The Future is Here: The methodologies behind Visa’s economic scenarios of the future

Background and Considerations

Between March and June 2024, Visa worked with its global research partner, Morning Consult, to deliver two complementary pieces of work:

– Europe-wide consumer polling to understand the societal hopes, ambitions and barriers to adopting new payments technologies in the near future. The study was conducted in March and April 2024 among 8,000 consumers across France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Germany, Sweden and the UK. In addition, 516 UK business decision makers were polled. Gen Pop data was weighted to approximate the adult population based on gender, educational attainment, age, race, and region. Some of this research is referenced below within the methodologies of certain statements.

– Low level economic forecasting to understand the hypothetical economic impact of these innovations.

This document delivers clarity and transparency about how Morning Consult arrived at the forecasting statements – providing both the original source and outlining the assumptions made by Morning Consult. While the themes reflected in the hypotheses relate to areas covered in the consumer polling, the attitudes, behaviours, and opinions probed in surveys do not always translate easily to aggregate-level impact.

This impact exercise helps put the consumer polling insights in context by drawing a line from the primary themes to larger-scale or longer-term effects by using a different lens, usually with public data from Visa or other public sources. For purposes of illustration and context-setting appropriate to collateral of this nature, illustrations are typically broad, directional, illustrative, and based on a synthesis of available data, with some assumptions made and conducted in a time-boxed fashion as is done here.

Each of the scenarios in this document represent the potential positive benefit to European individuals, merchants and economies of new payments technologies should these hypothetical scenarios come to pass. In no circumstances does this represent estimated performance, revenues or expectations of or by Visa or its subsidiaries.

Visa neither makes any warranty nor representation as to the completeness or accuracy of the information within this document, nor assumes any liability or responsibility that may result from reliance on such information. This document contains illustrative scenarios that relate to, among other things, the possible socio-economic impact for individuals, merchants and economies of new payment technologies in the future. Illustrative scenarios are generally identified by words such as "believes," "estimates," "expects," "intends," "may," "projects," “could," "should," "will," "continue" and other similar expressions. They are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and other factors, many of which are beyond our control and are difficult to predict.

1. Approx. 67% of European small businesses accept debit or credit payments,¹ with research showing that by accepting digital payments, by card or mobile phone, businesses can positively impact their balance sheet. The digitisation of all SMBs across Europe could increase revenues by more than €200bn annually in real terms once fully adopted. Market estimates for selected country breakdowns of increased revenues: UK (approx. 30%); France (approx.15%); Germany (approx. 13%); Spain (approx. 9%); Italy (approx. 5%); Poland (approx. 3%); and Sweden (approx. 3%).

Link to original Visa article, ‘Unlocking the potential of Europe’s small and medium businesses’, is here, alongside a second article around Visa’s ambition to digitally enable millions of SMBs globally.

More information on the Morning Consult methodology:

SMBs (249 or less employees) represent approximately a 50% share of non-financial firm revenues across the UK plus EU.² SMBs generated revenues of around 19 trillion Euros in 2022, around half of all EU business revenue.³ Also in 2022, UK SMBs generated approximately 2.2 Trillion GBP⁴ (approximately 2.5 Trillion Euros as of 12/31/22). Thus, EU plus UK SMBs comprised around 21.5 Trillion Euro revenue at the end of 2022.

As per the above Visa article, two-thirds (67%) of SMBs accepted card payments in Europe by the start of 2023. 41% surveyed in Visa research (also in 2023, details within the same article) indicated that turnover rose by 6 to 15% when they began accepting card payments.⁵ This implies a range of 185 billion Euros (at 6%) to 456 billion Euros (at 15%) in SMB revenues as digital payments are fully adopted.⁶

These market estimates⁷ are based on observation of past results as businesses adopted digital payments; some of those gains may have been share-shift to businesses adopting digital payments from those who had not yet adopted. To the extent this share-shift is a major source of observed improvements, the results of those adopting in the future may be lower, as there are fewer and fewer non-digitised players to draw from. Broadly speaking, ‘digitising’ an SMB primarily focuses on the acceptance of digital payments and building online businesses.

2. According to European VisaNet data, Click to Pay may allow a 4.5% uplift in merchant sales,⁸ meaning a possible annual increase of €51 bn in SMB eCommerce sales in the UK and EU.

More information on the Morning Consult methodology:

VisaNet data shows that Click to Pay could benefit online shopping, resulting in a 4.5% uplift in merchant sales through increased authorisation rates (see footnote 8). Click to Pay is currently in the early stages, but what does a 4.5% uplift in sales mean for European GDP levels if it is ubiquitous?

Our primary goal is to quantify the implications of Visa’s own estimates, so we applied this 4.5% to the most plausible base for improvements, namely EU and UK eCommerce sales.

Based on our analysis of EU and other data,⁹ Morning Consult estimated UK plus EU eCommerce sales in 2023 to be approximately 1,939 billion Euros in total, with 1,144 billion to SMBs. An uplift of 4.5% implies 51 billion Euros annually to UK and EU businesses.

3. According to a European pilot, Click to Pay could reduce time spent at the checkout by up to 40%.¹⁰ Given the number of abandoned carts in ecommerce, and the significance of checkout time and concerns over entering credit data at checkout, a retailer adopting Click to Pay could increase its revenues by up to 30%.

More information on the Morning Consult methodology:

Visa data shows that Click to Pay could see a 40% reduction in time spent at checkout while online shopping. The average checkout time in Europe was 3.3 mins in 2022 and that 62% of consumers give up on a purchase after two minutes.¹¹ Visa asks, what would a 40% time reduction mean for retailers?

Sources generally indicate that 70% of carts are abandoned,¹² with higher percentages from certain referral channels like social media. To the extent that abandoned carts look like completed transactions, this means that there are around three abandoned carts for every completed transaction, an enormous loss, at least at first glance. Indeed, research indicates that 25-26% of abandons go on to purchase through another site or means, indicating that these were truly lost sales, rather than more casual shoppers or those actively comparing offers across retailers.¹³

Of abandoned carts, 15-20% of abandons are cited as being based on (each) too much time or not wanting to enter card details, both issues that Click to Pay addresses. So, there are at least 25% of abandoned carts that represent real deals, and a fair portion are lost due to time at checkout or payment issues. Elsewhere, in collateral, Shopify cites the ability to use one-click ordering as potentially improving lower funnel conversion rates by 50% over guest checkout.¹⁴ This is consistent with the importance of reduced time and safety of transaction details.¹⁵

Synthesis:

70% abandons implies that for every cart that leads to a final checkout, there are three that do not. So, a merchant could potentially increase sales with three added sales for every one it is already making. However, any consumer doing comparison shopping who shops to the point of final costs (price, delivery, other terms) on two sites for comparison will generally have at least a 50% abandon rate. Someone shopping on four sites will automatically have a 75% abandonment rate. This may be truer with higher-value transactions.¹⁶

Our summary of the funnel opportunity is (using rough numbers consistent across most sources, plus further assumptions):

70-75% of carts are abandoned; of these, some may be phantom shoppers looking at multiple sites for comparison. Of these, around 26% go on to buy elsewhere, so they are real, and could have been converted (but there is no GDP effect, as the transaction take place with another merchant); of these, perhaps 30% abandoned a vendor due to close time or other payment issues.

The remaining abandons may not have been ready to buy; Morning Consult didn’t know this number, so at best, they can use a placeholder of perhaps 20% being ready-to-buy (to be conservative); of these, again, perhaps 30% failed to close due to payment issues.

(26% x 30% + 74% x 20% x 30%) implies that around 12% of the abandoned carts might be saved with Click to Pay and similar means which make the final transaction easier and safer. Since there were around three abandoned carts for every closed cart, this implies a potential increase in transactions of around 36% (3 x 12%) relative to the retailer’s current base.¹⁷ Since best estimates indicate nearly three abandoned carts for each closed sale (implied by 70-75% abandonment rates), saving 8% to 12% of abandoned carts implies an opportunity of 24 to 36% improvement at the level of an individual retailer.¹⁸ We use 30% to represent the midpoint of this range.

4. European consumers could save up to €250 billion more every year if they embraced digital management tools like AI to help manage their finances. Within the UK alone the impact could be £15-30bn annually.

More information on the Morning Consult methodology:

Visa’s research¹⁹ showed consumers already show interest in financial planning tools, including savings pots and similar devices. 31% of UK consumers are aware of savings management (e.g. setting up and managing savings pots) tools and would like to use them. 38% of Brits agree they would like to learn more about managing their finances and how they can optimise them.²⁰

Tools like these could move consumers closer to recommended savings levels. Experts suggest that individuals save in a ratio of 50/30/20 of their disposable income allocated between must-have needs, wants, and savings. Currently, the savings rate in the UK is closer to 10% rather than 20%, with a non-trivial portion of households with limited or no savings. The EU is similar at 12.7% in 2022, close to its pre-pandemic average.²¹

Tools like savings pots and new banking models are unlikely to close the gap completely. However, if these devices can help increase consumer savings by an additional 1% of consumer disposable income (one-tenth to one-eight of the current gap), total consumer savings over the EU plus UK could increase by approximately 130-250 billion Euros annually.²² This is a conservative estimate from Morning Consult, as the full gap is 7% or more.

5. Once biometrics become ubiquitous, European SMBs could capture up to €43bn in additional sales annually, reducing the friction of passwords. Additionally, fraud could be reduced by €483 million annually through biometrics across the region. Market estimates for selected country breakdowns of increased revenues: UK (approx. 30%); France (approx.15%); Germany (approx. 13%); Spain (approx. 9%); Italy (approx. 5%); Poland (approx. 3%); and Sweden (approx. 3%).

More information on the Morning Consult methodology:

Revenue impact: Basic Morning Consult estimates believe that eCommerce activities provide the best starting point for the impact of biometrics with respect to payments. Using the same data that underpins Morning Consult’s estimates on Click to Pay, Morning Consult estimated UK plus EU eCommerce sales in 2023 to be approximately 1,939 billion Euros in total, with 1,144 billion to SMBs.²³

What improvement might be made to this by the use of biometrics? In Morning Consult’s 2024 research for Visa,¹⁹ UK and EU consumers indicated that for every 10 attempted eCommerce transactions, they abandoned just over two attempts. Of these, consumers indicated that around 15% (9% to 19%, depending on the country) abandoned the transactions due to problems with passwords or having to enter a password. On this basis, for every eight completed transactions, another 2 x 15%, or .3 transactions, could have been completed but for a password problem.

If biometrics were ubiquitous, making authentication easier, this suggests that these eight sales could have become 8.3 sales, an increase of 3.75%. Applying this to the 1,144 billion Euros in Morning Consult’s estimated SMB eCommerce sales suggests an improvement of approximately 43 billion Euros in total across the UK and EU. Note that this represents the upside (if) biometric authentication were ubiquitous, which may take some time; the same survey showed that right now, around 34% of consumers remained sceptical of or hesitant to adopt biometrics, so this 3.75% increase should be viewed as a long-run number, as adoption takes hold.²⁴

Fraud reduction: According to the office of National Statistics, there are currently 67.1 million people in the UK.²⁵ Among them, the BBC reports that approximately 1 in 15 people fall victim to fraud,²⁶ which means approximately (67.1mm x 1/15) 4.4 million people have been impacted by fraud in this market and is valued at £395.7 million (3) or approximately £90 per person (4.4mm/395.7mm).²⁷

We know that biometrics can help reduce fraud and among UK respondents that are not currently using biometrics for payment or authentication, 28% say they are somewhat or extremely likely to consider using biometrics for payment solutions in the next five years.²⁸ Among the market estimated 4.4 million people impacted by fraud, if 28% were to adopt biometrics payment solutions, this could result in (4.4mm x 28%) 1.2 million fewer people being impacted and the equivalent of approximately £110.9 million (1.2 million x £90) in fraud reduction in the next five years.

When Morning Consult applied similar logic to the EU, we have: EU population is approximately 448 million people.²⁹ 8% of consumers experienced online banking or payment fraud in the past five years.³⁰ This implies 448mm x 8% = 35.9mm people impacted. Card-not-present fraud was reported to be €1.28 billion. €1.28B / 35.9mm = 36€ per person in fraud. On average 27% are likely to adopt biometric payment solutions within the next 5 years. 35.9mm impacted x 27% = 9.7mm people likely to adopt, which equates to 9.7 mm x €36= €349.2mm or £294.9mm in potential fraud reduction within the next 5 years.³¹

When Morning Consult combined the UK + EU numbers, the collective impact could mean that biometrics has the potential to help reduce fraud by (£110.9 million + £294.9mm) £405.8mm, or €483mm, and approximately (1.2mm + 9.7mm) 10.9 million fewer people will be impacted in the next five years.

All brand names, logos and/or trademarks are the property of their respective owners, are used for identification purposes only, and do not necessarily imply product endorsement or affiliation with Visa.

1. In November and December 2022, Visa conducted its annual, in-depth quantitative market research of approximately 6,000 small businesses across 14 markets to understand the current state of play and explore the factors that will continue to influence their growth. The markets covered by the survey were Germany, the UK, France, Spain, Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, Denmark, Israel, Turkey, Romania, Poland, and Greece.
2. Country-level data for the UK also shows almost exactly equal total turnover (revenues) for businesses with less than and more than 250 employees within the non-financial sector (UK Office of National Statistics).
3. EU Eurostat, Large businesses generated half of EU’s net turnover - News articles - Eurostat
4. Statistica, UK SME turnover 2024| Statista
5. Pre-existing research provided by Visa. Billions of reasons to champion growth
6. 33% still to adopt x 41% expected to experience an increase x 6% (or 15%) x 22.5 trillion Euro base revenues. 7 This is a simple extrapolation. There are reasons to believe that revenue increases from card payments by later adopters will not quite parallel those of earlier adopters, but this is the closest available data without complicated de novo research.
7. Europe: e-commerce share of GDP by country 2022 | Statista
8. VisaNet data + GBI Monthly Authorisation Report, May 2022 (full article here)
9. Data: Europe: e-commerce share of GDP by country 2022| StatistaList of sovereign states in Europe by GDP (nominal); - WikipediaEuropean Commission, 2023, Annual Report on SME2, Fig 38; SME Ecomm based on EU-wide 59% of value-added within Retail industry (industry we judge most representative of Ecomm); Morning Consult analysis.
10. Visa data taken from Click to Pay pilot in 2024
11. The state of European checkouts in 2022
12. Baymard institute, 48 Cart Abandonment Rate Statistics 2023, 49 Cart Abandonment Rate Statistics 2025 – Cart and Checkout – Baymard.
13. Cart Abandonment stats, Ecommerce: 23 Insightful Stats on Shopping Cart Abandonment. 15 Cart Abandonment Statistics, 15 Shopping Cart Abandonment Statistics for 202450+ Key Ecommerce Cart Abandonment Statistics, Latest Cart Abandonment Statistics (2025) | StatsUpA Quarter of Consumers Use Guest Accounts, A quarter of consumers use guest accounts online over privacy concerns - Ecommerce Age
14. Shopify, citing a research study conducted by an unnamed Big 3 consultancy, Introduction to Shopify’s Payments Stack: Shopify Payments, Shop Pay, Shop Pay Installments, and Shopify Protect (2024) - Shopify and How To Reduce Cart Abandonment and Close Sales (2024) - Shopify
15. Baymard Institute. 2017. E-commerce checkout usability report. Baymard Institute. 2019.
16. Example customer journey research, Power Reviews, From Discovery to Purchase: Key Digital and Physical Influences on the Customer Journey - PowerReviews
17. This is within the same order of magnitude as Shopify’s estimated life of 50% of lower funnel conversions.
18. Note that these represent sales that an individual retailer might capture rather than lose to another retailer; most will be a shifting of sales to retailers with better payment methods and customer checkout experience, not necessarily a sector-wide increase in retail sales.
19. Study was conducted in March and April 2024 among 8,000 consumers across France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Germany, Sweden and the UK. In addition, 516 UK business decision makers were polled. Gen Pop data was weighted to approximate the adults population based on gender, educational attainment, age, race, and region.
20. Source, Visa, citing 2023 Tink Fintech for Good survey, and 2023 Tink Banking survey.
21. Eurostat, EU Household Statistics on Income, Saving, and Investment. Households - statistics on income, saving and investment - Statistics Explained - Eurostat
22. EU disposable income 2023 (est) 11,450 Bn Eu. UK disposable income 2023 (est) 1,691 Bn Eu (1,450 Bn GBP).
23. Data: Europe: e-commerce share of GDP by country 2022| StatistaList of sovereign states in Europe by GDP (nominal); - WikipediaEuropean Commission, 2023, Annual Report on SME2, Fig 38; SME Ecomm based on EU-wide 59% of value-added within Retail industry (industry we judge most representative of Ecomm); Morning Consult analysis.
24. A 70-75% cart abandonment rate is often cited. Of this, 25-26% is said to buy from another merchant, meaning there is no GDP effect, just a shift in seller. This leaves roughly 70-75% (said to be abandoned) x 75% not bought from another merchant, so approximately 50% of carts abandoned.43 If approximately 15% of abandons are due to password issues as shown in the MC Visa 2024 consumer research, this implies 50% x 15%, or 7.5% of abandons might be “saved” if biometrics were ubiquitous. However, because stated abandons at 75% exceed actual closed deals by a factor of 3:1, this would imply an enormous increase in sales for merchants. There simply is not enough consumer disposable income to support the implied “missing” sales. We believe that many of the nominally abandoned carts never would have resulted in a sale, and many may be the result of comparison shopping. This leads us to believe the 3.7% increase in the main text is more compelling.
25. Overview of the UK population - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)
26. Warning UK losing £2,300 per minute to fraud - BBC News
27. Overview of the UK population - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk); Warning UK losing £2,300 per minute to fraud (bbc.com); Understanding and Preventing Card Not Present Fraud (sumup.com).
28. Morning Consult Economic Impact Consumer Surveys (VISA 20). Please note, this is an average top 2 box score (extremely and very likely) across the following markets: France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and Sweden.
29. European Union
30. Axerve Whitepaper: Cybercrime and online fraud: a challenge for the enture Ecommerce ecosystem https://brc.org.uk/media/679094/cybercrime-and-online-fraud-axerve.pdf(page7)
31. Facts and figures, EU demographics | European Union (europa.eu); Consumer fraud affects 1 in 4 Europeans | European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (europa.eu); .Report on card fraud in 2020 and 2021 (europa.eu)