Instant Payment Transaction Values to Exceed $27 Trillion by 2026

The transaction value of instant payments will exceed $27.7 trillion in 2026, from just $4.8 trillion in 2021, according to Juniper Research. The research identified that this extraordinary growth of over 470% will be driven by improved cost and transparency for instant payment schemes versus legacy payment schemes, such as ACH or CHAPS.

The research predicts that instant payment schemes will increasingly disrupt both domestic and cross-border channels by offering payments that are faster to process, cheaper to both facilitate and initiate, and easier to track and reconcile. However, instant payments will take time to proliferate, given the fragmented nature of payments regulation within key markets like the US, and the uneven roles regulators have played internationally in payments innovation.

The new research also found that over 70% of the overall transaction value of instant payments will be domestic in 2026, with instant payment schemes lacking cross-border interoperability. The research acknowledged joining instant domestic schemes together to power cross-border payments as challenging, despite ISO 20022 adoption.

The report predicts that CDBCs (Central Bank Digital Currencies) could have a significant role to play in harmonising cross-border payments due to their clean slate nature, meaning they can be designed with cross-border use cases in mind from the start. However, this will require prioritisation by regulators.

"CDBCs can completely disrupt the cross-border payments market, but they must be designed around this use case specifically, or they will fall victim to the same challenges as legacy payment systems," explained research co-author Damla Sat.