Online consumer payments remain the biggest growth market in payments, and will continue growing strongly as more consumers gain access to the Internet and to tools that can be used online, according to Research and Markets (www.researchandmarkets.com).

Developing countries, particularly China, are expected to be at the forefront of this growth, although even the most developed online commerce markets will grow strongly over the next five years, adds the research group. In fact, China overtook the US as the world’s largest online commerce market in 2015, with Chinese consumers spending a total of $699 billion online that year.

According to Research and Markets, 20% of the total value of online commerce transactions across all markets will be accounted for by m-commerce by 2020, with the market recording a compound annual growth rate of 17% from 2015 to 2020. Consumer spending patterns online have shifted over the past three years to a wider range of merchant categories. The market is no longer dominated by high-ticket goods categories to the same extent it has historically been, adds Research and Markets.