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CHARACTERISTICS OF A SUCCESSFUL PAYMENT METHOD: COST
Cost of Payments Analysis 47 (Updated as of September 4, 2025.)
In this analysis, we have looked at $50.7 trillion of spending, and $509 billion of payment fees. While we can see that globally, merchant payment fees average 0.95%, there are huge variations within payment methods.
Estimated Average Fee - Weighted by Volume
Estimated Average Fee - Unweighted
Tender Type
Estimated Volume Estimated Cost
Cash
$1,853,464,988,000 $19,933,542,200,000 $11,708,801,890,000 $137,291,400,000
$17,038,468,368 $133,142,861,570 $193,101,175,687 $3,805,408,960
0.92% 0.67% 1.65% 2.77% 1.87%
1.39% 0.82% 1.52% 5.24% 1.87%
Debit Card Credit Card
BNPL
Stablecoin
N/A
N/A
Digital Wallets (Staged)
$8,375,796,000,000
$74,234,098,500
0.89%
1.62%
Real Time Payments
$4,053,702,252,800
$15,450,414,199
0.38%
0.31%
Bank Transfer
$4,590,567,600,000
$44,953,697,993
0.98% 0.95%
1.23% 1.61%
TOTAL
$50,653,166,330,800 $481,726,125,277
Table 1.2
Cost of Payments Analysis
3.00%
2.50%
2.00%
1.50%
1.00%
0.50%
0.00%
Real Time Payments
Bank Transfer
Cash
Debit Card Credit Card BNPL
Stablecoin Digital Wallets (Staged)
Graph 1.4
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