Despite the ongoing macroeconomic and geopolitical headwinds experienced by the global economy, one area of the international financial system that has shown steady progression is digital payments. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, they have been spurred by a jump in remittance flows, and the greater availability of digital infrastructure and services, as well as higher demand for fast and seamless non-physical transactions. The trend is even more notable across low- and middle-income countries. While non-cash retail payments climbed by 13% globally between 2018-21, they rose by 25% across emerging markets during that time.
Decentralised Payments
While PayPal, founded in 1998, can be considered the global leader in digital payments – with 432m users as of September 2024 and a 45% market share in the payments processing sector globally – there have been other national-level platforms with higher penetration rates, especially across emerging markets. Pix in Brazil, Alipay and WeChat Pay (Weixin Pay) in China, GoPay in Indonesia, M-Pesa in Kenya, Maya and GC ash in the Philippines, and MoMo in Vietnam have all expanded substantially in recent years, many of which have experienced high rates of adoption and penetration within months of their debut.
For instance, in 2020 the Central Bank of Brazil launched Pix, a business-to-business, business-to-customer and customer-to-customer platform. In November 2025 it had reached 171.5m users – equating to 80% of Brazil’s population – as well as 20.5m payee companies and 20.9m payer companies. This swift upturn was possible due to high existing smartphone and banking penetration rates in Brazil compared to many other countries in the region. In 2020, 70% of Brazilians had bank accounts compared to 35.5% of Mexicans.
Indonesia is another important case study where the adoption of digital payment solutions has been robust. However, unlike Brazil, which has a high level of banking penetration, Indonesia had over 97m unbanked adults as of July 2023, roughly half of the country’s 184m adults. To boost financial inclusion in the country, the leading digital payment app GoPay provides each user with 100 free transfers per month, as well as other services such as the ability to buy mobile phone credit and data, pay bills and receive a monthly expense report to improve consumers’ financial planning. A study of Indonesian consumers in 2022 showed that 71% favoured using an e-wallet instead of cash or bank transfer.
GoPay, M-Pesa, Pix, WeChat Pay and others enjoy high national penetration rates on same-currency transfers due to tailored services that meet the specific needs and regulatory environments of their respective countries. By prioritising convenience and trust, they have facilitated user adoption, which may not be easily replicated in international transactions. Cross-border revenue is growing at a considerable pace – rising at a rate of 17% to $240bn between 2021-22. However, international payment systems face greater challenges in achieving similar penetration due to the complexity of navigating diverse regulatory landscapes, fluctuating financial infrastructure and differing consumer behaviours across multiple markets. Furthermore, the establishment of a globally accepted platform requires coordination between financial institutions worldwide, making regional or global ubiquity harder to attain.
Regional Payments
One region where closer integration in the digital payments space may be feasible is the GCC, whose six currencies are all pegged to the US dollar. In the GCC the value of digital payments is projected to rise by a compound annual growth rate of 8.7% from 2024-28 to reach $178bn. The Middle East is also expected to be the fastest-growing real-time payments market globally, with a 30.6% projected increase in transactions from 2022-27. In part, this strong growth in the region is thanks to the digital infrastructure laid down by governments and regulators since the Covid-19 pandemic.
Following a decision by the GCC Supreme Council, in December 2021 the Arabian Gulf System for Financial Automated Quick Payment Transfers (AFAQ) was launched. It was developed and is operated by the Gulf Payments Company, which is hosted in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. AFAQ is designed to make seamless payments between the payment systems of the GCC’s six central banks, and is a pioneer in cross-border transactions. As of November 2025, 69 banks had joined AFAQ.
Another trans-regional payment system in the Middle East is the Arab Regional Payment System – known as Buna – developed by the Arab Monetary Fund. This system goes beyond the GCC, offering instant transactions in several currencies across the region to make cross-border payments as seamless as domestic ones. In November 2024 Mastercard announced a partnership with Buna in order to facilitate cross-border payments into and out of the region. As of November 2025, 99 financial institutions were included in its network.
Barriers To Growth
In many emerging markets, the principal challenge to boosting the usage of digital payments is the precise reason that they are needed – limited financial penetration. For instance, a 2018 report by the International Labour Organisation suggested that some 60% of the world’s employees were in the informal economy, 93% of whom were found to be working in emerging economies. Internet access has proven to be one of the most crucial factors in boosting financial penetration, as it is needed to be able to verify real-time payments. This can be a challenge in rural areas where connection speeds are slower and the electricity supply may be unreliable.
In rural Africa, digital payments are often executed through agency banking. Under this model, financial services are delivered outside traditional bank branches using third-party agents. The transaction takes place via the point-of-sale device of mobile agents. In Nigeria more than 50% of this market is dominated by OP ay and PalmPay, two Chinese-owned digital banking platforms, which between them had over 1m mobile banking agents in their networks as of November 2024.
Senegal-founded mobile money start-up Wave became Francophone Africa’s first unicorn – or, start-up valued at more than $1bn – in 2021. Started in 2016, by 2022 it accounted for half of mobile money accounts in Senegal. Wave’s key feature was utilising QR codes that agents scan to complete a transaction, eliminating the need to manually dial alphanumeric codes on mobile phones – as used by other firms. As literacy rates vary in the coverage area, the QR codes facilitate payments for those unable to read or write alphanumeric codes.
Remittances
One of the most important customer-to-customer cross-border financial links between advanced and emerging markets are remittances – also one of the fastest-growing subsets of digital payments. Remittances received by low- and middle-income countries grew by 10% in 2024. This marked an increase from the 5% seen in 2022 and the 1.2% in 2023, and it was above the average expansion of 4% seen globally in 2024. Some regions exhibited stronger growth, such as 5.5% for Latin America and the Caribbean, and 11.8% for South Asia. This is compared to 3.3% for East Asia and the Pacific, and 2.4% for sub-Saharan Africa. In MENA remittances increased by 5.4%, rebounding from retractions of 3.2% and 14.6% in 2022 and 2023, respectively, on the back of drops in inbound remittances to Egypt those years. The largest flows of remittances in 2024 came from the US, where $137.7bn was sent to India, $67.6bn to Mexico, $40.3bn to the Philippines, $38.8bn to France, $34.9bn to Pakistan and $31.4bn to China.
Digital payment solutions have grown substantially in the remittance market given the high commission rates for sending money through banks and post offices, which charged an average of 14.6% and 7.7% in the first quarter of 2025, respectively, according to the World Bank. Money transfer operators and mobile operators, meanwhile, both charged an average commission of 5%.
According to Visa’s 2024 “Digital Remittances Adoption Report”, remittance senders increasing look to digital apps to complete their transactions. However, given that the use of traditional channels is still widespread, there is still significant room for growth in the digital payments space. In 2024 Kuwait’s digital remittance market was valued at $4.1bn according to market intelligence provider Ken Research. Growth has been driven by the country’s increasing number of expatriates who use mobile platforms to send money back home.
Overall, the landscape of cross-border financial transactions is evolving rapidly. Fuelled by digitalisation and the push for financial inclusion across emerging markets, the growth of payment platforms highlights the shift towards digital payments – driven by the necessity to cater to both banked and unbanked populations. Meanwhile, the increase in cross-border remittances and the development of digital payment systems within regions like the GCC underscore the growing demand for more efficient, accessible and cost-effective methods of financial transactions. Despite the challenges posed by varying regulatory frameworks and financial infrastructure, the innovation and adaptation witnessed in the digital payment sphere promise to bridge the gap in global financial inclusion and efficiency.
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