Britain’s payments success was built on trust. Security is the price of keeping it.
Rob Cameron, Group Country Manager, UK & Ireland
| Visa
Britain's payments industry has been built on trust. As the next wave of technologies, from AI and stablecoins to agentic commerce, reshapes how we pay, maintaining that trust will require continued investment. Without it, households risk falling victim to fraud, and the UK risks missing out on the growth that safer, more secure payments can unlock.
Unless stated otherwise, the figures below are drawn from How Payments Can Power UK Growth, a 2026 Public First report commissioned by Visa, based on surveys of 2,000 consumers and 500 businesses, two focus groups, and interviews with consumer groups, payments providers, fintechs, building societies, and major retailers.
Trust and confidence are the fuel on which our payments system runs, and the foundation for future innovation.
Digital payments are now essential economic infrastructure, and when that infrastructure works, it goes largely unnoticed. You tap your card, click a button or unlock your phone, and the transaction is complete. Yet this apparent simplicity relies on a vast system of invisible elements working together simultaneously and is contingent on sustained investment to keep that infrastructure secure.
The UK has one of the most advanced and trusted digital payments sectors in the world. The benefits of tap-to-pay are already visible in everyday life. Contactless payments have become embedded in Britain’s transport network, making journeys simpler for millions of passengers and demonstrating how payments technology can help enable more seamless, integrated services.
Tap-to-pay has made accepting payments simpler for businesses of every size, reducing the time and cost for SMEs to get set up and start trading. At Visa, this is the work we invest in every day, putting the same processing, dispute and fraud-fighting capabilities used by the world's largest retailers into the hands of Britain’s small businesses.
That success did not happen by chance, but through concerted efforts to innovate while prioritising trust, security and resilience.
Through research we commissioned from Public First, we know the digital payments sector alone has helped generate an estimated £88 billion in additional sales for British businesses since 2019, with £32 billion of that specifically for small and medium-sized companies. On a macro level, it added approximately £7.5 billion to UK GDP in 2024 alone.
Looking ahead, a new wave of innovation is set to reshape the industry. AI agents that can shop and pay on our behalf, AI-driven fraud checks and stablecoins (which with proper regulation can operate as settlement tools to speed up transfers and reduce settlement risk).
Between them, these could further empower consumers, and to shift shopping and paying from manual checkout towards invisible, trusted experiences that reduce fraud and friction. But every one of these technologies will only be adopted at a meaningful scale if trust in the payments system holds. Innovation and security are the same argument, not competing ones.
Trust in digital payments is what makes people willing to tap a card, or click pay. 90% of UK consumers and 91% of businesses currently say they have strong levels of confidence in card payments. But this trust depends on security.
Consumers’ tolerance for risk is close to zero: around two-thirds say they wouldn't complete a purchase over £5 if there's more than a 5% chance of losing their money. Apply that across an economy where UK-issued cards were used for transactions worth more than £1 trillion in 2024, and it adds up fast.
The threat is only growing. Fraud is now the most common crime experienced in the UK: according to UK Finance's 2025 Annual Fraud Report, £1.17 billion was stolen through payment fraud alone in 2024. Without sustained investment in prevention and resilience, it is ultimately the public who will pay twice: first in the money lost to fraud, and then in the more cautious, slower economy that follows as confidence drains away. People who have been victims of fraud cut their spending by over a third in the following months.
Across the economy, Public First estimates that this chilling effect costs £16 billion in consumer spending every year. Businesses experience this too - almost a quarter of those hit by fraud in the last year paused a planned investment into digital infrastructure.
The UK was where much of the last fintech revolution was built. Global networks like ours are part of how that happens, giving UK fintechs, merchants and small businesses the cross-border resilience and trusted security they need to grow. But trust is hard-won and easy to lose, and this is a highly mobile industry.
The Government's plan to give the Bank of England a new secondary objective on innovation in payment systems and digital money, while maintaining financial stability remaining its primary duty, reflects the growing importance of these issues. Over time, the UK’s ability to attract investment and support innovation will depend on providing businesses with confidence and clarity as new technologies emerge.
Sustaining investment in security and resilience will be critical to maintaining trust in the UK's payments ecosystem. Public First’s research suggests that, with the right conditions for investment and innovation, the digital payments sector could contribute an estimated £3.8 billion in additional growth by 2030. Without continued focus on security, consumer confidence could be undermined, the adoption of new technologies could slow, and the UK could miss out on significant economic opportunities.
