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Top Trends in Payments: 2021

New technology trends, changes in customer behavior, competition from new digital entrants, and regulatory initiatives herald tomorrow’s payments landscape.

Furthermore, the ongoing pandemic is forcing players in an already transitioning industry to revisit their business fundamentals. Banks, card firms, payment service providers, and other payments firms that master in their technology game will be the winners in the emergent new payments ecosystem. Top Trends in Payments: 2021 aims to understand and analyze the top trends in the payments ecosystem this year and beyond.

Top trends in Payments: 2020 highlighted the payments industry’s flux driven by new trends in technology adoption, innovative solutions, and changing consumer behavior. The pandemic has tested the digital mastery of players, who are already grappling with transition. Non-cash transactions are on a robust growth path, accelerated by increased adoption during COVID-19. Regulators are working to instill trust and address non-cash payments risk amid unparalleled growth as players collaborate to quell uncertainty. Regional initiatives, such as the P27 (Nordics real-time payments system) and the EPI (European Payments Initiative), are gaining traction in response to country-level fragmentation and competition.

Investment in emerging technologies is looked upon as an elixir to mitigate fraud, data-driven offerings are being considered for providing value-added propositions, and distributed ledger technology is in focus for digital currency solutions, efficiency enhancement, and cost gains. New players, such as retailers/merchants, are integrating payments into their value chains while technology giants are upscaling their financial services game by weaving offerings around payments as a center stage. Constrained by budgets, firms consider business models such as Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) to provide cost-effective and superior customer experience.