The state of payments 2025: new alternatives, new rails and new money

We recap the key trends in payments in 2025 and what this may signal for 2026 and beyond.

Digital transformation within the payments industry continued unabated in 2025 with the growth of alternative payments, real-time rails and programmable money.

Whether you’re a bank, fintech, merchant or are simply interested in the future of how money moves around the world, we highlight three trends that matter.

Alternative payments go mainstream

As commerce has digitalized, so has payment. Over the past decade, digital transactions have increased fourfold worldwide, according to Capgemini research. Much of this growth is attributable to local and so-called alternative payments methods (APMs). Any type of payment that isn’t card.

Bank transfers, digital wallets, prepaid vouchers and other payment types are now mainstream – and indeed preferred – ways to pay in many markets. This has been driven by various social, political, economic and technological factors. An important one is the rise of real-time payments.

More than 70 countries worldwide now have instant or real-time payment systems. Global real-time transaction volumes have seen year-on-year growth of 42%. This is likely to increase further following EU regulation in 2025, requiring all eurozone financial institutions to offer euro credit transfers that settle within 10 seconds.

So what?

We predict that APM ‘push’ payment types will overtake ‘pull’ payments, such as cards. These APMs will be based around bank accounts and other funding sources, so real-time, guaranteed payments will become the norm.

This only strengthens the proposition for pay by bank, sometimes known as Open Banking or account-to-account (A2A) payments. These connect customers to their bank accounts locally to enable payment in seconds. It’s speedier, simpler and safer for them. Plus helps boost conversion and cost efficiencies for those being paid, with better cashflow and no chargebacks.

Correctly deployed, such solutions help future-proof your business, whether that’s by increasing revenue, cutting costs or differentiating your brand. Working with the right partner enables businesses and payment service providers to offer a white labelled solution, saving time, cost and resource in managing a current, compliant solution.

Stablecoins: the backbone of digital finance?

Crypto is a market known for its volatility and 2025 has been no exception. The price of Bitcoin has been on a familiar rollercoaster ride, dropping almost 9% in 24 hours during the first week in December. At the time of writing, the price is $90,000 far below its $120,000+ peak.

It’s no surprise then that interest in stablecoins has continued in 2025. Various banks and financial institutions are looking to issue stablecoins, including a group of nine European banks launching a euro-backed stablecoin. And ten major international banks are exploring stablecoins pegged to G7 currencies.

Companies are also looking to harness the benefits of blockchain-based transactions without the volatility. SONY is seeking a US banking licence to issue stablecoins, meanwhile buy-now-pay-later giant Klarna issued its KlarnaUSD coin at the end of November 2025.

So what?

As infrastructure improves and regulation catches up, stablecoins could become a standard payment rail alongside traditional systems. The ability to pay with stablecoins, settle quickly, and tap into decentralized finance gives forward-thinking businesses an edge.

To position themselves strongly, businesses are advised to fall back on the fundamentals of evaluating business opportunity and risk. Businesses must be able to identify a strategy and business case for stablecoin use. And understand the specific use cases that apply to their own value chain.

They are advised to engage legal and risk colleagues early and map the regulatory requirements by proposition and market. They must then choose the right partners for issuance, custody, payment and blockchain. Plus, consider how they innovate to capitalize on developments, particularly around programmable payments and tokenization.

Multi-money world: solving for the diversity of money

2025 has seen further development around central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs for short. This is a nation’s fiat currency in digital form, issued by the central bank on private blockchains.

By July 2025, three countries had launched CBDCs: the Bahamas, Jamaica and Nigeria. 137 countries and currency unions representing 98% of global GDP were exploring the concept. And 72 countries were in the advanced stage of development, pilot or launch, according to the Atlantic Council.

Commercial banks were also busy exploring their own versions of digital assets with bank-issued tokenized deposits. These are digital representations of traditional bank deposits, recorded on a blockchain. They are issued and held by a licensed depository institution and backed 1:1 by funds held on account.

As commercial bank money makes up over 90% of the money used on a day-to-day basis, the opportunity for tokenized deposits is potentially huge – as much $100-140 trillion in annual flows, according to Citibank projections.

So what?

The future of money will not only be different currencies, which have been around for as long as money itself, but also different ways of creating and storing value. This includes fiat money, stablecoins, CBDCs, tokenized deposits and more.

Different forms of money will flourish and co-exist, shaped by product-market fit, trust, interoperability and regulatory clarity. Those systems and organizations that succeed will those who solve for the diversity of money in a multi-money world.

There’s clearly a need for interoperability between digital assets and the existing financial systems. This will enable seamless transactions between different money, wherever the payer and payee are based.

In summary

What used to be nice-to-have features – alternative payment methods, alternative rails and real-time settlement – are now must-have table stakes.

Offering more payment choice on the front end to customers pushes the complexity into the back end for providers.

Managing this complexity requires a large set of specialized payment services. Hence businesses must partner smart to set themselves up for success in 2026 and beyond.