Top 5 Payment Tech Trends for 2024: Growth, Disruption and Seamless User Experiences

Consumer demand and e-commerce growth are driving the expansion and evolution of digital payments. The overall direction is to offer ease for the end user, a smoother process and to add layers of security in fraud prevention.

Reliable online payment methods are also key to content monetization and irregular forms of payments, tipping, or transactions based on social media.

Additionally, fintech is also adding social media features to boost engagement and reach to a wider pool of potential users. Payment trends are affecting the evolution of both currency transfers, and of the usage of crypto tokens as a form of fintech.

We will focus on 5 of the most active fintech trends that will shape the space in 2024.

Digital Wallet Payments

Demand is rising for various forms of digital banking. E-wallets are perhaps the most well-established tech, where first movers had the advantage of grabbing loyal audiences. Most big banks already achieve some form of regional advantage, grabbing large chunks of the US and European markets, as well as the thriving Southeast Asian economies.

Digital wallets are expected to grow in the current decade, tapping the largest economies. Digital wallets are also one of the most reliable tools for e-commerce, protecting customers from fraud and offering more options in a new wave of e-commerce globalization.

The global digital wallet and mobile payment market will grow at a pace of 10% to 20% per annum, with a robust rate in 2024. The services are set to become mainstream, encompassing more than half of global users in the next few years. Digital wallets and mobile payments are also the basis for more advanced and personalized options for other types of payments in niche use cases.

Europe and the EU economic area are a particular source of growth, as more fintech companies tap into an otherwise conservative market. The EU online sales market is predicted to grow to $900M annually by 2027, driven by e-commerce. Reputable sellers are seeking the shortest, most seamless online forms for payments, driving demand for payment widgets and reliable payment forms.

Impulse Buying Setups

Given the growth of digital wallet payments, users are more confident they have a secure method to interact with online stores. Given that sense of security, impulse-buying tools will continue to grow in 2024. Impulse buying is not necessarily a negative event. Instead, this user behavior can mean the online store is extremely efficient in predicting needs and offering a fast, seamless payment. One-click purchases, seamless fast orders, or pre-approved installment payments will continue to develop in 2024. The concept of user experience will be brought to the front, minimizing the work needed to send a transaction.

“Experiences, not transactions; insight driven; instantaneous,” commented Etienne Liffe-Moon of BMW Design Works on the topic of upcoming fintech trends.

Impulse buying setups are ideal for small merchants that want to drive regional growth. The founder of NJoy Payments Anatoly Makeshin recommends using a one-click payment widget, as almost half of online purchases are impulsive.

“In 2024, we believe fast authentication, one-click purchase forms and buy-now-pay-later will be key for websites. For merchants, new tech will offer self-onboarding, easy to install widgets, reliable payment processing at a low price,” said Makeshin.

Impulse buying setups are one of the fields for advancing technology. E-commerce can now include buy-now-pay-later, or other installment policies, with no pre-approval loan process. Services like PayPalLater may have first-mover advantage, but even smaller startups will try to offer a BNPL version.

Open Banking, Embedding and Saas Payment Models

One side effect of fintech is that more financial services can be reliably offered by site owners. We already discussed the example of BNPL options and installments. In 2024, fintech trends will continue to boost various forms of open finance. The SaaS approach to finance means businesses can focus on client acquisition, while relying on cloud-based services to handle financials, verification and other aspects. Growth in the SaaS fintech sector is predicted to reach 18% in 2024, becoming one of the top expansion trends.

For site owners, this means offering seamless integration of wallets or identities, with no need to register for each new online store.

The most innovative use case for fintech would be open banking, where customers can share their financial data with third-party providers. This aspect of the fintech industry will face the challenges of potential scams and bad actors, further raising the demand for reliable technologies and providers.

The most exciting development in 2024 would be the sharing of banking and financial APIs, meaning a wider circle of companies can handle financial data. This trend will boost inclusivity, while also decreasing waiting time for transactions. NJoy Payments is also adding to the trend, by handling an elaborate chain of events to connect a site and the client’s bank resources. Demand for payment service providers and handling the transaction process reliably will be key for wider fintech adoption in 2024.

AI Tools and Payment Processing

The rise in GPT-type AI tools, chatbots and language models is also changing the interaction between merchants and customers. AI will be affecting fintech in 2024 in multiple ways, mostly by handling the data-rich resources gathered from e-commerce.

One important way of applying AI would be to recognize potential frauds and issue timely warnings. An AI can closely track user behavior, make suggestions or offer special deals. Additionally, AI enhancements can notice unusual behavior and stop transactions when they are deemed suspicious.

AI can also assess user behavior and enhance other tools and widgets, especially by creating the right type of BNPL schedules. Other potential use cases can include virtual online stores, which find a product from other vendors and facilitate the sale point and transaction through embedded payment services.

Mobile Payment Expansion

Mobile payments are the other big trend to continue in 2024. Once again, Europe is gaining attention by adding new cohorts of buyers. Mobile payments span both e-commerce and physical stores, with in-between options for various delivery and pickup options.

Mobile payments are set to reach a milestone in 2024, surpassing 1B active users for the first time. More yet-untapped demand is coming from developing regions, which are still in the phase of active smartphone penetration.

This type of payment also brings in users to multiple cryptocurrencies, where most projects are compatible with phones and simply apply existing wallet technology. Crypto token usage also aims to converge with fintech and become more reliable and less open to price fluctuations and scams. This is a slow process, but tokens and crypto wallets remain a small niche within the fintech space.

Some of the key trends of 2024 are already visible in e-shop and site design. Others require more backend work. The end goals are to make payment processing invisible and more intuitive, as well as more secure. Some of the processes are solidifying the technological gains of the past decade, while others are set to disrupt e-commerce, boost economic activity, and reverse the slowdown of the past few years.