Digital wallet providers will need to add new ways to pay – from cryptocurrencies to buy-now-pay-later – in order to benefit fully from predicted fast growth in coming years, new research suggests.
Transactions made using digital wallets are set to grow in value by 60% in the next five years, according to a new study from Juniper Research.
By 2026, says the Digital Wallets: key opportunities vendor analysis and market forecasts, 2022-2026 study, the value of digital wallet transactions will reach more than $12 trillion – from $7.5 trillion in 2022. It says the growth has come as online checkouts add more digital wallets to their payment options. It suggests that buy-now-pay-later and cryptocurrency solutions are likely to be added by digital payment vendors as they look to benefit further. Adding APIs (application programming interfaces) to connect financial institutions to local retailers will be key to international growth, it suggests. Additional services could include loyalty rewards and credit as vendors look to diversify their revenues.
Juniper lists the five vendors that it puts top in its competitor leaderboard as PayPal, Alipay, WeChat Pay, Apple Pay and Google Pay.
Research co-author Damla Sat says: “The digital wallets market is heavily saturated, meaning finding a source of differentiation is critically important. We have ranked PayPal as an established leader as it has successfully grown an expansive, differentiated offering; leveraging its strong merchant acceptance by expanding quickly into buy-now-pay-later and QR code payments, as well as signing partnerships with key merchants to scale its innovative solutions.”
