Must banks kick their plastic addiction to get new payments channels off the ground?
Bank-owned digital wallets, profitable instant payments services, and pay-by-bank all show fresh promise. But is the industry too much in love with credit cards? Research by Capgemini suggests big players must make some hard choices and smaller players could just steal a march on them.
Who’s hooked more on credit cards and other plastic, U.S. consumers or their banks?
A key conclusion of the Capgemini World Payments Report 2025 is that many banks have a plastic habit that will be hard to kick.
While instant payments and pay-by-bank are increasing their presence in the U.S., and the popularity of digital wallets continues to grow, traditional credit card bank issuers won’t be able to successfully — that is, profitably— adapt to the evolving payments landscape until they figure out how to create value from these new streams.
The U.S. payments industry is often painted as being behind the rest of the world, in faster payments, mainly thanks to the strong role of credit cards.
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