In terms of the mobile payment market, China leads instead, followed by India. Real-time payments are increasingly popular, with Malaysians preferring real-time payments over others, losing only to cash payments.
According to the report, India offers a prime example of the shift to modernise payments systems in order to keep commerce flowing and sustain economic growth. Although the country remains largely rural and therefore cash-centric, the pandemic has lifted digital payments, in terms of both volume and value, to heights far beyond the expectations of policymakers who had created the enabling environment for their adoption.
In the Philippines, the government is making a concerted effort to achieve a cash-free society by 2025 and aims to make half of its financial transactions digital by 2023. The rewards of this are numerous, most notably in terms of wider financial inclusion.
Following the success of India’s UPI, several countries are currently in the process of building instant real-time payment platforms. Brazil, for example, debuted its fast payment Platform, Pix, in late 2020.
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