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Rob Rubin
Foreign and welcome to the Banking and Payment Show, a behind the Numbers podcast from eMarketer. Today is January 14, 2025. I'm Rob Rubin, head of business development at eMarketer and your host today. Today's format is going to be a little different because it's our 1st of 2025 and we're going to chat about the banking and payments trends for the year. Joining me are our principal analyst for banking, Tiffany Montes, and our principal analyst for payments, David Morris. Hi guys. How you doing?
David Morris
Hey, Reb.
Tiffany Montes
Hey there.
Rob Rubin
You guys are both show veterans and we've had some amazing shows with you, but I think it's the first time we've ever actually had you on together.
Tiffany Montes
I think we must be forgettable, David, because we did this last year.
David Morris
Yeah, I think we are forgettable and disposable.
Rob Rubin
Were you actually on the. Were you both on the trend show from last year?
Tiffany Montes
Yeah, I remember this because we were ranking some trends and talking about which ones were going to happen and which. So what we could say is that this is the first time that we've been on the show together this year.
Rob Rubin
This year, 2025. Absolutely true. And you want to know what, before we jump into the 2025, then maybe it'll be fun to review the trends that we highlighted in the episode that I can't remember from last year.
Tiffany Montes
We'll refresh your memory.
Rob Rubin
Yeah, I do have a list of trends though. The, the first one that we called out was that risky banking as a service partnerships will test the trust between FIs and FinTechs. I think we nailed that one, eh?
Tiffany Montes
Yeah, we did. You know, I think we specifically, we said that banking as a service partnerships, specifically risky ones, were going to create a Milli Vanilli moment in banking and that we were going to start to see things in terms of violations that were going to will say show the ugly underbelly of this type of business model when the right risk and controls aren't put in place.
David Morris
Right.
Rob Rubin
The second one that we called out was a wave of social media players will push the boundary of banking with old new ventures. So I think we were talking about social media companies creating sort of payment infrastructures now.
Tiffany Montes
Payment infrastructures. And then also with X declaring that they were going to be a super app by the end of 2024.
Rob Rubin
I don't think they are a super app.
Tiffany Montes
Yeah, you know, maybe it was buried in the headlines, but most likely not.
Rob Rubin
David, have we seen any payment stuff coming around with social payments? Have they. They built it out. I know, meta has.
David Morris
Right? Yeah. I mean, if we're talking about Twitter and this is an apolitical statement, I think Mr. Musk has been busy doing other things and ruining his platform from my understanding, and that users are fleeing in droves. I don't think he got around much on the payment side of the business.
Rob Rubin
All right, now the, the third one that we called out were that banks are going to get real about disruptive challenges of Gen AI. How do we feel about that, guys? Was that a good call?
Tiffany Montes
Yeah, I still, I think it was just more saying that there is disruptive challenges with generative AI and as a result that banks were going to begin to more narrowly focus in terms of where they were going to invest their time in building Gen AI solutions. And we've seen that happen more in the back end. Back office operations versus customer facing use cases.
Rob Rubin
The banks that I've spoken with about the topic have talked about having, you know, pulling policies in place about how employees use Geni, the kind of information they can share with Gen to produce output. Like they are creating sort of internal rules and regulations for how everybody can work with Geni. I think that was what was accomplished last year.
Tiffany Montes
Yep, I agreed.
Rob Rubin
And then finally, David, this one's square. Squarely on you. Pays will put banks back in the digital wallet game. There is a pay.
David Morris
It's wonderfully worded so that I can say yes, actually, but.
Rob Rubin
I know, but, but they, they're in the game, but they're on the bench.
David Morris
I think that's a very good way to buy. That's a really good way to put it. Yeah. I mean, they, they did, they did launch, but there were, there were a number of things that didn't come to pass I think by the end of, of 2024 to ultimately make them, you know, a current threat. I think they're certainly still gearing up to be one. It's just that the. I think the merchant adoption is, was. Has been very, very, very slow.
Rob Rubin
You know, I think that when Zelle was first launched, everybody said they missed, they missed the window and Venmo is going to, you know, they lost the opportunity. And I don't think that's the case. Sells quite strong.
David Morris
Oh, I agree. I think there's tremendous possibility here they're just getting started.
Rob Rubin
Yeah. I want to take a look ahead because we're lucky enough to have both of you here today again for a trend episode. And I wanted to chat about the top two banking trends and the top two payment trends that, that we saw that we're seeing for this year. And the first is that banking as a service compliance crackdown is going to shift market power to the larger FIs. And our prediction, or one of our predictions is that the banking as a service compliance crackdown is going to hit small banks hardest. And what that'll end up meaning is about 20% of existing partnerships will be terminated. And you know, I'm always on this sort of argument that everything's always in the bank, the big bank's favor to begin with. So here's just another example. Let me read the. Let me just read them through and then we can talk about them. The next one is real time pay by bank payments will land at online checkout. And we're predicting both Walmart and Amazon are going to pilot pay by bank checkout in 2025. The third is that banks are going to push forward with personalization despite open banking regulatory tensions. And we believe that a pro bank Trump administration 2.0 will roll back the pending CFPB regulations designed to protect consumers privacy. And the last call out is that wallet competitors will weigh an Apple NFC partnership seriously. And we see Block as the most likely candidate to pilot an Apple NFC partnership in 2025. So let me start first with the banking stuff, Tiffany. You're saying that banking as a service compliance crackdown is going to hurt small banks and at the same time, pro Trump bank regulators are going to roll back pending regulations. So if they're rolling back pending regulations, how is that going to hurt the small banks?
Tiffany Montes
Well, the first thing I'd say is there are two different things I think you've combined. I think you forgot to read a couple of paragraphs.
Rob Rubin
I did it on purpose.
Tiffany Montes
So the banking as a service, it's.
David Morris
Why we're not on the show together, Tiffany.
Tiffany Montes
Exactly. Exactly. Distinct trend where the comment around the CFPB and potentially rolling back regulation had more to do with open banking. So. So two totally different things. But if I take each one of them on their own, you know, I would say that if we start thinking about banking as a service and smaller institutions, what we know is that first of all, regulars have reportedly advised banks with under $100 billion in assets to reconsider their banking as a service involvement due to compliance costs and challenges. We also know that 75% of sponsors banks have incurred losses of 100,000 or more due to compliance violations, according to a report released by Alloy. So when you start to think about rising cost and just the cost to maintain these types of partnerships, this threatens the viability of A banking as a service model for some of those smaller institutions. And we believe that that will force them to reevaluate whether or not it makes sense to stay in the game.
Rob Rubin
It's kind of funny because they got the market going, right? Like the big banks were not going to do that, at least when the small banks did. So even though maybe they, they ran a little roughshod with, with compliance. They started a market and a trend and, and now they're going to get, now sadly they're going to get, it's going to get taken away.
Tiffany Montes
Well, I think it could, one of two things could happen, right? They could decide that one, that it makes sense for them to completely exit because the, the cost of maintaining compliance and dealing might fall out as a result of that, may be too costly for them. Or they could choose to scale back on the number of partnerships because there are some sponsors, banks that have multiple partnerships and maybe it makes sense for them to pull back and only focus on building and growing through 1 or 2 versus 5 as an example.
Rob Rubin
Right. But where will the big banks fall? Like how will the big banks start to leverage banking as a service?
Tiffany Montes
I believe big banks realize that although their growth has been driven through the assets that they own, meaning their own physical and digital assets, that they know that consumers are increasingly wanting to be able to get products and services on their own terms and on their own terms, especially as it relates to younger generations. That means that they're out using other ecosystems and third party apps and they want to be exposed to products and services in a moment that they need them versus being a reaction to a decision that they have made that has financial impact.
Rob Rubin
I want to jump to the CFPB regulations because these, these regulations as I understood it, were really around sort of open banking and how much information institutions can share with each other about customers. Am I wrong about that?
Tiffany Montes
Yes, but it had to be based on consumer consent. But it was based on giving consumers the power to be able to decide who they wanted to share their information with.
Rob Rubin
Okay.
Tiffany Montes
And so if you think about it more along the lines of what most financial institutions do today, right. You're opting in to doing something and as a result of opting in, then you agree to share your information with another third party.
Rob Rubin
Correct. So are you thinking that what we're going to see is that banks are going to start to push forward with some of those things despite the consumers providing consent, like without consumers consent.
Tiffany Montes
So if you start to think about banks personalization ambitions, which they've been ambitious about this for a very long time. Right. But I don't know that we've ever really seen true personalization come to light just yet. And a lot of that has to do with data being in good enough shape to be able to personalize services. But the other part of it is really comes down to making sure that you understand or that a consumer understands how they're using you're using their information so that you don't come across as creepy. So if I start to think about hyper personalization and offering consumers products, services, or even advice, if you don't want to creep customers out, you have to be able to be transparent in terms of the way that you use information and that you deliver something that is of value to consumers when you do. So I believe it's in bank's best interest to already work on creating some type of consent model, whether it is saying, if you use this feature that I'm using your information to power that feature, that you are being transparent and as a result creating value. And so I think that needs to happen regardless of regulation. I think it's just good business. It's good managing customer relationships and setting expectations and truly delivering value to consumers and giving them the things that they.
David Morris
Want and demand and even educating them. Because I think there's a lot of. A lot of people don't know what open banking is. They don't know what's at stake when it comes to all of this data sharing. So there's a positive role, Tiffany, I would imagine that banks could play in educating and making people aware of what this is all about so that they can make an informed decision.
Tiffany Montes
Absolutely. And what I think it comes down to is, is there value? And are consumers willing to share information? And based on a study that we did in September of last year, we asked consumers what type of information they would be willing to share with their bank in order to get personalized advice and guidance. And one of the responses was, I don't want the bank to use any of my information. But if you looked at the six or so different areas of data that we asked them about, only 25% of them said that they didn't want any of their data used, and 75% were okay in some way, shape or form with their data being used to get personalized advice and guidance so customers are ready. It's just now banks need to be ready to do that in a transparent way and to David's point, give some education around it as well.
Rob Rubin
I think one of the challenges is that when they do disclose like how they share information or if you're opting in for it. It's always sort of legally easy. They don't really make it very easy to understand who they're sharing with, why they're sharing it, the frequency, like what's the relationship? Because people have tried this in the past with like managing like your cookies, like, like giving you a screen so that you can like a dashboard that you can control, who your bank can share your information with. Seems over the top and kind of extra like too complicated. So I, I don't know how it's going to get resolved because I think at the end of the day consumers say they want to share the information but they don't really understand. Maybe this goes to what David's saying about education. They don't really know what they're to. And then when they look further, if they like the small percentage that actually will look further. I think it's complicated for them to. It would be complicated for me to figure out. So I'm sure it's complicated or if.
Tiffany Montes
They can even read it in four point font.
Rob Rubin
Yeah. Right. David, I want to jump to our payments ones and let me just do a quick reminder. The first trend is that real time pay by bank payments will land at online checkout and the second is that wallet competitors will weigh. Take an Apple NFC partnership seriously. So my first question is why does Apple care about football?
David Morris
Why does Apple care about football?
Rob Rubin
Well, you got what I did because of the nfc, right? Like, oh, it's not really.
David Morris
Oh my God.
Rob Rubin
I knew you didn't get it.
Tiffany Montes
Don't worry, David. It took me for a minute too. I was like, what does football have to do with payments?
Rob Rubin
What is the national.
David Morris
You did that to me about a year ago. Yeah, yeah, that's, that's good.
Rob Rubin
Yeah. Can you maybe explain what NFC is?
David Morris
It's a near field communication secure element technology that, that Apple uses.
Rob Rubin
So when you move your phone near.
David Morris
The, that enables you to tap and pay at the, at the point of sale. That's the, that's the easiest way to look at it enables contactless payments.
Rob Rubin
What's the benefit to the consumer of pay by bank versus just using a debit card? Well, comes from the same place.
David Morris
Yeah, that's a good question. And I mean there's, there's a hard argument to make. I think without bringing in a solution that I'll provide. You know, I think there are benefits off the, off the bat to utilizing real time pay to bank for consumers. You don't have Physical card details, for instance. So, you know, there's an element of fraud because the pay by bank is real time. You're aware of whether you have the funds or not at that moment. And you know the transaction will clear if you have the funds, which means there's no chargebacks, there's no overdrafts or anything like that. Those are nice little things. But I think what you're sniffing around for, and what I would agree with is if you just have those two things, that's not nearly enough to create a sea change in consumer payment behavior. What is the lever that's required, I think, in order to make real time pay by bank? A legitimate solution is to implement a merchant rewards program and wrap merchant rewards around it. That's what will drive consumers to switch from debit. Because would you consider yourself relatively affluent?
Rob Rubin
I guess, yeah.
David Morris
In a relative scheme. I mean, I guess, you know, the three of us probably are in some way. I mean, we make a certain amount of money that's over the median in this, in this country. The reason I bring that up, because even you, I will ask, do you, do you get any rewards on your debit card purchases?
Rob Rubin
No, but I do not use my debit card.
David Morris
Right, you use your credit card because you're, you're more affluent. But there are no rewards with debit. There. There haven't been. You know, they tried that back, you know, before Dodd Frank and Limited Interchange and so forth, and they don't anymore. So, you know, if you're able to create a merchant rewards program that does incentivize cash discounts or other rewards, I think you've got a winner. Consumers who are not tied to their credit card rewards. And there's going to be less affluent consumers that I think we'll see.
Rob Rubin
Shift, let's jump to the Apple NFC partnership. Why do you think Block's going to be the obvious candidate there to do a partnership?
David Morris
Well, I'd step back first and just kind of set the stage here. Apple is half the smartphone market. Okay. And the other half is Android.
Rob Rubin
So it's not half Android.
David Morris
Oh, it is, yeah. I mean, who else is left? There's a couple of. There's roughly half iOS and roughly half Android, and then there's 0.3% of whoever's still using that phone that the Canadians made 20 years ago. That's it. So that you're, you're, you're, you're doubling your reach via nfc, because Google will already provide it. And you're also unifying that reach across Smartphones, period. Other than those people still using that Canadian phone. And then you're talking about Apple Pay proximity payments. Apple Pay is the proximity payment leader by a mile. We've got some stats. I think over 65 million Apple Pay users in store in 2025. Next up is Google with less than 40 million. And no one else comes close.
Rob Rubin
Even close comes close.
David Morris
And you know, not those pesky Canadians. Yeah, and the people who are going to, you know, stubbornly try to pay with QR codes which. Now let's get back to Block. You know Block has a very robust Cash App, Cash card program. There's almost 30 million people who have that card. It's a prepaid debit card. But you know, they're not able to, to utilize the NFC technology in an Apple phone. That's a problem. That's a problem. Especially when Cash app users are younger, that they have a customer base that I think is, I think what you're.
Rob Rubin
Saying is that because they skew younger and they have an install base of NFC enabled prepaid debit cards, it's a natural fit.
David Morris
Well, entities like Block have relied on so far to penetrate in stores essentially QR codes, QR codes have not caught on and if they can use NFC instead, you're opening up that window in a huge way. It's a no brainer. The only problem is what Apple would extract for the privilege of doing so.
Tiffany Montes
Haven't we already seen one bank announce that it is going to use NFC technology? David, I thought that there was a press release for, I want to say a Norwegian bank.
David Morris
You know, Tiffany, it's funny, we read that same press release. There is a Norwegian bank that indeed has signed on. Yeah, I think, you know, I think Block is definitely a great candidate and maybe you know, to Tiffany's point, it will not be the only one. You know, I think PayPal is a really good candidate. You've got buy now, pay later players who would love to be able to get in store utilizing nfc. All of these entities thereby can make money on the interchange because it'll be with their own issued cards. So don't forget that.
Rob Rubin
You know what, for fun, let's take these four predictions that we just talked about and, and rank them each for likeliness to come true. Let's rank the one that you think is most likely to come true. Tiffany and. Okay, and then which one?
David Morris
Tiffany last year. She was right about one of my trends right off the bat. I'm going to get her back.
Rob Rubin
Well, let's, let's each figure out which one we think is the most likely to come true and which one we think is the least likely of the four to come true businesses. A service compliance crackdown will hit small banks hardest and we predict 20% of existing partnerships will be terminated. That's number one. Walmart and Amazon will pilot pay by bank checkout in 2020 25. That's number two. We believe a probank Trump administration 2.0 will roll back pending CFPB regulations designed to protect consumers privacy. That's number three. And number four is we see Block as the most likely candidate to pilot an Apple NFC partnership in 2025. So David, which one is the most likely and which one is the least likely?
David Morris
I think the most likely is going to be Walmart and Amazon. I think there's a number of reasons that I would, Amazon is going to follow in Walmart's footsteps and I can, you know, give you all 10 reasons but that's, I think the, the, the no brainer of the list in my opinion. The least likely I would actually go with least likely being Trump's position. I think that there's, he's a wild card. You know, there's a populist slant to what he, what he's may want to do but that may give way to the pro business slant that others may want him to do and maybe the inside Donald Trump may want. So, so that's the one that is least likely because of that.
Rob Rubin
Tiffany, what about you? Any consensus there?
Tiffany Montes
I'm going to go with consensus on the least likely which will be the rolling back pending regulation mainly because their predictions are based on a time horizon of 2025 and I think it would be incredibly difficult for them to roll all of that back within one calendar year. I think the most likely, my vote would be the compliance crackdown are going to hit the smallest, the hardest and that we're going to start to see some exiting of partnerships as a result of that. But I do still think that there is a little bit of, there's hope in the model and I think it's just going to be more slanted towards the larger institutions.
Rob Rubin
All right, well that's good. I'm going to go with, I think that the most likely thing that will occur is number two, Walmart and Amazon will pilot up pay by bank at checkout in 2025. It seems like a no brainer to me. I think Walmart's already preparing to pilot it.
David Morris
I don't know, Walmart's already going to launch it. So it's really, the Amazon other half of the coin.
Rob Rubin
Right, right, right. And they're going to follow suit. And I'm going to just sort of go a little bit different and say that I think that the compliance crackdown is not going to happen and that we're not going to see existing partnerships terminate. And I just think that the same reason why probank Trump administration is going to roll back pending regulations, I think they're not going to be crazy about compliance. I think we've, we sort of already have seen that. Until the new administration is in and until the new leaders are in place, they're like a lot of the compliance just isn't even happening right now because there's, you know, they don't know who their bosses are going to be.
David Morris
I, I don't know. I, I, I don't, for what it's worth, because this is Tiffany's trend, but I thought that trend was really solid. I think, you know, if you're just looking at the IT shift from smaller to large, I think the compliance argument is a good one, Rob. But you're also looking back, you're looking at who are the entrenched interests here, and maybe that is larger banks.
Rob Rubin
I just think they're so slow. Like the big banks move so slowly. And if compliance slows down, I, I could be wrong. You guys are the principal.
David Morris
I think what, what Tiffany taught me last year is to, is, is to avoid using 20% and 2% and things like that. That's the only thing that could possibly go wrong is that maybe it's 18.
Tiffany Montes
Or maybe, or it won't matter because next year Rob is going to invite.
Rob Rubin
Us back and not remember again, not.
Tiffany Montes
Going to remember that we were there, nor will he remember what I said. So I'm winning regardless.
Rob Rubin
I'm 100% going to remember every, all of this. And it's totally jogged my memory from last year, too.
David Morris
Yeah, I've learned, I've learned not to second kiss Tiffany, I guess, is what I'm getting at.
Rob Rubin
I'm, yeah, no, that, that is a good rule. I want to thank everyone first. Thank you guys for joining. This was so much fun today.
Tiffany Montes
Yeah, thank you.
Rob Rubin
Thanks, David.
David Morris
Thanks a lot, guys.
Rob Rubin
I want to thank everyone for listening to the Banking and Payment show, an emarketer podcast. Also, thank you to our editor, Victoria. Our next episode is on February 11, so be sure to check it out. See you then. Bye, everybody.
Behind the Numbers: The Banking & Payments Show – Banking and Payments Trends in 2025
Date: January 14, 2025
Host: Rob Rubin, Head of Business Development at eMarketer
Guests: Tiffany Montes, Principal Analyst for Banking
David Morris, Principal Analyst for Payments
In the inaugural 2025 episode of eMarketer's "Behind the Numbers" podcast, Rob Rubin engages in a comprehensive discussion with seasoned analysts Tiffany Montes and David Morris. The trio delves into the prevailing banking and payments trends anticipated to shape the industry this year, reflecting on last year's predictions and evaluating their accuracy.
Rob Rubin opens the conversation by revisiting the trends projected in the previous year, seeking to assess their realizations.
1. Risky Banking as a Service (BaaS) Partnerships Testing Trust Between FIs and FinTechs
Tiffany and David acknowledge that BaaS partnerships have indeed exposed vulnerabilities, validating their prediction about the strain these collaborations place on trust between financial institutions (FIs) and FinTech companies.
2. Social Media Players Pushing the Boundary of Banking with New Ventures
The analysts reflect that while some social media platforms attempted to venture into banking, success has been limited, with certain initiatives like Twitter's payment features not gaining significant traction.
3. Banks Addressing the Disruptive Challenges of Generative AI
Banks have become more vigilant about the implications of generative AI, integrating stricter policies to govern its use, particularly in non-customer-facing areas.
4. PayPal Reigniting Banks in the Digital Wallet Arena
PayPal continues to strive for a stronger presence in digital wallets, although widespread adoption among merchants remains gradual.
Transitioning to current year forecasts, Rob Rubin outlines four key trends, which the panelists examine in detail:
1. BaaS Compliance Crackdown Shifting Market Power to Larger FIs
2. Real-Time Pay-by-Bank Payments at Online Checkout
3. Banks Advancing Personalization Amid Open Banking Regulatory Tensions
4. Wallet Competitors Considering Apple NFC Partnership, with Block Leading the Charge
The panelists evaluate the likelihood of each trend coming to fruition by the end of 2025.
Most Likely: Real-Time Pay-by-Bank Payments at Online Checkout
Least Likely: Rolling Back Pending CFPB Regulations
As 2025 unfolds, the banking and payments landscape is poised for substantial transformation. While larger financial institutions are expected to consolidate their dominance amidst tightening compliance standards, innovative payment solutions like real-time pay-by-bank are set to enhance consumer convenience. Additionally, strategic partnerships leveraging NFC technology could redefine contactless payments, positioning companies like Block at the forefront of this evolution. However, regulatory developments remain a wildcard, with political dynamics potentially influencing the pace and nature of industry changes.
Rob Rubin wraps up the discussion by expressing optimism about the insightful exchanges and encourages listeners to stay tuned for the next episode scheduled for February 11.
Notable Quotes:
This episode encapsulates critical insights into the future of banking and payments, offering valuable perspectives for marketers, retailers, and advertisers navigating the digital media landscape.