Digital wallets have evolved from a convenient payment option into an essential part of everyday commerce. Whether consumers are shopping online, making in-store purchases, or sending money to friends and family, these payment tools have become deeply embedded in how people manage their finances. But which digital wallet brands are consumers actually using?
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Data for today’s episode is provided by Javelin Strategy & Research’s Report: How Software Makes Merchant Payments Quietly Simple, Secure, and Advanced
Digital Wallet Brands Used During a Three-Month Span in 2025
- 58% – PayPal
- 42% – Google Pay/Google Wallet
- 38% – Apple Pay
- 37% – Cash App (Square)
- 34% – Merchant wallet (e.g. – Starbucks, Target, Walmart)
Source: Javelin Strategy & Research, North American PaymentInsights Survey (2025)
About Report
Software is reshaping the payments landscape by integrating payment capabilities into the business applications merchants rely on every day. Rather than depending on separate terminals or payment gateways, businesses can now accept payments directly within vertical software platforms, e-commerce solutions, and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Self-service checkout experiences reduce wait times, ease operational demands, and allow customers to resolve routine payment issues independently. Meanwhile, customer profiles and securely stored payment credentials simplify repeat purchases and provide merchants with deeper transaction insights, enabling a better balance between fraud prevention and a seamless customer experience. Subscription management, contactless transit payments, and optimized processing for low-value transactions further demonstrate how software can increase efficiency, improve cash flow, and reduce administrative complexity.
Software-centric payments also create significant opportunities for financial institutions. Deeper integration with merchant platforms can increase payment volumes while providing richer transaction data that supports stronger authorization and fraud decisioning. Technologies such as digital wallets, tokenization, and account-to-account payment rails strengthen security while enhancing visibility into payment activity. In the business payments arena, embedded payment capabilities within ERP platforms simplify reconciliation and help organizations reach new customers through integrated commerce experiences. Emerging concepts such as agentic commerce—where software agents initiate and complete transactions within predefined parameters—signal the next stage of payments innovation, offering greater automation, tighter ecosystem connectivity, and new opportunities for financial institutions and technology providers to deliver value-added services.
