Online Payment Industry Shows Growth in Volume, Diversity

The online segment of the payment industry continues to grow rapidly, yet still has not matured into a generally commoditized marketplace, according to a new report from Celent Communications. While the lines continue to blur between e-check, phone billing, traditional providers and more, the bottom line continues to grow: E-commerce payments will grow from $8 billion in 2003 to $12.5 billion in 2005, with card issuers, card associations and independent card networks such as American Express continuing to capture more than 90% of online payment revenues. Meanwhile, providers of innovative services such as e-mail payment and phone billing will see 55% annual growth, with 13% of the total value of U.S. e-commerce transactions occurring through e-mail payments by 2005, according to Celent research. E-checks also will continue to grow in importance, with ACH’s share of total e-commerce value increasing from 6% in 2003 to 9% in 2005. Finally, despite widespread attention and focus on the problem, fraud management vendors will see below-industry average growth in the online payments space. Here are some tables illustrating the Celent research.