As the global payments industry evolves into an increasingly diverse network of competing systems, instant payments are becoming a bigger part of the landscape. Instant payments value flows reached nearly $22 trillion in 2024 across the 15 largest economies that have adopted these payment rails, representing 1 percent of the $2 quadrillion in value flows worldwide. They are expected to grow at 15 to 18 percent annually over the next five years.
Instant payments started gaining momentum in the late 2000s and early 2010s in mature electronic-payment markets such as the United Kingdom and the Nordics and Benelux regions, and in historically cash-dominant emerging markets such as India, Nigeria, and Thailand. Since then, many other markets—from the United States and Europe to developing markets across Latin America and Asia—have introduced instant payments with varying results. Many more instant payments markets are expected to gain traction in the coming years.
In this article, Mc Kinsey’s consultant look at how instant payments have developed in markets such as Brazil, India, Mexico, and the United States. These markets provide insights and a glimpse into the future for commercial players across the payments value chain. As demand for instant payments grows, banks, acquirers, and payment schemes may see revenue from traditional sources pressured and will need to adapt their services, products, and business models to remain competitive.
According to the authors, commercial players in markets that are introducing or expanding their instant payments systems can learn from the journeys of early adopters—both the standouts and the underperformers. As instant payments become an increasingly important component of the global payments market, they could represent significant opportunities and challenges for players across the value chain. For instance, in mature payments markets such as the United States, instant payments are unlikely to replace existing methods. Instead, banks are more likely to compete by building instant payments into services such as treasury management, liquidity management, embedded finance, and other value-added offerings, rather than by competing on the payment network itself. Institutions that make strategic choices about how to protect their core businesses while adapting to change will most likely be the ones that thrive in the future of payments.
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