Cards and Pay by Bank Rise as Multi‑Rail Payments Expand

Global card transactions reached 776 billion in 2024 and are projected to reach 1.1 trillion by 2029. Account-to-account (A2A) volumes are forecast to increase from 60 billion in 2024 to more than 185 billion by 2029.

Tokenisation is replacing static card numbers with dynamic tokens tied to devices or wallets. Tokens can be limited to specific devices or merchants and can carry rules or offers attached to the credential itself. Payment tokens reduce some fraud vectors and change how cards are authorised and accepted.

Digital wallets aggregate multiple tokens and credentials and enable embedded checkout flows. Merchants and wallets can route payments over traditional card rails or send them directly via A2A rails, depending on cost, speed and the buyer’s authentication method.

Pay by Bank and other A2A solutions offer lower settlement costs for merchants and can avoid card interchange fees. In parts of Europe, rules that require payment initiation access to accounts have supported wider use of Pay by Bank and other A2A options.

A developing category of agentic commerce involves a trusted third party initiating payments on behalf of a consumer. Examples include Visa TAP, Mastercard Agent Pay and Google AP2. In agent-initiated flows, some steps move from the consumer device into the agent’s environment, which raises questions about consumer protections, fraud risk management and dispute rights under frameworks built around card chargebacks and reimbursements.

Banks, issuers and acquirers face operational and architecture changes as multiple rails scale. Providers must manage token lifecycles, credential provisioning, secure authentication and routing logic between card and A2A rails. They must also reconcile different settlement models and meet data-sharing needs for wallets and agents. These tasks require a single operating model able to run fraud detection, transaction routing and regulatory compliance across rails.

There are already economic effects. Greater A2A adoption can reduce interchange and issuer fee revenue, while merchants see lower acceptance costs. Reimbursement rules and chargeback regimes remain concentrated on card networks, creating gaps and ambiguities for A2A and agent-initiated flows that affect liability and dispute resolution. Merchant price sensitivity and demand for seamless checkout influence which rail is selected at point of sale.

Regulatory focus on consumer protection, fraud prevention and clear liability assignments will affect how quickly new rails are adopted and how disputes are handled across payment methods.

A webinar organised in association with ACI Worldwide will gather industry experts to discuss the operational and architectural implications of multiple payment rails. Dean Wallace, director of consumer payments modernization at ACI Worldwide, is listed among the speakers and Jane Cooper will moderate the session.