website, in 2015 the average value of copper was $2.86 per pound. All of Anders’ pennies together weighed over 2,800 pounds. So, if he picked out all of the coins, we’d multiply 2,800 pounds and 2.86 the sum in copper would have been a total of roughly $8,000. However, a conservative estimate of the number of pennies made of copper was 75%, we’d get about $6,000, which is about $900 more than he received.

Traditionally, search engine optimisation was the remit of the technical web team and activity was concentrated around tagging and HTML elements of the site. Whilst this is still important, the algorithms that search engines operate have become much more complex and businesses wanting to achieve the greatest return on investment must treat SEO as an integrated discipline.

If you don’t offer quality content, relevant to the reader, your visibility in rankings will be non-existent, so the website copywriter and wider marketing team must have appropriate insight. Social media signals are also increasingly important to search bots, so you must be sure to educate the people managing your social network profiles so they know how to correctly optimise posts. Speak to your PR team too about how they can help to create valuable links to your website from relevant sources and ensure they are creating internal links from your on-site blog.

In my experience, people across a range of departments say they understand search and what they need to do, but they don’t deliver when it comes to planning and undertaking optimised activity. The technical aspects can be a barrier as can confidence in their actions, but more often than not it’s just a matter of them not being able to put the required thought and effort in. This is because, understandably, it’s not really within their remit and therefore not their priority. Therefore, it’s crucial to get buy in from all department heads and use a top down approach so that SEO becomes a priority for everyone that has the ability to add value.

I would suggest a single team or individual continues to manage your efforts from a central position, but almost all departments should be educated on the benefits, and pitfalls, of SEO. One way of tackling this is to create a training manual that first introduces the concept of SEO and best practice in a basic way and then details your own strategy, keywords and processes. This should be supplemented with the exact requirements placed on teams or individuals along with instances. For example, the social media team must schedule a post every two weeks that incorporates a keyword and a link and they must then monitor the engagement, click through numbers and keyword position in the local search engine. Or, the PR team must request a link to the website from every piece of online coverage, aiming for a certain percentage success rate.

Sharing case studies is a great way of motivating people, so try to explain activity in terms of what another brand has achieved. This can also be positioned in relation to your own objectives and what the benefit could be if these are reached; you want to rank on the first page of Google for a certain term and because X number of people search for this term on a monthly basis, you hope to see an increase in traffic of X. Such clear targets and messages of big ambition could give an early boost your integrated SEO activities.

Using your own reporting data is also key. Share the real-life benefits achieved, including positions in search engine rankings, visitors to the site, telephone enquiries that originated with a search and sales conversions. Most people like to know that they are making a difference so it’s important to use such insight to continue motivating. What I also find helpful is to map activities against others, rankings and traffic data in order to find correlations. Using the annotation function in Google Analytics is one helpful way to record activity, but monitoring and reporting should be considered from the start and specified at the strategy stage.

Whether the business is relatively small, meaning some people look after more than one area, or it’s a global corporation that utilises significant agency support, an integrated SEO approach is the same. Buy-in from the whole company, central strategic thought, clear departmental requirements and organisation is required. The resource required is far from small, but the returns gained by being at the top of search engine results pages can be enormous.

Although the word Latent Semantic Indexing sounds a little complicated, it is quite a conceptual term which you might be already using in your keyword research and SEO.

However a conscious closer look at it will definitely give you fair idea of what is Latent Semantic Indexing.

When a user types a query into Google’s search box, this is known as ‘keyword’ and Google gives the user certain results based on the typed keyword.

Let’s take an Example-

When we type the word “aviator” in Google Search, before entering, you get a number of options below the search box, which are predicted by Google based on the keyword entered such as Aviator Watch, Aviator Bike, Aviator Sunglasses, Aviator Movie etc…
This shows that the person searching with the word aviator might be looking for ‘aviator sunglasses’ or ‘aviator movie’ which are 2 totally different things. You will not want your website to rank in the search engine result pages for ‘aviator movie’ if your website is selling sunglasses.

APPLE – A FRUIT OR PHONE?

In the search query “Apple,” ‘Apple’ might mean the ‘Fruit Apple’ or ‘Apple iPhone’. So, when the user types in a keyword, Google analyses the words entered after the keywords and understands the intent of the user to know what he is looking for.

After this, Google scrutinizes the websites having this keyword and understands the context for which it has been used and ranks the websites which will best answer the user’s question.

This context based search is called as Latent Semantic Indexing and optimizing your content using ‘Latent Semantic Keywords’ is known as ‘Latent Semantic Optimization’. Therefore, you should understand how the search engine thinks and devise your keyword strategy accordingly.

HOW DOES LSI MAKE YOUR CONTENT MORE SEO-FRIENDLY?

Latent Semantic Indexing provides context to your content.

Even though your content has rich and interesting information and the primary keywords, it will not be useful without using LSI-driven keywords as it will not be able to give Google a clear idea of what your content is about and your website might land on a SERP where it is not relevant.

So LSI keywords give a context or meaning to your content and helps Google understand it better. The search engine is constantly looking for ‘the user’s intent based on relationship between keywords’ and ‘your content’s context matching that intent’ such as ‘aviator sunglasses’, ‘ray ban aviator sunglasses’ could be LSI keywords for “aviator” in the context of sunglasses.

LSI helps you gain web traffic
Importantly, Search Engines cannot interpret the meaning behind a text easily like we human beings do. Latent Semantic Indexing keywords make Google’s work easier to understand your web page content and in turn you are ranked higher in the SERP’s and and therefore you are likely to get more traffic.

LSI driven content is also more specifically targeted to reach the intended audience and will land up in front of the right audience. It is beneficial for you as you will gain more traffic, users who will get exactly what they are looking for and search engines to easily understand and give accurate results.

LSI Keywords should be related to the Primary Keyword
Your LSI keywords must answer all the questions related to your primary keyword, that your user might be looking for. Let’s think in the context of movie Aviator. In this case, the user might be looking for “what the movie is about”, “buying DVD of the movie”, “star ratings, cast crew or reviews of the movie”. If your website is about movies, you must use LSI keywords related to above purposes to make your content visible to the user.

Ways to find LSI-Keywords
1. Google Autocomplete: When you type a word in the search engine box, Google gives some predictions or suggestions based on the most popular searches related to that word. This is a good way to look for LSI keywords
2. Google Related Searches: When you type a keyword and get results on SERP, at the bottom of the page Google shows some searches related to the keyword. These are also good examples of LSI keywords
3. LSI Graph: This is a special tool in which you can type a keyword and get a list of all related LSI keywords
4. Keyword Planner Tool: Google keyword planner tool through Google AdWords is also a good way to find all combinations of searches related to your term.
5. Various Tools: Some other tools like Ubersuggest, Keyword Research Database Tool are helpful in finding the LSI keywords.

An SEO-Tip: You can use these keywords in your Title Tag, Description Tag, Header Tag, URLs, Anchor tags and in your website/blog Content.

THINGS TO REMEMBER

• LSI is not the only one SEO strategy that makes your content SEO-friendly. There are many other factors which you will need to ensure such as Quality of content, Research and facts, and other SEO factors.
• Do not overstuff your content with LSI keywords and use only those keywords which are relevant to your topic. You can also use synonyms and word combinations. Re-read your content and remove any words that do not match.

FUTURE OF LSI

Every article needs to be judged as a whole which is not possible using a single keyword but a set of keywords and this is where LSI becomes meaningful. On the other hand, Google is constantly updating its algorithms.

Google’s latest HummingBird Algorithm also focuses on semantic analysis and semantic search wherein Google takes into consideration all the contextual keywords – LSI keywords that bind a piece of content together in terms of meaning. Therefore, it is definitely worth spending your efforts in looking for the right LSI driven keywords to develop rich engaging content and because content is the King in SEO, Google will surely reward you if your site matches the search criteria and if it loves your content.

Traditionally, search engine optimisation was the remit of the technical web team and activity was concentrated around tagging and HTML elements of the site. Whilst this is still important, the algorithms that search engines operate have become much more complex and businesses wanting to achieve the greatest return on investment must treat SEO as an integrated discipline.

If you don’t offer quality content, relevant to the reader, your visibility in rankings will be non-existent, so the website copywriter and wider marketing team must have appropriate insight. Social media signals are also increasingly important to search bots, so you must be sure to educate the people managing your social network profiles so they know how to correctly optimise posts. Speak to your PR team too about how they can help to create valuable links to your website from relevant sources and ensure they are creating internal links from your on-site blog.

In my experience, people across a range of departments say they understand search and what they need to do, but they don’t deliver when it comes to planning and undertaking optimised activity. The technical aspects can be a barrier as can confidence in their actions, but more often than not it’s just a matter of them not being able to put the required thought and effort in. This is because, understandably, it’s not really within their remit and therefore not their priority. Therefore, it’s crucial to get buy in from all department heads and use a top down approach so that SEO becomes a priority for everyone that has the ability to add value.

I would suggest a single team or individual continues to manage your efforts from a central position, but almost all departments should be educated on the benefits, and pitfalls, of SEO. One way of tackling this is to create a training manual that first introduces the concept of SEO and best practice in a basic way and then details your own strategy, keywords and processes. This should be supplemented with the exact requirements placed on teams or individuals along with instances. For example, the social media team must schedule a post every two weeks that incorporates a keyword and a link and they must then monitor the engagement, click through numbers and keyword position in the local search engine. Or, the PR team must request a link to the website from every piece of online coverage, aiming for a certain percentage success rate.

Sharing case studies is a great way of motivating people, so try to explain activity in terms of what another brand has achieved. This can also be positioned in relation to your own objectives and what the benefit could be if these are reached; you want to rank on the first page of Google for a certain term and because X number of people search for this term on a monthly basis, you hope to see an increase in traffic of X. Such clear targets and messages of big ambition could give an early boost your integrated SEO activities.

Using your own reporting data is also key. Share the real-life benefits achieved, including positions in search engine rankings, visitors to the site, telephone enquiries that originated with a search and sales conversions. Most people like to know that they are making a difference so it’s important to use such insight to continue motivating. What I also find helpful is to map activities against others, rankings and traffic data in order to find correlations. Using the annotation function in Google Analytics is one helpful way to record activity, but monitoring and reporting should be considered from the start and specified at the strategy stage.

Whether the business is relatively small, meaning some people look after more than one area, or it’s a global corporation that utilises significant agency support, an integrated SEO approach is the same. Buy-in from the whole company, central strategic thought, clear departmental requirements and organisation is required. The resource required is far from small, but the returns gained by being at the top of search engine results pages can be enormous.

If you’ve been looking for easy ways to make money online, I’m sorry to disappoint you. Don’t get me wrong. Easy ways to make money online do exist. However, they are not going to be found on any list you come across on the Internet. Why? Because most of those “easy” ways don’t really work.

Do they work in reality? Not really. Will you earn extra money doing it though? Sure, but you will also make more from your nine to five job. The hard truth is that there are only real easy ways to make money from home.

What are these easy ways to make money from home? Well, for starters, you could write blogs for other people. You could also use social media as a way to make money from home. In either case, you will have to set up your own blog or website.

You could also sign up with an affiliate program and sell other people’s products. If you’re selling someone else’s product, all you have to do is display the link on your site. From there, visitors to your site will click on the link and then make a purchase. That’s pretty simple, but if you can find a way to make extra earnings, your earnings could be very substantial.

However, what if you can’t find any extra tools to help others? That’s fine. You can still make extra money by selling your skills. There are plenty of individuals who are interested in selling their skills to others. You can teach them how to do something, and then once they’ve learned the technique, you charge them a fee. Some folks won’t mind paying a fee to learn something new, and if you can make your tutorial downloadable and easy to follow, you can have a booming internet business selling other peoples’ skills.

Finally, you can earn money from home by developing your own website. This is probably the easiest way to earn a side income from home. It won’t make you rich, but it will help you supplement your income. And it’s a great way to help your loved ones. If you’re looking for a fun way to make extra cash at home, you can’t go wrong by exploring all the possibilities.

The truth is that there are several different ways to make money from home. It’s important to explore all your options, as it varies greatly from person to person. That’s why it’s so crucial to have extra tools to use. However, if you can’t find any extra tools, you’ll have to develop some on your own. It varies wildly. And it will largely depend on what kind of skills you possess.

Extra tools for extra earnings are basically everywhere. You just need to be resourceful. But you should also realize that you won’t be paid an hourly rate by any means. The earning potential can be quite great, but it depends on your ability to market yourself. So as long as you have a product or service that people want, you could earn a side income with ease.

Carpet is an integral part of floor decor, uplifting the visual appeal of the space with its sleek texture. However, these carpets are prone to wear and tear due to daily foot traffic, dirt, dust mites and occasional spills. To ensure a clean and well-maintained carpet, periodic carpet cleaning using the right tools and equipment is of paramount importance. Cleaning with the standard home cleaning supplies simply does not produce the desired result.

Here are the five most widely used equipment used by professionals for a thorough carpet cleaning.

Portable Cleaning Tools
For smaller areas, carpet cleaning experts use portable equipment, which are relatively large machines but is easy to carry. These machines are available in various types depending on the purposes of their uses. The portable equipment is designed for various methods of carpet cleaning based on the kind of carpet and the customer’s preference like carpet shampooing, bonnet cleaning, encapsulation, hot water extraction or dry carpet cleaning. Professional companies carry most of these portable tools with them to perform cleaning, adopting various approaches with the machines for the different methods.

Some other portable types of equipment that professional services use are as follows:

Vacuum Cleaner: A vacuum cleaner is an essential carpet cleaning tool to tidy up the carpets and complete the cleaning procedure.

Defoamer: Foam can reduce the effectiveness of the cleaning process. Hence carpet cleaners use defoamer to remove the foam and speed up the drying process. These defoamers are a mixture of silicone or oils that are effective in removing the foam.

Air Scrubber: This device works as an air filtration system and is used during dry cleaning to get rid of airborne particulates, fungi, and foul odours from the carpet. The scrubber is used after a deep cleaning job to increase the air quality in the room.

Carpet Cleaning Wand: This is the primary tool in the cleaning process. The wand is used to spray the cleaning solution as water jets, which is then sucked back through the vacuum slot in the equipment. While rotary cleaners work best for shaggy carpets, wool carpets are best cleaned with wands to prevent any kind of damage to the carpet fibres. It is not possible to use a pro extractor without one.

Crevice Tools:These are special tools to clean crevices like those between the stairs, areas that are difficult to reach and upholstery cleaning.

Protective Tools: To protect furniture and other items from suffering any kind of damage while cleaning, professionals use these protective accessories like furniture protectors, caution signs, straps, corner guards, and chemical racks.

Ventilation Assister: On completion of wet cleaning methods, service providers may blow fans to expedite the drying of the carpet.

Truck-Mounted Cleaning Equipment
These are heavy-duty cleaners suitable for cleaning larger spaces. However, it must not be inferred that truck-mounted cleaners are only used for larger commercial workspaces. There are many homes that opt for them due to certain advantages like these powerful cleaners do not mess the area cleaned since the machines draw water out of the building as the cleaning process continues instead of draining them into the toilet or sink.

These are some of the vital equipment necessary for deep cleaning of the carpet. It needs mentioning that the use of tools depends on the nature of the carpet and the type of cleaning service chosen. Before hiring the services of professional cleaners, it makes sense to find out the kind of carpet cleaning your want and if the service provider has the right tools and equipment to perform the job successfully.

Even if you have an international business, there are many ways that you can benefit from locally based marketing. Local marketing can also be a key to catapulting you to global markets if you know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.

1. Vastly Improves Your Search Engine Rankings

Location-based marketing helps you get a higher search ranking because whenever anyone searches for you in that location, you’ll show up in some of the first pages of search. Even if people don’t type their location, the local businesses show up first for each search. This gives you a fantastic opportunity to attract your audience using local marketing.

2. It’s Inexpensive and Has a High ROI

Many aspects of local marketing are free. For example, putting up content that has location-based keywords, adding information to various platforms that include the right keywords for your location will improve your search results without spending a dime. Adding location-based information to advertisements will generate even more return.

3. Engage with Customers More

When you are more focused on the customer’s location, you can take advantage of some of the automatic trust you get by being focused on a location in your SEO and advertisements. You can use your actual location to get started, even if you want your business to be an international or national business. However, you don’t have to. You can focus on anyone’s location if you know you have an audience there.

4. Attract More Customers

Locally based marketing can help you attract new customers by placing the focus on one location at a time (you can do this simultaneously though) through your advertising and marketing methods. For example, if you know that you have a lot of clients in a region of Georgia in the USA focus your advertising and marketing there.

5. Become a Locally Renowned Expert

One fun and effective way to use local marketing to your benefit is to become a local expert. Start with your location or a major city near your location. Send out press releases, get interviews on local news stations, and submit articles in local publications. Then market each event that you do so that you soon become known as a local expert.

Local marketing can benefit any type of online business. It doesn’t matter if your business is only local or not. Of course, if your business is local, you’re going to benefit from local marketing even more. Ensuring that your business shows up in local search will attract more customers, ensure that you become more attractive yourself, and will enable you to become a local expert.

Introduction:

Online trading has become very popular nowadays. Millions of people worldwide are engaged in this form of trading. It usually meant trading off stocks. It has become as common as doing shopping. There are three things that one needs to start doing this trading:

A device (mobile or computer)
A stable internet connection
A banking application
Enough funds and balance in a bank’s account

If someone has sound knowledge about the stock market and related formation, they can make amazing profits from it.

The functions of a broker:

An important part of online trading is a broker. He is someone who buys and sells things (assets) on behalf of others. Due to the advancement of technology, online brokerage has come into the picture. Online brokers are similar to normal brokers. They too buy and sell assets and do transactions between a buyer and a seller, but just on the internet.

A broker is an intermediary between the two individuals (buyers and sellers). A brokerage can be broadly classified into three types: Online brokerage, discount brokerage, and full-service brokerage. A discount brokerage usually helps to buy and sell assets but at a reduced commissioned rate. The third type is the full-service brokerage provides detailed information and assistance regarding online trading and the stock market, and everything else related to it. A broker has various functions to perform. Following is the list of functions of a broker explained in detail.

The primary function of a broker is to do something for an individual on his or her behalf on the financial side. It mostly includes buying and selling assets and looking after other transactions. There are other functions too, like providing information regarding trading.

Advantages of an online trading platform:

There are various advantages of this trading. It is usually simple and does not cost a lot of money. One has complete control over what they want to do on the platform. It is quick and convenient. Chances of errors are pretty less when it comes to online trading and using online trade apps. The user has the option to keep a check on the investment at all times. One of the most significant advantages of trading on online platforms is that users can get notifications regarding prices and other information via emails or messages. There are lots of trustworthy online trading platforms. Some of the popular ones are eToro, Upstox Pro, Zerodha KITE, Fidelity, and many more.

Some safety measures while doing trading:

One must not make a transaction using a public device or sitting in a cybercafé. One should log out every time after the job is done. Personal computers and mobile phones need to be secured from viruses by anti-virus software. Online trading can be very convenient, quick, and lucrative only if done properly, keeping in mind all the safety measures and being very careful during the transactions. Otherwise, one might end up losing a lot of money or funds in it.

The cashless payment system is growing exponentially with evolving payment methods, rising e-commerce use, enhanced broadband connectivity, and emergence of new technologies. Can increasing incidences of cyberattacks and spams hamper the growth of online payment market or will it continue to grow at a rapid rate?

The global digital payment industry is expected to hit the USD6.6 trillion mark in 2021, registering around a 40% jump in two years. The cashless payment methods are rapidly evolving with ground-breaking innovations such as mobile wallets, peer-to-peer (P2P) mobile payments, real-time payments, and cryptocurrencies. In the growing digital age, many payment technology companies are collaborating with traditional financial institutions to cater to the latest consumer and merchant preferences. Due to enhanced broadband connectivity, increasing mobile commerce, emergence of new technologies such as Virtual Reality, Artificial Intelligence, and rapid digitization, billions of people have started embracing contactless payments in both developed and emerging countries. Besides, surging e-commerce businesses, digital remittances, digital business payments, and mobile B2B payments are boosting the non-cash transaction ecosystem.

Cashless transaction method users across various generations are widely adopting the digital peer-to-peer (P2P) apps as they are more appealing and flexible to use. In-app payments or tap-and-go transactions take seconds at the checkout and allow users to make payments anytime and anywhere. Tokenization, encryption, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), etc., offer multiple ways of securing payments while enabling digital transactions. Moreover, the users do not have to fill in information every time to complete the payment process. Thus, online payment gateways play a crucial role in the economic growth, enabling trade in the modern economy. With social distancing rules in place, digital payments have become an obligation for contactless transactions rather than just a transaction alternative to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

Digital Commerce Empowering Businesses
Electronic payment systems have become a crucial part of businesses as consumer inclination towards online shopping is expanding. With broadening internet penetration, increasing use of smartphones, and diverse options for e-transactions, most consumers are preferring online channels over traditional brick-and-mortar stores for shopping. Therefore, businesses are shifting online with an electronic payment solution to maximize their profit earnings. Automating the electronic payment system eliminates the scope of errors and saves a considerable amount of time and effort. High standards for detecting and preventing fraud in digital transaction systems and AI-based fraud detections protect users from security breaches. By providing the flexibility for making payments through credit/debit cards, mobile money, e-Wallet, etc., the businesses can expand their customer base. The electronic payment process improves customer satisfaction as customers do not need to count cash or deal with paperwork whenever they want to make the transaction.

Biometric Authentication Enhancing Security
Biometric authentication involves recognizing biometric features and structural characteristics to verify the identification of an individual. The verification method can involve fingerprint scanning, facial recognition, voice recognition, vein mapping, iris detection, and heartbeat analysis. With the rise in identity theft and fraud, biometric authentication has become a reliable and secure alternative for making digital transactions. According to a recent research, biometrically verified mobile commerce transactions are expected to constitute a massive 57% of the total biometric transaction by 2023. Biometric payment cards are also becoming popular as they support tap-and-go payments, allowing users to make faster digital transactions. The digital payment technology provider, Worldline is partnering up with the French FinTech, A3BC (Anything Anywhere Anytime Biometric Connection), to protect mobile phones from intrusion with a two-factor authentication process. The combined solution eliminates identification through a single touch, rather it recognizes fingerprints through a picture of the hand. MasterCard is planning to bring FinGo’s vein-scanning payment solution that facilitates users to authenticate transactions.

Dominance of Mobile Wallets
In 2019, mobile wallets overtook credit cards to become the highly adopted payment type globally. Digital wallets offer flexibility to users to store multiple payment methods in one digital home and turn cash into electronic money required for online or in-store purchases. Financial institutions have already started to embrace the digital wallet trend by offering virtual cards to business customers. The virtual cards stored in digital wallets consist of details like 16-digit card number, CVV code, date of expiry and work just like the physical plastic card. Currently, only 37% of merchants support mobile payments at the point of sale, but with the rising adoption, merchants are willing to invest in technologies facilitating digital wallets. The virtual wallets can save money due to low processing costs as they limit transaction values and frequency. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is improving the user experience with regards to transactions with ChatBots, designed to execute and robotize essential exchanges as per the user’s interest. Besides, cryptographic money-based e-wallets are being embraced by new companies to small-medium organizations for storing digital money. Smart voice technology is contributing to the growth of smart voice wallets ever since Amazon propelled the principle of this platform, which is now being followed by Google and Apple.

E-Commerce Boom Accelerating Digital Payment Market Growth
E-commerce growth at an exponential rate is creating shock waves, and the sonic boom is reverberating across the FinTech sector. The growth of many e-commerce companies is driven by the kind of financial services they provide. Digital transactions make it convenient for the buyer and seller to make transactions and remain loyal to the market space. The COVID-19 pandemic added a different dimension to e-commerce innovation, introducing newer trends such as payment alternatives at checkouts (not with digital wallets), virtual cards, QR codes, and other touchless transactions. Besides, the Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) trend is dominating the e-commerce industry as it relieves the financial burden on the buyer. BNPL involves a soft credit check, so the consumers can buy what they need, keep the inventory moving, and pay overtime without affecting their credit score. BNPL provides businesses with much-needed liquidity and greater flexibility at the checkout.

Influence of COVID-19 Pandemic on Digital Payment Market Growth
Digital payment systems have moved beyond their peer-to-peer (P2P) transfers and bill payments. The COVID-19 pandemic allowed digital payment systems to showcase their strengths, such as a strong understanding of hyper-local markets and its ability to establish strong local partnerships. Businesses and consumers increasingly “went digital” for providing and purchasing goods and services online. When the pandemic hit, people did not want to touch or exchange cash due to the paranoia of catching the infection from physical currencies. Several governments around the world introduced digital financial transfers to provide COVID-assistance. Owing to lockdown measures, consumers shifted to online platforms, which catapulted the demand for digital payment systems. Now, digital platforms have become an essential component of people’s lives, and consumers are more likely to continue shopping online in the post-pandemic period. The dramatic shift in consumer behavior is likely to augment the demand for e-payment systems even more. Therefore, companies are focusing their attention on digital mediums to meet the new customer demands and thrive businesses in the changing market scenario. Organizations are reimagining customer journeys to reduce friction and provide new security features. Payment companies such as PayPal and Square Cash are staffing up across the board to better understand the rearrangement of societal norms and stabilize the business in the near future.