Key Questions Banks Must Ask When Building a Future‑Proof Card, Mobile, and IoT Payments Infrastructure

Mikko Rieger of Nets

In this article, Mikko Rieger, SVP of Consumer Management Services (CMS) at Nets, shares practical guidance for banks looking to modernise their payment infrastructure.

Banks today grapple with increasing complexity and conflicting priorities.

The rapid adoption of mobile and IoT payments demands a flexible back‑end that can support diverse payment‑enabled devices—from smartphones and wearables to smart refrigerators and connected vehicles.

If open‑banking and account‑personalisation services are not accessible on smartphones, consumers will bypass them, preventing banks from differentiating and generating new revenue streams.

Without tokenisation, transactions initiated from mobile devices remain vulnerable, exposing sensitive payment and account data to risk.

Similarly, failure to support payment‑enabled connected devices like smart fridges will render an issuer’s offerings obsolete once IoT payments mainstream.

Virtual cards and existing card infrastructure can deliver these services, but legacy systems often slow issuers from responding swiftly to market shifts.

According to Ovum, nearly two‑thirds of banks believe their payments infrastructure will need a significant upgrade in the next three years as the back‑office domain becomes a key part of their digital strategy.

Such a transformation is substantial, and issuers understandably wrestle with the optimal approach.

To streamline the process and ensure they reach the best solution for their bank, these are the key questions to ask when developing a card, mobile and IoT payments infrastructure strategy.

Is outsourcing the right choice, or should we develop infrastructure in‑house?

• Can your current consumer‑management system accommodate the evolving mobile and IoT payments landscape?
• Do you have a sufficiently large, experienced developer team to build and deploy the infrastructure with minimal disruption to customers?
• Will the capital expenditure be recouped quickly?
• Are you confident in your technical capacity to deliver a scalable, value‑added service that is device‑agnostic?

If all answers are "yes", building in‑house is viable; if any are "no", outsourcing is likely preferable.

We’re outsourcing the upgrade. Should we choose a software‑only or full‑service provider?

• Do you need to launch new products rapidly to accelerate revenue generation?
• Would you benefit from custom technical support when creating innovative services?
• Would regional expertise and a collaborative development model, tailored to your bank’s needs, add value?
• Do you require a stable, highly available infrastructure for your end users?
• Are you aiming for a lean fixed‑cost model, avoiding the overhead of building and maintaining an internal team to manage the provider?

If any answer is "yes", a software‑only provider may lack the necessary capabilities.

We’ve selected a full‑service CMS provider. What questions should we ask to confirm the right fit?

• Does the provider have proven migration experience?
• Is the solution flexible enough to adapt to future consumer demands and emerging financial products?
• How seamless is the onboarding process—can migration occur product‑by‑product to minimise user disruption?
• Can the solution scale beyond CMS to include additional value‑added services?

To delve deeper into the challenges and opportunities of upgrading your card infrastructure, download our eBook Payments: Card vs Mobile vs IoT – Does it Even Matter?

The author of this blog is Mikko Rieger, SVP Consumer Management Services (CMS) at Nets