Imagine for a moment: getting out of home without a wallet, just equipped with his phone. Buy a baguette, take the metro, set a coffee … Everything is going on in a gesture, without having to take out a bank card. This seemed unthinkable just ten years ago has become commonplace for a whole generation of young French people. Behind this transfer, the bank card, a long time queen of payments, vacillates on her throne. Mobile payment is essential, reinventing habits and shaking up historical banks. Do we still have, in 2025, going through the traditional card or this means of payment is definitively fading for the benefit of mobile technologies? In the following lines, let’s dive into the reasons for this revolution, let us observe how banks counterattack and discover the new issues for the years to come.
Bank cards: An endangered reflex among young people
Inherited habits previous generations
For decades, the bank card embodied the financial modernity : she replaced the check and reassured the liquid. In France, paying on a card was a reflex as natural as saying “hello” when entering a bakery. This gesture was transmitted over the generations, each parent accompanying their teenagers to open their first account and choose their precious card.
However, from 2020, a significant thrill is felt: the youngest no longer perceive the card as a compulsory passage. The uses evolve quickly, and a new era of payment points to its nose.
Mobile payment, New everyday ally
Young adults, born in a hyperconnected world, are used to doing everything from their smartphone: networking, online purchases, organization of evenings … Why would they make an exception for their money? Mobile payment, fully dematerializedallows them to do without a wallet. The simple fact of having your phone in hand is enough: a well -configured application and a few seconds at the checkout, and voila.
The appearance of solutions like Apple Pay, Google Pay or Paylib has put a real accelerator to the phenomenon. Mobile payment appeals to an increasing number of young people, who no longer hesitate to leave their card – or even their full portfolio – at home.
Mobile payment: Why does he appeal to an entire generation?
Simplicity, Speed and safety in the hollow of the hand
The real attraction of mobile payment is Its stunning simplicity. A gesture, sometimes a simple contact, and the case is settled. No more time to search for your card at the bottom of a bag or laboriously type your code. Everything is integrated, fluidified, almost invisible.
Added to this is the speed (a transaction is treated in the blink of an eye) and a feeling of Reinforced security. Facial or digital recognition technologies require strong authentication, limiting fraud and reassuring on the confidentiality of banking data. For many young people, there is no longer any reason to hang on to a physical card.
Le smartphone, central object in the lives of young people
Impossible to understand this tilting without mentioning the role of the smartphone: it has become the natural extension of the arm, the nerve center of the daily organization. To pay a purchase, consult your balance, or transfer money to a friend, everything goes through the banking application or the mobile payment solution.
The bank card suddenly seems bulky, almost obsolete. In a society where we are looking for The slightest time savingpriority goes to what is practical, fast et digital.
Traditional banks to the test: How do they react?
Old methods facing Innovation Fintech
Faced with the boom in mobile payment, historic French banks see their monopoly vacillating. Fintechs-these start-ups that attack financial services-require new disruptive standards : Fluid applications, constant innovation, tailor-made user experience. Result: young people, long loyal customers of “papa banks”, no longer hesitate to change their brand … even to manage their money exclusively via a mobile app.
The old reflexes-meet in agency or bank card in Puce-are questioned. Mobile payment, more flexible, responds better to the expectations of a pressed, curious and very attentive generation to the digital experience.
The banks offensive for win back young
Far from staying crossed, traditional banks have launched a real strategic counter-offensive. On the menu: development of their own applications, integration of mobile payments, overhaul of “young”, cashback … and even partnership with fintechs to keep one step in advance.
It is not uncommon to see certain banking groups actively promote their compatibility with Apple Pay or offer a “digital safe” to secure bank details. The challenge: to show that they too can be actors in the digital revolution and not simple spectators.
The future of payments: Towards a total disappearance of the card?
Trends to monitor in adoption of mobile payment
The dynamics are clear: from year to year, the Share of mobile payments increases significantly.
| Year | Share of mobile payments among 18-30 year olds | Share of card payments |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 25 % | 65 % |
| 2023 | 35 % | 56 % |
| 2024 | 45 % | 48 % |
| 2025 | Over 50 % | Less than 43 % |
If we believe the trend, the bank card will soon be the norm among urban young people. However, mobile payment must yet conquer rural areas and local businesses reluctant to invest in compatible terminals.
New issues for Banking actors
The boom in mobile payment upsets as much as it stimulates the banking sector. Now everything is played out on the ability to offer a Seamless user experiencefoolproof security and innovative features.
Banks must also answer a central question: what new services offer so as not to be overtaken by ever more agile fintechs? Instant virtual cards, followed by real -time expenses, delayed payment options … The race for innovation is launched.
Young French people fundamentally transform traditional banking habits. Far from being a passing fashion, the boom in mobile payment is essential as a real paradigm change. Ultimately, the bank card could be relegated to the rank of memory, replaced by The smartphone, which has become the new key to the portfolio. The question remains: Will conventional financial institutions manage to accelerate their digital transformation, or will they see their young customers migrate to more innovative actors? Would card payment become, for the rising generation, the equivalent of an obsolete technology? The evolution of the sector will tell us.
