QR code payments favored to gain adoption in 2025

Shiho Fukada/Bloomberg

QR code payments are expected to gain traction in the U.S. in 2025 as more use cases become prevalent and merchants look to avoid pricey interchange fees. 

QR code payments leverage the account-to-account, also known as pay-by-bank, payment method to transfer money between two bank accounts without the need for an intermediary such as credit card networks or payment processors. They are already fairly prevalent in many small- and medium-sized businesses and pop-up retailers, according to research from ABI Research.

That's set to change as the technology shifts from "niche" to "partial mainstream," according to ABI Research. 

"The flexibility to offer digital payment acceptance via a unique QR code, rather than leasing a point of sale (POS) device, is not only appealing to SMEs, but also to the larger merchants operating within the hospitality sector, including restaurants, which continue to experience significant financial pressures," ABI said. 

Investments from vendors such as PayPal, Stripe and SumUp are "setting up the foundation" for increased adoption, ABI said. 

Major retailers, such as Best Buy, CVS, Dunkin' Donuts, Starbucks, Target and Walmart, among others, already accept QR code payments and have plans to push adoption further, according to Aila Technologies, which provides a self-service platform of image-based scanning and iPad-based kiosks to merchants. 

Daniela Hawkins, an associate partner and head of Capco's payments practice, also expects QR code payments to increase next year because of the pressure merchants are facing with processing fees. 

"The merchants have a case that it costs a lot of money to accept [Visa and Mastercard]," Hawkins said. "They'll want to start to drive more consumers to account-to-account or pay-by-bank options." 

At their core, QR code payments enable simple and fast transactions, Elias Ghanem, global head of Capgemini Research Institute for Financial Services, said. 

QR codes also enable financial inclusion, Ghanem said. 

"It's cheap and simple. You don't need to remember codes, you don't need to sign. You only need to have the smart phone and QR code," Ghanem said. "For a bank, it's cheaper than issuing cards, and the money comes from the bank account, so there's no delinquency." 

Financial inclusion, as well as government mandates, have fueled adoption of QR code payments in countries such as Brazil, China and India. QR code payments are one of the most — if not the most — common payment methods in China, said Reed Luhtanen, executive director of the Faster Payments Council. 

"Lots of payments through WeChat Pay and Alipay are all QR-code based," he said. "It's widely used in Brazil … and there's a very similar situation in India. … They have a common QR code standard there." 

Broadly, the U.S. had the highest volume of QR code scans in the world in 2023, followed by India, according to QR Tiger, a QR code generating service. That includes QR scans that aren't specific to payment, such as a code to view a URL, redirect to an application or to download a file. 

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In fact, the number of smart phone users in the U.S. scanning QR codes was projected to reach 99.5 million by 2025, according to a Feb. 2022 report from eMarketer. 

Increased adoption of QR codes in general will likely fuel QR code payment adoption, Capgemini's Ghanem said. 

"The more you and I adopt QR codes in our life, the more tomorrow we'll be doing payment with QR codes," he said. 

But account-to-account payment methods will need more than increased merchant adoption to drive consumer use due to the "rewards factor," Capco's Hawkins said. "If you're a savvy consumer and you're a rewards junkie, then you're not going to have any interest in [QR code payments]."