LONDON—The 2025 Banking Transformation Summit (BTS) returned to Excel London June 18-19, welcoming more than 1,700 delegates. Mark Johnstone, the event director at BTS—which is operated by event management company MoneyNext—told Vendelux that the focus this year was on the quality of attendees, resulting in “358 unique financial institutions in attendance, with 56% decision makers.”
For reference, it was reported that BTS 2024 had representation from just 120 major financial institutions, marking an impressive surge of nearly 200%.
In the spirit of growth, BTS’s footprint expanded to 75,347 square feet of “dedicated space across multiple halls [at the 1.3 million-square-foot Excel exhibition center], including eight stages, over 400 roundtables and dedicated networking lounges,” according to Johnstone.
The event’s physical expansion paved the way for expanded programming:
- BTS 2025 marked the event’s largest-ever roundtable program, dubbed TableTalks, where 30-minute conversations moderated by expert “Table Captains” (a senior banking executive, tech leader or other respected industry voice) are designed to tackle real-world challenges and explore the future of financial services in a relaxed, peer-to-peer setting.
In all, a staggering 400 TableTalks took place across the two-day event.
- In addition, there were three all-new stages at BTS 2025, totaling eight stages dedicated to on-stage programming.
There were the Emerald, Evergreen, Jade, Mint, Pink and Purple Stages, as well as the Innovation/Demo Stage and Power of the People Stage—each spotlighting a key industry theme, from artificial intelligence and digital transformation to security, data protection, customer experience (CX) and beyond. The Innovation/Demo stage doubled in size this year, per Johnstone.
Among the most popular sessions, Johnstone told Vendelux: “A panel discussion on ‘Navigating Financial Services in a Volatile Economic Landscape’ drew a packed room, as did the keynote from HSBC’s head of AI and model management on ‘Digital Transformation in Banking.’”
However, “several sessions this year were standing room only—underscoring the appetite for practical insights and real-world transformation stories from the top,” Johnstone added.
- There were 39 exhibitors at BTS 2025, many of which were first-timers. Though the figure was on par with 2024, “in comparison to last year, we saw an increased uptake of Silver, Gold and Platinum exhibitors rather than smaller, expo packages,” Johnstone said, attributing the stat to “the value of being a partner at BTS.”
BTS and MoneyNext don’t publicize information about its tiered exhibitor packages. Prominent exhibitors for the latest event, however, included Celonis, Newcastle Strategic Solutions and Rockspace Technology, among others. Affirm, Experian, Google Cloud, IBM and Microsoft took on strategic partnership roles.
Startups in attendance that “focused on compliance, AI applications and financial inclusion” made waves on the show floor, Johnstone noted. “Their presence sparked meaningful conversations among banking leaders, and potential partners looking for fresh thinking and new approaches.”
Looking forward Johnstone, perhaps unsurprisingly, foresees AI—as well as bank-fintech partnerships—being top of mind for banking leaders, and thus BTS attendees. Johnstone concluded by sharing his vision for BTS as it transforms beyond an event to “a year-round platform for connection, learning and innovation.”
“Whether you’re a major bank, a scale-up fintech or a transformation leader looking to benchmark strategy, there’s something here for you. We’re excited to keep building this community, and we’re just getting started,” Johnstone said.
With that, up next is the North American iteration of BTS, taking place Nov. 17-18, 2025, in Charlotte, North Carolina.
