S&P Global sees payment volume reaching $83.9 trillion by 2030, with Asia-Pacific driving half. The revenue gap between regions is widening.
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S&P Global Market Intelligence expects global payment volume to reach $83.9 trillion by 2030, driven by digital wallet adoption in Asia-Pacific. The region will add $15 trillion, hitting $41.7 trillion and accounting for more than half of all volume, the research firm said in a report released Tuesday.
Digital wallets already represent $31.1 trillion, or 55% of volume in 2025. S&P projects that share will rise to 57.5%, or $48.2 trillion, by 2030. E-commerce is growing at 9.7% annually, outpacing physical point-of-sale at 7.2%, and will contribute $13 trillion in incremental volume.
The report's more commercially significant finding is the structural wedge between volume and revenue. North America generated 42.9% of global processor revenue in 2025. It accounted for only 25.1% of payment volume. Asia-Pacific is the mirror: 47.2% of volume but just 19.9% of revenue. Global processing revenue is forecast at $167.2 billion by 2030, a 6.9% compound annual growth rate that trails volume growth.
Jordan McKee, director of fintech research at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said the revenue pool was "disproportionately concentrated in North America, highlighting a growing disconnect between where payment volume grows fastest and where processors monetise most effectively."
Of 563 payment processors tracked, 25 generate more than $1 billion in annual revenue and together account for roughly 81% of total market revenue. At the other end, 450 processors, representing 80% of all vendors, collectively generate $3.3 billion, equivalent to the output of a single mid-tier player. S&P singles out Stripe and Adyen as processing close to one in every $12 spent globally.
The strategic implication for processors considering APAC expansion is clear. Volume leadership does not automatically translate to revenue or margin leadership. Processors entering markets such as India or Indonesia face domestic interoperability mandates and entrenched wallet operators.
McKee also said value creation is shifting toward software-driven infrastructure layers, specifically optimisation, orchestration, fraud management and embedded payment workflows, rather than raw scale. Regulatory frameworks in the EU under PSD3 and the UK's open banking evolution are pushing in the same direction: commoditising basic payment rails while opening space for value-added layers above them.
Processors that rely on geographic diversification alone, without a corresponding capability build, will find the revenue arithmetic in new markets difficult to close, McKee said.
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