Wallets Become the Default Front Door to Global Payments

At the start of the year, wallets were still widely framed as payment tools — a faster way to check out online or tap a phone in-store. By year’s end, PYMNTS reporting showed something more consequential taking shape: wallets becoming the interface through which money moves, not just how purchases are completed.

That shift unfolded in real time across PYMNTS interviews and data releases throughout the year.

Early 2025: Not Just Checkout

In early 2025, PYMNTS reporting began to reflect a subtle but important change in how executives talked about digital wallets. The conversation moved away from replacing cards and toward improving access to existing rails.

That framing crystalized in PYMNTS’ analysis describing digital wallets as the “SMS of global money movement” — always on, lightweight and designed to make sending money feel effortless rather than transactional. The comparison was telling. SMS didn’t replace communication; it reorganized it. Wallets, PYMNTS noted, were beginning to do the same for money.

Wallets were already  gaining ground in peer-to-peer transfers, bill payments and app-based commerce, but the infrastructure implications were coming into focus too.

The global embrace of mobile wallets accelerated in 2025 not because consumers abandoned cards or bank accounts, but because they changed how they accessed them. PYMNTS Intelligence found that mobile wallets now power 35% of online transactions and 21% of in-store purchases across 11 countries, representing more than half of global GDP.

 In markets such as Japan and Singapore, where QR codes, real-time rails and mobile-first behaviors are already deeply embedded, wallets have become a natural extension of everyday commerce rather than a novel alternative. Elsewhere, including Europe and the U.S., wallets are gaining ground more gradually, serving as a faster, biometric-secured interface layered on top of familiar funding sources rather than a replacement for them.

Choice and Control

As wallet usage broadened, a Marqeta executive told PYMNTS that digital wallets should not be seen as destinations, but as gateways that let consumers decide how to pay in real time.

“Digital wallets aren’t about locking consumers into one payment method,” Marqeta Chief Revenue Officer Todd Pollak told PYMNTS. “They’re about giving people choice.”

That perspective reflected what PYMNTS Intelligence data has shown: Wallets gained traction fastest when they allowed users to move seamlessly between cards, bank transfers and stored balances without friction.

The shift from payments to money movement became clearer with the April release of “Global Money Movement: U.S. Edition.”

The report, done in collaboration between PYMNTS Intelligence and Terrapay, showed that 14% of U.S. consumers had made a cross-border payment in the previous 12 months — and nearly two-thirds of those consumers used digital wallets to do so.

Perhaps more striking was who adopted. Unlike other countries where wallet usage skewed young, U.S. adoption for cross-border payments was strongest among millennials and Gen X, with baby boomers and Gen Z using wallets at identical rates.

That data challenged the idea that wallets were a generational phenomenon. Instead, they were becoming a normalized tool for moving money internationally.

Defining Expectations

As cross-border usage increased, expectations grew, too.

PYMNTS Intelligence found that more than half of U.S. consumers who do not use digital wallets for international payments would adopt them if transactions were faster. Security and easier tracking followed closely behind. Speed, once a differentiator, became a baseline demand.

But intent was building. Four in 10 SMBs said faster payments would motivate adoption, and one-third pointed to wider acceptance as a key trigger to use digital wallets for cross border transactions.

As for the greenfield opportunity:  What looks like skepticism toward mobile wallets is better understood as untapped opportunity. PYMNTS Intelligence finds that roughly 15% of consumers globally fall into a “Skeptics” segment, characterized not by outright distrust, but by limited perceived value from digital financial tools beyond basic banking. In markets such as the U.S., where contactless cards already deliver speed and familiarity, wallets struggle when they merely replicate existing behaviors rather than improve on them.

That hesitation highlights where the next gains are likely to come from: clearer differentiation around use cases such as cross-border payments, real-time settlement, identity, and tracking — areas where wallets can outperform legacy methods rather than mimic them.

By the end of 2025, the story of digital wallets was no longer about adoption curves or novelty. It was about normalization. Wallets moved from the edges of checkout into the center of money movement, crossing borders, generations and use cases with little fanfare but growing consequence. Consumers proved willing to use wallets wherever they delivered speed, visibility and control, while businesses signaled growing intent once standards and interoperability catch up.

Looking ahead, the next chapter will not hinge on whether wallets grow, but on how they differentiate — through rails, cross-border reach, identity and embedded services that make money movement feel less like a transaction and more like an invisible utility.