The payment landscape is evolving rapidly. With electronic transactions expected to more than double - reaching over 4 trillion globally by 2030 (source: PwC), the pressure on acquirers to modernise is growing. This shift goes beyond simplifying payments - it’s about enabling a digital-first infrastructure that can meet the scale and speed of today’s market.
In our previous blog, ‘Key Factors Driving the Payments Landscape in 2025’, we explored the major factors transforming the acquiring landscape - from the rise in merchants accepting electronic payments to diverse payment options, and stricter regulatory frameworks. However, as the market evolves, many acquirers face challenges: outdated legacy systems.
This blog explores why acquirers need to move beyond legacy systems to remain competitive. As digital payments and evolving merchant demands grow, next-next acquiring solution are essential to enable scalable, real-time services and meet today's market demand.
Systemic change in acquiring
As digital payments accelerate, acquirers face increasing pressure to meet changing market demands. More merchants are entering the market, and consumers are adopting digital-first payment methods. However, many acquirers still rely on outdated legacy systems that limit their ability to respond.
Specialist acquirers are emerging across sectors like gaming, hospitality, and home delivery to address specific needs from feature-rich mobile POS devices to enhanced Know Your Customer (KYC) and security protocols. While they target specific markets, these solutions do not address the underlying challenges - the continued use of outdated legacy systems that limit scalability, speed, and innovation.
Maintaining legacy infrastructure is both costly and inefficient. This slows down innovation and prevents the rollout of real-time services that merchants expect. According to a McKinsey report, issuing and acquiring banks are spending up to 70% of their IT budgets maintaining and patching legacy systems - a short-term fix that delays progress rather than investing in innovation.
With continued rise in digital payments – driven by instant payments, QR codes, digital wallets, and SuperApps, acquirers need to process more transactions faster and at scale. Instant payments alone are expected to account for one in three transactions by 2030.
Figure 1: Cashless transactions will more than double in the next five years (source: PwC)
Yet many acquirers in Europe and other regions are still not fully equipped to support real-time processing or new payment methods like wallet-linked SuperApps transactions or QR codes. Without a shift to cloud-native, modular platforms, these players risk falling behind.
Evolving merchant expectations
Merchant expectations are changing fast. SMEs and microbusinesses are focused on value for money and expect more than payment acceptance. They want fast, affordable, and multifunctional services designed to simplify operational complexities – such as SoftPOS that avoid the need for physical POS hardware.
Functionalities alone are not enough. Merchant requires access to real-time transactions data to better manage their inventory, develop new products and services, and improve the experience of users both in-store and online. They’re also looking for faster, cheaper, cloud-based processing that allows for rapid product launch.
To keep up with the change, acquirers must show flexibility and the ability to deliver new solutions quickly and cost-effectively.
The payments industry is experiencing a transformative shift. Legacy systems are a challenge – and as digital payment and merchant expectations continue to rise, acquirers need to evolve or risk falling behind.
Success today depends on delivering real-time capabilities, flexible infrastructure, and data-driven services that meet the needs of modern merchants. That means moving away from outdated systems and embracing next-generation platforms that are cloud-native, modular, and built for scale.
Now is the time for acquirers to modernise to remain relevant.
If you would like to know more about next-gen card processing, download the full whitepaper.