• 77% say geopolitics is now a core strategic risk for banks - not a peripheral concern.
• Consequently, 80% say persistent global uncertainty is making long-term planning significantly harder.
• And 80% say their leadership teams are now forced to plan for multiple geopolitical and economic shock scenarios simultaneously.
• With rising pressure to strengthen digital sovereignty, 83% say geopolitical risk has accelerated internal conversations about reducing US tech dependence.
• Yet 82% think that, at scale, sovereign cloud is largely a pipe dream for most banks.

“Geopolitics has gone from a footnote to a board-level priority almost overnight, and most banks weren’t ready,”argues Steve Round, Co-Founder and President of SaaScada. “Regulators are now forcing the issue, asking tough questions about exposure to foreign tech and dependencies that weren’t on the radar five years ago. That is driving growing unease around reliance on US providers – not because they’re weak, but because banks don’t control the risk.

“That’s driving a structural shift. Banks are already looking for European alternatives, and that will accelerate as regulation fragments. The reality is that sovereign cloud at scale doesn’t exist yet, but that gap will drive investment across the UK and Europe. The trade-off is complexity: as regions build their own infrastructure, from cloud to payments, cross-border banking gets harder, and the system becomes more fragmented.”

• 75% say a deterioration in US trade or political relations would expose major vulnerabilities in banks' technology strategy
•  75% believe most banks are too dependent on legacy technology and processes to pivot quickly in response to geopolitical shocks.

“The industry is kidding itself if it thinks it can manage today’s volatility with yesterday’s technology. The pace of change has broken the traditional banking model: geopolitical shocks, economic disruption and customer behaviour all shifting in real time. But most banks are still trying to respond on systems that were never designed for that kind of speed. They’re operating like cruise ships in a market that now demands speedboats.

“That gap isn’t just inefficient, it’s dangerous. If a bank is launching or managing a lending product and conditions change overnight – whether that’s sanctions, supply chain disruption or sudden shifts in risk – they can’t wait months to respond. Banks must be able to reprice, rebalance and reconfigure in near real time. That requires trusted data and a core architecture that can flex. Without that, banks aren’t just slow to react, they’re flying blind in a market that’s moving faster than they can see.”