Apple And Walmart And Payments

Capgemini’s annual World Payments Report is always interesting reading for money nerds like me and the just-released 2025 report is no different. There is a lot of focus on account-to-account (A2A) payments in the report, just as you would expect given current trends, and it goes so far as to say that A2A’s potential to cannibalize traditional card payments (a significant revenue source for banks) “demands a strategic response”. Yes, it does, because the cannibals are not other banks, but strategic competitors able to change the direction of the payments industry. And one of them is Walmart..Subscribe nowIf banks they do nothing, they will end up as pipes. Brazil provides a useful case study that illustrates this dynamic well. The Pix instant payments scheme has expanded rapidly to the point where it has some 165 million users and is an existential threat to the domestic debit network Elo. Younger consumers, raised on Pix, have no interest in acquiring or using cards. No wonder banks are worried about losing their card businesses and the interchange they generate.But losing it to who? Well, top banker Jamie Dimon has previously said that competition from Big Tech and Walmart is “here to stay” and that he sees competition from Apple and Walmart “intensifying”. It is interesting that alongside the usual Big Tech players, he specifically points to Walmart. Interesting because when Walmart speaks, banks listen. Hence the news that the dominant retailer plans to step up its online pay-by-bank option in 2025 using both…Apple And Walmart And Payments