Raynor de Best
Content expert covering payments and (crypto)currencies
Digital payment trends worldwide in 2025 - statistics & facts
Digital payments and fintech innovation are expected to keep rising in 2025. Opinions differ, however, on whether this growth will accelerate or slow down. Geopolitics, regulation, and rapid developments in both technology and sustainability within financial services all impact the payments industry in 2025. Nevertheless, what is the current state of play in digital payments, and what are the future intentions of payment providers?
Within only a few years, payment landscapes have transformed significantly. As 2025 continues, traditional providers worldwide are still getting to grips with this, while also dealing with the potential effects of inflation and geopolitics.
Consumers and their need for speed
The desire for fast payments, also called real-time payments or instant payments, keeps growing in 2025. Costs were not considered a deciding factor when choosing an online payment method. Respondents across North America, Europe, and Latin America thought security and ease of use were more important criteria in online payments. Indeed, if consumers decided to use a neobank over a traditional provider, they typically did so because of faster payment options available to them. Real-time payments are especially common in Asia-Pacific, with transactions in India being almost five times higher as in China.AI in payments to help combat fraud
AI is increasingly being looked at to help in payments processing in 2025. Industry experts believed that the main use of artificial intelligence in payments was in fraud detection. This is similar to other industries. Risk managers believed that cyber incidents were the biggest single company risk going into 2025. Such cyber incidents can include IT outages, but also cyber crime and data breaches. Payment card fraud - including both credit cards and debit cards - is forecast to grow by roughly ten billion U.S. dollars between 2023 and 2028.Financial inclusion and payment innovations
Innovations will remain a big focus in 2025, especially for emerging countries. Traditionally, these countries had a gap in financial inclusion - as shown in the share of unbanked population by country. In a region like Africa, the continued growth of mobile payments could mean the replacement of expensive payment cards. Indeed, one of the main drivers to develop a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in emerging countries was the potential to boost financial inclusion.Within only a few years, payment landscapes have transformed significantly. As 2025 continues, traditional providers worldwide are still getting to grips with this, while also dealing with the potential effects of inflation and geopolitics.
