A global payments repORT issued by Capgemini and Royal Bank of Scotland strikes a positive note: the use of e-payments is rising, while use of old-school checks and cash is fading. "One pleasant, surprising thing is if you look at the overall growth rate in noncash payments in 2009 and 2010 in the context of the global financial crisis, despite that economic environment, we still saw a 5% growth rate in '09, picking up to precrisis levels with an estimated growth rate of 7.8% in 2010," says Simon Newstead, head of FI Market and Business Strategy at RBS. "That's a pleasing finding of growth momentum, even in difficult economic conditions."
Overall, there were 260 billion noncash payments in 2009, including credit transfers, wires, direct debit, mobile payments and card transactions.
Globally, cards remain the preferred noncash payment instrument, with global transaction volumes up almost 10% and a market share of more than 40% in most markets.
The U.S. remained the largest noncash payment market in the world in 2009, accounting for 40% of the global total. Individuals in the U.S. are the most frequent users of noncash payments, averaging 340 transactions per person in 2009. In the U.S., 58% of noncash payments were made using cards.
Mobile payments are also growing quickly, the report found. They're expected to grow from 4.6 billion in 2010 to 15.3 billion in 2013, at a rate of 48.8% per year. Mobile payments will represent 15% of all card transactions by 2013, and will overcome card volumes within 10 years if growth continues at the same rate. The researchers say nonbank providers handled 6% of mobile payments in 2010 (272 million transactions) and expect nonbanks to handle 8% of all mobile payments in 2013 (1.2 billion).
The biggest growth in noncash payments — 22% — took place in CEMEA (Central Europe, Middle East and Africa) and Latin America (15.4%). North America contributed only 1.8% to this payment growth, Europe 4.7% and "mature" Asia-Pacific (defined as Australia, Japan, Singapore and South Korea) 10.1%. "There's a regional story here; Europe and North America are showing growth but at a much less aggressive rate than some other market," Newstead says.
