The card in your wallet has changed more than most people realise. What began as a strip of magnetic tape capable of moving money has become something far more significant: a trusted credential that increasingly defines who you are, what you can access and how organisations verify your identity across both physical and digital environments. The numbers reflect just how central this shift has become. The global card issuance system market, valued at USD 18.7 billion in 2025, is projected to reach USD 45.3 billion by 2035.
The fundamental shift is not technical. It is philosophical. The question is no longer how to issue a card. It is how to issue trusted access.
Identity is now an enterprise-wide concern
For years, a card was only transactional. It opened doors and moved money. Security was minimal; early cards had no PIN, just a magnetic stripe. Today, the credential that sits behind that card carries far more weight.
Identity is now an enterprise-wide concern, not just a user concern. From the CX team to compliance officers, everyone has a stake in how credentials are issued and managed. Underpinning this is the rise of know-your customer requirements and digital onboarding. Platforms can now validate national IDs, passports and a range of identity documents in real-time, ensuring that the person being issued a card or credential is who they say they are. For industries from banking to healthcare to lending, this validation layer is no longer optional. It is the foundation on which digital services are built.
Physical cards are not going anywhere
The narrative that physical cards are dying is one I challenge directly. Plastic card issuance is still growing at approximately 5% year-on-year globally. The reason is simple: a significant portion of the market, across generations and geographies, still relies on physical credentials for reasons that technology alone has not solved.
For example, if a phone dies, a customer cannot transact. There is still a large section of the market that relies on physical cards for exactly that reason. In South Africa, customers who were previously unbanked were introduced to formal financial services through physical cards, which is a tangible, understandable entry point. Moving that segment to digital-only is not a switch that happens by policy. It happens through trust that is built over time.
The cashless society has been forecast for more than 15 years. Cash is still king and physical cards, for similar reasons, are not disappearing anytime soon.
The hybrid future is already here
What is emerging is not a replacement of physical with digital, but a convergence of both within a single identity framework. Cloud-based issuance platforms now allow the same credential to be provisioned to a physical card, a mobile wallet and a virtual token from a single workflow. Seventy-nine percent of Gen Z and 75% of millennials now use digital wallets to store payment instruments, identification and more, setting a new benchmark for what seamless access looks like.
Identity is defined once, in a central place, and then expressed in whatever mechanism the context requires. A bank can issue a physical card and a digital wallet card simultaneously. A selfie or fingerprint scan can validate a high-value transaction. A thumbprint can authenticate daily purchases. The credential is consistent, it is the form factor that adapts.
Beyond payments: Where issuance is going
The most interesting applications of modern card issuance and credential management are no longer in payments alone.
In healthcare, patient identity is one of the highest-stakes credentials in existence. A medical aid card is the first layer of verification. Combined with biometric authentication, it protects patient records and reduces fraud exposure.
In education, a single student card can manage campus access, exam authentication, library use and a closed-loop payment system – all from a single credential tied to a verified digital identity.
In government, the conversation in South Africa moved from green ID books to smart ID cards and now, to digital IDs. The trust gap remains real. People need to understand what a digital ID means for their data, their access and their security before adoption can scale. The management of that rollout will determine how it lands.
Corporate access and the hospitality sector are further ahead. RFID tags, QR codes and NFC-enabled phones are already replacing physical key cards in many environments – from office buildings to hotel rooms to parking facilities.
The misconception worth correcting
The biggest misconception in card issuance today is treating physical and digital as separate programmes. Organisations that do this carry unnecessary costs and complexity. Those doing it well have unified their issuance infrastructure so that a single identity record can generate whatever credential the moment demands.
The card is just one output of the identity record. Not the record itself.
That distinction matters. As digital services expand and user expectations shift, shaped by the simple, frictionless experiences of platforms like Apple Pay and Google Pay, the organisations that will lead are those that define identity once, manage it well and express it flexibly.
The plastic card is not the end of the story. It is one chapter in a much longer narrative about trust, access and what it means to prove you are who you say you are.
Learn more about Altron FinTech’s card issuance and digital credential solutions: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0wsmb90
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