Across the world, the adoption of instant payments has varied significantly from one market to another, influenced less by the availability of real-time payment infrastructure and more by the broader payment ecosystem.

Global consultancy McKinsey and Company identifies three main archetypes of instant payment adoption patterns that impact the payment value chain differently.

The first archetype involves instant payments becoming the primary payment rail. In markets like India and Brazil, instant payments have fundamentally reshaped the payment ecosystem, effectively displacing cash, reducing debit card usage, and beginning to compete with credit cards in selected use cases.

In 2010, India launched the Immediate Payment Service (IMPS), an instant payment inter-bank electronic funds transfer system. This was followed in 2016 by the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), an instant mobile payment system that links multiple bank accounts into a single smartphone application.

Since its launch, UPI has grown into the largest instant payment system in the world, processing more than 20 billion transactions per month, or nearly a third of India’s total transaction volume, according to McKinsey. It now accounts for 85% of India’s digital payment volume.

Brazil, meanwhile, introduced its Pix system in 2020. Since its inception, instant payments have surged to account for nearly 30% of the country’s total transaction volume, with Pix now handling nearly 8 billion monthly transactions. Over 170 million consumers now use Pix, according to the country’s central bank, representing more than 90% of Brazil’s adult population.

Impact on the payment value chain

In markets like these where instant payments have reached mainstream adoption, banks, acquirers, and payment schemes have swiftly adapted to the transformation.

Banks are using instant payments to strengthen customer relationships while developing new revenue streams. In Brazil, for example, several banks have introduced Pix Parcelado, which offers installment payments and credit offerings to customers on Brazil’s Pix instant payment network. This allows traditional lenders to preserve an important source of lending revenue. In India, while banks have embraced UPI for everyday payments, they are now differentiating themselves through lending, merchant solutions, and premium card offerings, McKinsey notes.

Acquirers, meanwhile, have expanded beyond payment acceptance to become broader merchant technology providers, focusing now on software, analytics, financing, and other value-added services that help merchants better manage and grow their businesses. For example, the acquisition of Ravelin, an artificial intelligence (AI) fraud prevention platform, by payment firm Worldpay in 2025 exemplified this trend. This acquisition allowed Worldpay to add merchant fraud capabilities to its payment acceptance platform.

Finally, card schemes have reinforced the value proposition through premium products, tokenization, fraud prevention, and digital-identity capabilities, while expanding into adjacent parts of the payments ecosystem through acquisitions and partnerships. For example, Visa’s acquisition of Pismo, a cloud-native issuer processing and core banking platform, in 2024 has strengthened its cloud-native banking infrastructure capabilities, adding support and connectivity for emerging payment schemes and real-time payment networks for financial institution clients.

Other archetypes of instant payment adoption

The second archetype of instant payment adoption highlighted by McKinsey is the complementing of established payment ecosystems. In the UK and other European markets, for example, instant payments are enhancing account-to-account (A2A) transfers for consumers and businesses, while cards remain the preferred payment method at the point of sale. In these markets, instant payments have seen reasonable growth, now accounting for about 10% of retail payments.

As adoption of instant payments continue to mature in these markets, attention is now shifting towards making national instant payment systems work together. In Europe, for example, the Instant Payments Regulation (IPR) requires banks and payment providers across the region to offer euro-denominated instant credit transfers 24/7 at a cost no higher than standard traditional bank transfers, and introduces verification of payee to reduce fraud. In the UK, the Faster Payments System (FPS) now includes Payment Originating Overseas, which enables international payments to clear through the local scheme.

Finally, the third and last archetype involves instant payments competing with established payment habits. The US and Mexico exemplify this pattern, with customer adoption stalling despite advanced infrastructure in place.

In the US, instant payments are competing with an ecosystem that already offers consumers and businesses a wide range of convenient payment options, including cards, electronic money transfers though the Automated Clearing House (ACH), digital wallets, and real-time P2P networks.

The US operates two real-time payment networks: the Clearing House banking association’s RTP network, launched in 2017, and the Federal Reserve’s FedNow Service, launched in 2023. Despite investments and growing participation, adoption has progressed slowly. In 2025, RTP processed approximately 447 million transactions, while FedNow processed about 8 million transactions, according to McKinsey. This represents a negligible fraction of the 345 billion payment transactions recorded in the US annually.

Mexico, meanwhile, has struggled to translate its Interbank Electronic Payment System (SPEI) infrastructure into broad adoption of retail instant payments. This is despite the government’s multiple attempts to spur adoption through the launch of initiatives such as Cobro Digital (CoDi), an instant payment platform built on top of SPEI introduced in 2019, and Dinero Móvil (DiMo), launched in 2023 to boost P2P transactions and overcome CoDi’s adoption challenges. Today, instant payments represent less than 5% of Mexico’s total transaction volume, according to McKinsey.

Several factors contributed to the limited demand for instant payments in Mexico. These include continued reliance on cash, limited financial inclusion, and weak merchant adoption. Some research estimates that 90% of consumer transactions in Mexico are still performed in cash.

Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Switzerland, based on image by Mohammad Ayoub via Magnific