BPC has released its latest industry guide, Your Essential Guide on How to Build Closed and Open-Loop Wallet Ecosystems, offering banks, fintechs and payment service providers a roadmap for designing, launching and scaling digital wallet platforms.
Digital wallets are now at the forefront of financial innovation, with an estimated 3.4 billion in active use globally, facilitating nearly $9trillion in annual payments. By 2026, adoption is forecast to reach 5.4 billion users, making wallets a primary financial tool for nearly two-thirds of the global population by 2030.
The guide highlights several important market insights:
- Merchants integrating digital wallets experience a 25–30 per cent increase in average transaction values.
- In Sub-Saharan Africa, mobile wallets processed more than 17 billion transactions in the first half of 2024, making the region a global leader in mobile money adoption.
- In Asia-Pacific, India’s UPI now handles over 16 billion monthly transactions, largely enabled by wallet ecosystems.
- In Europe, digital wallets already account for 44 per cent of e-commerce payments, with growth projected to accelerate by over 20% through 2029.
“Digital wallets are no longer just a payment tool, they are the cornerstone of future financial & digital ecosystems. Our new guide empowers financial institutions to move from strategy to execution, helping them unlock new revenue streams, drive financial inclusion, execute at scale and compete in a rapidly digitising economy,” said Imran Vilcassim, global chief commercial officer, digital banking, BPC.
Inside the guide
The new guide examines the entire range of wallet ecosystems, from closed-loop models that foster customer loyalty within brand-controlled networks to open-loop systems enabling global interoperability through integration with major payment networks like Visa, Mastercard, and UnionPay. It offers a step-by-step guide to transitioning from a closed-loop environment to a fully open-loop ecosystem, addressing key challenges such as regulatory compliance, fraud prevention, interoperability, and scalability.
BPC’s SmartVista platform offers a foundation for developing both closed and open-loop wallet systems, featuring modular, microservices-based architecture, multi-currency and multi-channel support, and smooth integration with global payment networks. Its advanced security, loyalty, and real-time transaction features enable institutions to provide user-friendly, scalable, and compliant wallet solutions.
