Katja Heyder is Head of User Relations at EBA CLEARING. Katja has been with the company since 2006 and was instrumental in the implementation of the STEP2 SEPA and RT1 Services. She also serves as country and regional representative for the German-speaking community and a number of other user communities across Europe.
Among today’s biggest challenges for payments is fragmentation. Siloes exist across existing and emerging payment rails and infrastructures – and even within organisations themselves. Breaking down these barriers is easier said than done, but the most effective solutions can also prove surprisingly straightforward. Often, it begins with bringing together the right people in one room, creating space for alignment and collaboration around shared priorities. Facilitating this kind of dialogue has become an important part of EBA and EBA CLEARING’s engagement with their multinational community across Europe.
At the pan-European level, interaction between practitioners from different countries, institutions and departments is facilitated through EBAday, which each year brings together more than 1,400 practitioners from 38 countries to explore the major themes shaping the industry. Complementing this major industry event, the Strategic Outlook series takes more targeted expert exchanges into key European financial centres, creating opportunity for regionally focused dialogue around local priorities and market dynamics. Within these events themselves, smaller breakout discussions provide an additional layer of granularity by enabling participants to explore specific, local challenges in greater depth and surface insights that may otherwise be lost in larger forums.
As a network industry, this breadth of engagement is proving essential to moving the pan-European payments agenda forward collectively. This article takes a closer look at the Strategic Outlook sessions, and the specific value these focused discussions bring to the payments community.
Launched in 2022, the EBA and EBA CLEARING Strategic Outlook event series brings EBA members and the users of EBA CLEARING’s services together in Dublin, Frankfurt, Helsinki and Milan, to explore their evolving expectations in a fast-changing landscape, foster strategic dialogue and collaboration among pan-European decision-makers and help shape the future of payments.
“With its combination of panel discussions and breakout sessions, this format enables open and highly interactive exchanges at many levels,” explained Wolfgang Ehrmann, Chairperson of the EBA Board and Head of Sales for Savings Banks Cash Management at Helaba, which hosted the second D-A-C-H edition in Frankfurt. “As a strong believer in swarm intelligence, I see great benefits in this type of in-person event.
“My main takeaway is that the diverse perspectives from Germany, Austria, Switzerland and other European ecosystem partners help us to better understand the needs of our community within the broader context of the European payments ecosystem and to shape future solutions with this complex landscape in mind.”
Attendees from across the ecosystem – including financial institutions, consultancies and technology providers – are encouraged to share the perspectives, needs and pain points of their respective markets. These come out particularly strongly in the breakout sessions, which are an integral part of the format and make the events highly interactive..
The outcomes of these discussions not only help to guide EBA and EBA CLEARING’s ongoing priorities but also create a forum for participants to exchange directly and learn from one another’s experiences. The focus is on fostering long-term collaboration in the non-competitive space, where progress depends on alignment around shared standards and priorities. At a time of constant transformation in the pan-European payments space, this collaboration – and the multinational dialogue that enables it – are becoming even more important.
“To reach the major regulatory milestones the payments industry has been facing over the last few years as well as to allow the business to flourish, collaboration and dialogue are key,” stated Rita Camporeale, Senior Advisor International Affairs & Payments at ABI. “EBAday and our Salone dei Pagamenti help to facilitate this crucial exchange by providing a platform for market players across Europe. In addition, smaller but more frequent events, like the Strategic Outlook sessions of the EBA and EBA CLEARING, play an important role too, because they bring together payments experts from one community for a dialogue that combines both national and pan-European perspectives.”
The Helsinki Strategic Outlook session on 10 February 2026 – the second such event held for the Finnish payments community – provided a strong example of EBA and EBA CLEARING’s approach in action. Bringing together over 40 payment industry practitioners for a comprehensive full-day session, the timing was particularly relevant for those attending.
“The landscape has transformed dramatically since our previous gathering three years ago – not only in terms of payment regulations, practices and innovations, but also with the increasingly critical role of geopolitical dimensions and macroeconomic factors that now shape every market participant’s strategic considerations,” explained Annika Osolanus, Head of Credit Services at Nordea.
Addressing these emerging challenges increasingly depends on collaboration across the wider ecosystem and within individual communities. Reflecting this need in his opening address Hays Littlejohn, CEO of EBA CLEARING, observed that a core objective had already been achieved by 9am on a cold Helsinki morning, with payment experts from across Finland and the wider European community gathered under one roof and networking over coffee. While it may seem a small moment, the ability to convene in this way is often half the challenge.
“As a relatively small but tight-knit community, fostering strong relationships among ourselves is essential,” added Osolanus. “We thrive in collaborative environments where direct connections – not only with each other but also with EBA and EBA CLEARING – create genuine value for all participants. This goes beyond simple networking; it’s strategically vital that we remain engaged, forward-thinking and collectively prepared to address both future challenges and opportunities for success.”
The dialogue over breakfast led into a series of sessions designed to encourage a highly interactive exchange on strategic drivers and trends shaping payments, bringing together senior representatives from banks, consultancies and ecosystem partners, as well as EBA and EBA CLEARING executives.
On the one hand, discussions were firmly rooted in the realities of the Finnish payments system. A dedicated session on security and resilience – led by contributions from the Helsinki-based European Centre of Hybrid Threats – highlighted the implications of an evolving geopolitical risk environment and the potential for disruption across critical payments infrastructure. This prompted a broader conversation around resilience, sovereignty and the role of domestic solutions. In particular, it emphasised how capabilities that might previously have been considered for phase-out are now being re-evaluated as important tools for redundancy and continuity – with account-to-account alternatives such as Siirto offering a compelling example within the local Finnish ecosystem.
At the same time, the dialogue extended well beyond national borders. The implementation of the Instant Payments Regulation (IPR) and the acceleration of SEPA Instant Credit Transfers provided a central theme. Participants examined both the opportunities and emerging challenges – particularly around fraud, where the combination of real-time rails and increasingly sophisticated, AI-enabled attacks is reshaping the threat scenario.
“These collaborative sessions provided a valuable opportunity for Finnish banks and other ecosystem players to share experiences and ensure we’re not merely responding to new requirements but maintaining our position as leaders in the digitalisation space,” added Osolanus. “These authentic conversations about what truly matters in our current business environment and practices are always highly valued by our payments ecosystem.”
The broader discussions were complemented by a total of nine breakout sessions – in Helsinki, there were three groups of up to 10 participants discussing each of the following topics: ‘IPR is live, now what?’, ‘Cyber resilience in payments’ and ‘OCT Inst and more’. “From my perspective, the breakout discussions are often where the most valuable insights emerge,” said EBA Secretary General Thomas Egner . “Bringing together smaller groups creates a much more open and detailed exchange, with participants building on each other’s experiences, challenging assumptions and surfacing practical pain points. For us, this provides a far more granular understanding of the realities facing the local community.”
The Helsinki event is just one of many that demonstrate the value of the EBA-EBA CLEARING Strategic Outlook sessions. Together, these more targeted events – combined with wider pan-European engagement through summits such as EBAday – evidence the value of forums where broad industry priorities and local market realities can be explored. In combination, these different layers of dialogue help ensure that progress in pan-European payments remains both collaborative and practical.
For communities looking to deepen engagement and accelerate progress, the Strategic Outlook sessions offer a unique opportunity. By partnering with EBA and EBA CLEARING to co-organise a session, local communities can access a structured, proven format that brings together diverse stakeholders, links local priorities to a pan-European perspective and enables collaboration in a non-competitive space to move payments forward.
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