Bank of America Modernises EMEA Payments With ISO 20022 & SEPA Instant

Chris Jameson, Head of Product Management, Global Payments Solutions (EMEA) at Bank of America, whose role sits within the Global Payment Solutions and covers payments, liquidity, transaction FX, cash/physical notes and client connectivity.

At Sibos 2025, he noted two major shifts, the first of which is ISO 20022. ISO 20022 is a significant bank-side infrastructure development with value for corporates as richer data is used, and the EU’s Instant Payments Regulation, pushing parity between SEPA Credit Transfer and SEPA Instant; which alongside instant rails, fraud tools such as Confirmation of Payee (UK) and Verification of Payee (EU) are becoming standard.

Not every financial institution needs real-time today, however API-native companies often do and batch-oriented treasuries may not. Jameson frames this as “on-time” payments, matching speed to operational needs, since adopting instant can be costly without a strong business case.

Europe’s edge, he says, comes from innovative corporates, proactive regulators who are driving ubiquity, and pressure from new entrants. Markets learn from each other, as Brazil’s PIX shows how real-time can scale and why fraud controls must launch in parallel.

Bank of America expects cross-border instant payments to accelerate as ISO 20022 provides common ground, plus growing payment optionality (wallets, QR, digital assets, aliases, real-time schemes). EU-wide KYC/AML harmonisation by 2027 and the PSD3/PSR package are set to reduce friction and give open banking a meaningful step up.