India, Brazil lead real-time A2A payments with UPI and Pix adoption

A BCG report says A2A payments exceed 50 per cent of all transactions in India and Brazil, powered by UPI and Pix, with AI agents set to further transform digital commerce

Globally, real-time account-to-account (A2A) payments make up nearly a quarter of all retail digital transactions, according to a new report.

 

Among countries such as India and Brazil, A2A transactions exceed 50 per cent of all payments, the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) report said.

 

The report, titled The Future is (Anything But) Stable, noted that in India and Brazil more than half of all transactions are A2A, supported by domestic infrastructures such as Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and Pix.

 

India’s UPI has more than 400 million users, while Brazil’s Pix has 160 million.

 

“In markets such as Brazil and India, RTPs (real-time payments) have expanded beyond peer-to-peer transfers to cover merchant payments, enterprise payments and recurring bills, enabled by features such as automatic debits,” the report stated.

 

 

In the Middle East and Africa, where real-time systems are still emerging, adoption is projected to reach more than 50 per cent by 2030, the report added.

 

Agentic payments

 

The report also highlighted that agentic artificial intelligence (AI) workflows will drive AI-enabled digital commerce, with more than 50 per cent of global e-commerce spending expected to be influenced by such agents.

 

The use of AI agents is expected to cover daily purchases, budgeting, bill payments, dispute resolution and price comparisons, among other use cases.

 

“Payment service providers will deploy agents across the customer and enterprise stack. Customer agents, for example, will autonomously resolve inquiries, manage customer onboarding and fraud detection, and present tailored offers based on transaction history,” the report noted.

 

The top categories for such spending include household supplies, restaurants, hygiene and beauty products.

 

In India, business-to-business (B2B) fintech companies such as Cashfree Payments and Razorpay are making it easier for merchants to manage complex backend systems.

 

These fintechs are using AI-powered agents and a tool called Model Context Protocol (MCP).

 

The MCP acts as a “universal connector” — similar to a USB-C port — allowing different software systems to work together seamlessly.

 

This enables AI agents and assistants to interface directly with core application programming interfaces (APIs), streamlining integration for merchants of all sizes.