Milan, 10/12/2025 – After years of sustained growth, fees on payment services for Italian banks are clearly slowing: in 2024 revenues reached €9.5 billion, up 2% compared to €9.3 billion in 2023, but based on the performance over the first nine months of this year, the increase expected in 2025 is below 1%. Weighing on this trend are stagnant consumption, increasingly aggressive competition from new global and specialist players (FinTechs and BigTechs), a new wave of regulatory pressure and the slowdown in the migration from cash to digital.
This is the finding of the study “The Challenges of the New Payments Ecosystem”, conducted by Excellence Payments, a company of the Excellence Group. The analysis considers the financial statements of ten of the main Italian commercial banks: Intesa Sanpaolo, UniCredit, Banco BPM, BPER, Monte dei Paschi di Siena, Crédit Agricole, BNL/BNP Paribas, Credem, Banca Popolare di Sondrio and Banco Desio.
In detail, the analysis of fee components shows a two-speed picture. Growth is driven almost exclusively by payment cards (credit and debit), which alone account for €2.6 billion (28% of the total) and recorded a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14% between 2021 and 2024. Within this aggregate, credit cards and debit cards, including prepaid cards, contribute equally, with €1.3 billion each. By contrast, the main component of revenues – those linked to current accounts and wire transfers – represents the largest share with €5.5 billion (57% of the total) and a CAGR of just 3%. The study also highlights how the weight of these fees on total fee income is becoming polarised: for mid-sized banks (fewer than 500 branches) the incidence rises to 46% (from 45% in 2023), while for large banks (500–1,500 branches) it falls to 31% (from 33%). It remains stable at 30% for the two market leaders (over 1,500 branches).
Despite the slowdown in the market, the study assesses the ability of individual banks to extract value from payment services through three indicators that relate fees to liquidity, number of customers and number of branches. In the 2024 ranking, ISP (with values for the three indicators of 0.86, 17.94 and 0.76) and Banco Desio remain at the top, with the latter excelling on the liquidity (1.23) and per-customer (33.66) indicators. UniCredit’s strong growth also stands out: the bank, which posted a 13% year-on-year increase in fees, bucking the market trend, ranks in the general classification with values of 0.67 for liquidity and 15.84 per customer.
“The slowdown is not cyclical but structural,” says Andrea Gnetti, CEO of Excellence Payments. “Global players such as Revolut, Klarna, Stripe and Adyen are rewriting the rules of the game. In this scenario, technological options such as the opening up of NFC on iPhones become an enabling factor for banks that want to develop proprietary wallets and regain control of the customer experience. The risk of disintermediation is real, but there are also new levers to counter it. It is therefore strategic to keep a firm grip on the payment experience, with innovative offerings for all customer segments and vertical solutions specifically designed for the business world: failing to do so means losing the most frequent touchpoint with one’s customers – both consumers and corporates – and yielding ground to more agile competitors.”
“The contribution of fees on payments, which for years has helped stabilise income statements, can no longer be taken for granted,” adds Maurizio Primanni, Chairman of Gruppo Excellence. “In a context of compressed margins and growing competition, banks must change gear and move from a rent-seeking logic to one of innovation. The challenge now is to defend profitability and the customer relationship by enriching the offering with value-added services, integrated collection solutions for SMEs and a smarter use of data to personalise the experience. A change in strategy is needed to turn a threat into an opportunity to strengthen the relationship.”
