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November 24, 2024 • Issue 24:11:02

Real-time payments are entering 'prime time'

"Modern real-time payments require collaboration, and
they encourage a new generation of market entrants for
banks to either compete or cooperate with – often both" said
Craig Ramsey, global head of real-time payments at ACI.
Asia going great guns

The Asia-Pacific region is by far the largest regional mar-
ket for real-time payments, with four of the global top five
real-time payment markets by volume. In addition to India,
Thailand (20.4 billion transactions in 2023), China (17.2 bil-
lion) and South Korea (9.1 billion) are all going strong.

Indonesia ranks number eight, globally, with nearly 2 bil-
lion real-time payments in 2023, but is charting the fastest
growth overall in Asia. ACI expects that between 2022 and
2028 Indonesia will chart a combined annual growth rate
of 44.6 percent.
By Patti Murphy
Indonesia's lack of legacy infrastructure—it had been a pre-
s efforts are underway to make real-time pay- dominantly cash economy—was a key advantage in mov-
ments the norm for the United States, develop- ing the country to real-time payments. It leapfrogged typi-
ing economies are whizzing past the country in cal digital evolution paths, moving straight to ISO20022, a
A achieving real-time payments ubiquity. Today, multi-part international standard for financial messaging
there are real-time payment networks in over 80 countries, that facilitates exchanges of structured data between finan-
according to payments solution provider Volt. cial institutions, customers and networks.

India dominates the space, with 129.3 billion real-time Asian markets are also leading the way with real-time
transactions in 2023, according to ACI Worldwide. To put cross-border payments. For example, payments using the
this into perspective, there were more real-time payments Malaysian real-time system known as DuitNow can accept
made in India last year than in the world's top-10 real-time QR code real-time payments originating from Indonesia,
payments markets combined. And India's total made up 49 Singapore, Thailand and China, ACI reported.
percent of all global real-time transactions, ACI revealed in
It's Prime Time for Real-Time, the company's fifth annual re- Some inroads in Middle East, Africa
port on the state of real-time payments around the globe
The Middle East is also growing fast, with expectations that
Real-time payments accounted for 266.2 billion payment real-time payments will increase from 855 million in 2023
transactions globally in 2023, recording year-over-year
growth of 42.2 percent, ACI reported. By 2028, real-time
payments, globally, are forecast to total 575.1 billion.
Contributed articles inside by:
In the United States, RTP, the real-time payments network Allen Kopelman .....................................................................................16
operated by The Clearing House, averages 1 million pay-
ments per day. In October 2024, the network handled a Christopher Gilderson ........................................................................24
record 31.7 million transactions valued at $25.4 billion, ac- Adam Atlas ..............................................................................................26
cording to a statement released by RTP. The Federal Reserve
also operates a real-time network, FedNow, but has yet to Karthik Jagannathan ...........................................................................28
publish volume or value data. Jaki Kackert ............................................................................................30

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