Contactless payments set to hit $32tn as SoftPOS reshapes commerce

Global contactless payment infrastructure is undergoing a structural reset. Three new studies from Juniper Research project that the combined value of transactions processed via near-field communication (NFC), QR codes, and digital ticketing will reach $32.2 trillion by 2031, up from $17.3 trillion in 2026. The 86% uplift is not simply a payments story: it reflects how frictionless transaction rails are becoming foundational plumbing for the next generation of agentic commerce, autonomous ticketing, and small-business digitisation across emerging markets.

The headline figure masks meaningfully different growth trajectories across the three segments. Digital ticketing is forecast to grow the fastest at 126.7% over the period, outpacing contactless card payments (90.2%) and QR code transactions (66.7%). Juniper attributes the ticketing acceleration to widespread adoption across air travel, live events, and urban transit networks, where digital-first defaults are replacing legacy paper and magnetic-stripe systems at scale.

SoftPOS and the small-business inflection point

The more structurally significant finding for strategists may be the SoftPOS dynamic. Software Point of Sale technology turns a standard smartphone into a payment terminal, eliminating the need for dedicated card-reader hardware. The practical consequence is a sharp reduction in the cost of entry for micro and small businesses, many of which previously found NFC-based acceptance economically unviable. That changes the competitive calculus between contactless and QR code payments in markets where QR adoption was driven largely by the absence of affordable hardware alternatives.

Nick Maynard, VP of Research at Juniper, noted: "SoftPOS is changing the scenario for how small businesses and sole traders accept payments; accelerating the displacement of cash. Contactless payments will not replace QR codes, both solutions will succeed in different countries and verticals."

The bifurcation Maynard describes has direct implications for payment network incumbents. Visa and Mastercard's NFC rails gain ground in markets where SoftPOS lowers merchant onboarding costs; QR-led ecosystems anchored by Alipay, WeChat Pay, and regional variants in South and Southeast Asia retain structural advantages where smartphone penetration outpaces card issuance. The result is a genuinely plural global payments landscape rather than a single winner-takes-all outcome.

Agentic commerce: the next convergence layer

The more forward-looking signal in the Juniper data is the explicit link between digital ticketing infrastructure and the emergence of agentic commerce. Juniper predicts that ticketing will be among the first consumer journeys significantly disrupted by AI agents, software capable of searching, booking, and paying autonomously on a user's behalf. That prediction has a concrete infrastructure implication: any merchant or transit operator whose ticketing backend cannot accept programmatic, machine-initiated transactions will be structurally excluded from the agentic layer before it scales.

For investors tracking the convergence of AI and payments infrastructure, this is the most actionable read-across from the Juniper data. The payment rails being upgraded today, whether NFC, QR, or API-native, are the same ones that will process agent-initiated spend. Capital already flowing into embedded-finance platforms, payment-as-a-service providers, and open-banking middleware is effectively a long position on the readiness of that infrastructure.

Geographically, the stakes differ by region. Markets in the GCC and South Asia, where digital payments adoption is still accelerating from a lower base, stand to leapfrog legacy infrastructure entirely if SoftPOS costs continue to fall. That creates a secondary investment thesis: the hardware-light, software-defined payments stack is not just a developed-market efficiency story but a genuine emerging-market expansion play. Sovereign and institutional capital with exposure across these geographies should weigh the ticketing and SoftPOS trajectories alongside broader digital-infrastructure bets already in portfolio.