Digital payment types in the United States

This report aims to provide a comparative overview of how different cashless, or digital, payment methods within the U.S. compare against each other. Which payment method do consumers in the country prefer to use either in POS or online shopping? Which brands do they use? And how does the United States deal with potential payment disruptors, such as buy now, pay later, cryptocurrency, or real-time payments?

The main structure of this report focuses on industry-important metrics for each payment method. The metrics are as follows:

• Adoption and/or penetration;
• The biggest brands within certain payment methods;
• User count and/or user demographics;
• Value of transactions, in domestic currency and/or U.S. dollar;
• Number of transactions per user.

With those metrics, the following payment methods are discussed:

1. Credit cards;
2. Debit cards;
3. Mobile payments at POS, also called contactless or mobile proximity payments;
4. Payments in e-commerce, with any device;
5. Buy now, pay later (BNPL);
6. Cryptocurrency as a payment method;
7. Account-to-account (A2A) payments;
8. Real-time (instant) payments;
9. (Digital) remittances.

The report, finally, closes off with a chapter on figures that help contextualize digital payments in the country - such as the market size of e-commerce, how many people do not have access to financial services, or the size of cross-border remittances from and towards the country.

The report is designed to be comparable with other "Digital payment types" studies that cover different countries across the world.