Open Banking has spent years being announced as the end of card payments. Cards, meanwhile, have not noticed. Customers keep tapping, wallets keep growing, and the “card killer” narrative keeps missing the point.
Because the interesting question was never whether account-to-account payments would replace cards. It is which transactions genuinely belong on bank rails, and what a merchant gains by putting them there. Framed that way, Open Banking stops being a prediction and becomes an instrument: one more rail in the payment mix, with properties no card can match, for the transactions that suit it.
What a bank payment actually changes
An account-to-account payment moves money directly from the customer’s bank account to the merchant’s, authenticated by the customer inside their own banking environment. Three consequences follow, and each one matters commercially.
First, the cost structure. There is no interchange and there are no scheme fees. Pricing is typically flat per transaction rather than a percentage of the amount, which changes everything for high-value payments: the fee on a large transaction no longer scales with the sum involved.
Second, the certainty. The payment is confirmed by the bank and, on instant rails, settled in seconds. There is no card to expire, no authorisation to fall through days later, and no chargeback mechanism for a payer to weaponise. What is paid is paid.
Third, the authentication. The customer approves the payment in their banking app, which satisfies Strong Customer Authentication natively. There is no card form to fill and no separate challenge to complete: the bank handles identity, because the bank already knows the customer.
The transactions that belong on bank rails
Put those three properties together and a profile emerges. Open Banking earns its place where amounts are high, where certainty of funds matters, and where the payment is considered rather than impulsive.
Hospitality is a natural fit. Booking deposits, prepaid stays, group reservations and event billing are exactly the payments where a percentage-based card fee stings most, where a failed capture weeks after booking creates real operational pain, and where a guest is willing to spend ten extra seconds approving a payment in their banking app. The same logic applies to invoice settlement, account funding and wallet top-ups: transactions where the relationship already exists and the payer’s intent is not in doubt.
Conversely, a low-value impulse purchase on mobile still belongs on a wallet or a card. One tap beats any bank redirect for a customer who has not yet decided whether they really want the thing. Pushing every transaction towards bank rails is as misguided as ignoring them entirely.
The rail is a routing decision, not a belief system
This is where orchestration changes the conversation. When your payment setup treats Open Banking as one route among several, the question “cards or bank payments?” dissolves into a better one: which rail serves this transaction, this amount, this customer, this context?
A well-orchestrated checkout presents bank payment where it makes sense, keeps wallets and cards where they convert best, and lets the merchant steer the mix deliberately: for instance, favouring bank rails on high-value prepayments where the cost difference is structural, while leaving the fast lanes untouched for everyday purchases. Every eligible payment shifted to account-to-account rails is not a one-off saving. It is a permanent change in the cost base of acceptance.
Adoption is designed, not hoped for
Customers do not wake up wanting to pay by bank. They respond to how the option is presented. Placement matters: a bank payment option shown clearly, named plainly and positioned first on the transactions where it fits will be used; the same option buried below the fold will not. Incentives can help where the merchant shares the savings, but the strongest driver is simply a flow that works: a clean redirect to the banking app, a clear amount, an instant confirmation.
This, too, is checkout design work rather than payments ideology. The merchants who succeed with Open Banking are not the ones who believe in it hardest. They are the ones who put it in front of the right customer at the right moment.
A rail, not a revolution
Open Banking does not need to replace anything to be worth adopting. It needs to do what it already does well: move considered, high-value, relationship-based payments at a flat cost, with bank-grade certainty and native authentication. For merchants whose payment mix includes those transactions, leaving them on percentage-priced rails is a standing cost that no longer has a reason to exist.
At SysPay, Open Banking is part of the payment methods we orchestrate, alongside cards, wallets and local schemes: helping merchants approve more transactions, pay less, and stay resilient. If you want to know which part of your payment flow belongs on bank rails, our team is happy to look at it with you.
SysPay is an MFSA-licensed electronic money institution (PCI DSS Level 1) providing payment orchestration and modular payment services to online businesses and accommodation providers across Europe.
