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A2A payments have long promised to rebalance the economics of digital commerce. This year, their ascent has begun to look less like a thought experiment and more like a structural shift.
Pay by Bank comes of age
At Open Banking Expo UK & Europe, Token.io chief executive Todd Clyde captured the mood succinctly: Pay by Bank has crossed the threshold from “early market hype” to the mainstream.
That confidence is not rooted in marketing optimism but in hard data.
According to Token.io’s latest industry survey, 91% of respondents reported a marked uptick in merchant demand for Pay by Bank during 2024, a trend they expect to continue.
What is striking is that cost efficiency alone is no longer the decisive lever. Instead, Clyde sees a behavioural realignment underway.
Consumers are broadening their payment preferences, and merchants—eager not to miss a sale or alienate a demographic—are moving swiftly to meet them.
Payment service providers are also shifting gears.
A year ago, many saw A2A as a strategic adjunct; now, 95% deem Pay by Bank a central plank of their two- to three-year roadmaps. That pivot, Clyde noted, reflects rising competitive pressure: PSPs that fail to offer A2A risk ceding relevance to specialist providers.
Banks, too, are recalibrating. Two-thirds have already launched or plan to launch Pay by Bank propositions.
Some want to deepen engagement with SME customers; others see it as a catalyst to modernise consumer journeys and shed creaking legacy processes.
New Phase for Open Banking Infrastructure
The Expo also delivered a notable moment of commercial alignment. Token.io and Antom, Ant International’s European payments arm, announced a partnership designed to accelerate A2A adoption across the region.
Antom’s general manager for EMEA, Rachelle Alexis Lim, emphasised that deeply localised ecosystems—rather than broad-brush global templates—will be central to winning merchant trust.
By integrating Token.io’s infrastructure, Antom aims to deliver precisely that: friction-light access to Europe’s most trusted Open Banking rails.
Token.io’s described the atmosphere at the Expo as a “turning point”. The sentiment among delegates suggests that Pay by Bank is no longer a peripheral experiment but a credible alternative embedded in the market’s forward path.
Merchants Eye Impactful Use Cases
BNP Paribas’ Instanea platform, provided a practical illustration of what this evolution looks like on the ground.
During a Fireside Chat, BNP Paribas’ Lirka Bibezic pointed to clients’ priorities: instant settlement, higher payment limits than cards, cleaner reconciliation, and lower costs.
From utilities to luxury retail, use cases are multiplying. The breadth of deployment is compelling and indicative of genuine market traction.
VRP Edges Towards Ubiquity
Variable recurring payments (VRP) also took centre stage, with a panel featuring the FCA, Nationwide and Virgin Money debating the journey from niche functionality to mass adoption.
The UK’s sweeping-use VRP is providing a workable foundation, and early adopters are proving the point: at Virgin Money, over 96% of monthly one-off card payments have already migrated to Open Banking alternatives.
Panellists agreed that trust, simplicity and education will be decisive.
Commercial VRP promises a smoother user journey, but ubiquity will hinge on one factor: reach. As was stressed, bank participation remains the critical gating item for a fully functioning cVRP ecosystem.
Across the Expo, one conclusion stood out. A2A payments—and Pay by Bank in particular—are no longer a theoretical disruptor. They are becoming a foundational component of Europe’s emerging Open Banking economy.
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