Digital Wallet Users to Surpass 6 Billion by 2030

A new study by Juniper Research has revealed that the number of digital wallet users worldwide will increase by 35% over the next five years. The study found that it would rise from the basis of 4.4 billion users expected at the end of 2025.

The research found that in this increasingly saturated market, offering value-added features, including Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL), virtual cards, and digital identity, is vital to creating differentiation. The report also advised that digital wallet platforms must offer integrated flexibility of wallet types (stored value, staged, cryptocurrency, etc) and payment types (cards, Account-to-Account (A2A) payments, etc) to best appeal to wallet providers, which are providing increasingly diverse offerings to users.

One key factor influencing the wider adoption of digital wallets is the implementation of loyalty and reward schemes. In established markets, especially, benefits such as cashback, reward points, and exclusive offers encourage the adoption of a specific wallet, while also benefiting the merchant through increased spending and lower transaction fees. “Changing user behaviour, such as card usage, particularly when it is long-established, means providing incentives. As the digital wallets space becomes increasingly saturated, differentiation using rewards and other capabilities, such as gamification or superapp features, will be vital to success,” said Thomas Wilson, Analyst at Juniper Research.

Whilst rewards will help wallets in established markets compete, digital wallet platforms should also prioritise deploying solutions that target the underbanked in emerging markets. As mobile money services aim to offer banking-like services, digital wallet platforms must evolve to provide more advanced capabilities, or they will lose market share to more mainstream banking platforms.