How Customer Expectations and Changing Habits Are Shaping the Payments Industry

By Sergei Astafjev, CEO of Wallester

Banking still works well if you’re one of the biggest clients. For everyone else, it’s often a different story.

Ask any small or mid-sized business owner, and you’ll hear the same frustration: too slow, too rigid, too impersonal. According to Capgemini’s World Payments Report 2026, around 40% of merchants plan to switch from banks to fintechs within the next year. That’s not a marginal trend - it’s a systemic realignment.

The reason is simple: fintechs have adapted to how modern business actually operates.

Over the past few years, I’ve seen firsthand how quickly expectations have evolved. What used to be seen as “innovation” - instant payments, automated reconciliation, digital onboarding - is now simply the baseline. The real differentiator today is how deeply a company understands the operational reality of its clients. In payments, this means going beyond transaction processing to support more intelligent, more efficient business decisions.

Customer expectations have been reshaped by digital-first experiences - instant transactions, transparent pricing, personalisation, and human support. Business owners now expect financial tools that mirror the rest of their digital world: intuitive, fast, and responsive. They don’t want to wait days for account approvals or spend hours reconciling transactions. They want clarity and control, not call queues and PDFs.

Banks may still dominate the traditional payments infrastructure, but when it comes to satisfaction, fintechs are clearly winning the expectations game.

The Expectation Gap

The numbers are telling.

• Only 15% of small merchants say they’re satisfied with their bank.

• For mid-sized merchants, it’s 22%.

• Larger firms fare better at 36%, but that’s still far from ideal.

Banks have always prioritised their largest customers - and understandably so. That focus has shaped what they build and how quickly they innovate. The result? Smaller businesses are left with generic services, slow onboarding, and minimal personalisation.

Fintechs, on the other hand, are filling the gap. The same Capgemini report shows:

• Only 32% of banks offer industry-specific value-added services (VAS), compared with 45% of fintechs.

• 64% of fintechs use data to personalise merchant experiences; just 23% of banks do the same.

• Banks generate 70% of their merchant revenue from core payments, with only 14% from VAS - fintechs earn a higher share (19%) from those added-value capabilities.

What “Value-Added Services” Actually Mean

“VAS” sounds like marketing jargon, but the concept is simple: these are the extras that make financial operations smoother.

If core payments are the engine, VAS are the systems around it - real-time analytics, custom spending rules, instant transfers, fraud alerts, or on-demand card issuance.

Banks tend to offer a one-size-fits-all model, while fintechs allow configuration. A transport company, for example, can set spending limits for delivery drivers in seconds. A digital agency can issue virtual cards per client campaign and track every euro in real time. That flexibility is what SMEs now expect - and increasingly demand.

Why SMEs Are Moving On

SMEs aren’t asking for perfection. They’re asking for progress.

They want onboarding that takes hours, not weeks, transparent pricing without fine print, and support that feels human. Most importantly, they want systems that adapt to them - not the other way around.

The power dynamic has shifted. Switching providers no longer means administrative chaos; it’s often as simple as opening a new account online. And that freedom has changed everything. Businesses now reward agility with loyalty.

In essence, SMEs expect their financial tools to move at the same speed as the rest of their business. That expectation will only intensify as technology - and competition - evolve.

The Future of SME Banking

The next phase of payments innovation will go beyond just faster transactions or prettier dashboards. It will be about context - understanding the unique workflows, margins, and data realities of each industry.

The real opportunity lies in embedding financial intelligence directly into business operations: tools that help companies predict cash flow, automate policy enforcement, or align spending with performance metrics.

At Wallester, we’ve built our platform around these ideas - instant onboarding, transparent pricing, and configurable financial tools that adapt to any business model. But more broadly, this shift reflects a new standard for the industry: one where accessibility, usability, and speed are no longer “value-added.” They’re just expected.

That’s where the payments industry is heading - and the companies that listen closely to what SMEs actually need will define the next decade of financial services.