Account-to-account and instant payments in emerging markets

In much of Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, the fastest-growing way to pay online is not a card. It is a transfer from the customer’s own bank or wallet account, sent in seconds over a national payment system, often started by scanning a QR code or typing a phone number. For a merchant, that changes more than the payment button: disputes, refunds, reconciliation and settlement all work differently.

This article explains what account-to-account (A2A) payments are, how far instant payment systems have spread in emerging markets, what they change for merchants, and where their limits are.

What is an account-to-account payment?

An A2A payment moves money directly from the payer’s account to the payee’s, without a card scheme in between. At an online checkout it usually takes one of four forms:

1. QR code or payment string. The checkout shows a code; the customer scans it in their banking or wallet app and approves.
2. Alias. The customer or merchant is identified by a phone number, national ID or email instead of an account number.
3. Bank redirect. The customer picks their bank, logs in to its site or app and approves a transfer prepared by the merchant’s provider.
4. Reference transfer. The customer gets an account number or reference for that order and sends the transfer themselves.

When the transfer runs over a national system that settles within seconds, around the clock, it is an instant payment. Open banking is related but separate: it is the set of rules and APIs that let an authorised third party start a payment with the customer’s consent. Many A2A checkouts in our regions use QR codes and aliases instead.

The key property is the direction. A card payment is a pull: the merchant asks the issuer for the money. An A2A payment is a push: the customer sends it. Most of what changes for merchants follows from that.

How widespread are instant payments?

Very. A BIS Quarterly Review article from March 2024, “Fast payments: design and adoption”, reports that households and businesses in over 100 jurisdictions have access to fast payments. In 2022, India’s system handled 48.6 billion transactions, China’s 16.6 billion, Thailand’s 9.7 billion and Brazil’s 8.7 billion. The authors found that adoption is higher where the system is publicly owned, where non-bank payment providers can participate, and where it supports more use cases, such as merchant and bill payments alongside person-to-person transfers.

Brazil’s PIX is the best-known case. The BIS article puts its average merchant cost at 0.22% of the transaction value, against average merchant fees of 2.2% for credit cards and 1.1% for debit cards, and counts 27 fast payments per person per month in Brazil. Our Brazil guide covers PIX at checkout in more detail.

Which systems matter in emerging markets?

Market	System	What the customer does	Latest figure we found
Mexico	SPEI	Transfers from a banking app	7.3 billion transfers in 2025
Argentina	Transferencias 3.0	Scans a QR code or sends a transfer	118.3 million payments by transfer, August 2026
Colombia	PSE and Bre-B	Bank redirect (PSE); registered alias (Bre-B)	370 million PSE transactions, first half of 2024
Turkey	FAST	Transfers from a banking app	Open to all customers since January 2021
Egypt	InstaPay	Transfers from the InstaPay app	263 million network transactions, Q1 2025
UAE	Aani	QR code, request to pay, or alias	More than 12.5 million users
Nigeria	NIP	Transfers from a banking app	11.2 billion transactions

A few details behind the table:

• Mexico. Expansión, citing the payment company STP, reports that SPEI processed more than 7.3 billion transfers in 2025 and estimates that 73.5 million adults use it. Banco de México expects SPEI operations to overtake debit and credit card payments by the end of 2026.
• Argentina. The central bank’s retail payments report counts 779 million immediate push transfers in August 2026. Payments by transfer, the merchant use case, reached 118.3 million, up 65.6% on a year earlier, and 99.1% of them were made by QR code. For comparison, the same report counts 172 million debit card and 159.3 million credit card payments in July 2026.
• Colombia. Impacto TIC, citing ACH Colombia, which manages PSE, reports more than 370 million PSE transactions in the first half of 2024, up 15% on the year before. Banco de la República reports that Bre-B, the new instant payment system, passed 34 million registered users after six months of operation, with full interoperability switched on in September 2025.
• Turkey. The central bank says FAST began as a pilot on 18 December 2020 and opened to all customers on 8 January 2021, accepting payment orders around the clock.
• Egypt. InstaPay runs on Egypt’s instant payment network. A senior Central Bank of Egypt official, reported by Zawya, put activity on the instant payment network at 263 million transactions worth more than EGP 1.2 trillion in the first quarter of 2025. InstaPay has charged a 0.1% transfer fee since April 2025, with a minimum of EGP 0.50 and a maximum of EGP 20.
• UAE. Aani is run by Al Etihad Payments, a subsidiary of the Central Bank of the UAE. Gulf News, reporting WAM, says it has passed 12.5 million users, with transfers taking about three seconds on average and 74 licensed institutions connected. It supports QR payments, request to pay, and transfers by mobile number, Emirates ID or email.
• Nigeria. NIBSS reports 11.2 billion transactions on its NIBSS Instant Payments platform, 120% more than in 2022, within electronic payments worth about NGN 1.07 quadrillion.

What changes for merchants?

1. No card chargebacks. There is no card scheme, so there is no chargeback process of the card kind. That does not mean no recourse at all: Stripe’s documentation describes Pix’s Special Refund Mechanism, which lets banks seek the return of funds in cases such as fraud or account takeover, with no appeal for the merchant through Stripe.
2. Fast confirmation. The money moves in seconds, day and night. Your provider may still settle to you on its own schedule: Stripe confirms Pix payments immediately but settles them in up to two business days.
3. Refunds are new transfers. A card refund reverses a charge. An A2A refund sends new money back. Stripe’s Pix integration allows full and partial refunds within 90 days, to the account that paid, usually within minutes, and they cannot be cancelled. Where a rail or provider has no refund function, you need the customer’s account details and a payout route.
4. The customer leaves your page. They switch to a banking app to approve, and Stripe notes that the banking app does not redirect them back. Your checkout has to wait for the result and show it.
5. Reconciliation by reference. Because the customer sends the money, they can send it late, twice or for the wrong amount. A unique reference or QR code per order is what lets you match money to orders automatically.

What are the limits?

• Amount caps. Stripe’s default Pix maximum is the BRL equivalent of USD 3,000 per payment, and Brazilian customers paying businesses outside Brazil are limited to USD 3,000 a day and USD 10,000 a month per business. Many rails and banks set their own caps; large baskets may need a second method.
• Domestic membership. Most systems connect domestic banks and licensed institutions. The BIS article lists non-bank participation as a design choice, and FAST, for example, opened to banks first. A cross-border merchant usually reaches these rails through a local provider.
• Customer fees. Some systems charge the payer, as InstaPay does with its 0.1% fee. A charge the customer does not pay on a card can shift their choice.
• Recurring payments. Push payments need the customer to act each time, unless the rail has a mandate product such as Pix Automático. Subscriptions usually still need cards.
• Weaker buyer protection. Customers who know there is no chargeback may hesitate with an unfamiliar merchant. Clear refund terms help.

Worked example: what does an A2A checkout cost to run?

Example figures, for illustration only.

A merchant in Mexico moves 10,000 orders a month, average MXN 1,000, from cards to SPEI. The provider charges 2.5% on cards and MXN 8 per SPEI payment.

Item	Cards	SPEI
Processing fees	MXN 250,000	MXN 80,000
Disputes (0.3% of orders, MXN 1,000 lost plus MXN 250 fee each)	MXN 37,500	None of the card kind
Refunds (3% of orders)	Reversals inside the card fee	300 payouts at MXN 8: MXN 2,400
Manual matching (1% of orders, 10 minutes each)	None	About 17 staff hours

The fees favour SPEI by a wide margin. The costs that appear on the A2A side are operational: payouts for refunds, and staff time for payments that do not match an order. Unique references per order shrink the last row to nearly zero.

What are the common mistakes?

• Reusing one static account or QR code for every order. Matching becomes guesswork.
• Treating the browser redirect as proof of payment. Wait for the provider’s notification; see our webhooks guide.
• No refund path. Plan payouts to bank accounts before launch; our article on why payouts are harder than payments explains what to prepare.
• Ignoring caps. A basket above the rail or bank limit fails at the last step.
• Showing the method where it cannot work. If the customer’s country, amount or currency rules it out, hide it.

How does Omno handle account-to-account payments?

Omno puts A2A and instant payment methods behind the same API as cards, for Pay-In and Pay-Out. Routing and PSP-eligibility rules can choose a provider per country, method, currency and amount, and the final status of every payment and payout arrives by webhook, so orders are matched on the authoritative result. The payouts page covers the payout side.