More Than 40% of Digital Banking Users Now Prefer Wallets to Cards
The way digital bank customers pay is shifting fast, and new data puts hard numbers to what many in the industry have been sensing for a while. According to a PYMNTS Intelligence report titled Pay by Bank Deep Dive: Digital Bank Users Are Ready to Switch, digital wallet preference among digital bank users now stands at 44.6%, roughly twice the rate seen across the wider banking population.
The report, produced in partnership with Trustly and drawing on a survey of 2,071 U.S. consumers, paints a picture of a consumer base that has already moved well past the experimenting stage. These are people who manage their finances through apps, authenticate through their phones, and increasingly expect payments to match that experience.
Digital wallet preference among digital bank users doesn’t stop at general spending. More than half of this group said they favour wallets for rideshare transactions, while 60.3% use them for gambling-related purchases. Subscriptions and retail purchases tell a similar story. It is a pattern that points to wallets becoming the default, not just an option.
The demographic angle adds important context. According to the findings, 56% of digital bank customers are millennials or Gen Z, compared to 45% across all banking customers. Millennials alone make up 38% of digital bank users. More than half of this group earns under $50,000 annually, suggesting that speed, convenience, and low-friction access, not just wealth, are the real drivers of adoption.
Where things get especially interesting is around Pay by Bank, the direct account-to-account payment model that has been gaining attention as a potential alternative to card-based transactions. The report positions Pay by Bank not as a rival to credit cards but as a credible replacement for debit. Right now, only 12.2% of consumers see it that way, but that number moves sharply when incentives enter the picture. Over 60% of consumers said they would reconsider Pay by Bank if rewards and buyer protections were attached to it.
Among digital bank users specifically, 43.1% cited immediate cash benefits as their top motivation for switching. That same group said they would redirect 35.4% of their account-to-account transactions to Pay by Bank under the right conditions, compared to 25.3% across the general population. Bill payments showed the biggest switching appetite, reaching 32% among digital bank customers.
The overall finding is hard to ignore: for consumers already living inside app-based financial ecosystems, the leap to Pay by Bank is smaller than the payments industry may have previously assumed. Digital wallet preference among digital bank users is not a niche signal, it is an early indicator of where mainstream payment behaviour is heading.
