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Mercator releases 2019 forecast for U.S. payment trends

January 23, 2019

Mercator Advisory group has released its 2019 Outlook: U.S. payments. The docyment is compiled from Outlook publications released in late 2018 for each of the company's advisory services: debit and alternative products; credit, merchant services; prepaid; commercial and enterprise payments; and emerging technologies. 

All of the Mercator Outlook publications can be downloaded free of charge, a company press release said.

According to Aaron McPherson, vice president of research operations at Mercator and the primary author of the piece, "2019 will build upon and realize the payment trends we identified in 2018: open application programming interfaces; mobile devices; faster payments; and fraud and risk management." 

McPherson said that faster payments attracted particular attention, with same-day ACH and Zelle showing strong momentum. 

Additionally, the release said, fraud and risk management advanced considerably, with artificial intelligence, biometrics and blockchain powering innovative products and approaches. 

As with faster payments, products that were in pilot in 2018 — including new tokenization services — will launch in 2019, and industry watchers will learn whether network-based, card-on-file tokenization, 3-D Secure 2.0, and secure remote commerce gain acceptance from merchants.

A weakening economic picture in 2019 will mean that payments players must pay greater attention to customer engagement, the release said. 

Additionally, global payments capability is gaining importance, most notably in commercial payments, where globalization is driving increased demand for more efficient and less costly international payment options.

Regulations will continue to affect the payments industry in 2019 as the new U.S. prepaid rule takes effect in April. The effects of tighter security and privacy standards in the EU through PSD2 and GDPR will continue to be felt by U.S. companies with an international presence, Mercator said.

Download the free Mercator publication, 2019 Outlook: U.S. payments.