Consumers in France are embracing digital wallets for payments. For example, more than one-third (38%) use them for online shopping. Surprisingly, we find millennials in France are more likely to use these wallets for online shopping than Generation Z consumers. In fact, Gen Z is the most likely to use them to pay when shopping in-store.

But facilitating payments and transfers is just one way consumers can use these tools. Digital wallets can be anywhere a smartphone is. Consumers in France are beginning to explore how the technology can be a trusted tool for nontransactional purposes.

PYMNTS Intelligence finds that consumers in France commonly need to confirm their identities. This suggests that the French market is ready to use these wallets to store ID documents and tickets. Other possibilities include facilitating travel and holding medical records.

These are just some of the findings detailed in “Digital Wallets Beyond Financial Transactions: France Edition,” a PYMNTS Intelligence and Google Wallet collaboration. This report examines consumer perceptions and use of digital wallets in the last year and into the future in the French market. It draws on insights from a survey of 3,365 consumers in France conducted from Jan. 11 to Feb. 5.

Inside “Digital Wallets Beyond Financial Transactions: France Edition”:

• What tasks consumers in France are completing using their digital wallets
• Which generations are using this technology the most
• How consumers in France are using these tools for identity verification
• Use cases for the technology in travel and events
• What share of French consumers predict that using these wallets to access events will become the norm

Once consumers use a digital wallet to store credentials or show their IDs, most are satisfied with their experience. Download the report to learn more about what’s next for this technology in France.

This report is the third in a series exploring how consumers in various major economies are using this technology. Check out the series archive to learn more about how use in France compares to other countries.

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The company announced Tuesday (Aug. 13) that it processed 13.1 billion pounds ($16 billion) in payments in the U.K. between January to June of this year. That’s compared to the 13.6 billion pounds Trustly handled over the entirety of 2023.

“Trustly’s strong performance highlights the growing adoption of open banking more broadly, with one in nine people in the UK reportedly using open banking services as of October 2023,” the company said in a news release.

Also Tuesday, the company announced it had named Mitchell Powers as its senior vice president for the U.K. He joins Trustly from online payments processor GoCardless, where he had served as vice president and general manager.

“The company has gone from strength to strength over the past 12 months,” Powers said. “I’m excited to be joining Trustly for its vision, its clear differentiators and — most importantly — its potential to completely revolutionize the way people pay for things in the United Kingdom.”

PYMNTS spoke in June with Trustly CEO Alex Gonthier about the challenge of introducing open banking/pay-by-bank into the eCommerce space.

“The thing that’s interesting is that no one has cracked the code yet on eCommerce,” Gonthier told PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster. “No one has cracked the code because we’re fighting against credit cards that have extremely rich rewards programs.”

To compete, he said, pay-by-bank providers must offer their customers incentives like cashback or rewards programs, without erasing the cost savings for merchants. Trustly has found some eCommerce success from the travel sector, and with payments that traditionally have been done with debit cards, such as healthcare and vet bills.

“You can think of us as the ‘next-gen’ paper check,” Gonthier said, adding that despite its challenges, he is optimistic about the future of pay by bank and open banking.

“In open banking, you have the absolute unique advantage over debit cards, the absolute unique advantage of seeing a consumer’s transactions in real time,” Gonthier said. “And with that, we actually see them on debit cards, on Venmo, on PayPal, on Zelle, on paper checks, wire transfer, we see everything.”

In a separate interview, PYMNTS spoke with Christina Potter, head of eCommerce at Trustly, about the benefits of open banking in the retail space.

For consumers, she said, paying via bank “allows them to leverage other payment methods beyond credit cards,” which she pointed out can be an expensive option, considering the current interchange rate environment.

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As Bloomberg News reported Saturday (Aug. 10), card tipping had been rare in the South American nation, leading many patrons to carry big wads of cash. 

Now, however, tipping is going digital amid a surge in FinTech activity, with Argentina now home to 312 such companies in 2023, up from 72 in 2017, the report said, citing data from the Inter-American Development Bank.

According to Bloomberg, Latin America eCommerce goliath MercadoLibre’s payments business Mercado Pago has come up with a new function in its app for tipping. 

“The spread of digital payments and decline of cash use started to negatively impact the amount of tips waiters received,” Agustin Onagoity, senior director for Mercado Pago Argentina, said in a statement to Bloomberg. “Our users and gastronomy workers really demanded a tips solution.”

The report also quotes Pedro Filippini, a Buenos Aires barista who lets customers send tips to his Mercado Pago account, finding the tips there tend to be more generous than cash gratuities, as those can depend on the amount of paper money a customer has with them.

He added that he prefers digital payments but can still see the need for cash as people are struggling. Cell service costs have ballooned, leading to situations where it’s harder to access Mercado Pago.

This is happening at a time when — as noted here earlier this year — the rise of digital tipping is transforming how consumers show gratitude for service. 

“This shift toward digital gratuity represents more than just convenience — it’s a reflection of broader societal changes, impacting both employee retention and transactional consumer experiences,” PYMNTS wrote.

In addition, that report said, the implementation of digital instant payouts for hospitality staff has been shown to improve morale and job satisfaction in the service industry, addressing longtime challenges in staff retention and leading to higher retention rates.

As Matt Tuchband, CEO of mobile tipping platform TipQwik, said in “Tap and Tip: Travel and Hospitality Embrace Digital and Instant Payments,” a joint PYMNTS Intelligence and Ingo Payments research study, the ability to tip via smartphone throughout a property can reduce turnover by making sure staff who normally do not get tips included on a bill, such as housekeeping and porters.

In addition, “It provides a simple option for guests to show their appreciation at any time without fumbling for cash,” Tuchband said.

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Google Pay, Walmart-backed PhonePe, Amazon Pay, Cred and Mobikwik have applied to join the Indian central bank’s digital currency pilot, Reuters reported Monday (Aug. 5), citing unnamed sources.

The companies declined to comment, according to the report.

When the RBI launched the eRupee pilot program in December 2022, it permitted only banks to offer the digital currency through their mobile applications, the report said.

It then expanded the program in April to include payment firms, once they are approved by the RBI, per the report.

The five firms that have applied to participate in the pilot are expected to begin offering access to the eRupee within three or four months, according to the report.

Allowing them to do so should widen the user base and increase the volume of eRupee transactions, because these five firms collectively account for 85% of the digital payments made via India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI), the report said.

The number of transactions using the eRupee has declined sharply since late last year, falling from 1 million a day to between 100,000 and 200,000 a day, per the report.

It was reported in December 2022, when the pilot program was launched, that seven Indian bankers were unimpressed with the digital rupee, saying it demonstrated little benefit.

The bankers said that the digital currency was very similar to the internet-based banking users were already using, that it required each trade using it to be settled individually rather than being handled in bulk, and that banks were unlikely to continue using it once the pilot concluded, Reuters reported at the time.

In February 2023, it was reported that Indian banks and retailers began accepting contactless payments made with digital rupees as part of the pilot program. The first merchant to do so, Reliance Retail, allowed test groups of customers to make QR code payments with the digital rupee at its Freshpik gourmet food stores.

In May, the RBI said that it aimed to make its digital currency function offline.

For all PYMNTS digital transformation coverage, subscribe to the daily Digital Transformation Newsletter.

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Consumers in Germany are embracing their digital wallets for payments. Nearly half (47%) use them for online shopping for example. Surprisingly, baby boomers and seniors in Germany are more likely to use one for online shopping than Generation Z consumers.

However, facilitating payments and transfers is just one way consumers can use these tools. These wallets can be anywhere that a smartphone is. This is a fact that cannot be overlooked, and it can drive adoption.

PYMNTS Intelligence finds that once consumers in Germany store credentials and use a digital wallet — to verify their identities or present credentials to access an event, among other uses — most state high satisfaction with their experience.

This suggests that the German market is ready for digital wallets’ next evolution.

These are just some of the findings detailed in “Digital Wallets Beyond Financial Transactions: Germany Edition,” a PYMNTS Intelligence and Google Wallet collaboration. This report examines consumer perceptions and use of these wallets in the last year and into the future in the German market. It draws on insights from a survey of 2,302 consumers in Germany conducted from Jan. 11 to Feb. 5.

Inside “Digital Wallets Beyond Financial Transactions: Germany Edition”:

• What tasks consumers in Germany are completing using these wallets
• Which generations are using these wallets the most
• How consumers in Germany are using these tools for travel and transportation
• How using these wallets for identification verification could be more convenient for consumers, especially when they are on the road

Once consumers use a digital wallet to store credentials or show their IDs, most have positive experiences doing so. Download the report to learn what’s next for these wallets in Germany.

This report is the third in a series exploring how consumers in various major economies are using digital wallets. Check out the series archive to learn about how use in Germany compares to other countries.

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Digital wallets are becoming popular among consumers in the United Kingdom. In fact, nearly half (44%) of consumers in the country expect to continue using these wallets to carry out financial transactions in the next three years.

But these tools have the potential to allow consumers to do so much more than just make payments. Significant shares of the U.K.’s Generation Z and millennial consumers are using them to store credentials like ID cards or event tickets. PYMNTS Intelligence data shows, for example, that 71% of U.K. users are highly satisfied with their experience of using digital wallets beyond shopping. Some other use cases for the technology include for boarding passes, scanning rewards cards and storing hotel keys.

These are just some of the findings detailed in “Digital Wallets Beyond Financial Transactions: U.K. Edition,” a PYMNTS Intelligence and Google Wallet collaboration. This report examines consumer perceptions and use of these wallets in the last year and into the future in the U.K. market. It draws on insights from a survey of 2,362 consumers conducted from Jan. 11 to Feb. 5.

Inside “Digital Wallets Beyond Financial Transactions: U.K. Edition”:

• How Gen Z and millennial consumers in the U.K. lead the way in using these wallets for uses other than transactions
• How many consumers in the U.K. are using digital wallets to store non-payment credentials
• The rise of using these wallets for peer-to-peer transactions and bill splitting
• Use cases for digital wallets in the U.K. for travel and events
• Why storing identity verification credentials appeals to consumers in the U.K., particularly those from Gen Z

These wallets have the potential to replace physical wallets for storing payment methods, identification cards, transit passes and event tickets. Download the report today to learn what consumers in the U.K. are saying about the future of digital wallets.

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“It’ll take a long time to get institutions that adoption curve,” and for the banks connecting to FedNow to number in the thousands. 

Nonetheless, he said, “this is incredible traction, for a brand new payment network to get to that level of adoption in the span of a year.”

There’s some knowledge and insight to glean from the emergence of faster payments across the globe, particularly in Europe, and what consumers and businesses demand.

And what they’re demanding, Perlman said, “is that payments be instant, just like every other aspect of our lives.”  The sentiment echoes statements made by Mark Gould, chief payments executive for Federal Reserve Financial Services, who said, “the strong growth we’re seeing shows how financial institutions are stepping forward to meet this change in customer expectation.”

Gould’s insight, said Perlman, is “spot on,” where “everyone knows that payments are just one the latest things that are going to become real time.  Seeing the smaller institutions jump on board,” he added, “is an accurate reflection of that statement.”

Though education is still needed to illuminate new use cases and benefits of instant payments — as Perlman said, “I’m not sure that everyone is fully up to speed on what FedNow brings to the market.” Perlman noted that the gap is narrowing.

Where i2c Stands

The larger banks are already participating with FedNow, and as Perlman noted, the central bank has been focusing on recruiting community banks and credit unions (a significant client roster for i2c).  Reaching the “long tail” of FIs among smaller entities will require processors and providers to be certified with FedNow, and i2c stands in the middle of the equation, connecting the banks to those integrators and supporters of instant payment services.

In terms of easing that connectivity and integration with the new rails, Perlman said, i2c has begun the implementation process to become a certified service provider and anticipates completing the development and testing activities with the Fed through the next several weeks and months.  “The goal is to be live by the end of the year, said Perlman.

Beyond the benefits of speed, Perlman said there’s value to glean from the data accompanying the payments, standardized through ISO 20022.

“When you talk about attaching robust payment invoice and other potentially trade finance data to a transaction, that’s what really unlocks real-time payments as a valuable network for business to business transactions and,  more complicated types of payments,” he said.

Looking ahead, in the drive to move from the current 900 FIs tied to FedNow to 7,000 banks, Perlman said there will need to be a “combined effort” between the Fed and partners in the ecosystem,” such as i2c to help educate those FIs.

“We’re really excited to have the opportunity to bring real-time, interbank payment to our clients and allow them to speed up payments reconciliation and adding additional data to their transactions,” he told PYMNTS.

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The partnership, announced Thursday (July 18), is designed to help the companies engage with a range of consumers, particularly in the gaming space.

“We’re continuously expanding payment options on Google Play, and adding Cash App Pay is a significant step in giving users more choice and convenience while meeting their evolving payment preferences,” Pete Albers, director of retail and payments activation for Google Play, said in a news release.

The release cites figures from the Bureau of Economic Analysis showing that $3 trillion in yearly consumer spending happens outside the traditional financial system, meaning that younger shoppers are seeking alternative payment solutions like Cash App Pay — which lets consumers pay with their Cash App balance or linked debit card — when shopping.

“Next gen shoppers are demanding more choices at checkout, and we know they’re also looking for more ways to pay with their own money. This partnership not only empowers them to pay flexibly for the things they want, but it also marries two strong customer sets and maximizes their mobile utility,” said Tanuj Parikh, head of partnerships, Cash App and Afterpay at Block.

The partnership comes as the way people choose to pay for things at checkout continues to change, as PYMNTS wrote earlier this week.

For example, digital wallets are now the fastest-growing payment option in the United States, especially among younger consumers.

“Most Americans say they use digital wallets more often than traditional payment methods,” that report said. “Even more intriguing, consumers who use this payment method tend to spend more than nonusers. According to a new Worldpay report, the payment method will overtake debit cards in transaction value in North America for in-store payments by 2027.”

The popularity and payment values of these wallets make them a priority tool for businesses to integrate into their payment suites. Still, merchants have some catching up to do to keep up with this ongoing trend.

“Some notable stumbling blocks — including perceptions about security, complexity and legacy technology — are still holding many back,” PYMNTS wrote.

The news came the same day that Cash App said it was shutting down its U.K. business in mid-September, as it makes the U.S. a greater priority.

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This digital revolution is primarily driven by changing demographics and consumer expectations. As One Inc CEO Ian Drysdale told Karen Webster for the latest installment of the “What’s Next In Payments” series, while baby boomers retire and millennials become the largest segment of society, insurance companies are grappling with how to serve a new generation of customers who expect seamless digital experiences.

“We’re seeing the digitalization of insurance with a Gen Z and millennial focus. Everything being online — not only premiums, which might be a little bit more obvious, but also claims where we can close a claim completely over text message,” Drysdale said.

One Inc helps carriers transform their operations through reducing costs, increasing security and optimizing customer experience by digitizing their processes, payments and disbursements. The push toward digitization isn’t merely about meeting consumer preferences; it’s also a response to economic pressures. Drysdale said that the insurance industry is grappling with inflation rates far exceeding the general economy, with costs rising between 20% to 30% in some areas.

“A lot of insurers are losing a lot of money because they’re paying out more in claims than they’re getting in premiums,” Drysdale said. “As a result, they’re under huge economic pressure and are looking for efficiencies.”

These efficiencies are being found in the digitization of payments and claims processes. Drysdale cited examples of significant cost savings achieved through digital transformation.

“Working with one of the largest life insurers that we all know really well, they saw reduced administrative costs by 20%,” he said. “We’re talking to insurers who, with our ClaimsPay solution, are saving $5, $10, $20 million a year because they’re not killing trees, sending out envelopes with checks that get lost or can be defrauded.”

The scale of potential savings is immense. According to Drysdale, some in the industry believe there are between $250 and $500 billion in checks still being written in the insurance industry.

Instant Payments: The New Frontier

One of the most significant shifts in the industry is the move toward instant payments. Drysdale explained that insurers are embracing technologies like RTP, FedNow and push-to-debit to provide immediate payouts to policyholders.

“They are looking for anything that allows them to pay you at the moment of truth, which is when you’re on with a claims adjuster, you’re in trouble,” Drysdale said. “Maybe it’s after a storm or after an accident. They’re like, ‘Can we send you $5,000 right now?’ And your phone buzzes with the deposit before you’re even off the phone with that insurance company.”

This shift toward real-time, app-based interactions is not only improving customer satisfaction but also driving business results. Drysdale reported, “We’re seeing 25% increased retention rates from insurers that are digitally interacting with customers. We’re seeing Net Promoter Scores jump by 10 points, and customer satisfaction scores go up by 18% because of a fully-digital world.”

The Role of AI in Reshaping Insurance

Artificial intelligence, particularly generative AI, is set to play a crucial role in the future of insurance. Drysdale predicts that AI will be used to personalize premiums and assess risk at an individual level.

“You can bet any amount of money that over time the internet will be searched to see if you like to jump out of planes, or if you do what I did years ago and you go backcountry skiing or heli-skiing … anything that you do is ultimately going to get priced into your insurance policy,” Drysdale said.

However, he also sees potential benefits for policyholders: “There will be a lot of costs taken out of the insurance industry because the gen AI will be processing all of the different information. And it will be coming up with a fair rate without humans being involved.”

Looking Ahead

As the industry moves towards the halfway point of the decade, Drysdale sees a clear direction for the future of insurance. “We’re seeing a real shift toward app-based, real-time, less paperwork, kind of embracing a future of immediate results and immediate benefit in insurance and getting away from the olden days of waiting weeks and weeks and weeks for everything regarding insurance,” he said.

This shift is not just about technology, but about survival in a changing market. As Drysdale puts it, “The survivors are going to be with that up-to-date culture and get away from the insurance of old.”

As these technologies continue to evolve and mature, Drysdale expects them to deliver not only cost savings and efficiencies for insurers but also improved experiences and fairer pricing for policyholders. The challenge for industry players, he said, will be to navigate this digital revolution while maintaining the trust and security that are fundamental to the customer experience.

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The company has added FASTag, direct-to-home recharges, landline, broadband and mobile prepaid bill payments to its app, Flipkart said in a Wednesday (July 10) press release.

The new recharge and bill payment categories join the electricity and mobile prepaid recharge options already available on the app, according to the release.

The move is meant to bring continuing innovation to customers and create a one-stop shop that meets their needs, Gaurav Arora, vice president of payments and SuperCoins at Flipkart, said in the release.

“With a rapid surge in the digital payments industry, customers are increasingly opting for electronic mode for paying their bills,” Arora said. “We have diversified our selection of services in line with Flipkart’s vision to simplify the digital payments journey for customers and further the government’s vision of a cashless economy.”

To help integrate the new services with the Bharat Bill Payments System (BBPS) developed by the National Payments Corporation of India, Flipkart partnered with payment solutions company BillDesk, per the release.

Ajay Kaushal, co-founder and director of BillDesk, said in the release: “This strategic expansion allows Flipkart customers to experience seamless bill payments, receive timely notifications and check amounts due across their preferred billers, leveraging BBPS capabilities.”

In another product introduction, Flipkart said in June that it launched a Unified Payments Interface (UPI) payment app dubbed super.money that offers up to 5% back on purchases.

The app also offers “credit cards that improve your credit” and “personal loans that won’t take multiple red tape to get,” super.money said.

In March, Flipkart launched a UPI handle to enhance its digital payment offerings by adding the instant payments system. The company said at the time that the Flipkart UPI allows users to set up their own UPI handle for transactions, both online and offline, and both within and outside the Flipkart marketplace.

Dheeraj Aneja, senior vice president of FinTech and Payments Group at Flipkart, said at the time that “Flipkart UPI underscores our dedication to shaping a digitally empowered society and reaffirms our role as a leading catalyst in India’s digital evolution.”

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