According to Prime-Time for Real Time, which was launched by ACI Worldwide and GlobalData, India’s transaction volume shares of instant payments and other electronic payments are poised to grow to around 37.1 per cent and 34.6 per cent, respectively. In 2020, the figures stood at mere 15.6 per cent and 22.9 per cent.
In addition to this, the report also stated that by 2024, the share of real-time payments volume in overall electronic transactions will surpass 50 per cent. By 2025, digital payments in India are expected to account for more than 70 per cent of overall payments volume, which leave paper-based and credit card payments at over 28 per cent.
On the global scheme of things, the pandemic has led real-time payment transactions to surge by more than 40 per cent. With about 25.5 billion real-time payment transactions, India has retained the top spot in the world with China following close on its heels. The latter has around 15.7 billion transactions. Following China is South Korea and Thailand with 6 billion and 5.2 billion transactions, respectively. At the fifth position is UK, which has recorded almost 3 billion real-time transactions.
Even countries like Brazil, Mexico and Malaysia where people predominantly relied on cash transactions earlier have now started to leverage mobile wallets. As a result, real-time payments have been on a growth trajectory ever since the pandemic broke out. While the real-time transactions in 2019 stood at 50 billion worldwide, the number surged to a whopping 70.3 billion in 2020.
Talking about the increased adoption of digital payments across the world, Kaushik Roy, Vice President and head of product management, Asia, Middle East and Africa, ACI Worldwide said, “As the industry evolves, we expect to see increased adoption across different users and volume growth driven by mass adoption, recurring payments, transit payments as well as cross-border transactions.”
Prime-Time for Real Time also revealed that even though real-time payment transactions have been on the rise, so have the number of fraudulent practices associated with them. Card-related fraud incidents remain the highest globally while real-time payment scams, including confidence tricks, identity theft and digital wallet account hacks, have been rising steadily since 2019.