Payments has been banking's most reliable growth engine for a decade. That engine is slowing. Industry research estimates that global payments revenues reached almost $2.0 trillion in 2025 and will grow to nearly $2.6 trillion by 2030, a compound rate of about 5% a year, well below the roughly 8% of the previous decade1. Another review, using a broader definition, puts the revenue pool at $2.5 trillion generated from $2.0 quadrillion of value flows, and notes that interest income made up 46% of payments revenues in 20243. Either way, the message is the same: the easy, float-driven growth is fading and the rails themselves are changing.
Where the payments revenue sits
Global payments revenue by region, 2025, $ billion ($bn)
Note: The research expects around 5% annual growth in North America, Asia-Pacific and Europe, 7% in Latin America and 8% in the Middle East and Africa.
Source: Published research, “Global payments growth is slowing through 2030” (2026)
Real-time is now the default in much of the world
Instant account-to-account payments have moved from novelty to national infrastructure. ACI Worldwide and GlobalData counted 266.2 billion real-time transactions globally in 2023, up 42.2% year on year, and forecast 575.1 billion by 20284. Four of the top five markets by volume are in Asia-Pacific, and Thailand ranks third globally4. The same research reports that Brazil's Pix processed nearly 80 billion transactions in 2025, India's UPI handled 23.2 billion in May 2026 alone, and 137 countries now offer 24/7 instant payment access1.
The real-time leaders
Real-time payment transactions by country, 2023, billion (bn)
Source: ACI Worldwide and GlobalData, “Prime Time for Real-Time 2024: executive summary” (2024)
Southeast Asia is where domestic success is being turned into regional reach. Ten Southeast Asian countries now run national unified QR systems and eight have enabled cross-border QR interoperability, according to the e-Conomy SEA 2025 report8. The next step is Nexus, the BIS-conceived scheme that lets instant payment systems connect once to reach many. Nexus Global Payments was established by the central banks of India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, with Indonesia joining as a sixth member in 20269; technical development started in early 2026, with go-live targeted for 202710.
Cross-border is still the weak link
Cross-border payments remain slow and expensive for end users. The Financial Stability Board's 2025 progress report on the G20 roadmap concluded that efforts had "not yet translated into tangible improvements for end-users at the global level" and that satisfactory improvement by the 2027 target date is unlikely5. The World Bank's Remittance Prices Worldwide put the global average cost of sending $200 at 6.36% in the third quarter of 2025, with banks the most expensive provider type at 14.99%6. This is exactly the gap that instant-payment linkages, stablecoins and tokenised settlement are all competing to close, and a warning that banks' current cross-border products are vulnerable.
Stablecoins: large numbers, narrow payments use
Stablecoin headlines often quote gross on-chain volumes. Analysis with Allium Labs is more sobering: of more than $62 trillion of annual stablecoin transfers, only about $4.2 trillion, or 7%, reflects real economic activity, and observable bilateral payments for goods and services were roughly $350-550 billion in 20252. Those payments are, however, growing at around 60% a year, with business-to-business flows accounting for about 40% of the total and growing at about 65%2. Stablecoin market capitalisation exceeded $307 billion in December 20252.
From headline volume to real payments
Stablecoin activity, 2025
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Gross stablecoin transfer volume | > $62 trillion |
| Real economic activity | ~ $4.2 trillion (~7%) |
| Observable payments for goods and services | ~ $350-550 billion |
| Growth of real-economy payments | ~ 60% a year |
| Market capitalisation (Dec 2025) | > $307 billion |
Note: The research treats its payments estimate as a conservative lower bound.
Regulation is shaping the model. In the US, the GENIUS Act, passed in July 2025, requires payment stablecoins to be backed 1:1 by high-quality liquid reserves and prohibits issuers from paying interest or yield to holders; the Richmond Fed notes that tokenised deposits, unlike payment stablecoins, retain deposit insurance coverage7. That distinction is the banks' opening.
Tokenised deposits: the banks' regulated answer
In wholesale markets, tokenised commercial bank money is moving from concept to prototype. The BIS-led Project Agora, involving seven central banks, since joined by the Bank of Canada, and more than 40 private financial institutions, reported in May 2026 that its prototype achieved atomic settlement of cross-border payments using tokenised central bank reserves and tokenised commercial bank deposits, and that the project would advance to real-value testing11. Industry commentary on a 2026 global banking review notes that tokenised deposit networks are already moving more than $4 trillion a year12.
The strategic choice: which layer to own
Payments value is splitting into layers: the customer interface, the credential or wallet, the scheme or rail, and the settlement asset and balance sheet underneath. Historically, banks owned most of these at once. Instant account-to-account rails commoditise the scheme layer, wallets and super-apps compete for the interface, and stablecoins compete for the settlement asset. With interest income accounting for nearly half of payments revenues3, any shift of balances into non-bank money is a direct hit to the float that has quietly funded many payments businesses.
Few banks can win every layer. Large transaction banks may credibly aim to be issuers of tokenised deposits and settlement agents for others. Most regional and mid-sized banks will do better to excel at the layers closest to their customers and balance sheet: being the trusted account behind the wallet, the fastest and cheapest provider of instant and cross-border payments to their corporate and SME clients, and the reliable liquidity and compliance partner for new entrants. What no bank can afford is to operate a batch-era back office behind a real-time front end, because every reconciliation break and delayed screening decision becomes visible to the customer when money moves in seconds.
What banks must do
- Run the bank at instant speed. Real-time liquidity, intraday position management and continuous reconciliation are prerequisites for instant and tokenised money.
- Rebuild cross-border propositions around instant-payment linkages such as Nexus and regional QR schemes, with transparent pricing.
- Choose a digital-money posture: issuer, distributor, custodian or settlement bank, and be explicit about deposit cannibalisation.
- Industrialise financial-crime controls for real-time and on-chain flows; screening and monitoring cannot run in overnight batches when money settles in seconds.