From UK to India, drivers of digital payments explained in three charts

Global non-cash transaction volumes saw a compounded annual growth rate of 9.8 per cent during 2012-2016 driven by emerging Asia, Central Europe, the West Asia and Africa. Advanced economies had the lion’s share of such transactions in terms of volume, but Emerging market economies (EMEs) are closing the gap. Data also shows the spread and intensity of digital payments does not always increase in tandem with a country’s GDP. Some AEs (like Germany) have low digital payments-GDP ratio similar to a couple of EMEs (the ratio in an EME like Brazil is close to that of Belgium). A high GDP also does not imply low currency usage. Japan has one of the highest currency-GDP ratios which is higher than most EMEs — and one of the lowest cashless payments-GDP ratios in the world. Again, an uptick in the digital payments-GDP ratio over time does not seem to have resulted in lower currency usage.