Banking Top Trends 2026: Compliance, Data & A2A Payments

Capgemini Research Institute recently published its” Top Banking Trends 2026” report… Capgemini’s Banking trends span across three interconnected imperatives, namely Customer Engagement, Operational Efficiency, and Technological Innovation. In this article, we focus on the trends that revolve around compliance and payments-related topics, such as the need for seamless checkouts, new payments methods added to the overall payment mix, and more.

Compliance should be a Priority, not a Regulatory Burden

According to Capgemini’s research, the number of financial institutes that believe they can tackle the financial crime risk is as low as 35%. But 70% expect that implementing Agentic AI will save them over 1 million USD in compliance operations every year, since 69% of Relationship Managers’ time is spent on non-client tasks like onboarding and compliance with 36% of firms believing Fraud Detection as the number one reason for adopting Agentic AI.

Automation and data standardization are therefore crucial for the financial institutions in order for them to secure all the regulatory data exchanges, monitor, generate reports, and even have workflows that are always audit ready.

The Backbone of Modern Payment Infrastructure: Payment Orchestration

Merchants face high, inconsistent processing costs due to non-standard pricing across payment providers, leading to cost inefficiencies and margin pressure as 35% of E-commerce merchants have started using intelligent payment routing to minimize payment failures. Along with this, frequent downtime caused by unreliable payment systems can jeopardize merchant sales and cause reputational risk for payment firms. 47% of online retailers said that payment failures have a negative impact on shoppers’ satisfaction.

As highlighted in the report, Capgemini believes the opportunity in this scenario arises from “firms modernizing their payment architecture to enable payment orchestration across traditional and emerging methods and digital currencies to drive agility, new revenue streams and competitive edge”.

The Rise in A2A Payments & New Payment mix

According to Capgemini, financial institutions will witness a huge rise in adoption of the A2A payment system. The report highlights that 15–25% of card transactions are expected to move to A2A systems, with the rise in Instant Payments, digital wallets, and regulatory initiatives across the EU. In fact, 77% of Banking Executives foresee a disruption in debit card payments. It represents a huge opportunity for banks in the EU as they can act as integrators by leveraging payment orchestration and data driven settlements. 44% of the Banks are collaborating with Fintech companies to enhance their real time payment capabilities and therefore boost customer retention while protecting revenues.

A2A systems have much lower transaction costs compared to cards; quick settlement and liquidity of funds will be simpler but at the same time they would also require a much more secure platform with excellent fraud monitoring.

Why Value-Driven Merchant Acquiring Is the Future of Payment Processing

The Capgemini experts highlight that “banks have deprioritized merchants acquiring over the past 2 decades due to low margins and legal inefficiencies”. Because of this, 40% of Merchants say they plan to switch from banks to PayTechs due to high costs and operational friction. However, 80% of Merchants are open to switching to Banks if they offer the same full-service solutions as PayTechs at a similar cost.

This presents an important opportunity for banks to offer a unified, data-driven platform that bundles payments and value-added services as well as Multi currency support since it is a key capability for 56% of the Merchants.

The future of the Banking industry will be shaped by secure exchanges of data, compliance ready infrastructures in place, and blanket adoption of A2A payment systems. Capgemini reports that cashless transaction volume is expected to double its present size by 2029, making it crucial for the banks to further advance their data storage, management, and reporting abilities. Financial Institutions need to modernize their tech architecture to keep up with the upcoming changes, regulations as well as trends.

For LUXHUB, these trends reinforce their strategic role as a connector between banks, regulators, and the overall Open Finance ecosystem. By enabling efficient compliance, reliable data flows, and scalable solutions, LUXHUB is not just helping meet the regulatory requirements but also helping create tech compliant, future-ready banking models.

THE CAPGEMINI TOP BANKING TRENDS FOR 2026 REPORT IS AVAILABLE HERE