Watch a candid discussion with payments leaders unpacking the key findings from Token.io and Open Banking Expo's sixth annual Pay by Bank industry survey.
Token.io and Open Banking Expo recently published their sixth annual Pay by Bank Signals & Trends survey report, drawing on responses from senior leaders across banking, payments, retail and fintech.
Three industry leaders shared their reactions to this year’s survey findings with Ellie Duncan, Head of Content at Open Banking Expo. Watch now for insights from Ellen Marshall, Partner Manager at Token.io, Emma Dunleavy, VP of Banking and Payment Partners at Paysafe, and Lucy Hafid, Director of Network Development at Thunes.
The survey results left no room for ambiguity: Most PSPs support Pay by Bank today, or plan to offer it in the future. Yet, over a third of PSPs surveyed were aware of their merchants sourcing Pay by Bank services by working with open banking providers directly.
Ellen Marshall set out the stakes plainly. "If PSPs don't start offering [Pay by Bank], the open banking providers out there will go direct to merchants. They will take those merchants away." Lucy Hafid offered a structural read on the same dynamic: rather than a threat, she sees it as a forcing function, pushing traditional PSPs to embed account-to-account capabilities into their roadmap as a future standard.
A Unified Consumer Brand for Pay by Bank Could Drive Adoption
The industry survey found that a unified consumer brand for Pay by Bank and commercial Variable Recurring Payments (Recurring Pay by Bank/1-Click Pay by Bank) could help drive adoption — a sentiment echoed by Lucy Hafid, Director of Network Development at Thunes: "There are too many names. There's open banking, there's account-to-account, there's recurring payments. We need one name consumers can relate to, one idea they can recognise at checkout."
Ellen Marshall also made the case for consistency: everyone should be using the termPay by Bank, and also consider using banks’ mobile app icons at checkout. Consumers do not need to understand the underlying technology. They need to recognise what they see and trust it enough to act.
No Single Factor Will Get Pay by Bank to Card Parity
The survey found that, for the UK, point-of-sale capability (25%) and a robust consumer protection model (24%) are the top two factors considered most necessary for Pay by Bank to become a genuine card alternative. Emma Dunleavy, VP of Banking and Payment Partners at Paysafe, was direct on this point: there is no silver bullet. "The UK is a very card-heavy market. They need to build trust with Pay by Bank. The consumers need to know what the benefit is to them," she commented.
Lucy Hafid argued that user experience is the factor that encompasses everything else: "User experience, if you do it well, it's already covering the protection side. And the same with the branding. If my grandma uses it, we've made the day."
The Finding the Industry Is Not Discussing Enough
Emma Dunleavy flagged merchant settlement speed as the survey insight not getting the attention it deserves. Faster settlement is a meaningful benefit to merchants. Yet, it is not something consumers think about, which is precisely the point. Emma added: "Perhaps for Pay by Bank, it's more of merchants driving or encouraging their consumers to use it, rather than consumers reaching out to the merchants to say ‘please offer this method’. It's almost the opposite way. And that's something we're not really speaking about too much at the moment."
Resilience, Not Geopolitics, Is A Real Driver
74% of survey respondents reported that reducing reliance on US-based card and digital payment options is at least somewhat important to their organisation. Yet, only 2% of respondents named geopolitical conditions as the single most important factor to accelerating adoption of Pay by Bank in the UK in the next 12 months. Emma Dunleavy explained the gap: "Geopolitical risk on its own, I don't think, is a factor that will drive adoption. When someone pays with their card, they're not thinking about where that card scheme happens to be headquartered. It needs that resilience and diversification to really change the behaviour of how consumers use payment methods."
The full conversation from the Open Banking Expo Live Lounge, featuring Ellen Marshall (Token.io), Emma Dunleavy (Paysafe) and Lucy Hafid (Thunes), and host Ellie Duncan (Open Banking Expo), is available to watch now.
About this report
The sixth annual Pay by Bank industry survey from Token.io and Open Banking Expo tracks how the people building, offering and accepting Pay by Bank see the market: where it’s growing, what’s holding it back, and what needs to happen next. Download the report for the most complete picture of Pay by Bank yet