Summary: Companies build cards that let users choose how to pay at checkout by issuing a flexible credential, a single card that adapts between debit, credit, and buy now, pay later (BNPL) at the point of purchase. According to our State of Credit Report, this approach matches how consumers actually behave: 85% weigh multiple factors before deciding how to pay, and 59% use both debit and credit within a single 90-day window. A flexible credential gives shoppers real-time payment choice on one card, eliminating the need to carry separate cards or apps for different payment types.
Ask most retail teams to describe their card program and you'll hear it framed as a product: a co-brand credit card, with a rate, a rewards structure, and an approval bar. Ask a shopper how they use credit, and you'll hear something different. You'll hear a portfolio.
Think about how one shopper, call her Maya, actually pays. Groceries go on debit to stay on budget. A new laptop goes on a rewards credit card. A bigger furniture purchase she splits into installments. She isn't loyal to any single card; she picks the right tool for each moment. So when a favorite retailer offers her a store card that only does credit, only earns in that one store, and won't stretch to the purchases she'd rather split, it never becomes the card she reaches for. A single flexible credential that moves across debit, credit, and installments would fit the way Maya already behaves, and become the one card she actually uses.
The 2026 State of Credit research makes the shift hard to miss. Credit is no longer something a customer either has or doesn't. It's a set of tools they assemble and move between depending on what they're buying, what their cash flow looks like that month, and where they are in life.
Key consumer credit behaviors (2026 data):
- 66% of consumers own a credit card; 57% of those carry more than one
- 79% of BNPL users keep using BNPL even when they have a credit card
- 85% weigh multiple factors before deciding how to pay for a given transaction
- 59% used both debit and credit within a single 90-day window
This is deliberate, contextual behavior, and it doesn't fit inside a single static product.
For retailers, the gap between how shoppers behave and how co-brand programs are built is exactly where customers slip away. Read the behavior closely and it points to what a modern program needs to do.
Switching is contextual, not a sign of disloyalty
Retail tends to read a customer leaving a card as churn. The behavior data tells a more actionable story. When consumers switch or stop using a credit product, no single reason dominates. The most common trigger is an improved credit score, followed by life changes and better terms elsewhere. These are people whose circumstances changed and whose product didn't change with them.
Whether that's attrition or graduation depends on whether you built a path forward. A customer who outgrows an entry-level card because their credit improved is either lost or ready for your next product, and the difference is a design decision. Retailers who instrument these moments keep the relationship across the transition. Those who don't hand the upgraded customer to whoever offers the next step first.
The denial is a beginning most retailers treat as an end
Nowhere is the behavior clearer, or more ignored, than at the credit decision. Of consumers who applied for a card in the past year,
45% were denied at least once. Of those, 63% were offered no alternative, even though 60% said they'd have wanted one that helped them build toward qualifying. And they don't disappear: 76% say they'd undergo another credit check to upgrade when their profile is ready.
45% were denied at least once. Of those, 63% were offered no alternative, even though 60% said they'd have wanted one that helped them build toward qualifying. And they don't disappear: 76% say they'd undergo another credit check to upgrade when their profile is ready.
A denial is not a rejection of your brand. It's a shopper telling you they want in and simply aren't ready for the product you offered. The standard response, silence or a generic email days later, answers that intent with nothing. This is also where a large share of younger shoppers sits: 65% of 18 to 44 year olds are actively building or improving their credit score. They are credit-building, not credit-averse, and waiting for a brand to meet them where they are.
Shoppers expect a card that travels
The single-brand logic that defined co-brand cards for decades is now a source of friction. Among co-brand cardholders, 18% cite rewards being valuable only at one brand as a top frustration, and 13% cite limited acceptance outside the brand. Among 18 to 44 year olds, 64% would prefer co-brand rewards that span multiple brands rather than being locked to one.
Consumers expect every card in their wallet to work broadly. A card that only earns where they shop with you gets left at home for everyday spending, which costs you both the top-of-wallet position and the visibility that comes with it. A card used everywhere turns each off-brand purchase into data the retailer wouldn't otherwise see, how customers spend and where they spend it, which helps the retailer understand its customers far better than a loyalty program that only sees on-brand spend ever could.
What the behavior is asking for: one card that adapts
Add these behaviors together and they describe a single product. Shoppers assemble debit, credit, and BNPL and move between them by context. They want the card to travel. They graduate, and they don't want to start over.
What is a flexible credential? A flexible credential is a single payment card that lets the cardholder choose between debit, credit, or BNPL at the moment of purchase. Instead of carrying separate cards for each payment type, the user selects how to pay at checkout—on the same card number, same physical or digital credential.
The demand concentrates exactly where retail's growth is. 48% of consumers aged 18 to 44 want a card that can switch between debit, credit, and BNPL at the point of purchase, versus 23% of those 65 and older. Among 18 to 44 year olds who already carry multiple cards, 71% want to switch between products on one credential.
It wins top-of-wallet, which points never could
Retail has spent years trying to win top-of-wallet with points and mostly losing, because points don't change which card a shopper physically reaches for. A flexible credential does, because it becomes the card that handles every job.
According to our State of Credit Report, the consolidation is striking. Among consumers interested in flexible credentials:
- 67% say it would replace their current debit card
- 71% say it would replace their current credit card
- 71% would stop using separate BNPL apps
This isn't a product layered on top of the ones they carry. For the customers who want it, it absorbs them, and earns the default position through daily use rather than enrollment. And because one credential carries debit, credit, and installments, winning it is more than top-of-wallet: it is share of wallet, the everyday spending that used to scatter across other cards now running through yours.
It recovers revenue at checkout
Even a won customer can be lost at the final step. Roughly 70% of carts are abandoned, and payment friction is a leading cause. A flexible credential attacks that directly: real-time payment flexibility lets the shopper choose their preferred payment type before the purchase clears, so the reason to abandon disappears. 60% of consumers aged
25 to 44 say they want more flexible payment options, and giving it to them at the moment of decision recovers revenue you already spent to earn.
25 to 44 say they want more flexible payment options, and giving it to them at the moment of decision recovers revenue you already spent to earn.
It reaches the customers your credit box turns away
Remember the declined applicant and the credit-building younger shopper. A flexible credential handles them too.
How flexible credentials serve credit-builders (State of Credit Report):
- Consumers who don't qualify for traditional credit can start with co-brand debit paired with BNPL
- 33% of consumers are interested in a co-brand debit card (41% among 18 to 44 year olds)
- Among those who don't qualify for credit, interest in co-brand debit with BNPL reaches 53% of 25 to 34 year olds
- The card can start as debit-and-BNPL and add credit later on the same credential—no reissue required
Pair that structure with real incentives, rewards on all purchases and brand-specific perks, and 65% of previously neutral consumers move into consideration. The relationship grows without starting over.
The market isn't resistant, it's uninformed
A common objection is that customers won't want something new. The research says the opposite. When consumers who initially say they're not interested are shown the concrete value, convenience, fewer cards to manage, and more control at checkout, 81% turn around and see real benefits worth considering. "Not interested" almost always means "not yet shown," which is a positioning problem, not a product-market fit one.
Match the behavior, or keep losing to it
Shoppers already told you how they use credit: as a portfolio, chosen by context, spread across debit, credit, and installments. A single-mode card can't answer that, and no amount of points will change it. What can is a program shaped like the behavior, one card that flexes the way shoppers already do.
The programs that win the next decade of retail will be the ones designed to match how people actually pay, instead of asking customers to fit a product built for a way of borrowing they left behind.
Marqeta powers flexible credentials, co-brand programs, and the graduation paths between them, so a retail program can meet shoppers across the whole credit journey and offer one card, every way to pay. If this is the gap in your program, it's worth a conversation.
Want to offer one card that fits how your shoppers already pay? Contact us to explore flexible credentials for your brand.
