Modernising Payments: How Are Banks in EMEA Shaping Up? | Part 3 | Volante Technologies

Oscar Musat of Volante Technologies laid out why payments modernisation is no longer a nice-to-have but a must-have for banks.

Budgets, as Musat pointed out, tell the story clearly. Almost nine out of ten banks are planning to invest between half a million and five million dollars in modernisation initiatives which is a 49% increase in spend compared to last year, with the average investment now sitting at $1.42 million. The message is simple: banks know that upgrading is essential for both competitiveness and compliance.

A big driver of this push is ISO 20022 and Volante stressed that the shift isn’t only about meeting regulatory requirements as the richer, structured data that comes with ISO 20022 brings real business benefits like better fraud detection, smarter decision-making, and the chance to build more innovative services. Volante has already helped a number of banks in EMEA achieve compliance while also cutting costs and tapping into these new data-driven opportunities.

However, the industry has work to do. According to Volante, more than half of banks (54%) are still relying on translation services to bridge the gap, and only about a third (32%) are fully compliant today. But banks are looking beyond simply ticking the compliance box and they’re starting to measure success in terms of business outcomes, things like transaction volume, processing speed, and customer satisfaction.

Musat closed by highlighting how Volante’s cloud-native payments-as-a-service (PaaS) and low-code financial integration platform are designed to give banks the freedom to adapt quickly and keep pace with change. In today’s environment, it’s not just about modernising, it’s about competing smarter.