Speed, resilience, and scalability are no longer optional in the payments game—they’re expectations. Volante Technologies’ 2025 Big Survey takes the pulse of the banking industry in EMEA, offering a rare, data-rich look into how banks are modernising their payment systems in the face of regulatory deadlines, tech disruption, and shifting customer demands.

The findings are clear: banks know the future is coming fast, and they’re scrambling to catch up.

The push to modernise is no longer optional

In the past, payments transformation was a strategic priority. In 2025, it’s a survival imperative.

The survey reveals that 99% of EMEA banks plan to implement a new payments solution within the next 12 months, with over half (52%) anticipating implementation within the next six months. Some are moving even faster: 15% say they’ll implement a new solution within just three weeks.

Behind this urgency is more than just the looming SEPA Instant Payments and SWIFT ISO 20022 deadlines. Banks are being squeezed from both ends: by regulators demanding compliance and by customers expecting faster, seamless payment experiences. In fact, cost efficiency and operational resilience (29%) and real-time customer expectations (20%) outrank regulatory pressure (15%) as the primary drivers of change.

This is no longer about compliance alone. It’s about competitive relevance.

Big budgets, bigger ambitions

The willingness to spend reflects the scale of the challenge and the opportunity.

Almost half of banks (49%) increased their payments modernisation budgets over the past year, while 88% plan to spend between $500,000 and $5 million in the next 12 months. The average bank budget stands at $1.42 million, but the spread tells its own story: Spain leads the way with an average spend of $2.41 million, nearly double the EMEA average and more than twice the budget of their Belgian counterparts.

These budgetary commitments show that banks aren’t just dipping their toes into transformation; they’re diving in. But big budgets come with big decisions, especially when it comes to technology strategy.

Cloud—the backbone of modernisation, but no silver bullet

Cloud is now the default infrastructure model for banks modernising payments, but it’s not a one-size-fits-all solution.

A hybrid cloud approach is the most common strategy, with 58% of banks already using a hybrid setup (mixing cloud and on-premises infrastructure), and 54% actively considering it for future deployments. It’s seen as a sweet spot: balancing the flexibility and scalability of public cloud with the control of private systems.

However, while hybrid is dominant, cloud-native adoption remains low. Only 13% of banks are fully cloud-based, and 4% have no cloud plans at all, with the UK accounting for the majority of these outliers.

Regional preferences also diverge. For example, Spain leads in PaaS adoption, with 48% considering it, compared to just 8% in Luxembourg. Meanwhile, Iberia and the Middle East have the highest proportion of fully cloud-native banks (18–20%).

Conversely, countries like Norway and the Netherlands remain cautious, sticking largely to on-prem.

What’s holding banks back?

The intent to modernise is universal, but execution is complex.

Across the board, the biggest concern is vendor and tech partner selection (38%), not cybersecurity or budget. In a crowded vendor ecosystem, making the wrong choice could derail entire programmes, particularly when time is tight.

Other common challenges include gaps in internal skills and expertise, flagged by 34% of banks, which can hinder efforts to implement and manage new systems effectively. Cybersecurity and fraud risks are equally pressing, also cited by 34% of respondents, reflecting the growing threat landscape in real-time, high-volume transaction environments. For 31% of banks, the focus is on ensuring seamless migration with minimal disruption to services, highlighting the operational risks of replacing or overhauling payments infrastructure. Cost and budget constraints remain a challenge, too, mentioned by 28% of respondents, though notably less so than in previous years.

Importantly, the nature of these concerns varies by region. In Sweden and Saudi Arabia, cybersecurity is the top priority, whereas in Spain and Luxembourg, the central worry is migration disruption.

This localisation of concern underscores an important truth: modernisation isn’t just about deploying new tech—it’s about managing people, processes, and partnerships across complex environments.

The legacy burden

Despite forward-looking ambitions, many banks are still tethered to legacy infrastructure. More than a quarter (27%) of banks rely on outdated or internally built systems that are over five years old, or still depend on core banking platforms to handle payments.

This creates a fundamental mismatch. Banks are aiming for real-time, data-rich, flexible platforms—but are building on brittle foundations. Without rethinking infrastructure alongside solutions, many risk modernising at the surface while falling behind underneath.

Modernisation is happening. But is it working?

Ambition and investment are encouraging, but what ultimately matters is impact. With millions being spent and timelines tightening, banks are under pressure not just to modernise, but to demonstrate clear returns.

To do so, they’re turning to practical, measurable outcomes. Roughly half (52%) of banks say they track growth in transaction volumes and revenue to gauge success, tying modernisation directly to business performance. Four in ten (44%) prioritise faster processing times, recognising that speed is no longer a competitive differentiator, but a baseline expectation. Meanwhile, 43% focus on customer satisfaction and retention, signalling a shift toward customer-centric innovation. In Spain, that number climbs even higher, with 61% of banks rating customer experience as their top success metric—more than any other country surveyed.

This focus on real-world outcomes over technical outputs is telling. Where payments transformation may once have been measured by system upgrades or feature deployment, today it’s increasingly judged by how it drives revenue, improves agility, and strengthens customer relationships. In other words, success is no longer about what is being implemented, but why.

This evolution reflects a broader maturity in how banks approach payments strategy: no longer just about compliance or technology upgrades, modernisation is becoming a core lever for business growth.

The ISO 20022 crunch—a stress test for readiness

The upcoming SWIFT ISO 20022 deadline in November is a litmus test for how prepared banks truly are for the future of payments. While most institutions acknowledge the strategic value of ISO 20022—particularly its ability to carry richer, structured data that powers everything from fraud prevention to smarter automation—many are still treating compliance as a box to tick rather than a transformational opportunity.

The survey data reveal wide disparities in readiness. A majority (54%) of banks are still relying on translation services to bridge legacy systems with ISO 20022 standards. That may offer short-term compliance, but it limits banks’ ability to harness the full benefits of native adoption. Only 32% report full compliance, while a concerning 14% are still exploring options, despite the deadline being just months away. The UK stands out here, with 60% of those still exploring based in the UK, suggesting either hesitation, resource constraints, or more complex infrastructure dependencies.

By contrast, Spain emerges as a regional leader, where 73% of banks are already fully compliant. That readiness goes beyond meeting regulatory requirements and unlocks new possibilities for innovation, from advanced analytics to enhanced customer profiling. Spanish banks are not just compliant; they’re poised to move fast in the post-deadline environment.

The big picture: a moment of reckoning

Volante’s 2025 Big Survey makes one thing clear: EMEA banks are under no illusions about the pace or complexity of payments modernisation. They know the risks of delay, and they’re investing heavily to avoid being left behind.

However, this isn’t just about ticking regulatory boxes or upgrading tech. This is about redefining what it means to be a modern bank—one that is scalable, resilient, customer-centric, and ready to compete with the next generation of digital challengers.

Whether banks succeed will come down to the decisions they make now on partnerships, infrastructure, cloud strategy, and execution.

Because the future of payments isn’t some distant horizon. It’s the next transaction.

Stay tuned for a follow-up piece—A tour through EMEA’s regions—including who’s leading, who’s lagging, and what their trajectories tell us about the future of payments across Europe and the Middle East.

Download your free copy of the 2025 Big Survey here.