World’s Major Economies Playing Catch-Up as Widespread Adoption Drives Global Real-Time Payments Growth – ACI Worldwide Report - Seite 2

Governments and regulators in other countries are beginning to take notice and have launched initiatives to emulate the success of the most successful RTP markets.

In Europe, the EU Commission has proposed a law mandating RTPs across its 27 member states. The U.K. has embarked on its New Payments Architecture program, which aims to modernize the country’s RTP rails. In the U.S., the Federal Reserve recently announced the launch date for its highly anticipated FedNow service to expand RTP access in the U.S. — a highly significant event in a market where regulators tend to lean toward non-intervention.

“Real-time payments are the future of modern, digital economies. Governments and regulators around the world are beginning to understand this and increasingly see them as a path to drive economic growth and financial inclusion,” said Thomas Warsop, interim president and CEO, ACI Worldwide.

“Real-time payments will help to secure the competitiveness of banks and financial services providers. They remove payments friction, contribute to greater liquidity and ultimately increase customer stickiness. They complement the holistic digital proposition of modern financial institutions.

“Banks should evaluate whether they are truly maximizing existing real-time rails in their market. Ultimately, the extent to which they make real-time payments part of their offering is a strategic decision. It seems increasingly clear, however, that limiting their commitment to the minimum also means limiting their potential share of the future payments market,” Warsop concluded.

Regional Spotlights

North America: July’s U.S. FedNow launch will be a major catalyst for growth

• RTP transactions in North America are expected to grow from 3.9B in 2022 to 13B by 2027, a CAGR of 27.3%. While North America currently accounts for just 2% of all RTPs globally, it has the potential to develop into an extremely high-growth region in the future.
• As a proportion of electronic payments, RTPs are forecast to be just 5% by 2027 in North America — lower than in all other global regions: Europe (13%), Asia Pacific (APAC – 12%), Middle East, Africa and South Asia (MEASA – 79%) and Latin America (LATAM – 56%).
• Consumer adoption, measured as transactions per month per head of population, was low across the region in 2022 — the U.S. and Canada ranked 33^rd and 19^th, respectively, worldwide.
• Mobile wallet adoption is strong and growing fast, with 45% of consumers holding and/or using a mobile wallet in 2022, compared to 38% in 2021 and just 13% in 2018.
• Overall fraud rates remain flat, as 28% of consumers reported being a victim of fraud in 2022, compared to 26% in 2021. Social engineering scams and digital wallet account hacks are the only fraud types that grew from 2021 to 2022, speaking both to the increased adoption of digital payments and the corresponding evolution of fraudsters’ tactics.
• The launch of FedNow in the U.S. in July 2023 could be a major catalyst for RTP adoption — it will expand RTP access to smaller banks and feature new services, such as Request for Pay, from day one.

Europe: Major change is on the horizon with the new EU RTP mandate