COVID-19 crisis highlights need for real-time payments, ACI report

The research, which analyses global real-time, account-to-account payment volumes and forecasts across 30 global markets, projects a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 23.4% from 2019 to 2024. India is poised to lead the world in real-time payments volume over the next five years, with transaction volumes set to grow from 15.3 billion in 2019 to a staggering 52.8 billion in 2024.

Additional key countries and regions to watch for real-time payments growth include the US (42.1% CAGR growth), the Nordic countries of the P27 initiative (20.9% CAGR growth), ASEAN (39.0% CAGR growth) and Europe; these countries and regions already have one or more of the above indicators in place.

Among the countries relatively new to real-time payments, Malaysia, Finland and Belgium are predicted to have the most exponential growth in the next five years, with an expected CAGR of 176.5%, 90%, and 67.9%, respectively.

Furthermore, the report outlines the five strongest indicators of a market’s real-time payments success: centrally driven payments modernisation initiatives, seamless and integrated payments experience with rich overlay services, connected ecosystem of players enriching user experience, digital payments maturity level and ingrained payment habits, and openness to alternative payment methods.