Spain's Bizum app is now accepted at more than 1.6 million merchants, a sign that bank-based phone payments are moving into stores and could reach your checkout.
Payment apps that pull money straight from a bank account are no longer just for sending cash to friends. A Thales executive says the hard part now is getting stores to accept them. His example is Spain's Bizum, which by September was accepted at more than 1.6 million merchants.
Romain Soulard, a vice president for digital wallets at Thales, wrote about it in a PYMNTS eBook. He expected these home-country wallets to stay focused on person-to-person payments, with online shopping as the next step. Instead, they moved into everyday in-store buying faster than he predicted.
Bizum's numbers show the scale. Its 1.6 million merchants cover about 75% of payment terminals in Spain. The app serves more than 20 million users.
Soulard points to two causes.
His conclusion is that these apps no longer have a problem getting users. They have a problem getting accepted at checkout.
The goal is not to push out international card networks. Soulard says customers want to keep global acceptance and familiarity while adding a domestic option. That option would give more resilience, competition and local control. The payment experience is meant to feel the same as today.
Shoppers may get a new way to pay at the register. Shop owners may be asked to take bank-based phone payments. The material does not say when this might reach any particular country or store, and Bizum's figures are for Spain only.
Soulard says his company is putting its fourth-quarter focus on helping bank-account payments reach the point of sale. He expects 2027 to test whether people will switch. In his view, these wallets must offer a real reason to change habits, whether alongside or instead of the wallets already on people's phones. The article does not say what that reason will be.
Bank-based phone payments are reaching store checkouts, and the next question is whether shoppers will find them worth switching to.
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