Banks use payment services to convert savers into first-time investors

Most banks treat payment services as back-end infrastructure. But some innovative providers are using their payment networks to overcome problems that traditional banking has struggled to answer. They're turning payment rails into platforms for financial solutions that can change customers’ lives.

“Payment is not satellite stuff anymore. It's core to driving success beyond the borders of payment,” says Benjamin Dessy, Mastercard’s country manager for Belgium and Luxembourg.

Payment services are evolving beyond transaction processing to include not only loyalty rewards and data insights, but also emerging capabilities such as biometric authentication and agentic commerce, he adds.

Dessy was speaking at an online event hosted by Qorus. Other speakers included representatives from KBC Asset Management, its spinoff everyoneInvested, and Eurobank Greece. Together they examined how financial services providers can integrate payments with investing for social impact.

KBC Asset Management, the wealth management arm of Belgian financial services giant KBC, has attracted more than a million new investors since 2017 by integrating its investment platform with payment services. At least half the newcomers are first-time investors. The KBC initiative is helping retail customers who had no previous experience of investing build wealth while also growing the group’s business.