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According to this article [0], WeChat and Alipay will surpass Visa and Mastercard in total global transactions per day in the coming year.

If a payment app really takes off in the Western world, wouldn't that be a very big risk for Visa and Mastercard?

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/16/business/china-cash-smart...

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Only if the payment app ties directly to a bank account, rather than a card. I don't see any movement in that direction in the US, so the card networks would still be getting their cut.

I foresee a Wallmart/Amazon race between banks and online wallets in the future (each trying to become the other first). Paypal nearly got there a while back. They were actually paying more interest on your Paypal balance than banks were paying on your savings, since they didn't need all the infrastructure involved in being a bank. Not sure what happened to kill that.

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