This article will examine some of the most exciting new open banking and payment trends for 2025, along with Brite’s expert opinion and analysis of what brands can do to capitalise on these predictions.
The way people bank is changing on an unprecedented scale, and nowhere is that more evident than in the cultural differences between generations in banking. This we see as a key trend withing the adoption of open banking.
We know that Pay by Bank, powered by open banking like Brite’s instant account-to-account payments, is what younger demographics want and reflects how they shop today. Indeed, according to Brite’s recent Instant Economy Report, Pay by Bank usage is rising significantly, the highest among 18-29-year-olds, with 36% using this method every week.
Meanwhile, in e-commerce, Pay by Bank’s operational efficiencies and cost savings make a massive difference for merchants and provide a better-quality customer experience.
Although online retail is still seen as a huge opportunity because of the volume of payments, adoption will take some time. However, open banking payments now have a lot of traction in other segments like financial services.
As they age, customers seek out a wider variety of services/products, such as online trading accounts, insurance products, investment platforms, pensions, and personal finance planning. Yet younger customers are often early adopters of new tech. Thus, we foresee a growing demand for Pay by Bank within the range of financial services tools used by Gen Z.
By the same token, mobile phones have now overtaken desktops as the primary channel for shopping online, especially among younger people. Furthermore, Pay by Bank is very well suited to mobile use. Consolidating mechanics — such as payment using only top-of-mind information and authentication based on the user’s banking app — on a mobile device can expedite the payment process’s speed and reduce user friction.
Open banking is already delivering instant payments, such as Brite instant account-to-account payments, which are helping make cash flow more predictable and liquidity management more manageable for businesses across Europe. But now, more and more consumers across Europe are becoming aware of its utility and its different use cases – this clear trend of growth with open banking-powered payments is there for all to see.
For example, the United Kingdom recently reached the milestone of reaching over 10 million open banking users—approximately 15% of the country’s population. Meanwhile, according to Statista, the value of open banking transactions worldwide reached $57 billion last year, and this sum is only expected to increase over time.
As such, we see more and more consumers and merchants adopting it in 2025 as its popularity increases. However, successfully leveraging this widespread adoption depends on better education and understanding of how this system operates.
Indeed, despite the above successes, in many ways open banking’s adoption has not been as widespread as was previously hoped. Open banking usage has stalled in some countries, due to ongoing technical and regulatory hurdles, as well as outdated digital infrastructures.Secondly, banks’ APIs are underperforming, resulting in poor user experience.
Improved regulation and industry collaboration are needed to deliver on open banking’s potential. Providers should focus on value-added services like automated reconciliation and FX management to differentiate themselves.
Cybercrime and fraudsters, like everything across payments, represent a large threat to open banking being conducted safely. However, combating them promises to be a key open banking trend in 2025.
Indeed, according to one report, 60% of consumers surveyed ranked the security of open banking as their primary concern, while another 41% reported feeling concerned about security. While this is, of course, challenging, it is worth noting that the security of open banking is now among some of the most stringent within the payments sector.
Indeed, key regulatory directives and new legislation are set to address concerns about privacy and security and further improve the open banking ecosystem.
For instance, in Europe, open banking providers and large financial institutions will need to adapt to next year’s introduction of the Payment Services Directive 3 (PSD3), which is aimed at protecting the rights and private data of payment service users. PSD3 is due to establish Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) regulations and stricter rules on access to payment systems and account information.
We predict that PSD3 will also help upgrade the performance of application program interfaces used by open banking platforms and thereby provide a better end-user experience. This means that instant payments will be more important to payment service providers, while better awareness of instant payments will help drive the adoption of Pay by Bank solutions.
Commenting on this issue, Brite Payments Founder and CEO Lena Hackelöer in a recent interview with the Paypers, stated, “We hope that the revised Payments Services Directive will mean a more harmonised approach to open banking and API standardisation.”
She added: “API performance is critical to a functioning open banking ecosystem – too often, the end-user experience is impacted. Underpinned by PSD3, open banking can act as an innovation driver if done right.”
It’s been written about plenty of times before and featured previously amoung open banking trends, but Variable recurring payments may become more relevant in the coming year.
Simply put, these instructions allow customers to securely connect authorised payment providers to their bank accounts. From there, customers can choose to vary how much they pay back over time. These multiple payments are accessed directly from the customer’s bank account and protected via each transaction, which is secured with strong customer authentication.
Another appeal for consumers is the distinction between sweeping and non-sweeping VRPs. In short, sweeping involves transferring money between a customer’s accounts. In contrast, non-sweeping VRPs relate to the payments made between customers and merchants.
Because of this, we see the flexibility and positive customer experience attracting more consumers towards this payment instruction. With lower transaction costs than card payments, direct debits, and reduced steps in the payment process, VRPs will become more popular over the next year.
Finally, we also predict that embedded finance will become more important in the coming year. In 2025, open banking will move beyond data sharing and become a bigger part of consumer services and business interactions, and thus, embedded finance will become more integrated into consumers’ day-to-day lives.
This trend will result in more platforms embedding their financial services directly into the various consumer channels they operate from, such as mobile apps, online platforms, and retail locations.
Thus, stakeholders in the open banking sector should try to enable this kind of embedded finance and help e-commerce merchants and online retailers work with this form of payment.
The EU is also pushing for open finance initiatives through FiDA — which aims to facilitate the provision of new products and services by leveraging data combination and aggregation. Thus, companies operating in this market should attempt to take advantage of this regulatory push towards new innovations in this field.
It’s clear that the open banking market is changing rapidly, and brands in the fintech industry have many exciting opportunities to engage with them and improve their customer experience, efficiency, and security.
As Brite Payments CEO Lena states, “What excites me most is that new use cases for our instant payments and payouts are constantly emerging. It will take time to grow merchant acceptance and consumer usage, and growth across sectors will be at varying paces, but the market is starting to mature, and a thriving open payment ecosystem will help Pay by Bank reach its potential in the years ahead.”
Banking 4.0 – „how was the experience for you”
„So many people are coming here to Bucharest, people that I see and interact on linkedin and now I get the change to meet them in person. It was like being to the Football World Cup but this was the World Cup on linkedin in payments and open banking.”
Many more interesting quotes in the video below:
