Survey: Most Banks Lack Full Real-Time Payments Capacity

A survey conducted between March and May 2026 of 220 banks across North America, Europe and Asia found the majority do not have a clear path to full real-time payments. Only 14% of respondents reported full capability for both customer-facing and interbank settlement, 22% reported partial capability, and 64% said they had no immediate plan for full implementation. Fewer than one in five expected to deploy full instant-pay services within two years.

Respondents identified four main barriers. Older core banking systems often cannot support the faster messaging and settlement speeds required, forcing banks to consider system replacement or major customisation. Project costs-including vendor fees, testing and lengthy integrations-were cited as a prohibitive capital and operating expense. Faster settlement exposed gaps in intraday liquidity and treasury tools. Risk and compliance teams raised concerns about fraud control as transaction processing speeds increase.

Smaller banks and credit unions were most likely to report no upgrade plans, with many indicating they are waiting for correspondent banks or clearing infrastructures to provide turnkey connections that reduce integration work. Mid-sized and large banks reported more pilot projects, but those pilots frequently address a single use case such as consumer peer-to-peer transfers or corporate payroll rather than a full platform rollout.

The survey combined an online questionnaire with follow-up interviews of 40 senior technology and payments officers. Among banks that had not adopted real-time payments, 58% rated customer demand for instant credit as high or very high. More than half of non-adopters cited uncertainty about regulatory requirements as a reason to delay investment, and 46% pointed to unclear business models about who pays for rails and services.

Michael Grant, the report’s lead analyst, noted that banks are weighing whether to replace core systems now or continue supporting legacy batch processes while settlement standards and infrastructure evolve. He also highlighted that smaller institutions often lack in-house teams experienced in real-time risk monitoring and require time to build those skills.

Banks that have implemented instant rails reported increased customer satisfaction and higher transaction volumes in selected use cases, including same-day invoice settlement, immediate emergency disbursements and instant business-to-business reconciliation. Those early adopters reported higher initial costs for fraud monitoring as they adjusted rules and machine-learning models to faster flows.

Vendors and payments operators are offering middleware, cloud APIs and managed connectivity to lower integration barriers, but banks said pricing models and operational responsibilities vary by provider. A quarter of banks planning upgrades said they would rely on cloud-hosted services to speed deployment, while others prefer on-premises setups to retain control over data and compliance.

Regional differences appeared in the survey. Markets with established instant rails such as India’s UPI, the UK’s Faster Payments and parts of Europe using SEPA Instant showed greater internal readiness and experience with fast-settlement issues. In the United States, adoption remains uneven despite the availability of FedNow and The Clearing House’s RTP, with respondents citing correspondent banking complexity and fragmented regional practices as obstacles.

Real-time payments transfer funds and provide immediate confirmation of settlement, operating 24 hours a day. Implementing those services requires faster messaging protocols, continuous processing, new liquidity and treasury functions, and fraud detection tuned to quicker transaction flows.