Tap-to-pay, instant app transfers and one-click checkout are second nature for consumers across every generation. Getting paid back, though, is a different story. According to Onbe and NRG's 2026 Payouts Landscape report. B2C payouts are running roughly a decade behind the rest of consumers' digital financial lives. Here's what the data shows, and why it matters for any business that still owes people money.

Digital payments are nearly universal

Consumers have already made the switch. Onbe and NRG found that 98% of consumers use digital payment methods monthly, and 94% describe embedded payment experiences — think rideshare apps that charge a card automatically — as convenient. That comfort isn't limited to younger, tech-forward users, either: even among Boomers, 86% rate these kinds of payment experiences as seamless. Digital payment has stopped being a preference and become the default expectation, for every age group.  

Banking is mobile-first

That shift extends past shopping and into how people manage their money day to day. Seventy-one percent of banked households now use mobile or online banking as their primary way to access their accounts, according to the American Bankers Association¹. For most consumers, "checking the bank" means opening an app, not opening the mail.

Payouts are the missing link

Here's the disconnect: while consumers' financial lives have gone mobile, the way businesses pay them hasn't caught up. Paper checks remain the third-most common payout method consumers receive — despite ranking sixth in preference. Mobile wallets tell the opposite story: seventh in how often consumers actually receive a payout that way, but fourth in what they'd prefer.

That gap shows up in the generational data, too. Among Gen Z and Millennials, payment apps and mobile wallets are already the preferred way to receive a payout — 50% favor payment apps and 34% favor mobile wallets, the latter up 14 points from just a year earlier. Gen X and Boomers are moving the same direction, just from a different starting point: payment app preference among Gen X and Boomers climbed 11 points year over year to 39%, even as ACH preference slipped 5 points to 44%. Every generation is drifting toward the same digital-first destination, businesses just aren't all meeting them there yet.

Younger consumers are accelerating the shift

The pressure to close that gap is only going to build. Eighty-nine percent of consumers overall now say they prefer digital payment methods for payouts. Among Gen Z specifically, 93% received a digital payout in the past year, and 95% said they'd prefer to receive payouts that way going forward. Payment apps have already overtaken direct deposit (ACH) as the top preferred payout method for both Gen Z and Millennials — a reversal from 2024, when Gen Z and Millennial preference for the two was tied. As these generations' spending power grows, businesses still routing payouts through checks and ACH-only setups will feel that mismatch more, not less.

Closing the gap

The consumers on the other end of every rebate, refund, claim payment or gig payout are the same people who tap to pay for coffee and check their bank balance from their phone. When a payout arrives as a check in the mail, it doesn't just feel slow — it feels like a step backward.

Onbe bridges that gap between consumers' digital financial lives and how businesses actually pay them, with payment apps, mobile wallets and modern payment rails built into a single point of integration. Get the full generational breakdown and see where consumer loyalty and willingness to pay are concentrated in Onbe and NRG's 2026 Payouts Landscape report, or talk to Onbe about where to start.

_{1. American Bankers Association, "National Survey Preferred Banking Methods", Nov. 18, 2025}