Pay by Bank Is Coming for Cash, Not Cards, with Johannes Kolbeinsson

Why account-to-account payments keep missing the mark: #

The pitch for account-to-account payments has been the same for years: cut out the card networks, cut the fees, move money directly between banks. Johannes Kolbeinsson, Co-Founder and CEO at Paystrax, has spent over 20 years as a card acquirer and sees a simpler explanation for why it hasn’t happened. A card payment takes one step. An account-to-account payment takes three to six. Until that gap closes, he doesn’t see it competing, no matter how much Visa and Mastercard invest in making their own account-to-account products smoother.

What acquiring data actually shows about A2A demand: #

Dumitru Condrea pushes back, pointing to Visa and Mastercard’s own investment in account-to-account infrastructure in markets like the UK as a signal of real momentum. Johannes counters with what he sees directly: when Paystrax offers merchants the option to add account-to-account rails, about 90% decline and stick with card processing.

Friendly fraud is a bigger problem than the industry admits: #

Johannes shares research Paystrax commissioned in the UK, surveying a thousand cardholders. It found people under 30 treating chargeback fraud, disputing transactions for products they did receive, as something close to a game. He argues card schemes have responded by making it too easy to accuse a merchant of fraud without any burden of proof, which is now pushing transaction volume toward account-to-account rails, where that kind of dispute isn’t possible.

A parallel banking system is forming around stablecoins: #

Paystrax just launched USDC stablecoin settlement across 17 jurisdictions. Johannes separates the hype from what he’s actually seeing: point-of-sale stablecoin payments are still three to five years out, but peer-to-peer and cross-border stablecoin transfers are already moving fast, fast enough that he describes it as a new banking system forming alongside the traditional one.

Why listen: #

This conversation cuts through two of fintech’s most repeated claims, that account-to-account payments are inevitable and that card networks are under threat, with a card acquirer’s actual transaction data and 20-plus years of watching payment cycles repeat. For anyone building in payments, compliance, or fraud prevention, it’s a grounded read on where real volume is moving and why.