Anthony Walton, CEO, Iliad Solutions.
I’ve spent more than 25 years working with financial institutions around the world, and if there’s one recurring theme that never goes away, it’s this: everyone wants to innovate, but most are being held back by the systems they’re still running from decades ago.
Let’s be honest — it’s not a lack of ideas or ambition that’s the problem. There’s no shortage of smart people in banking and payments. But there is a shortage of flexibility. And the main culprit? Legacy infrastructure.
The elephant in the data centre
Many core payment systems still in use today were built in the ’80s and ’90s — and in some cases, even earlier. They were designed for a different time, with different rules, expectations, and volumes. Back then, speed was measured in days, not milliseconds. Nobody was talking about APIs, real-time payments, or cloud-native anything.
Fast forward to today, and those same systems are being asked to connect with fintechs, comply with ISO 20022, and support instant everything. It’s a bit like asking a cassette tape to stream Spotify.
Of course, nobody wants to be dependent on legacy platforms — but ripping them out is rarely an option. They’re woven into the fabric of the organisation. The cost and risk of replacing them is huge, which is why most banks try to build around them instead. But all that patching eventually creates a tangled mess, and that slows everything down.
Innovation isn’t just about new ideas — it’s about delivery
There’s a massive difference between being able to think of a new product and being able to launch it. And that’s where legacy systems become a real threat.
I’ve spoken to teams who have brilliant ideas for new payment propositions, but they’re spending months trying to figure out how to integrate with their own systems. Or worse, they get to the testing phase and realise their infrastructure can’t cope with the new flows or formats they’ve designed.
This is where delays happen. Projects get pushed back. Deadlines slip. And in a competitive environment, that can be fatal. While the incumbents are stuck trying to retrofit innovation onto outdated platforms, newer players with modern stacks are getting products to market in weeks.
Why testing is the lever no one talks about
At Iliad, we’ve always believed that real progress comes when you stop trying to force change through legacy systems and instead start building around them intelligently. One of the most powerful — and underrated — ways to do that is through testing.
Our t3 testing platform is designed to let banks and payment providers test, simulate, and validate complex payment environments without ever touching production systems. You can model entire payment ecosystems, run end-to-end flows, simulate volume spikes, test edge cases — and crucially, do it all at speed.
That means when you’re introducing a new service, migrating to ISO 20022, or integrating a partner API, you don’t have to fly blind. You can test confidently, iterate fast, and know that when you go live, things will actually work.
We’ve seen customers use t3 to compress months of testing into a matter of days. In a space where time-to-market is everything, that can be the difference between leading and playing catch-up.
Final thoughts
Legacy systems aren’t going away overnight. But pretending they’re not a problem is no longer sustainable. The smartest organisations I talk to aren’t trying to replace their entire stack in one go — they’re investing in the tools and processes that let them move faster in spite of legacy.
Testing isn’t the most glamorous part of payments, but it’s one of the most important. If you can’t test at pace, you can’t innovate at pace.
At Iliad, our job is to help you get there — faster, safer, and with confidence.