Cards, Pay-by-Bank Fuel Multi-Rail Consumer Payments

Global payment volumes show continued growth in both card and account-to-account activity. Card transactions reached 776 billion in 2024 and are projected to reach about 1.1 trillion by 2029. Account-to-account (A2A) payments, including Pay by Bank flows, were about 60 billion in 2024 and are forecast to exceed 185 billion by 2029.

Card credentials are increasingly tokenised and stored in digital wallets. Tokenisation replaces a primary account number with a digital token that can be managed by wallets, platforms and merchants. That process changes how a credential is presented and authorised at point of sale and in apps, and it supports embedded checkout and agent-initiated payment methods such as Visa TAP, Mastercard Agent Pay and Google AP2.

Pay by Bank routes payments directly from consumer bank accounts and is expanding beyond niche use. The method has gained traction in several European markets where open banking rails and consented A2A flows have increased consumer access to account-based checkout options.

The payments landscape is moving toward a multi-rail environment in which cards, A2A rails and wallet-based credentials coexist. Banks, card issuers and acquirers must support multiple authorisation methods and token services, and put in place orchestration layers to route transactions by cost, risk and consumer preference.

Supporting multiple rails requires changes to operating models. Firms need resilient systems that handle routing, settlement and reconciliation across different rails while meeting uptime and security requirements. Payments teams are building real-time analytics to decide which rail to use for individual transactions.

Agent-initiated commerce alters how a payment starts and how liability and dispute rights apply. When a third-party agent initiates a payment on a consumer’s behalf, technical and legal frameworks for fraud liability, chargebacks and reimbursement change. Tokenisation reduces exposure of primary account numbers, but it also creates new fraud risks related to device security, credential lifecycle management and agent permissions.

Economic effects touch issuer and acquirer profit and loss. Reimbursement rules, interchange rates and merchant economics affect the cost of routing sales over a card network versus an A2A channel. With Pay by Bank adoption rising, merchants and processors are reassessing cost-to-serve models, checkout conversion metrics and risk provisioning. Regulatory changes that affect which party bears fraud losses and how quickly funds must be returned also influence capital and operational requirements for banks and processors.

Operational complexity spans technology, partnerships and governance. Market participants need token service agreements, clear dispute-handling workflows and compliance frameworks for local and cross-border transactions. Industry participants plan system and contract changes to support multiple rails and maintain regulatory compliance.

A webinar in 2026, hosted in association with ACI Worldwide, will gather industry experts to discuss architectural and commercial consequences of a multi-rail payments environment. Participants listed for the session include Dean Wallace, director of consumer payments modernization at ACI Worldwide, and moderator Jane Cooper.