EXCLUSIVE—Data will continue to be a key trend in 2018, especially as banks and fintechs in the U.S. work to improve the country’s payments infrastructure, which is in need of an overhaul (what else is new).

This is according to Derrick Walton, EVP, financial networks for payments technology provider Hyperwallet, who told Bank Innovation that “data is going to be a key part” of the way financial services will change in 2018 moving forward.

Aside from developments in the retail space, which is consistently changing, banks and fintechs are continuing to work on developing better data platforms and usage at the bank end, Walton said. However, this probably won’t include the use of technology like the blockchain, which, as Walton notes, is much more relevant to banking interests at the moment than cryptocurrencies, at least when it comes to internal systems or compliance.

Payments, however, are a less attractive use case for the technology at this point.

“Blockchain first became popular because bitcoin became popular, as there was a finite amount [of the currency],” Walton told Bank Innovation. “The idea of using the blockchain to send money [was attractive], except in most markets money isn’t finite—banks print more of it all of the time.”

Walton’s comments come after a general malaise in the fintech community on the part of using blockchain to settle payments (as well as growing global skepticism—cryptocurrencies are currently trading down, after Google announced today that it will ban all crypto-related advertising), but banks still need to focus on creating data-driven, faster digital payments.

The U.S., with its established consumer preference for debit, may have more of a struggle than other nations who lack a heavy reliance on plastic or other traditional methods of sending money.

“In the U.S., if I send an ACH payment, it will take two to three days to process. In Argentina, it takes seconds.” Walton said. “The U.S. infrastructure isn’t equipped to deal with these [payments]—but you’re starting to need this digital infrastructure in place.”