The outlook for payments in 2025 will be rife with open finance, instant payments, multi-rail payments, interchange questions, and the increasing use of artificial intelligence, observers suggest.
The top three payments trends next year will be open finance, instant payments adoption, and point-of-sale innovations, says Capgemini Research Institute in its “Capgemini Financial Services Top Trends 2025” report.
Already a hot topic, open finance will emerge with a broader scope than open banking, which enables consumer portability of select financial-account information, opening the door for easier access to many types of financial accounts and payment services, the report notes. Open finance expands this scope to include a “360-degree financial footprint” that includes accounts like insurance, investments, and retirement holdings, Capgemini says.
An enabler will be standards imposed by regulators, with Capgemini pointing out the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s recent Section 1033 of the Consumer Financial Protection Act of 2010 requires banks to share customer data in a standardized format with authorized third parties.
Instant payments are available in many forms, including persont-to-person payments, and are forecast to grow from 16% of global payment transaction volume to 22% in 2028, according to Capgemini’s “World Payments Report 2025.”
The report also found that instant account-to-account payments could offset 15% to 25% of future card transaction volume growth, with debit and prepaid cards potentially most affected.
The impact could be transformational. “With instant payments favored over checks and debit cards, banks stand to benefit from lower transaction costs. Shifting small purchases to instant, low-cost account-to-account (A2A) payments, achieved through bypassing intermediaries (like card networks), may stimulate micropayment adoption among consumers,” Capgemini says in its 2025 outlook.
In addition to largely commercial instant payments made with services from The Clearing House Payments Co. LLC’s RTP network and FedNow from the Federal Reserve, other instant or near-instant payment services abound. Zelle from Early Warning Services LLC targets P2P payments and both Mastercard Inc. and Visa Inc. offer speedy payment services via Mastercard Send and Visa Direct. Earlier this month, Visa announced plans to speed up Visa Direct transactions to less than a minute, beginning for U.S. users in April.
Expect a big push for point-of-sale technology, both online and in store, in 2025, Capgemini says. Technologies like softPOS, which uses an app on a consumer-grade phone or tablet instead of a dedicated POS terminal, will find more favor among merchants for their low maintenance costs and “minimal upfront investment,” the report says. “Customer flexibility improves from more payment choices like digital wallets or split payments through financing options such as buy now/pay later (BNPL). In addition to traditional payment choices (cards, cash), merchants can reduce abandoned orders and boost revenues.”
Specific to acquiring, the use of artificial intelligence services, already deployed for fraud-prevention measures, will have an even wider a focus in 2025, says Scott Talbott, executive vice president at the Electronic Transactions Association, a Washington, D.C.-based acquiring trade organization. Digital assets and privacy issues will assume a higher priority, also, he says.
For its part, the ETA is eying three themes in 2025, starting with how payments help power the economy and how they enable small businesses to grow and serve their customers. Another component is how payments enable consumers at all income levels to conduct their financial transactions.
“We’re also very engaged on the interchange issue at the state level ,” Talbott says.
