Financial services is in the middle of a once-per-generation platform shift. The industry is moving from “digitizing existing products” (online banking, card apps, mobile wallets) to re-architecting money movement, credit, and advice as software primitives that can be embedded anywhere—inside commerce, messaging, mobility, and even AI assistants. The result is a market where growth is real, but competitive advantage is increasingly determined by distribution, data, trust, and regulatory execution rather than by a single shiny product.
The market in numbers: big value pools, slowing growth in some cores
Payments remains the biggest consumer-facing value pool—and the data shows both momentum and maturation. Worldpay’s Global Payments Report 2024 projects that digital wallets will exceed $25 trillion in global transaction value by 2027, representing 49% of all online + POS sales combined, and notes $13.9T was spent via digital wallets in 2023. That trajectory aligns with reporting that digital payments (online and in-person) climbed from $1.7T in 2014 to $18.7T in 2024, with projections to surpass $33.5T by 2030.
But the payments industry is also approaching a new phase: Boston Consulting Group’s Global Payments Report 2024 indicates revenue growth is expected to slow, with revenue rising from $1.8T to $2.3T by 2028 as CAGR drops from 9% to 5%. This is what “maturity” looks like: enormous scale, but harder-won growth and a premium on efficiency, fraud control, and new business models.
Meanwhile, two fast-growing categories are reshaping distribution and product design:
Embedded finance is one of the clearest expansion zones. Grand View Research estimates the embedded finance market at $83.32B in 2023, projecting $588.49B by 2030 (CAGR 32.8%). The implication is that financial services will be won inside non-financial customer journeys—checkout, payroll, B2B procurement, travel booking, creator platforms—where consumers already spend time.
Open banking is another structural accelerant. Grand View Research estimates the open banking market at $31.61B in 2024, projecting $135.17B by 2030 (CAGR 27.6%). Whether mandated by regulators or adopted through market incentives, open banking pushes the industry toward interoperability—data sharing, payment initiation, and third-party product assembly.
The technology shifts that matter most
1) AI moves from “automation” to “decisioning” (and then to “agents”)
The most consequential change isn’t that banks will use AI—they already do—but that AI is moving into the core work of financial intermediation: underwriting, fraud, compliance, servicing, personalization, and relationship management.
A widely cited framing from McKinsey’s Global Institute is that gen AI could add $200B–$340B in value annually for global banking—2.8% to 4.7% of total industry revenues, largely via productivity. In practice, this shows up as faster onboarding and KYC, improved contact-center resolution, better risk triage, and more personalized “next best action” engagement—provided institutions can govern models safely.
The next layer is agentic workflows, where AI systems don’t just answer questions but can execute multi-step tasks under constraints. In financial services, that opens opportunities (and risks) in areas like dispute handling, SME lending packaging, financial planning, and proactive fraud remediation—so long as identity, authorization, and audit trails are robust.
2) Real-time payments become the default rail in high-adoption markets
Real-time payments (RTP) is a foundational shift because it changes expectations around settlement speed, liquidity, and user experience. ACI Worldwide’s “Prime Time for Real-Time” reporting points to 266.2 billion real-time payment transactions in 2023, up 42.2% YoY. In APAC specifically, coverage is deep: reporting drawing on the same ecosystem research highlights that APAC contains four of the top five RTP markets by volume, and projects APAC RTP transaction volume could reach 351 billion by 2028.
For providers, RTP shifts competition toward overlay services: fraud controls built for instant settlement, request-to-pay, intelligent routing, merchant acceptance tooling, and cash-flow products for consumers and SMEs.
3) Wallets and “invisible payments” turn payments into a UX layer
As wallets expand, payment method choice becomes less about “card vs. bank transfer” and more about whichever method a consumer’s wallet abstracts behind one tap. Worldpay’s report captures the scale of wallet penetration and the growing share across online and POS. The opportunity is not only in wallet products themselves, but in orchestration: tokenization, authentication, dispute handling, and cross-border optimization, all packaged to maximize conversion while managing risk.
4) Open banking + embedded finance rewires distribution
When a retailer, marketplace, or SaaS platform can embed payment acceptance, lending, insurance, or savings, the customer relationship shifts. Embedded finance market projections reflect this distribution pull. In parallel, open banking market growth reflects the push to make data and payment initiation portable and composable. Together, they create a world where “the best financial product” may be the one that appears at the exact moment of need, inside a non-financial flow.
5) Tokenization and programmable finance advance—but governance is decisive
Tokenization is often overhyped as a consumer story, but it’s a serious infrastructure story. BIS reporting to the G20 emphasizes that tokenization “could offer numerous benefits,” while also stressing that “costs and risks… need to be considered,” and highlights considerations around settlement assets and oversight. The nearer-term opportunity is in institutional and wholesale markets (collateral, fund units, trade finance, cross-border settlement), which can later simplify consumer experiences through cheaper, faster back-end rails—if standards and regulation mature.
Where the biggest opportunities are (and who captures them)
1) Fraud, identity, and trust as a profit engine (not a cost center).
As RTP and wallets scale, fraud shifts from “chargebacks later” to “prevent now.” The winners will pair behavioral biometrics, device intelligence, network signals, and AI risk scoring with customer-friendly step-up authentication. For many firms, improving fraud outcomes is the most direct path to better unit economics: fewer losses, fewer false declines, higher approval rates, better retention.
2) SME and micro-merchant finance embedded in workflows.
In APAC especially, the next wave of growth often comes from digitizing the long tail: micro-merchants, creators, freelancers, and small exporters. Embedded lending and working capital—priced off real-time sales and cash-flow data—can outperform traditional underwriting, provided transparency and fairness are built in.
3) AI-native servicing and advisory.
Banks and insurers can convert service into growth when AI helps customers complete outcomes quickly: disputing a charge, refinancing, adjusting coverage, planning savings, or preventing missed payments. The differentiator will be “resolution quality” and governance, not chatbot presence.
4) Cross-border payments and multi-currency consumer experiences.
APAC’s trade and travel flows make cross-border a major prize. Opportunities sit in FX transparency, instant remittance, multi-currency wallets, and merchant settlement optimization—especially when paired with compliance automation.
5) Platform consolidation and “payments as infrastructure.”
The payments stack is consolidating as scale becomes an advantage in acceptance, risk, and global coverage. A notable example is the announced Global Payments–Worldpay deal (and related asset swaps), framed as a move toward a more scaled “commerce solutions” posture. For fintechs, this raises the bar: differentiation must come from vertical specialization, superior UX, or distribution partnerships rather than commodity processing.
What this means for APAC in particular
Asia Pacific is likely to remain the most important proving ground for the future of consumer finance because it combines (1) high mobile intensity, (2) wallet-driven behaviors, (3) rapid RTP adoption in key markets, and (4) strong platform ecosystems. The projection to 351B RTP transactions by 2028 in APAC is one proxy for how quickly consumer expectations can shift once infrastructure and habits lock in.
The opportunity for incumbents is to modernize core rails and governance fast enough to compete with ecosystem players; the opportunity for fintechs is to build defensible distribution and compliance maturity while staying focused on a narrow customer problem.
The practical “north star”: outcomes, not products
In the next five years, “financial services technology” will increasingly be judged by outcomes: faster money movement with less fraud, simpler onboarding with better compliance, more inclusion without predatory pricing, and more personalization without compromising trust. The firms that win will be the ones that can combine modern rails (real-time, open APIs), AI-enabled operations, and strong governance into experiences that feel effortless to consumers.