Cards and Pay by Bank Drive Multi-Rail Payments

Global card transactions reached 776 billion in 2024 and are forecast to reach 1.1 trillion by 2029. Account-to-account Pay by Bank volumes are projected to grow from 60 billion in 2024 to more than 185 billion by 2029, showing parallel growth across card and A2A rails worldwide.

Cards are appearing as programmable, tokenised credentials used inside digital wallets, embedded checkout and agent-initiated payment models. Pay by Bank is expanding beyond niche use in Europe as merchants seek lower acceptance costs and some consumers choose direct-bank checkout options.

Tokenisation replaces primary account numbers with device- or wallet-specific tokens, changing how credentials are stored and transmitted and affecting fraud exposure and acceptance economics. Embedded checkout and programmable credentials allow merchants and platforms to trigger payments in new ways. Agent-initiated services such as Visa TAP, Mastercard Agent Pay and Google AP2 let third parties start payments on behalf of consumers.

At a Finextra webinar hosted with ACI Worldwide, panelists outlined operational implications for banks, issuers and acquirers. Firms need an operating model that can route transactions across rails, apply appropriate authentication, manage token lifecycles and reconcile settlement across card networks and A2A channels. Fraud controls and monitoring must be adapted for tokenised flows and agent-initiated events that do not fit legacy chargeback and dispute processes.

Regulatory changes and reimbursement rules affect acceptance economics. Shifts in regulation or merchant reimbursement frameworks can move costs between issuers and acquirers, affect interchange revenue and change merchant incentives. Merchants adopting Pay by Bank may need changes to checkout integration, reconciliation and refund processes. Issuers can see changes in revenue and risk mix, and acquirers must handle a broader set of settlement and reconciliation tasks.

Panelists noted that tokenisation can reduce exposure to some card fraud, while agent-initiated transactions introduce new verification and trust questions. The panel called for clear rules on liability, dispute routing and consumer redress when payments are initiated by an agent or through direct bank channels rather than by traditional card-present or card-not-present flows.

Dean Wallace, director of consumer payments modernization at ACI Worldwide, described the moment as ‘a shift toward a multi-rail architecture rather than a competition that will produce a single winner.’ Moderator Jane Cooper placed the discussion on how different rails will operate together and how commercial and regulatory rules will shape acceptance economics.

Banks, issuers and acquirers will be required to support existing card infrastructure while scaling A2A options, adapt fraud and dispute processes for new flows, and align commercial terms so merchants and consumers can use multiple payment options without added friction.