Are global markets accelerating real-time payment adoption too rapidly?

The pressure on payment service providers to find ways of dealing with the burgeoning demand of real-time payment settlement services has been tremendous, with real-time transaction volumes rising 42.2% across the year to $266 billion in 2023.

Accelerating real-time payment adoption

The pace of such a transformation has seen most institutions scurrying to modernise old infrastructure without affecting the operational stability.

Market valuations reached $24.91 billion in 2024, with analysts projecting growth to $284.49 billion by 2032.

Yet this acceleration comes as fraud exposure in instant credit transfers runs up to ten times higher than traditional payment methods, according to European Banking Authority assessments.

Digital Platforms Set Consumer Benchmarks

The entertainment and gaming sectors have established instant payout standards that now influence broader payment expectations.

Platforms specialising in rapid fund access, including Fast withdrawal casino sites in the US, have demonstrated that immediate settlement drives customer retention rates significantly higher than traditional processing timelines.

These implementations have become de facto testing environments for payment technologies that mainstream financial institutions now face pressure to replicate. E-commerce merchants process refunds instantly while gig platforms settle contractor payments in real time, creating cross-industry expectations that PSPs cannot ignore.

The competitive dynamics are clear: institutions offering slower settlement windows face customer migration to more responsive alternatives.

Fraud Detection Frameworks Buckle Under Speed Constraints

Legacy systems designed around longer settlement windows prove inadequate for sub-10-second processing requirements. Traditional fraud monitoring relies on pattern analysis and manual review, which instant payment infrastructures cannot accommodate.

Threat actors target off-peak operational periods when oversight capacity drops. Weekend and holiday periods now represent peak vulnerability timeframes for financial institutions.

EY research citing European Banking Authority assessments indicates fraud risk in instant credit transfers runs up to 10 times higher than regular transfers, forcing institutions to recalibrate detection systems.

As cyber fraud evolves, many banks discover existing preventive controls require fundamental restructuring to function in 24/7 environments where machine learning models lack sufficient historical data.

Infrastructure Modernisation Lags Market Demand

Core banking systems developed decades ago require extensive modifications to handle continuous liquidity management and multi-network integration demands. Payment institutions face substantial technology stack upgrades while maintaining service availability across existing channels.

Smaller financial institutions confront particularly stark choices between major technology investments and third-party partnership arrangements that may diminish direct customer relationships. Implementation timelines suggest many institutions are compressing traditional multi-year development cycles into abbreviated deployment schedules.

ACI Worldwide research reveals infrastructure supporting real-time payments varies dramatically between markets, with India processing 84% of electronic payments in real-time while Europe manages just 8%. This creates operational blind spots that manifest under production stress, particularly when transaction volumes spike beyond anticipated parameters.

Risk Management vs. Market Positioning

The payments sector is confronting a systemic timing issue: how to build holistic procedures of risk management, as it tries to access market opportunities presented by consumer demands to receive a real-time experience.

Companies that have made huge investments in fraud detection and modernisation of the infrastructure place themselves on the path of sustainable growth, whereas those that have focused on fast market penetration usually face business bottlenecks as the volumes increase.

Market momentum behind real-time payments continues to accelerate regardless of infrastructure readiness. PSPs that balance strategic implementation with speed-to-market considerations will likely determine competitive positioning as instant settlement becomes the industry standard across all payment types.