Juniper Research predicted almost half of the world’s population will regularly use a digital wallet by the end of 2024, with $9 trillion set to move through the platforms annually by that date.

It expects 2.3 billion consumers to use digital wallets globally by the end of this year. This is set to increase to 4 billion by the end of 2024, with growth aided by the introduction of secure remote commerce protocols from H2 2019.

The value of total annual transactions is tipped to grow 80 per cent during the period.

In its latest report, providing predictions on the sector between 2019 and 2024, the company said increases would be driven by systems using QR codes and standards developed by Mastercard, Visa and Europay collaboration EMVco.

It added in a statement: “The primary opportunities for QR code wallets outside their Chinese heartland will occur in developing Asia, where there is a paucity of PoS infrastructure and merchants can use smartphones to fulfil QR-based transactions.”