Why real-time payments are playing catch-up
Real-time payment methods (RTPs) now face a crowded field. A decade ago, most purchases meant cash, card, or check. Today, consumers can choose from digital wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay, buy now, pay later services such as Klarna and Affirm, cryptocurrencies, and a growing list of app-based payment options. That proliferation has turned into competition, and RTPs have had to evolve to hold their ground.
The first wave of RTP adoption was driven by mutual benefit for banks, businesses, and consumers. But success in the long run depends on whether RTPs can match the versatility of the alternatives they compete with, particularly cards.
The payment method bundle
A useful way to think about payment methods is as a bundle of services. The larger the bundle, the more contexts a method can serve. Credit cards in the US are the clearest example: they work for small and large purchases, one-off and recurring transactions, and in-store and online payments, with extras like fraud protection, rewards, and travel insurance folded in.
RTPs initially found traction where cards were weakest, such as lower processing costs and peer-to-peer transfers. But they arrived as narrow products, strong in a few specific use cases and underdeveloped elsewhere. The current push is to widen the bundle in three areas: in-person payments, access to credit, and recurring transactions.
In-person payments
Over 80% of all payments still happen in person. An online-only payment method may be convenient, but it is unlikely to become a default way to pay if it can't be used at the point of sale.
In-person RTP usage varies sharply by market. The typical flow involves the customer scanning a QR code and approving the purchase in their banking or RTP app. In markets where card habits are weaker, particularly in parts of Asia, consumers prefer QR codes and RTPs are common in stores. In places like Switzerland, RTPs succeeded online but not in person, where tapping a card is seen as less effort than scanning a code.
The business side has shifted as well. QR codes initially gave RTPs a low-cost acceptance path, since merchants only needed to print one. Cards required dedicated hardware. But that gap has closed as tap-to-pay technology now lets merchants accept card payments with a phone. The hardware advantage has moved back to the card bundle.
RTPs are looking for a way back in. Apple's decision to open its NFC chip to developers could eventually lead to contactless transactions that are not card-based, which would allow "tap to pay" experiences for RTPs. The standard is currently card-only, but the possibility is now on the table.
Access to credit
Credit smooths large purchases for consumers and lifts conversion and basket sizes for merchants. Point-of-sale lending has long been a card advantage, and most payment methods struggle to compete because lending requires capital, risk expertise, and consumer data, all within a tightly regulated framework.
Bank-led RTPs are better positioned. They have balance sheets, risk management experience, and visibility into customer spending. That has led to installment offerings such as BLIK Pay Later in Poland and Pix parcelado in Brazil, sometimes with interest and sometimes without, depending on the customer's bank.
The result is that RTPs can now compete with cards on bigger purchases like furniture and appliances, where the old pay-in-full requirement made them less attractive.
Recurring and one-click payments
Early RTPs required approval for every transaction. That enforced strong security but limited the method to one-time payments. It also excluded RTPs from stored-payment-method scenarios and one-click checkout, which depend on removing authentication friction.
That constraint is eroding. NIP in Nigeria and TWINT in Switzerland now support recurring payments, and BLIK has rolled out one-click checkout features. The expansion signals that RTPs are becoming usable for subscription billing and faster repeat purchases.
Bigger bundles, still local reach
Adding contactless capability, credit, and recurring or one-click payments puts RTPs in a far more competitive position than they were in a few years ago. It is not hard to envision RTPs eventually carrying the same range of features that cards do today.
The remaining constraint is structural. RTPs are built and operated as national systems, and no clear path to global interoperability has emerged yet. Whether RTPs can evolve into a true global network, and whether they can gain ground in markets like the US and UK that have been slow to adopt them, remains the central open question for their future.
