DIGITAL LOCAL CURRENCIES AS AN ALTERNATIVE DIGITAL PAYMENT METHOD FOR BUSINESSES TO OVERCOME PROBLEMS OF COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Abstract

The usage of digital currencies and digital payments such as cryptocurrencies and card payments have been rapidly increased during Covid-19 pandemic because of providing contactless payments and keeping social distance between individuals. The number of contactless payments users was 440 million before the Covid-19 period, then the number of users increased rapidly and reached around 760 million in 2020 (Statista, 2021). In this regard, this paper investigates the perspectives of businesses regarding the usage of a local digital currency and its payment methods. Moreover, this paper investigates the incentives or supports that businesses might provide for their workers or customers to increase the usage of this currency. The researchers adopted a case study and performed structured interviews with the experts. Moreover, they also applied a non-probability sampling method, purposive sampling since this method is applied by researchers when aiming to explore a specific issue and intentionally selecting the extreme examples. In this regard, the researchers deliberately chose 25 businesses that operate in a disadvantaged region, namely, Cieszyn Silesia where a prospective local currency implementation can be applied by practitioners to overcome the negative economic outcomes of Covid-19. Since digital local currencies make significant contributions on economic conditions of disadvantaged regions, selecting respondents that have minimum 10 years experiences in businesses of a disadvantaged region makes this paper to fulfil the research aims. The researchers have also prior knowledge about this topic, and this is another reason of employing this sampling method. The researchers collected both qualitative and quantitative data and this paper is a kind of descriptive research. The researchers just indicated the result by accumulating the responses in Microsoft Excel and stating the responses that the survey participants answered for open-ended questions. According to the results, all businesses are prone to use digital currencies and are interested in accepting digital payments with these currencies. Regarding supports, businesses have willingness to provide bonuses and incentives to their employees, and customers to increase the usage of these currencies. These results might provide strong evidences to implement a digital local currency under the conditions of Covid-19 pandemic in a disadvantaged region. © 2021, Czestochowa University of Technology. All rights reserved.