FIS executive says payments change has outrun planning

Payments markets have changed faster than many planning cycles over the past 18 months, Daniel Hurst of FIS Global told FinextraTV at EBAday 2026. Hurst said the sector has entered a hybrid phase in which digital assets have become more prominent, forcing banks to rethink how they approach transformation.

Hurst, International Line of Business Head for Enterprise Payments across EMEA and APAC at FIS Global, discussed the pace and direction of payments change during an interview at the industry event. He framed the issue as a shift from institutions actively shaping transformation to institutions also being changed by market forces around them.

According to Hurst, the recent period has shown that the market can move ahead of formal strategy and planning. He also said there is no single central authority directing the industry’s development, a point that matters for banks trying to set priorities across technology, products and operating models.

A hybrid payments market

Hurst described the current environment as a hybrid market. In his account, digital assets are moving closer to the centre of payments discussions, while banks continue to operate within a broader payments system that is changing in several directions at once.

That creates a practical challenge for banks. Transformation is no longer only a programme designed internally and executed against a fixed plan, in Hurst’s framing. It also involves responding to external developments that may arrive faster than institutional decision-making processes can absorb.

The absence of a central controller means no single body sets the full sequence of change for market participants, according to Hurst. Banks therefore have to assess which developments require immediate attention, which can be incorporated into longer-term plans and how different parts of the payments system interact.

Hurst also placed the current debate in historical context, saying the meaning of payments transformation has changed over time. While earlier phases of change could be described through planned technology upgrades or defined industry initiatives, his comments suggested the present phase is more fluid because market behaviour is advancing alongside formal strategy.

For banks, that distinction affects how transformation is managed. A strategy built around a stable end-state may be less suited to a market in which digital assets are gaining visibility and industry direction is distributed across many participants. Hurst’s remarks pointed to a need for banks to treat transformation as an ongoing operating discipline rather than a discrete project.

FIS Global is a financial technology company with payments among its business lines. Hurst’s comments were made in the context of the company’s enterprise payments work across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific.

This story draws on original reporting from Finextra.