Paying for goods and services, or even sending money to a family member or friend, has never been easier with the many alternative payment methods available around the world. What is an alternative payment method? Commonly known by its abbreviation, APM, alternative payment methods are a form of payment that does not include cash, debit, or a major credit card.Â
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As society has become more cashless, the popularity of APMs has increased exponentially in recent years. How often are people around the world using an alternative method to make their payments? One company, Paysecure, created a chart that compares forty popular alternative payment methods from around the world by the number of transactions they had per second in 2023. One-tenth of the APMs included in the analysis were found to have made more than one thousand transactions every second, with one payment platform even reaching a high of almost four thousand transactions per second!Â
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Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is a real-time payment system that India’s Central Bank regulates, and it reached a record-high 3,729 transactions per second in 2023. With 31.56 million seconds in a year, this popular payment system in India had a mind-boggling 117.6 billion transactions in total throughout 2023. It’s popularity has grown quite a bit in the past year, 58% growth to be exact when compared to the 2,348 transactions per second the payment system had in 2022. It’s no wonder UPI has the number one spot in the ranking when India is leading the world in digital transactions. More than 40% of all payments in India are made digitally. Not to mention the fact that as of 2023, India has the world’s largest population with 1.45 billion people. That’s a lot of people making digital payments!Â
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Certain APMs from around the world have proven to be so popular that they are on the path to becoming the main payment method, rivaling even debit card use. One example of this is the online payment platform Pix, which was introduced by the Central Bank of Brazil and accounted for 39% of all electronic payments in Brazil in 2023. Just 41% of electronic payments in Brazil in 2023 were made with a debit card, could Pix overtake debit cards in 2024? Compared to the other popular digital payment methods, Pix had the third most transactions per second in 2023. The Brazilian instant payment platform made 1,331.8 transactions per second, for a total of 42 billion transactions throughout the year. It is another APM that has proven to be incredibly popular in its native country and is used by 75% of Brazil’s population.Â
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What other alternative payment methods can be found on this vibrant chart from Paysecure? It includes popular payment methods like PayPal or Klarna that can be used in many countries around the world, to payment platforms that are only used in a single country like Alipay or Zelle. Whether it serves one country or one hundred countries, these payment platforms put up some serious numbers when it comes to transactions per second.Â
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