PYMNTS Intelligence and Trustly published "Pay by Bank Deep Dive: Digital Bank Users Are Ready to Switch" on August 28, 2026, a study run in January 2026 among 2,071 US consumers. Its purpose: measure how willing digital bank customers actually are to move from cards to pay by bank, also called account-to-account payment.
Two levers, one condition: a discount plus protection
The 35.4% figure isn't a spontaneous preference: it holds under one scenario, where the digital bank offers both a discount and buyer protection on par with what a card already provides in a dispute. Strip out that double condition, and the gap with the general population narrows sharply. The study traces the same pattern across two other use cases: bill payment, where 32% of digital bank customers would switch versus 22% of all consumers, and retail purchases, at 22.3% versus 15.4%.
Digital banks, an early signal for a broader shift
The study sets this finding against a wider backdrop: digital bank customers are no longer a niche. They now account for 13.8% of primary bank relationships in the US, a share comparable to local banks and closing in on regional institutions. Younger, with lower incomes and more reliant on mobile, digital bank customers, Millennials in particular, show a far stronger appetite for the digital wallet than average: 44.6% to 45% prefer it as a payment method, against 22.7% across the general population.
| Use case | Digital bank customers | All consumers |
|---|---|---|
| Account-to-account transfers | 35.4% | 25.3% |
| Bill payment | 32% | 22% |
| Retail purchases | 22.3% | 15.4% |
What this means for card issuers
The message for card issuers and networks isn't one of imminent collapse: 43% of digital bank customers cite the immediate financial benefit as their top motivator, and 72% only adopt pay by bank once it comes bundled with both rewards and protections, two features cards have spent decades building. Pay by bank isn't winning on the technical simplicity of a transfer; it's winning by replicating, one feature at a time, the mechanisms that have long made cards the default.
For account-to-account payment providers, Trustly included, this figure reads more like a roadmap than a victory lap: building buyer protection that's credible, enforceable and quick to trigger now drives most of the switching potential the study measured, more than the bare promise of settling straight from a bank account.