What is the future of digital payments?
GlobalData forecasts a compound annual growth rate of 19.9% for mobile wallet payments with digital wallet usage predicted to reach 60% of the world's population by 2026. Businesses must be prepared to offer a variety of wallet solutions tailored to their customers and target audience.
We'll cut right to the chase: the future of payments is digital. Some trends to keep an eye on include Central Banks Digital Currencies (CBDCs), digital payments, cross-border banking, and crypto. Open payment platforms will also play a critical role in the future.
Mobile payments: future market insights.
The global market size of mobile payments is forecasted to reach $18.84 trillion in 2030, up from $2.98 trillion in 2023.
Even so, digital payments have not yet fully replaced cash. Public demand for cash remains steady, both as a means of payment and as a safe haven. While the digitalisation of payments is a global trend, payment habits still differ across countries.
In 2023, the Digital Payment Market reached a valuation of USD 92.67 Billion, poised for substantial growth with a projected CAGR of 14.89% from 2024 to 2030, anticipating a remarkable revenue surge to nearly USD 244.86 Billion by 2030.
Data from FIS Global Payments Report 2022 shows that by 2025, mobile wallets will be used for 53% of e-commerce transactions worldwide — rising from 49% in 2021. For global point-of-sale (POS) transactions, the use of digital wallets is expected to rise from 29% in 2021 to 39% in 2025.
In 2050, the payments ecosystem (acquirers, PSPs, facilitators, and aggregators) will revolve around creating integrated capabilities within an ecosystem of partners to truly optimise the customer experience and deliver a seamless, personalised payments journey from awareness to purchase and long-term retention.
In India, there is a three way competition for market share between Paytm, PhonePe and Google Pay. Paytm is the largest in terms of users and transactions, however, PhonePe and Google Pay process more UPI payments. Apple Pay and Google Pay are the two global payment solutions, with Samsung Pay a distant third.
The last five years of growth in the global payments industry has been propelled by the ongoing cash-to-non-cash conversion, a rise in non-transaction revenue such as deposit-related income, the accelerated adoption of digital commerce, and the expanding implementation of modern payments infrastructure.
The group owns the world's largest mobile (digital) payment platform Alipay, which serves over 1.3 billion users and 80 million merchants, with total payment volume (TPV) reaching CN¥118 trillion in June 2020. It is the second largest financial services corporation in the world, behind Visa.
How close are we to a cashless society?
The US is moving toward cashless payments, with a substantial increase in the use of mobile wallet apps and contactless cards. A report from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco found that payments made using cash accounted for just 18% of all US payments in 2022.
For its part, the US Federal Reserve is conducting research and strategic planning regarding the potential implementation of CBDCs, spurred on by Biden's executive order. Despite these efforts, America has yet to make a concrete commitment to adopting a digital dollar.
Cash remains essential to millions of Americans who don't have bank accounts. Plus, digital payment systems are linked to your identity. Eliminating cash would mean giving up some of our financial privacy, as the government and data-hungry companies could more easily snoop on our daily lives.
Worldpay: An industry leader
Every year, Worldpay processes more than 40 billion transactions across almost 150 countries and 135 currencies, worth in excess of US$2.2 trillion.
We asked U.S. consumers about "Most used online payments by brand" and found that "PayPal" takes the top spot, while "Skrill" is at the other end of the ranking. Find this and more survey data on most used online payments by brand in our Consumer Insights tool.
PayPal is the go-to payment service for people that do a lot of online shopping. The service is convenient, multi-platform, easy to use, and almost universally accepted.
According to the Payments Observatory 2023 report, in 2021 cash accounted for 17.9% of transaction value at traditional merchants, however, by 2025 the figure is expected to drop to just 9.8%. Thus, following this trend, cash could become obsolete in a projection of approximately 10 years.
Zhong's estimate that Australia will enter into a cashless society by 2030 is conservative, with the Commonwealth Bank predicting it will happen as soon as 2026. But that doesn't mean cash will disappear entirely. "It doesn't mean that there's no bank notes at all.
In global terms, China is behind Sweden, which aims to go completely cashless as early as 2023. However, the growth in non-cash payments in China is much more significant, given its population size.
Although paper-based currencies are becoming less popular, they will likely stick around for the foreseeable future. Dollars and cents may become harder to use, but as with many obsolete technologies, there are enough users to ensure demand doesn't disappear completely.
What are the new innovations in payments?
Some of the most popular payment innovations include Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL), Crypto and Blockchain, Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC), and Contactless Payments. There's also Biometric Payments, Cross-Border Payments, and Peer-to-Peer Payments.
Analysis from Barclays Investment Bank, meanwhile, predicts that the global transition from cash to digital payments would reach a tipping point moment in 2025, when absolute cash usage would decline from 41 per cent in 2019 to 20 per cent by 2030.
UPI is used at all levels from street vendors to large shopping malls. Today, among all countries in the world, India is the country with the highest digital transaction, accounting for nearly 46% share, as per the 2022 data. India is followed by Brazil, China, Thailand and South Korea.
PayU. PayU is one of the top payment gateways in India, which supports 150+ modes of payment including UPI, net banking, debit and credit cards, and static and dynamic QR. The payment gateway allows businesses to accept payments in multiple currencies.
Payments Trends 2024
Technology advancements are on track to revolutionize productivity and enhance data security, and new payment avenues will continue to rise globally. Central banks are implementing central bank digital currency, and payment firms are adopting cloud services to develop composable platforms.
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