Mutating payment markets

We’re back to Trustech! We’re back to meeting real people in real life! We’re back to Paris! Everyone is happy to celebrate return to meeting all the leading players in the Secure Transactions industry as Trustech is happening this week in Paris Porte de Versailles

This morning, Grégoire Toussaint, from Edgar, Dunn & Company, gave his views on the current status of the payment industry. Major findings are unsurprising: cash is declining, as well are cheques; and electronic means of payment are on the increase. Edgar, Dunn & Company (EDC) anticipates instant payments will increase by a CAGR of 14% over the 2022-2026 period, while mobile wallets and payment cards will grow by 12% and 10% respectively.

As commerce is evolving, payment means have to evolve accordingly. BNPL is playing an increasing role in this picture. EDC anticipates BNPL will triple by 2025 and then account for US$ 250 billion (EUR 241 billion), as all age groups are increasingly resorting to it.

Digital wallets, including both domestic solutions such as Bizum, Lydia, Paylib, … and international ones such as Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay are increasingly meeting success. For instance, digital wallets now account for 20% of payments in Germany that was traditionally a cash-conservative society. Asia remains the core market for eWallet with over 2.6 billion users, with leaders such as Alipay, WeChat Pay, and others.

Omnichannel commerce is also a significant trend. Consumers want to be able to combine their in-shop and their online experience, and in such a context, merchants have to deliver them with an integrated payment process. Payment orchestration is to be achieved thanks to providing unified interfaces including all consumer journeys, all payment means and all acquirers.

While the whole industry has been concentrating on consumer payments, improvements in B2B payments are still lagging. There are still numerous pain points in B2B payments, cheques are still in wide usage, manual processing steps abound, reconciliation is often difficult, all due to lack of involvement of many businesses in the payment ecosystem. This context is evolving positively, under pressure from regulation authorities, with the digitization of invoices and of some B2B payments. Automation of Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivables still have a long way to go. However, EDC anticipates a 10% yearly growth of the B2B payments market in the coming years.

The payment industry is becoming Increasingly complex. It is also always as innovative and fascinating.