Top Payment Statistics and Trends in 2023

As the payments industry continues to evolve, staying on top of the latest trends is crucial for payments professionals looking to make informed decisions and drive growth.

In this blog post, we will provide insights and analysis on payment statistics that matter to payments professionals, including what this means for any organization looking to accept payments.

Payment Statistics by Industry

The payments industry is growing rapidly. In fact, global revenue of the payments industry is projected to hit $2.7 trillion in 2023, up from $1.9 trillion in 2019 (Statista). We’re seeing a growth of payment usage and variability across industries and business verticals. Here are some of the top trends and insights into payments growth, broken down by some of the top industries.

Subscription Businesses

• 91% of subscription merchants do not measure customer lifetime value (PYMNTS, 2023)
• 67% of top-performing subscription businesses keep track of failed payments (PMNTS, 2023), which gives these organizations a leg up on remediation of the failed payments.
• 47% of top-performing subscription businesses recognize that most failed payments are attributed to problems with payment processing software (PYMNTS, 2023)

E-Commerce

• By 2025, e-commerce is expected to account for 12% of consumer spending worldwide (WorldPay, 2022)
• The average consumer makes 19 online transactions each year (Digital intheround, 2021)
• Small businesses that accept digital payments grow 2 times faster than those that don't (Mastercard).
• Online payments spiked by 81% globally in 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic (ACI Worldwide).

Payment Authorization Statistics 

Failed Payments

41% of companies report not tracking failed payments because it is difficult to find a solution to resolve the issue (PYMNTS, 2023). However, top-performing merchants that do track failed payments are able to recover 60% of their failed payments (PYMNTS, 2023). Even if it is challenging to resolve, most businesses find it worthwhile to focus on payment recovery as a means of recovering lost revenue.

Additional stats about failed payments:

• Top-performing merchants are 6 times more likely to track failed payments than lower-performing merchants (PYMNTS, 2023)
• 47% of top-performing subscription businesses recognize that most failed payments are attributed to problems with payment processing software (PYMNTS, 2023)
• 43% of failed payments with subscription businesses were due to false declines (PYMNTS, 2023)
• 73% of top-performing businesses use a combination of third-party and in-house solutions for recovering failed payments (PYMNTS, 2023)

Payment Statistics by Payment Method

Which payment methods are growing, and which are becoming more stagnant? The trends show that mobile and emerging payment methods are growing in popularity while physical checks are declining. 

Cash Payments

In 2020, the number of non-cash transactions surpassed cash transactions for the first time in the European Union (European Central Bank).

Mobile Payments

Mobile payments are on the rise and consumers are quickly adopting this as a primary payment method. In 2022, 56% of US consumers surveyed felt comfortable leaving their physical wallet at home and paying exclusively via phone (Marqeta, 2022). In fact, by 2025, 59% of e-commerce spending is predicted to be transacted by mobile devices (WorldPay, 2022). 

Additional stats about mobile payments:

• Over 2 billion people worldwide are expected to use digital wallets by 2025 (Juniper Research).
• Mobile payment transactions are predicted to reach $2.8 trillion by 2023, up from $1.48 trillion in 2019 (Statista).

Card Payments

Transactions made by card are growing rapidly, with more than 84% of the growth in non-cash payments being made up of card payments from 2018 to 2021 (Federal Reserve Payments Study, 2022).

Additional stats about card payments:

• Non-prepaid debit card payments grew the most of all card payment types in 2021, accounting for approximately 56 percent of all card payments in 2021. (Federal Reserve Payments Study, 2022)
• Transactions made with contactless cards surged by 12% in Q1 2021, compared to the same period in 2020 (UK Finance).
• 64% of consumers prefer to use credit cards for online purchases, while 15% prefer debit cards (TSYS).

Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) Payments

• BNPL accounted for 2.9% of global transactions and by 2025 will account for 5.3% share globally (WorldPay, 2022)
• As of 2021, 60% of consumers had reported using a BNPL service. (C + R Research, 2022)
• Gen Z has the highest BNPL adoption rate and it’s expected to increase from 36.8% in 2021 to 47.4% in 2025. (eMarketer, 2021)

Bank and ACH Transfers

• 90% of banks’ useful customer data comes from payments (PwC, 2021)
• Same-day ACH payments saw a 15.5% growth in volume from 2021 to 2021 (NACHA, 2023)

Emerging Payments

• The global real-time payments market is expected to rise at an expected CAGR of 32% from 2022 to 2028, becoming an $86 Billion market (The Insight Partners, 2022)
• Cashless transaction volume will more than double by 2030 (PwC, 2021)

Payment Statistics and Customer Experience

Customer Churn

Customer churn is valuable to measure for all businesses, and this is especially true for subscription businesses. 20% of subscription-based businesses recently cited customer churn as the most important metric to their business (PYMNTS, 2023). And, unfortunately, failed payments are a contributing factor. 26.5% of subscription businesses cited declined card payment as the most significant reason for customer churn (PYMNTS, 2023).

Customer Lifetime Value

In a recent study by PYMNTS (2023), 91% of subscription merchants reported that they do not measure customer lifetime value.