On the payments side of banking, the battle for “share of wallet” has always been a critical element of profitability, especially for card payments. But even as the variety of ways to pay has expanded, share of mobile wallets has become even more contentious.
The thing of it is, financial institutions can’t fight on only one front in payments, especially in the wake of the pandemic.
While continuing to battle for credit and debit card business, banks and credit unions have had to recognize that failing to match consumers’ demand for convenience is deadly. Hence the importance of offering a P2P option (most often Zelle), which bypasses cards and wallets to draw directly on transaction accounts like a very fast check.
However, the payments business intersects with credit, in the form of credit cards, of course, but more recently with buy now, pay later point of sale payments that function as short-term installment credit plans.