2021 Key Trends of the Payment Industry: Global Real-Time Payments Market

2021 Key Trends of the Payment Industry: Global Real-Time Payments Market

Amid COVID-19, real-time payments attract governments, businesses, and consumers globally, says new yStats.com publication.

The COVID-19 crisis further strengthened the trend of real-time payments in Europe and the US

As detailed in the new yStats.com publication, real-time payments received special attention from the governments, businesses, and consumers especially during the health crisis. Among the main reasons to utilize this type of payment processing, US corporate decision-makers point out increased accuracy of cash flow management. With that, the share of instant payments of total transactions in the country is forecasted to constitute about one-fifth through 2024. In Europe, the ECB has set an objective to include all payment providers in the system of real-time payments across the euro area by the end of 2021. As of 2020, most of the European markets, including UK and the Netherlands, experienced significant growth in volumes and values of real-time fund transfers. Additionally, the countries of Northern Europe have created a plan of action to introduce real-time payments in the framework of the P27 program, starting from mid-2021.

The real-time payment systems of the Middle East and Latin America still have room for improvement

According to figures cited in the new yStats.com report, in general, the Middle East has been growing in terms of values and volumes of payments via the local real-time payment systems during 2020. Nevertheless, many of their solutions are still only near real-time, and some, like Israel’s Zahav, are not available 24/7. Nevertheless, the lockdown, in the first half of 2020 brought significant positive changes in the number and values of the near real-time transactions for some countries and the year-on-year growth rates went sharply up. Latin American countries have been increasingly opting for real-time payments in recent years, which was especially encouraged by the local Central Banks. The main goal was to increase financial inclusion and reduce cash in circulation. In Mexico, for example, right before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, a new real-time mobile payment platform known as CoDi was introduced which still struggles to increase the number of active users. Similarly, the Central Bank of Brazil decided to launch Pix in November 2020. According to figures cited in the new yStats.com report, by 2030, fund transfers via Pix are expected to be about one-fifth of the total electronic payments in the country.

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, real-time payments in Asia accelerated

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19, most of the countries in the Asian region underwent a rise in the values and volumes of payments via their local RTGS systems. The Japanese Core Time System experienced a significant spike in March 2020, while the numbers have gradually stabilized after that. The Philippines’ InstaPay has accelerated transactions by three-digit percentages in the times of the pandemic. Moreover, India, after a serious decrease in the numbers in April-May 2020, recovered in the following months and reached even higher numbers, according to figures cited in the new yStats.com report. This positive development is likely to continue in the near future as such economies as China, Singapore, Malaysia, and some others are forecasted to considerably grow in terms of real-time payments adoption by the year 2024.