Shifting the Balance: How Consumers Are Using Bank Accounts Today

Each year, Javelin Strategy & Research conducts a wide-ranging survey of consumer payment behaviors. The 2025 version of this survey offers some key insights into what is trending and what has stalled. This data provides key indicators that debit practitioners can use to update their market assumptions and review their priorities for the coming year. 

Despite a perception that change is the only constant, many items in our survey show strong stability from year to year. This report will look at the data covering three main topic areas: How are consumers accessing their DDA/checking accounts? Are consumers showing increased preferences for RTP or other bank-account-associated rails? What is happening with peer-to-peer usage in terms of market share and funding choices? 

In a payments landscape that has seen the recent emergence of generative AI, agentic commerce, and new payment rails, it is easy to assume that change is happening as quickly as the announcements get made. Although there are some suggestions of change (more on this later), the real headline of the 2025 survey data is the stability in consumer preferences and behavior in making payments, regardless of whether those payments happen online, in-store, or through P2P applications.

Companies Mentioned: 

Amazon, Apple, Block, Cash App, Chime, Dave, Mastercard, PayPal, Venmo, Walmart