Acquiring Gen Z at the payments layer is now a retention play with decade-long economics, not a demographic experiment — issuers that own the first debit or prepaid relationship before age 18 statistically lock in primary account status well into peak earning years. For issuer processors and card program managers, this compresses the window to build frictionless onboarding, embedded rewards, and mobile-first authorization flows that can sustain a 10-plus-year customer lifecycle from a single early touchpoint.