Cards, Pay by Bank and the Rise of Multi-Rail Payments

Global card transactions reached 776 billion in 2024 and are projected to reach 1.1 trillion by 2029. At the same time, account-to-account (A2A) payments are forecast to increase from about 60 billion transactions in 2024 to more than 185 billion by 2029.

Card payments remain a major part of consumer checkout flows while cards are increasingly issued as tokenised credentials stored in digital wallets. Those tokenised cards are being used for in-app purchases, embedded checkout and new forms of merchant- or agent-initiated payments such as Visa TAP, Mastercard Agent Pay and Google AP2.

Pay by Bank, a form of A2A payment initiated directly from consumer bank accounts, is expanding beyond specialist use and becoming a more common checkout option in Europe. The expansion reflects investments in bank infrastructure and regulatory frameworks that support direct bank connectivity.

Banks, card issuers and acquirers must manage tokenisation, digital wallets and direct bank links alongside existing card rails. That involves updating operating models to route transactions, assess and manage risk, and reconcile payments that travel over different rails.

Agent-initiated commerce changes how payment credentials are stored and used. When merchants or third parties can initiate or approve payments for consumers, responsibility for fraud prevention, dispute handling and chargebacks must be defined across participants. Programmable tokens can include limits tied to device, merchant or context to constrain use.

Payment economics are affected by reimbursement rules, merchant fees and regulatory requirements. These elements influence issuer and acquirer profitability in different markets. Merchants weigh the cost of accepting a rail against conversion rates and customer preference, while issuers balance interchange revenue against fraud losses and compliance costs.

Market forecasts show parallel growth for cards and A2A rather than one rail replacing the other. Tokenisation and wallet credentials enable card networks to operate in new channels and form factors while A2A volumes expand as direct bank payment options scale.

Finextra, together with ACI Worldwide, will host a webinar in 2026 to discuss these developments and their technical and operational implications. The panel includes Dean Wallace, director of consumer payments modernization at ACI Worldwide, and Jane Cooper, researcher at Finextra, who will moderate the session.