2 PAYMENT METHOD PROFILES: DIGITAL WALLETS
Case Study: The United States According to the 2025 Worldpay Global Payments Report, digital wallet usage for ecommerce transactions in the U.S. increased from 15% of payment share to 39% from 2014 to 2024. 369 During that same period, digital wallet use at in-store POS environments grew from 2% to 16%, but still significantly lags global adoption rates. 370 While digital wallets are growing in the United States, one of the key factors that differs from wallets in other countries, such as China and India, is the underlying payment product type funding the wallets. In the U.S., nearly two-thirds of digital wallets are card-backed (40% credit, and 25% debit) with 22% being funded by bank accounts. 371 Cards remain the dominant payment method in the U.S. with strong consumer usage of both credit and debit/prepaid at POS (70%), and combined credit and debit/prepaid usage for ecommerce (49%). 372 One main difference in the U.S. is that account-to-account real-time payments networks like FedNow and The Clearing House (TCH) RTP network have been geared at bank adoption instead of consumer adoption like UPI in India and PIX in Brazil. 373 The top digital wallets in the U.S. are PayPal (36%), Apple Pay (20%), and PayPal- owned Venmo (16%). 374 Only in 2019 did Apple Pay users surpass Starbuck’s mobile app users, 375 and while many consumers have also adopted other types of proximity mobile payment options, Starbuck’s remains the most successful U.S. closed-loop (only redeemable at a specific merchant) digital wallet experience with over 34 million active users. 376 U.S. consumers primarily access digital wallets via smartphones and smartwatches, which may explain why after PayPal, many consumers state they use Google Pay, Apple Pay, and Samsung Pay the most as these wallets are often tied to a smart device. 377 Furthermore, “an estimated 120.2 million or 49.0% of U.S. smartphone owners used proximity mobile payments in 2024, up 22.2% from 2020.” 378 This growth of proximity or Near-Field-Communication (NFC) contactless payments tracks with observable trends from CMSPI data and estimates that indicate a growth of contactless payments at U.S. retail POS environments. Additionally, eMarketer forecasts that U.S. POS proximity (NFC and QR code) mobile transactions will exceed $1 trillion in 2027. 379
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