Digital payments surge as transaction value set to rise 15% YoY to $9.5trn

By Ben Eguzozie

• Mobile POS outpacing digital commerce

• As Nigeria’s POS rise 29% to N6.1trn in 9 months

Three years since COVID-19 triggered a global boom in digital payments, the entire market has continued to surge, reaching a new record transaction value, with more users than ever before. New data presented by TradingPlatforms.com reveals that total transactions will hit $9.5 trillion this 2023, growing by 15 percent year-on-year.

Also, it was found that mobile point-of-sale (POS) payments are growing faster than digital commerce. The global digital payments industry has seen many innovations over the past years, including mobile wallets, P2P mobile payments, real-time payments and cryptocurrencies. These new, simple-to-use, cashless payment methods have drawn millions of users and pushed the total transaction value to new record highs.

According to a Statista survey last year, the global digital payments industry has seen $8.38 trillion worth of transactions, 11 percent more than the year before.

In 2023, the POS market is set to witness even bigger growth of 13 percent year-over-year, with digital payments reaching nearly $9.5trn in transaction value.

Digital commerce, the market’s largest segment, will make up 63% of that value, or $5.99 trillion, growing by 11 percent year-over-year. Mobile POS payments, although much smaller in transaction value, will continue growing faster. Last year, mobile POS payments hit $2.86 trillion in transaction value. This 2023, the figure is expected to grow by 17 percent YoY to hit $3.35 trillion.

By 2025, the entire digital payments market is forecast to reach $11.95 trillion in value, while in the same period, the transaction value in the mobile POS segment will grow by another 32 percent to $4.43 trillion.

US market growing faster than Chinese

While China remains the world’s largest digital payments market, generating $3.85 trillion or one-third of total transaction value this year, the US market will still grow faster. According to Statista, Americans are expected to make over $2 trillion worth of digital payments in 2023, or 15.6 percent more than a year ago.

On the other hand, the transaction value in the Chinese market is forecast to grow by 9.7 percent year-over-year. Together, the two countries will generate 62 percent of total transaction value in the digital payments segment, far more than any other country.

Far below, the United Kingdom ranked third with $433 million worth of digital payments in 2023. Japan and Germany follow, with $325 million and $245 million, respectively.

The Statista survey also revealed the number of people using digital payments would grow by 6% YoY to 4.43 billion in 2023. By 2025, the number of users in the digital payments segment is set to touch almost five billion worldwide.

Nigeria not left out in the digital boom

Nigeria is also not left out in the global digital and POS payments boom. Despite its current economic challenges, with a headline inflation of 21.34 percent by December 2022 and 133 million people in multidimensional poverty, POS payments have been on the increase.

According to Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) in December 2022, Nigeria witnessed an 11-month increase in POS transactions by 20.5 percent to 1.06 trillion from 883 million recorded in the same period of 2021. Also, NIBSS records show that the number of registered POS terminals in Nigeria increased from 523,488 in 2020 to 976,898 in June 2021.