The top payment industry trends for 2024

What are the latest payment industry trends for 2024?

Nowadays, payments are no longer defined only by their speed or ease. The crucial element post-pandemic is that they’re becoming more invisible and embedded, enabling a frictionless customer experience.

This is all being supported by a developing ecosystem that can be split into four broad areas: shared infrastructure, embedded finance, data, and platform capabilities. Each of these areas incorporate many of the wider trends that are happening in payments — and together, they form the future of payments.

In this article, we’re looking at the B2C and B2B payment trends that are taking hold this year.

Shared infrastructure

The basis of tomorrow’s payments architecture will revolve around firms opening their doors to integration and offering shared services with other firms in their ecosystem. The core of this system will be supported by a services portfolio that will help enable tailor-made, sector-specific customer solutions.

These payment systems will not only offer native technology, but also integration modules, APIs and cloud-based distributed data. They will integrate a portfolio of services into a shared payment processing infrastructure, digital identity databases and other shareable registries. These services can speak to the core via API calls.

Digital ID infrastructure

Shared digital ID infrastructures will help unify access and pave the way for an open finance future. Digital ID solutions can also help control online fraud, as online payment fraud is currently estimated to have cost global businesses £48 billion in 2023.^[1]

As many as five billion people may use digital ID platforms[2] for authentication by 2024 due to an increased uptake of mobile payments.This is crucial for providing an optimal customer experience – after all, nearly 30% of customers[3] experience check-out process friction during online and in-store transactions. This mobile payment trend is set to continue growing as we move forward into the future.

Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS)

Mobility-as-a-Service is an emerging type of service that, through a joint digital channel, enables users to plan, book, and pay for multiple types of mobility services.

The concept behind MaaS is to offer travelers mobility solutions that shift away from personally owned modes of transportation and towards mobility provided as a service, as a sustainable alternative. The Mobility-as-a-Service concept is expected to grow from a market size worth $74bn in 2021 to $230bn by 2025.^[4]

Embedded finance

Frictionless and embedded payments, where the payment process is integrated seamlessly into the customer journey, are now expected by consumers as they seek simple, low-cost payment solutions.

Embedded payments are expected to grow even more in popularity with the most explored sectors likely to be food delivery, ridesharing and in-car payments.

Buy now pay later (BNPL)

The BNPL trend seems to have suddenly jumped onto the payment scene over the last few years. In retail, Buy Now Pay Later options will be further explored, driven by Gen Z and Millennials looking for convenience and low-interest options.

A Worldpay report stated that BNPL accounted for 2.1% of ecommerce transactions in 2020 and is expected to double by 2024. In addition, there are expectations that global BNPL transactions are predicted to increase by nearly $450 billion between 2021 and 2026.[5].

Digital wallets

Digital wallets remain a preferred payment method among global ecommerce consumers, registering 44.5% of global ecommerce transaction volume in 2020, an increase of 6.5% from 2019.

By 2025, it’s anticipated that digital wallet use will account for 52.5% of e-commerce transaction value worldwide.^[6] This trend is being sparked by their inherent suitability for mobile commerce, their seamless integration with social media and the rise of 5G.

Instant payment

Global Account to Account (A2A) payments surpassed $525 billion in 2022 and is expected to grow at 13% CAGR through 2026.[7] This is being driven by feasible alternatives to credit cards, the regulatory tailwinds of PSD2, and exciting new innovations in technology.

A2A payments happen by bank transfer, and are extremely beneficial for merchants as they eliminate ties to card monopolies and see fewer chargebacks. Integration into banking infrastructure means lower costs per transaction, with seamless customer experiences and secure authentication.

Data

As Open Banking continues to mature across more markets, it is playing a key role in facilitating frictionless payments and enabling customers to move money internationally at speed and at a low cost, removing the administrative burden of traditional bank transfers.

Data efficiency

Greater insight into transaction data is also driving this trend: 40% of surveyed banks utilize internal data to generate insights and the remaining 27% leverage external data to generate insights for end-to-end CX.[8]

Creating value from data is essential to survive. Currently, only 18% of surveyed banks consider data as an asset.[8] These banks share data with third parties for value exchange, showing the inherent benefits of following the open banking trend.

Platform capabilities 

Banking infrastructure generally falls short of the capabilities necessary to handle rising digital payment volumes. And this applies to performance   for various instruments/methods, across geographies, time zones, and with always-on availability.

Platform-based business model

Implementing Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) has benefits such as avoiding capital expenses, flexibility to add new functions, payment schemes, clearing access, and the ability to launch new products faster.

API ecosystem

52% of surveyed banks intend to invest in third parties for product/offerings to develop innovative propositions and 45% plan to organize an API-based ecosystem and move to a platform-based business model.^[8]

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[1] ECommerce Online Fraud Statista 2023 Report
[2] Payments Industry Intelligence 2022
[3] Payments Industry Intelligence 2022

[4]  Maas Market Size Worldwide-2017-2025 | Statista

[5] BNPL Statista Report 2023.

[6] FIS Global Payments Report 2023

[7] FIS Global Payments Report 2023

[8] Chat GPTs Top Payment Trends 2023 | AirPlus