5 Most Innovative Digital Wallet Trends of 2020

Digital wallets have grown significantly in the past 5 years.

For example, the worldwide digital wallet transactions reached $4,296 billion USD in 2018, and the same is expected to reach $13,979 billion USD by 2022.

What’s more surprising is that the innovations in digital wallets have just begun. In the next 3–5 years, more and more digital wallet technologies will emerge, which will make digital payments more secure and convenient in the near future.

So, if you’re an entrepreneur looking to build a digital wallet app, then you must know about the digital wallet trends that will dominate in the near future.

In this article, I will share 5 most innovative digital wallet trends of 2020 & beyond.

5 Digital Wallet Trends to Look Out for in 2020

Let’s look closely at the most innovative mobile digital trends that will be a big hit in 2020 and beyond.

1 — Cryptocurrency Wallets

Cryptocurrency, in case you didn’t know, is no longer reserved for the multi-million dollar brands or exclusive investors. It has been widely adopted by startups to small-to-medium businesses.

As a matter of fact, there are millions of cryptocurrency wallet app solutions.

According to Statista, the number of cryptocurrency wallet solutions have drastically increased since 2016, from 6.7 million to 42 million in 2019.

The reason behind this drastic growth is also quite obvious!

For instance, the cryptocurrency & blockchain technology basically eliminates the need for a third-party in a transaction, which not only leads to more secure transactions but also lower costs.

As a result, the businesses or startups that have incorporated this technology are witnessing enormous benefits and it will continue in the future as well.

2 — Smart Speaker Payments

Smart Speakers have witnessed dramatic growth since Amazon launched the first-ever smart speaker in 2014.

In fact, soon after the launch of Amazon’s smart speaker, Apple and Google both joined the race of smart speakers with Google Home in 2016 and Apple smart speaker in 2017.

Today, smart speakers or voice assistants have become quite mainstream among the majority of households.

According to Statista, 82 percent of people have used the voice assistant to retrieve information, while 35% of people have bought products through voice assistants and smart speakers.

And as far as online payments are concerned, 28% of the smart speaker users have made direct payments for purchases and send money.

Though the number of users making online payments using smart speakers is considerably less as of now, but the number is forecasted to rise in the near future as soon as the smart speaker technology becomes more convenient and secure.

In fact, the future of smart speakers being used for making payments already looks promising in the United States.

Business Insider forecasted that the usage of smart speakers for making payments will increase from 18.4 million to 77.9 million users by 2022.

So, overall 30 percent of US users would start making online payments using smart speakers in the next 3–5 years.

3 — NFC-Based Wallet Solutions

In the last five years, the usage of NFC-based or contactless wallet solutions in the UK has increased considerably.

For instance, 2014 was the biggest hit for contactless payments in the UK. The total contactless spending set a record of reaching £2.32 billion, a whopping 255% increase from the last year’s figure.

What’s even more surprising fact is that by the year 2017, a total of 119 million contactless cards were issued in the UK, which is nearly 2 cards per person.

According to UKFinance, two-third of UK adults shop or pay using contactless payments.

So, now that you know how much popular contactless, or NFC-based payments are, it’s time to learn how Contactless or NFC-based Wallets actually work.

Basically, today’s smartphones come with NFC technology through which they communicate with the NFC card machines.

Though most smartphones need not touch the point of sale device in order to make the payment, however, they do have to be in close proximity from the terminal.

As far as the demand for NFC wallet solutions is concerned, the NFC technology has already gained a tremendous amount of popularity as we saw earlier, which means building an NFC-based digital wallet app development is definitely a worthwhile investment.

4 — AI-Based Wallet Solutions to Automate Routine Transactions

Artificial Intelligence (AI), just like NFC technology, has rapidly made it’s way to being one of the best-emerging technologies. And not only that, but AI technology has also improved drastically over the span of the last 5 years.

For example, nowadays a lot of ecommerce companies have employed AI-based chatbots who help these companies & brands address their customers’ concerns.

And as far as the digital wallets or mobile payments are concerned, AI chatbots have become capable of enough to be useful in executing and automating basic transactions with customers’ approval.

In fact, AI can now also handle voice instructions and execute payments related to routine tasks such as number verification or ACH payment processing automatically.

5 — International Remittance

International remittance is basically a transfer of money from a foreign worker to their family, friends, or other individuals in their home country.

In fact, international remittance, in many countries, constitute a significant portion of a country’s GDP.

According to the World Bank’s latest Migration & Development Brief, the total amount of global remittance in low and middle-income countries reached $529 billion in 2018, while in high-income countries, this number reached $689 billion in the same year.

And guess what? — one of the reasons behind this high growth of international remittance is the penetration of smartphones and the heavy adoption of digital wallet solutions.

Smartphones and digital technologies have quickly transformed the entire landscape of remittance and the overall finance industry.

Concluding Thoughts…

Digital wallet solutions or mobile app development in general have hugely impacted the finance sector, and it is expected that it may soon become the default mode of payments in the near future.

As of now, these are the main 5 digital wallet trends of 2020 that are most innovative. So, if you’re an entrepreneur interested in building a digital wallet app solution of your own, be sure to keep these 5 trends in mind.