The center of gravity in payments keeps shifting to emerging markets, where the world's youngest, most digital consumers are shaping expectations for speed, transparency, and flexibility. By 2035, these markets are projected to drive more than 65% of global economic growth, with nearly 90% of Gen Z and Millennials living there, a powerful demand signal for local-first experiences that convert.
No crystal ball — just proximity. Staying close to consumers, partners, and regulators gets us near the signal. Here are five trends likely to shape payments in 2026:
"Real-time rails go default — and the next frontier is interoperability"
Real-time payments will be the default in major emerging economies, anchored in local rails and regulator backing, and the battleground in 2026 becomes seamless cross-border interoperability. Brazil's Pix now reaches 177 million users (about 83% of the population) and accounts for 51% of all payments by volume, a shift from a market where nearly 29% of the economy was unbanked before Pix. Colombia's Bre-B (Billetera Electrónica Interoperable) is its new, successful national instant payment system, mirroring Brazil's Pix, launched for mass use on October 2025. Across Africa, mobile money processes over US$1.4 trillion annually, with Kenya's M-Pesa handling 81 billion transactions last year and serving more than 91% of Kenyans. The imperative now: to connect domestic real-time systems, so speed and certainty travel with the user across borders.
"BNPL matures into inclusion infrastructure — and a conversion engine"
In credit-light markets, Buy Now Pay Later for business is becoming a critical checkout infrastructure that expands participation and lifts conversion. Up to 66% of carts are abandoned when BNPL isn't offered in emerging markets. During dLocal's 2025 BFCM cycle, BNPL represented more than 22% of all installment-type transactions; in South Africa, BNPL accounted for 67% of APM payments, and in Brazil, retail transactions using installments reached 58%. Done responsibly, with clear terms, affordability checks, aligned regulation, BNPL advances inclusion without compounding long-term risk, while helping merchants complete more checkouts.
A concrete sign of this trajectory is dLocal's October 2025 launch of BNPL Fuse, an exclusive BNPL aggregator that connects leading local providers through one API across eight countries, reaching 500M+ buyers, with risk-free settlements and a frictionless, local-method checkout.
What is Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL)?
BNPL lets shoppers get goods now and repay in smaller, scheduled installments, often interest-free when paid on time.
How does BNPL work?
- Select BNPL at checkout; a local provider presents an installment plan.
- Provider performs a quick eligibility/affordability check and approves the plan.
- Shopper repays over time via card, bank transfer, wallet, or cash-based rails depending on the market.
- Merchant typically receives funds upfront; the BNPL provider manages collections and credit risk.
"Stablecoins: a solid move from experiment to utility"
For PSPs navigating fragmented banking corridors, stablecoins are shifting from pilots to practical cross-border rails, especially for remittances and treasury flows in emerging markets. The key to unlock opportunity in 2026 is regulatory coherence: clear frameworks on issuance, custody, consumer protections, and disclosures that let trusted actors scale. As regulation matures and treasury use cases scale, stablecoins are enabling faster, more predictable cross-border flows for merchants and users.
At dLocal, we're strengthening fiat-to-stablecoin operations through our partnership with Fireblocks and our participation in Circle's network to enable faster treasury movements and on/off-ramp use cases.
"AI becomes invisible infrastructure for risk, routing, and personalization"
AI embedded in the checkout will drive smarter pre-authorization risk scoring, dynamic routing for higher approvals, and adaptive authentication; in credit-light markets it will strengthen BNPL affordability checks, with locally tuned models outperforming generic approaches.
We're also helping shape agentic checkout standards with Google via the Agent Payments Protocol (AP2), an open standard for AI-driven transactions that enables end-to-end, consented flows across local payment methods.
"Behavior leads, policy follows: 2026 is a year of regulatory acceleration"
Consumer behavior is outpacing legacy infrastructure, forcing regulators to adapt with open banking, standardized QR acceptance, and real-time rails. Expect continued momentum behind policy tools that de-risk innovation, from national instant rails in LATAM to structured sandboxes that codify safeguards for new models like stablecoin settlement. Merchants that anticipate these shifts — building for data portability, local reporting, and consented access — will outpace purely technical integrations.
How global merchants finetune their payment strategy in 2026
- Doubledown on local rails to win conversion: prioritize real-time methods and mobile money - and plan for cross-border interoperability as standards emerge.
- Treat BNPL as core infrastructure in credit-light geographies; integrate responsibly to reduce abandonment and expand addressable demand with flexible payment.
- Prepare for programmable money: pilot stablecoin treasury and payout use cases where policy permits, ensuring compliance, auditability, and consumer protections from day one.
- Build mobile-first, local-method checkouts (QR, SuperApps, link-based, tokenized APMs) instead of relying on redirects and card-only assumptions.
- Design for regulatory acceleration: support open banking data flows, standardized QR, and local reporting to stay ahead of rule changes and avoid rework.
The future of payments is local, instant, and interoperable. The winners will be those who build with local trust while designing for global scale.
