Value of 'digital payments' to reach $4.7 trillion by 2019

Juniper Research said that the annual value of these digital payments will amount to just over $2.5 trillion this year but that the value will reach $4.7tr by 2019.

In a new report, Juniper Research said that the growth in digital payments is partly down to "the dramatic surge in activity in emerging markets such as China".

It also found that many consumers that may have made digital payments from fixed computers and laptops in the past are increasingly transacting via mobile and tablet devices. The research also highlighted a rise in the amount of intangible digital content that is being purchased from providers such as Netflix and Lovefilm in place of digital content available on physical media such as CDs and DVDs.

The rise in contactless payment activity will mostly stem from the increasing use of payment cards when making transactions, the research found, although the volume of mobile payments should also increase thanks to the adoption of host card emulation (HCE) technology, which allows for contactless payments to be made directly between consumers' banks and retailers using 'near field communications' (NFC) technology.

"While we are now seeing contactless transactions scaling up in markets such as Australia, Poland and the UK, almost all current consumer usage is via the card," Dr Windsor Holden, author of Juniper Research's 'Digital Payments Strategies 2014' report. "However, with banks increasingly attracted to an NFC model in which they have full control of the customer, then we may well see some high-profile deployments in the medium term."