Estera Sava, Senior Writer at The Paypers, discusses the local and regional advancements shaping the global A2A payments market.
A2A payments are progressing differently worldwide, with each region approaching development in its own way. Some markets built their rails through central bank mandates, others through bank-led wallets and domestic schemes, and several are now working to connect those systems across borders.
European wallets and A2A payments adoption
Europe wants its own payment network, free of dependence on non-European card schemes. The European Payments Alliance (EuroPA) gained more members: Poland’s BLIK joined it in 2025, as did Greece’s IRIS and the Nordics’ Vipps MobilePay, and by November 2025, the alliance had reached 10 countries and over 100 million users across Europe. EuroPA members are enabling mobile, cross-border payments interoperability as part of the wider European Mobile Payment Systems Association (EMPSA) collaboration. Moreover, the EuroPA and EPI Company’s MoU, announced in June 2025, completed a joint proof of concept for retail payments in April 2026 through Bancomat, SIBS-MB WAY, and EPI.
However, a gap between A2A payments availability and adoption still exists, as seen in Greece. Since December 2025, Greek shops and websites must accept instant payments. But in-store adoption is still low, at around 55,000 payments a month, with the finance minister attributing this to poor checkout visibility and a lack of rewards to match card loyalty schemes. Romania is a step behind: RoPay launched in October 2024, but most banks only joined in 2025 and 2026.
North America: FedNow, RTP in the US, and Canada’s Real-Time Rail (RTR)
In the US, the core problem remains the lack of interoperability between FedNow and RTP. Both added Request for Payment, a way to ask for money that the payer approves in their banking app. Meanwhile, Visa and Mastercard did not try to build competing rails, focusing instead on protection layers.
Canada shows how much longer instant payment rail development can take. Payments Canada’s plan for an RTR was initially set for 2019, but it was delayed to 2022, 2023, and then to 2026. The legal rules were published in July 2026 and effective on 24 August, ahead of the Q4 2026 launch. Even so, the RTR will launch in three phases, the last planned for Q3 2027. One reason behind this is that Interac e-Transfer Clearing and Settlement participants need to migrate to the new rail.
LATAM’s instant rails built by central banks
Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia all have real-time A2A rails, enforced and built by central banks, not the market. Brazil keeps adding new features to Pix and has grown enough that the central bank is weighing letting businesses borrow against money it collects. In Mexico, SPEI is positioning itself as an everyday retail payment method, whereas Colombia’s Bre-B is scaling at an incredible pace. Launched in October 2025, Bre-B links services that couldn’t communicate before, and registered users reached 87% of the adult population within six months of availability.
APAC: UPI’s new roadmaps, Project Nexus, and Australia’s BECS decommissioning
India is expanding UPI capabilities, moving into the CBDC space and supporting the digital rupee pilot, with the central bank routing it through UPI’s QR codes functionality. QR linkages between A2A schemes are the common approach across the region, and Project Nexus is trying to standardise the pattern. Singapore is leading developments in this area and is currently exploring upgrades to its national instant payment infrastructure as part of the PayNow Gen2 study. This includes enhancing QR interoperability and the online checkout experience, enabling larger-value public-sector PayNow transactions, and expanding payment capabilities for Request-to-Pay, structured data for automated reconciliation, cross-border connectivity, and new functionalities for agentic commerce.
In contrast, Australia’s developments warn what happens when new infrastructure doesn’t include a plan to replace the old one. In 2023, the industry agreed to decommission its batch system, BECS, in favour of the New Payments Platform by 2030. But in December 2025, AusPayNet announced it removed the target end date to avoid disorderly migration, as a clear roadmap for what A2A payments should look like had not been developed. PayTo, meant to replace BECS direct debits, lacks adoption, sitting at 0.1% of BECS’s direct debits’ 2025 total value. Even the NPP itself needs upgrades, and the RBA’s Risk Assessment Update highlights persisting risks, as well as new ones. If participants fail to coordinate progress on modernising A2A payments, the RBA will need to intervene to ensure public interest outcomes.
MEA shows how fast a new instant payment rail can grow
The UAE’s instant payments platform, Aani, surpassed 12.5 million users and 774,000 merchants just three years after launch, recording a sixfold year-on-year increase in transfers. Aani is domestic only for now, but future planned upgrades include cross-border payments, electronic direct debit, e-cheques, and B2B payments.
Similarly, Nigeria’s payment system has greatly progressed, driven by central bank regulation and NIBSS’ tech innovation. Launched in 2011, NIBSS Instant Payments (NIP) became the first system in Africa to hit the ‘mature’ level on the AfricaNenda Inclusivity Spectrum, which scores function, governance, and consumer protection. Its track record makes Nigeria a natural hub for linkage with other African instant payment systems, as already shown in the pilot connecting it to Ghana.
Different as their paths are, these markets share a goal: moving money directly between bank accounts without depending on card networks. The rails that have scaled fastest, from Pix to Bre-B and Aani, had a central bank setting the pace. Progress has stalled where there was no plan for moving users off the old rails, as seen with Australia’s PayTo. Either way, as Chapter 3 argued for the EU, the UK, and the US, the rail is only the beginning: adoption depends on giving merchants and consumers a reason to switch.
This editorial piece was first published in The Paypers' Account-to-Account Payments Report 2026, which features insights into global trends, technologies, partnerships, and the next phase of the A2A evolution. Access the full report to understand where the A2A payments ecosystem stands today and what’s next.
About the author
Estera Sava is a Senior Writer at The Paypers, bringing her expertise in content creation and editorial processes to the Audience team. Focusing on the ever-evolving fintech and payments landscape, she is involved in various high-impact projects and industry reports and coordinates the annual Account-to-Account Payments reports. Through her proactive approach and dedication, Estera helps drive the success of The Paypers' initiatives.
