Juniper Research predicted increased popularity for mobile person-to-person (P2P) transfer systems, with young adults driving strong adoption of social payment brands such as PayPal’s Venmo.

In the analyst company’s latest market report, it said the number of digital money transfers over mobile (excluding international remittance) would be around 130 billion in 2019. The number is then expected to rapidly rise to 203 billion in 2024.

Juniper Research added growth in the P2P mobile channel was being driven by social payment platforms, which primarily act as systems to transfer small amounts of money between friends and relatives. This segment, it noted, is popular with young adults but warned there were still perception issues holding it back from gaining even wider adoption.

“Social payments are highly appealing to younger users as they enable simple and effective digital payment to displace cash. However, data security concerns about mixing payments and social networks will impact consumer attitudes among older users,” senior analyst Nick Maynard said.

Reduced lead
China will continue to lead the market by number of domestic transactions, it added, however the country’s lead will diminish slightly over the coming years.

In 2019, Juniper Research expects China to account for 68 per cent of the world’s domestic mobile transfers with this dominance cut to 57 per cent in 2024. The company pointed to fast adoption in many African markets as contributing to the closing gap.