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Insights and Expertise

The payment card

The card is no longer only a
evolves – from means of initiating a transaction.

transaction tool to It becomes a device for

proving identity.
trust anchor

Digital onboarding and the new trust gap
Digital-first onboarding has dramatically expanded
access to financial services. Accounts can now be opened
in minutes, and credentials can be provisioned into
wallets almost instantly. But speed has introduced a new
vulnerability: risk is increasingly concentrated at account
opening and during the first weeks of activity.
Industry data published by BIIA in January 2026
shows that synthetic identity fraud and AI-enabled
impersonation attacks are growing rapidly, particularly
during account origination and early lifecycle activity
(see https://tinyurl.com/2ax24nux). Financial institutions
are caught in a delicate balancing act. Adding digital
verification layers may reduce risk, but it also increases
By Brent Bowen friction and abandonment. Reducing friction, meanwhile,
can unintentionally lower assurance.
Giesecke+Devrient
Experian's most recent identity and fraud reporting
obile wallets, super apps, embedded finance highlights this tension clearly. The report notes that
and instant payments are used by more and financial institutions are seeing growing fraud pressure
more consumers. And yet, in 2026, debit and during account opening and early account activity, while
M credit cards remain among the most widely at the same time struggling to balance stronger verification
used and most trusted financial instruments in the world. with a seamless customer experience (see https://tinyurl.
The reason is trust, security and convenience. com/b8d4z786).

Even as consumers increasingly transact through digital Purely digital signals—device fingerprints, behavioral
interfaces, the physical card continues to serve as the analytics, document uploads—are powerful but not
foundational credential behind many of those experiences. infallible. They can be replicated, automated and scaled
Plus, as a transaction tool itself of course. It is often the by attackers using increasingly sophisticated tools.
only tangible artifact bank consumers use on a daily
basis—a physical representation of a financial institution's This tension reveals a growing trust gap. What many
promise of security and reliability. institutions are rediscovering is that digital identity needs
reinforcement from something more durable and more
Research conducted by Morning Consult on behalf of the difficult to manipulate.
American Bankers Association and published in October
2025 confirms that consumers continue to place greater From payment instrument to authentication device
trust in bank-issued credentials than in standalone digital
identities or third-party applications (see https://tinyurl. Fraud has decisively shifted online. Card-not-present
com/22atkzas). That trust has been earned through decades transactions now account for the majority of card-
of secure issuance processes, regulated oversight and related fraud losses globally, according to FICO research
global interoperability. detailed in a company blog post by Debbie Cobb, FICO's
vice president of product management (see https://tinyurl.
The real question facing financial institutions is no longer com/3zcbabj5). As commerce moves into digital channels,
whether the card will survive. It is what role the card must authentication, not authorization, has become the central
play in an ecosystem defined by digital identity, AI-driven battleground.
fraud and frictionless user expectations.
Global standards bodies, such as the FIDO Alliance, have
advanced phishing-resistant authentication models based
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