Europe’s largest banking community grows to 110,000 members as events, executive education and cross-border collaboration reach new scale
Europe — Year in Review 2025
The Banking 50 completed 2025 with strong growth in membership, event participation, and executive education activity, further reinforcing its position as a central platform within the European banking sector.
Over the course of the year, The Banking 50 expanded from 85,000 to 110,000 members and subscribers, achieving representation in every banking license-holding institution in Europe. This full market coverage ensured broad participation from both established banks and challenger institutions across all major European regions.
European Digital Finance Conference
In 2025, The Banking 50 organised three editions of its flagship European Digital Finance Conference in Amsterdam, held in February, June and November.
Across these events, more than 1,000 banking and finance professionals attended, representing over 75 different banks as speakers or delegates. Participants came from leading institutions across the Benelux, DACH region, Nordics, France and the United Kingdom.
The conferences focused on practical experience from banks, with a strong emphasis on implementation, decision-making, and lessons learned from real transformation programs.
Executive Round Tables and Custom Events for Partners
Alongside its large conferences, The Banking 50 hosted a series of smaller, invitation-only executive sessions in 2025, including:
- A business lunch focused on DORA
- A business dinner focused on the European AI Act
- Multiple round tables on regulatory risk and compliance challenges
These sessions enabled senior banking leaders, vendors and service providers to discuss regulation, risk and technology in a confidential and focused setting.
Executive Education and International Study Programs
In 2025, The Banking 50 continued to develop its education and study programs for banks from emerging markets, working extensively with institutions from Moldova and Ukraine, alongside banks from other regions.
These programs included “go and see” trips to the Netherlands, where participating banks visited leading Dutch institutions such as ING, ABN AMRO and Rabobank, as well as digital and challenger banks including Revolut, GoDutch and others.
Sessions were often hosted inside bank offices and included guided visits to branches, service points and selected departments, allowing visiting executives to study operating models, governance structures and customer-facing practices in detail.
Key Subjects Addressed in 2025
Throughout 2025, The Banking 50’s events and programs addressed a broad range of strategic subjects relevant to European banking, including:
- How banks translate digital strategy into measurable business results
- Practical use of data, platforms and automation to improve scale and efficiency
- Real-world experiences with embedded finance and banking-as-a-service models
- Lessons from banks delivering successful digital change, and what did not work
- Managing digital resilience across payments, lending and security
- The future of credit, SME financing and platform-based lending models
- Building trust through regulation, cyber security and compliance innovation
- The impact of geopolitics and macroeconomic change on European banking
- Developments in digital money, payments infrastructure and value exchange
- The evolving relationship between traditional banks and challenger models
Plans for 2026
By the end of 2025, The Banking 50 had become closely involved in banks’ forward-looking planning, with multiple institutions engaging around 2026 initiatives.
Topics such as mainframe modernisation, core banking transformation and large-scale AI rollouts are already high on the agenda for The Banking 50’s first events of 2026, reflecting the priorities currently shaping bank investment and execution decisions across Europe.
In parallel, The Banking 50 will expand its education and study programs in 2026, with confirmed activities extending into Central Asia and North Africa, while continuing to serve the European banking market.
Planned initiatives include:
Three major international conferences, including the continued development of flagship formats: https://thebanking50.nl/events/
The launch of a series of executive education programs for bank top management: https://thebanking50.nl/trainings/
The first executive program scheduled for March 2–4, 2026: https://thebanking50.nl/events/ai-transformation-in-banking-finance/
