Getnet, the leading fintech in payment solutions in Latin America and Iberia, recently launched its Whitepaper that exposes the five main payment methods trends for this year.

Payment methods are going through a transformation that goes far beyond technology. The most profound change is conceptual: payments stopped being the closing of a transaction and became the center of the purchasing experience. Companies that understand this stopped treating them as an operational necessity and turned them into a competitive advantage.

The growing strategic weight of payments is reflected in the numbers. Global payments revenue increased 4% globally in 2024, with stronger growth in Latin America (11%) and Europe (8%). At this rate of growth, the total size of the payments market is projected to reach $3 trillion by 2029.

Against this backdrop, five trends are no longer emerging projections, but realities that are redefining the way businesses operate and grow.

"Payments stopped being a background process and became a decision factor. In that context, our role is no longer just to ensure that the transaction is completed: it is to help businesses sell more, operate better, and grow with less friction along the way." says Federico Balige, CEO of Getnet Argentina, Colombia and Uruguay.

The first trend revealed is the consolidation of instant payments as a basic expectation. In Brazil, PIX is already the most used method with almost 170 million users; In Spain, Bizum exceeds 30 million active users. By 2028, real-time payments are projected to account for 22% of all global cashless volumes. In the case of Getnet, in Argentina, there is “Immediate Payment” that allows merchants and SMEs to receive money from their sales immediately. Immediate settlement improves cash flow and reduces friction.

This leads directly to the second trend: AI risk management. According to the Global Anti-Scams Alliance (GASA), consumers lost $442 billion to scams during 2024, and the AI ​​fraud detection market is projected to be $39.1 billion by 2030. AI is being used to both protect and attack, and the answer can't just be adding layers of control. The balance lies in systems that intelligently distinguish when to intervene and when not to, triggering additional checks only when the context warrants it.

The third force is embedded payments: The transaction is integrated directly into the platform, app or marketplace where the user already operates, without redirections or interruptions. The flow is not cut off. The embedded finance market is projected at 7.2 trillion dollars by 2030, and in Latin America at 20 billion by 2027.

This model is enhanced with the agentic commerce and AI-powered payments, fourth trend. 96% of retailers are already exploring or implementing software agents, and 39% of consumers—more than half of Generation Z—use AI to discover products before they buy them. In this scenario, agents initiate and complete payments in the background, without manual intervention. But that autonomy requires new responsibilities: spending limits, approval hierarchies, and systems that distinguish when a person acts and when a machine does.

The fifth trend is customization of payments by sector. For years, companies adapted their businesses to the available payment flows. Today that logic is reversed: payments must be adapted to each industry, client and regulatory context. A marketplace with split settlements, a travel operator with international bookings, or a healthcare provider with regulated payments cannot operate with the same generic solution. AI allows you to analyze authorization patterns, detect avoidable rejections and intelligently route each transaction to improve approval rates in each context.

"The most important change is not technological: it is strategic. Payments stopped being infrastructure to become a lever for growth. Companies that understand this will not only process transactions faster: they will build experiences in which money moves with the same naturalness with which business flows. And that, ultimately, is what transforms a means of payment into a real tool of value." aggregate Federico Balige.