PayPal and BPAY are Australia’s most frequently used digital payment services – although Afterpay is more well-known
The latest Roy Morgan Digital Payments Report shows PayPal and BPAY are Australia’s most frequently used digital payment services – with each service used by over 9 million Australians in the year to September 2022.
PayPal is the market leader and was used by 9.8 million Australians (46.1%) in the year to September 2022 to be just ahead of BPAY, now used by over 9.3 million people (43.8%). The two services are used by almost three times as many people as the third placed Afterpay, now used by over 3.2 million people (15.2%).
However, despite the high usage of both services, it is relative ‘upstart’ Afterpay that is the most well-known digital payment service in Australia with over 17.2 million Australians (81.3%) aware of the popular buy-now-pay-later service that was bought out by Silicon Valley ‘tech giant’ Square almost a year ago.
Following closely behind in terms of awareness is PayPal with over 15.5 million Australians (73%) aware of the online payment platform and BPAY, known by over 14.6 million people (68.9%).
The only other digital payment service for which over half of Australians are aware is Zip which has reached 13.1 million people (61.6%) followed by Apple Pay on 9.9 million (46.7%).
Awareness and usage (in an average 12 months) of digital payment services – September 2022
Source: Roy Morgan Single Source, October 2021 – September 2022, n = 65,989. Base: Australians 14+.
Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine says the wide variety of digital payment services available today appeal to very different consumers and even though the relatively new ‘Afterpay’ is more well-known than any other it is the older services PayPal and BPAY that are far more widely used:
“Roy Morgan’s latest Digital Payments Report reveals ‘buy-now-pay-later’ services, such as Afterpay, Zip, Latitude Pay and Humm, are the most well-known type of digital payment services in the market – now over 17.6 million (83.1%) Australians know of these services. However, only 4.1 million Australians (19.4%) have used a ‘buy-now-pay-later’ service in the year to September 2022.
“In contrast, around 15.9 million Australians (74.9%) are aware of ‘online payment platforms’ such as PayPal, Visa Checkout and Masterpass. Despite this significantly lower awareness of ‘online payment platforms’, their cut-through is far higher and nearly half of Australians, 10.3 million (48.5%), used an online payment platform in the year to September 2022.
“This difference is starkly illustrated when considering the three most popular digital payment services – ‘buy-now-pay-later’ market leader Afterpay, the most well-known ‘online payment platform’ PayPal and long-running ‘bill payment service’ BPAY – which just over a year ago merged with eftpos and the New Payments Platform (NPP) Australia to form Australian Payments Plus.
“Over 17.2 million Australians (81.3%) say they have heard about Afterpay, compared to 15.5 million (73%) for PayPal and 14.6 million (68.9%) for BPAY. But although extensive advertising can drive awareness among a large majority of the population there has to be a compelling reason for adoption and use.
“The usage of the more traditional digital payment services PayPal and BPAY far exceeds that of Afterpay at a rate of around 3:1. Now 9.8 million (46.1%) used PayPal and 9.3 million (43.8%) used BPAY in the year to September 2022 compared to only 3.2 million (15.2%) that used Afterpay.
“A large factor in the huge difference in the usage of the three services can be put down to time in the market. Both PayPal and BPAY launched in the late 1990s, over 20 years ago, while Afterpay has only been in the market for under a decade since launching in 2014.
“A look at the trends over the last four years shows usage of Afterpay has increased by over 9% points to 15.2%, PayPal is up by 6% points to 46.1%, and usage of BPAY has actually declined since 2018. These trends show the market for digital payment services is more competitive than ever.
“To learn more about Australia’s fast-changing and increasingly crowded digital payments eco-system Roy Morgan’s latest Digital Payments Report provides a wealth of detail on the awareness and usage trends for over 20 digital payment services including some well-known, some well used and some well-loved – we measure them all.
“The digital payment services Roy Morgan measures include PayPal, BPAY, Afterpay, Apple Pay, Zip, Google Pay, Post billpay, Visa Checkout, masterpass, Western Union, Latitude Pay, Humm, Openpay, Klarna, fitbit pay, Garmin Pay, paywear, Samsung Pay, Commbank Tap & Pay, ANZ, NAB Pay, Bankwest Halo and Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tether, Ripple and Cardano.”
These new digital payment findings are from Roy Morgan Single Source, Australia’s leading consumer survey, derived from in-depth interviews with around 60,000 Australians annually.
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Related research findings
For further in-depth analysis, take a look at Roy Morgan’s latest Digital Payments Report including looking at the adoption of new digital payment services by the psychographic segmentation of Helix Personas.
About Roy Morgan
Roy Morgan is Australia’s largest independent Australian research company, with offices in each state, as well as in the U.S. and U.K. A full-service research organisation, Roy Morgan has over 80 years’ experience collecting objective, independent information on consumers.
Margin of Error
The margin of error to be allowed for in any estimate depends mainly on the number of interviews on which it is based. Margin of error gives indications of the likely range within which estimates would be 95% likely to fall, expressed as the number of percentage points above or below the actual estimate. Allowance for design effects (such as stratification and weighting) should be made as appropriate.
| Sample Size | Percentage Estimate |
| 40% – 60% | 25% or 75% | 10% or 90% | 5% or 95% | |
| 1,000 | ±3.0 | ±2.7 | ±1.9 | ±1.3 |
| 5,000 | ±1.4 | ±1.2 | ±0.8 | ±0.6 |
| 7,500 | ±1.1 | ±1.0 | ±0.7 | ±0.5 |
| 10,000 | ±1.0 | ±0.9 | ±0.6 | ±0.4 |
| 20,000 | ±0.7 | ±0.6 | ±0.4 | ±0.3 |
| 50,000 | ±0.4 | ±0.4 | ±0.3 | ±0.2 |
