Plastic may not be fantastic for much longer - so prepare to pay via your mobile phone However, failing to move with the times carries even greater risks. Change is already happening and the dilemma for the banks is whether they lead that change, or whether they allow others to do so and risk losing this payments business altogether to rivals. PayPal, for instance, has already built up a large share of the online payments market and is now targeting payments in physical retail stores. The credit card, as we know it, came into being in the US in the 1920s when oil companies started issuing cards to car owners to pay for their fuel. After a while, the companies started accepting each other's cards and then in the 1950s the idea of a widely-accepted card offering revolving credit facilities was born. The UK followed a few years later, with the first Barclaycard in 1966. Since then, plastic cards have grown into a highly profitable core service for the retail banking industry. Debit cards are now where the growth is. Debit card usage is three times higher than credit card transactions and is growing at about 10pc a year. The proposed European Union cap on interchange fees - the fees retailers pay banks for accepting cards - would reduce interchange revenues on credit cards by about 70pc, or £660m, in the UK, according to Accenture estimates. Debit cards would not be much affected because interchange fees are already a lot lower. But there are other pressures, forcing change on the plastic card issuers. The main one is the consumer. Plastic cards are laborious to use online - you have to go through a clunky process of entering 16-digit numbers, addresses, start and end dates, codes and PINs. Plastic is also prone to fraud, particularly when used online. No matter how much protection is put around card data, fraudsters find ways to breach it. As commerce moves to digital channels, the card industry is innovating and evolving to make plastic cards more user-friendly. Digital wallets are appearing, which provide a one-click system for paying for goods online using a mobile and without entering full card details or sharing them with a merchant. These will certainly improve the customer experience, but they are still plastic cards in digital form and do not address the major flaw with cards - that they are vulnerable to fraud. The future for digital payments is likely to be different. Instead of mobile wallets, think of your mobile as a remote control device for your bank account. In the same way as mobiles can be used as remote controls for starting your car, controlling the heating at home, and turning on the lights, imagine a world where your mobile can be used to control your bank account to pay anyone, any retailer, anywhere, at any time. What could be more friction-free and simple than that? And it can now be done cheaply and securely, with no need to protect long, complex credit card numbers and three-digit security codes. The Barclays Pingit app is an example. It allows customers to transfer money securely from a bank account using nothing more than a mobile phone number. For customers, not only is this easy and secure, it also leaves them in control. Instead of little pots of money loaded on to proprietary pre-paid accounts or on mobile apps, your money remains safe in the bank account and you always have the "keys" to the account. There is no need to share account or card details with retailers, so the risk of fraud is dramatically lower. And losing a remote control is far more palatable than losing a digital container with confidential card details or electronic cash. Given the sheer size of the plastic card industry, it is inevitable that cards will continue to have a role for years to come. The major card companies, which own the brands and set the rules, are spending heavily on new contactless payment, digital wallets and social media propositions. But they need to reinvent themselves, and use their infrastructure and expertise to introduce new ways of paying that do not rely on cards, either plastic or digital. As for the banks, they have a massive advantage over new competitors in that they own the accounts where customers keep or borrow the majority of their money. By enabling these accounts to make payments directly wherever a customer wants, they have the opportunity to retain their dominant role in consumer payments. The challenge for the banks is that the fees on the digital payments of the future will inevitably be much lower than on plastic card transactions. However, the banks need to remember that if you don't cannibalise your own business, eventually someone else will do it for you. And if that happens, you risk losing not only your existing revenues but also your customers and future revenues as well. Jeremy Light is Managing Director, Accenture Payment Services, Europe, Africa, Middle East and Latin America