2 PAYMENT METHOD PROFILES: DIGITAL WALLETS
2.3 Digital Wallets Introduction
Digital payments are predicted to be one of the fastest growing global payment types, with the highest adoption rates across emerging countries, such as China, Brazil, India, and Indonesia. 254 Digital wallets are a unique type of digital payment because of their ability to host other payment methods within their platform. Digital payments (including digital wallets, account-to-account, and Buy Now, Pay Later) accounted for 65% of global ecommerce payments in 2024 according to the WorldPay Global Payments Report 2025, with digital wallets making up over 80% of the digital payments share. 255 Data from Worldpay suggests digital wallets will continue to grow in both ecommerce and POS environments reaching 65% and 45% shares, respectively, by 2030.
Global Digital Wallet Growth and Forecast
0% 20% 40% 60% 80%
2014 (actual)
2024 (actual)
2030 (forecast)
Ecommerce POS
Graph 2.25
Brief History The roots of digital wallets date back to the late 1990’s to the founding of PayPal and attempts by soda companies to enable vending machine purchases via mobile phones. Since this time, digital wallets have grown around the world, accelerated by the introduction of smartphone technology by Apple and Google in 2007 and 2008, respectively. 256 Mobile wallets utilize a variety of security mechanisms, including protecting devices with a password or biometric scan. Many also use encryption and tokenization technology for data at-rest and in transit. 257 Digital wallet applications generally enable funding from a variety of underlying payment methods. One key concern for payment acceptance leaders is whether digital wallets attract new customers, or whether digital wallets are cannibalizing pre-existing customer sales made with payment methods already accepted In the 2025 WorldPay Global Payments Report, one survey explored how consumers typically fund digital wallets with 56% of global respondents citing cards (27% debit cards, 23% credit cards, 6% prepaid cards). 258 The same report found that in card-heavy markets like Australia, the U.S. and the U.K., those figures are much higher at 70%, 70% and 67% respectively, while in countries where account-to-account payments are more prevalent, such as India, Brazil, and China, cards represent a much lower share. 259 Globally, combined spend on cards and card- back digital wallets was $23 trillion in 2024, approximately one-half on consumer spending. 260
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