Juniper Research’s Consumer Payments Predictions for 2026/27

Juniper Research released its new Consumer Payments Tech Horizon study. It spotlights the three technologies that are expected to have the most significant impact in the consumer payments space over the next 12 months.

These technologies are agentic commerce, bank-backed wallets, and Click-to-Pay. The Tech Horizon offers a visual assessment of 17 consumer payments technologies, ranking them as either ‘Above the Line’ (strongly performing) or ‘Below the Line’ (underperforming) in relation to market expectations. This gives payment providers, banks, and other key stakeholders a clear, data-driven view of which innovations are delivering value, and which are falling short.

The report stated that, by introducing AI agents to shopping, agentic commerce will revolutionise eCommerce. Within the next 12 months, we will see the hype around agentic commerce begin to translate into actual deployments, closing the gap between hype and reality. Concerning bank-backed Wallets, Juniper Research says that Wero is showing strong traction in Europe, with increased availability of near-field communication (NFC) access and a push for payments’ sovereignty catalysing bank-led initiatives. Click to Pay is going from strength to strength, with mandates from card networks reshaping the way cards work within eCommerce.

“Consumer payments are shifting rapidly, with agentic commerce set to reshape how a transaction occurs,” said Nick Maynard, VP of Research at Juniper Research. “Merchants must stay ahead of shifts in consumer behaviour, or they will be left behind in an increasingly commoditised and user experience-led eCommerce environment.”