Digital Wallets Transaction Value to Grow by 60 Percent by 2026

The value of digital wallet transactions will exceed $12 trillion in 2026, from $7.5 trillion in 2022, according to Juniper Research. To capitalize on this substantial growth, the research predicts leading digital payment vendors will diversify their payment products to include new solutions, such as buy-now-pay-later and cryptocurrencies.

The new research found that increasing merchant acceptance of digital wallet methods at eCommerce checkouts has been a driving force behind enabling further digital wallet use. It predicts that APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) that connect financial institutions to local retailers will be key to the international growth of digital wallets usage for large, cross-border eCommerce merchants.

The research also recommends that digital wallet vendors look to offer value-added services, such as loyalty rewards and credit, to diversify their revenue streams; capitalizing on a highly active user base. Juniper Research’s Competitor Leaderboard for the digital wallets market has identified the 5 leading market vendors. PayPal tops the list ahead of Alipay. WeChat Pay was ranked third, ahead of Apple Pay and Google Pay.

“The digital wallets market is heavily saturated, meaning finding a source of differentiation is critically important. We have ranked PayPal as an established leader as it has successfully grown an expansive, differentiated offering; leveraging its strong merchant acceptance by expanding quickly into buy-now-pay-later and QR code payments, as well as signing partnerships with key merchants to scale its innovative solutions,“ elaborated research co-author Damla Sat.