Jeroen Hölscher, Global Head of Payment Services at Capgemini, spoke to Payment Expert about the current and future outlook of the global payments landscape.
He spoke on the surging developments within account-to-account (A2A) and instant payments and why there has been an increase in demand for these services. Hölscher also spoke on some of the developments within Open Finance and what more can be done to fuel adoption, particularly in the US.
Lastly, Hölscher gave his thoughts on an over-saturated digital wallet market, stating “there are likely too many players currently” and what more can be done by banks to gain back a share of the market.
Payment Expert: Firstly Jeroen, what payment development caught your eye the most last year and how did this development reflect how the industry is moving into this year?
Jeroen Hölscher: I think it’s the fact that the promise of account-to-account (A2A) instant payment has started to become a feasible reality. It’s what we’ve seen happen in Brazil with PIX and in India with UPI and it’s massive.
Now, even in mature markets, there are clear signs that corporate merchants want to adopt A2A as an alternative payment method. That’s largely because it’s cheaper and faster than today’s standard.
PE: One development that continues to surge is Open Finance. How will this technology continue to develop in 2025?
JH: You’re right, Open Finance is surging and what is changing now is that adoption is starting to move from the B2C space to the B2B space.
In the past, most of the focus has been on the consumer side. Now, we see in our research that if you have very specific use cases in a specific sector, then the combination of Open Finance and Open Banking makes a lot of sense, and players in the B2B space are ready to pay for it.
The companies are ready to pay the banks for it and then it becomes a business case.
PE: It is also interesting to see how Europe has remained at the forefront of Open Banking adoption, whilst the US for example is looking to build its own guidelines away from the status quo across the Atlantic.
JH: From the regulatory side, the US always takes a ‘market adoption-first’ approach, rather than being regulator led. But now, with Rule 1033 coming into play in 2026, it starts creating the environment for Open Banking to be adopted in the US.
For me, adoption always has a cascading effect. Something starts in one region, which may work, and then you see it cascading around the world, whether that be Open Banking, instant payments, you name it.
PE: Speaking of Instant Payments, they are also on an upward trajectory, but what more can be done to enhance access to rails such as SEPA Instant for both banks and fintechs, and does one prefer instant payment rails more than the other?
JH: The challenge typically begins with the infrastructure, the schemes, and the alignment. The use cases only come after this. I think that the first few layers are there now, so if there is a use case for why you should use Instant Payments, the infrastructure is there to make that possible.
Consumers are expecting more and more instant payments and for the banks, the challenge will be converging payment rules with other rules. For example, around credit transfer or ACH, by converging and making everything instant, you can also save some cost on other rails.
And for fintechs, they will appreciate it if it’s fast and cheap, meaning they’ll be inclined to use it.
PE: There has been lots of discussion of traditional bank and fintech competition, especially with more digital banks becoming licensed. Do you anticipate more collaboration between the two this year?
JH: The banks can’t escape the regulatory part of the payments business. Since banks must continue to provide this, fintechs are more interested in adopting it. There will always be a collaboration in those spaces where they can help each other.
Where there’s definitely competition – if you look at the likes of Monzo and Revolut in the UK – is the digital proposition for the end customer. Ultimately, this is an open market, and it is where we are seeing investment from both fintechs and traditional banks.
If you look at the regions and markets where banks have been a little bit more at the forefront, the revenue lines are much lower. This is the concept of providing an excellent user experience by having different payment instruments in a single place.
It is now acceptable for a fintech company to come in and say, ‘I will help you with this single interface,’ because that is what I think has been best learned from the banks’ collaboration with fintechs.
PE: While digital wallets show no signs of slowing down, is there a danger that the launch of more digital wallets is in fact oversaturating the market?
JH: Yes, there are likely too many players currently. At the same time, all successful wallets are now non-bank held. They’re either owned by Apple or Google.
That is why banks need to work together to take back some of that customer proposition by integrating a wallet into their bank app. This wallet can then connect different use cases to various roles, either through an app or directly within the wallet.
But we’ve seen growth in e-commerce, where the point of sale is only the wallet, and that will be there for a while. Convergence I think will be over the long term, as there is a common standard and everybody reaches the same level eventually. For now, there remains fragmentation across the market.
PE: With so many digital wallet providers out there right now, more and more customers will be looking at the market and asking themselves which payment option is personalised to their needs, right?
JH: Look at the Starbucks wallet. They make so much money from the funds that are simply sitting in that wallet, it’s almost more than they make from selling coffee.
But at the same time, if I am thinking as a consumer, I hate to have three or four different bank accounts. I want to have my money in a centralised place. Ideally, it’s in my current account, because then I have an overview by default. I want an easy customer journey that feels frictionless to use.
PE: Lastly, Jeroen and thank you for your time, could you give us one bold prediction that will have a great effect on the payments/financial industry this year?
JH: My bold take for this year is that we will finally start to see smart use cases for Generative AI in payments.
I think people will start understanding what can be done with Gen AI, not only in the customer proposition, but in the way you enable payments on the back-end, and how this can be much faster and more efficient than the status quo.
