Global Digital Payments: Account Ownership, Merchant Payments and Mobile Money

This report tracks how adults around the world pay and get paid digitally, using the World Bank Global Findex Database 2025 as the main demand-side source and GSMA mobile money data as the main supply-side source.

The Findex 2025 edition is based on nationally representative surveys of about 148,000 adults in 141 economies, conducted over calendar year 2024 [3]. It is the first edition with globally comparable data on mobile phone ownership, internet use and digital safety [3].

This single report covers both the "digital payments market" and "global digital payments" search intents. It uses usage and account indicators, not private market-size estimates.

Digital payments need an account. In 2024, 79% of adults globally had an account [1]. That compares with 74% in 2021 and 51% in 2011 [4].

Growth was faster in poorer countries. Between 2021 and 2024, account ownership rose by 11 percentage points in low-income economies and by 8 percentage points in lower middle-income economies [4].

Financial resilience still lags access: 56% of adults said they could reliably access extra money in an emergency [1].

Paying shops digitally is far more common in cities. The Findex 2025 report finds that 28% of adults in rural areas made digital merchant payments, compared with 53% of adults in urban areas [2].

Habit is a barrier. Visa's review of the Findex 2025 notes that most account owners who pay merchants only in cash say they do so out of habit [4].

Mobile phones are now the main route into digital payments. 86% of adults worldwide own a mobile phone, according to the Findex 2025 [5].

On the supply side, the GSMA State of the Industry Report on Mobile Money 2026 found that more than $2 trillion flowed through mobile money wallets in 2025 [6]. Mobile money reached 2.3 billion registered accounts in 2025, an increase of 268 million in the year [6]. See the separate Mobile Money and Mobile Payments report for detail.

• Rural-urban gap: rural adults are about half as likely as urban adults to pay merchants digitally (28% vs 53%) [2].
• Low regular use of mobile money: almost 75% of mobile money accounts were not used in a given month in 2025 [6].
• Fraud and transaction taxes push some mobile money users back to cash, according to the GSMA [6].

Account ownership and payment-use figures come from the World Bank Global Findex Database 2025, a survey of about 148,000 adults in 141 economies during 2024 [3]. An account means an account at a bank, other financial institution or mobile money provider. The 2011 and 2021 comparison values are taken from Visa Economic Empowerment Institute's summary of the Findex 2025, which reports World Bank figures [4]. The mobile phone ownership share is quoted from Storebrand Asset Management's summary of the Findex report [5].

Mobile money transaction values are in US dollars and come from the GSMA [6]. They are supply-side figures from providers and are not directly comparable with survey-based Findex shares.

The headline Findex indicator for the share of adults who made or received any digital payment was not captured in the pages reviewed for this edition, so it is not quoted here. No market-size or CAGR estimates from commercial research firms are used.