Banking & Financial services

The Kafka platform for European banks

Real-time payments, fraud detection and customer data on one governed streaming layer, with the audit evidence and exit strategy DORA asks for. Self-hosted or managed in a European cloud.

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Illustration of real-time, low-latency card payments flowing through Axual’s event-driven stream processing to both modern payment systems and legacy banking infrastructure.
500M
Messages/day,
Rabobank
10s→<1s
Payment latency,
PTSB
50+
Teams on self-service, ASN Bank
4 months
To production,
PTSB
Rated with a 4.5 from more than
13 G2 reviews
From batch to real-time

Batch processing slows
real-time banking transactions

ATM, POS, mobile, and web generate events every second, but core banking, cards, and payments still move in batches, so every fraud rule, AML check, and customer notification has to wait. Axual streams those events as they happen, alongside the core systems you already run. No core replacement, no big-bang migration.

Diagram with Axual at the centre, connected to three groups: channels (mobile app, web, ATM and POS), back-end systems (core banking, payments and cards), and stream processing (rules, enrichment and machine learning).
Why European banks choose Axual

Everything that waited on batch,‍
‍now runs in real time

Real-time payments

Payments, balances, and account updates happen in under a second instead of waiting for the next batch. Every SEPA transaction is checked against its schema as it flows.

Regulatory compliance

Show auditors exactly who accessed what, and when, without digging through logs. Every event is traceable and every action is recorded automatically across the platform.

Fraud, KYC & AML

Catch suspicious transactions while they happen, not hours later. Transactions are scored in-stream, and new third-party providers connect without changes to your core systems.

Customer experience

Send the right alert or offer at the moment it matters to the customer. App teams build on live data through self-service, without waiting on central IT.

Controls auditors can see

Real-time, with every control in place

Moving faster shouldn’t mean taking more risk. Axual controls who can access data, what that data looks like, and where it flows, and records every action automatically. Governance is enforced by the platform, not by policy documents.

Only the right people get in. Authentication via mTLS, SASL, and OAuth
Access follows ownership. RBAC and ABAC, with ownership groups and approval workflows.
Data stays consistent. Apicurio schema registry with OAuth, with validation enforced on every event.
A complete audit trail. Every create, change, deletion, access request, and approval is recorded, filterable by resource, person, action, and time.
Test safely before going live. Separate development, staging, and production environments.
Fits how your IT team works. Kubernetes-native and managed with Terraform.
ISO 27001

‍certified
SOC 2
Type II
DORA
ready
NIS2
ready
View our ISO 27001 certification
DORA

A Kafka platform that supports your DORA obligations

DORA asks financial entities to manage ICT third-party risk, prove control over their systems and plan a credible exit. Axual is built to make that evidence easy to provide.

Exit strategy

If you ever leave, you keep a standard Apache Kafka cluster. There’s no proprietary core to unwind, so your exit plan is credible on paper and in practice.

ICT risk evidence

Hand auditors the evidence they ask for without a separate project. Every access request, approval, and change is already recorded and can be filtered by person, action, and time.

Resilience

Your streaming layer keeps running when part of your infrastructure doesn’t. Automatic failover across availability zones, with 99.99% availability at PTSB and zero unplanned downtime at Rabobank.

Supplier risk

An EU-owned supplier, built in the Netherlands and supported wherever you operate. No dependence on non-EU vendors for your critical data infrastructure, and it runs on your own infrastructure or cloud account.

Built for the infrastructure you already have

Real-time banking without replacing your core

Axual connects to the systems you already run (core banking, card platforms, payment hubs, and legacy message queues) and streams their data in real time. It runs in your own data centre, your cloud account, or both.

Diagram of the Axual platform in three layers. Axual: schema, topic, application, connector and credential management, Terraform, topic graph, environment support, mTLS, SASL and OAuth, and RBAC/ABAC. Kafka: Apache Kafka, REST Proxy, Apicurio schema registry, Strimzi and multi-cluster synchronisation. Infrastructure: on-premises, hybrid, cloud, OpenShift and Kubernetes.
Connects to what you have. Ready-made connectors for databases, message queues, APIs, SaaS, and data lakes, so core systems stay untouched.
Runs where your data must stay. On-premises, in your cloud account, or hybrid, on Kubernetes or OpenShift.
Moves data between on-prem and cloud. Multi-cluster sync lets on-prem transaction events feed cloud analytics, as ASN Bank does today.
Migrates without a cutover. Built on standard Apache Kafka, so existing applications keep working while you move.
Topics, applications, schemas and connectors managed in one interface
Banks in production

Regulated, at scale, for years

Rabobank HQ

Rabobank

9M+ customers, 300+ teams
‍
‍Hundreds of teams needed real-time data without each one running its own Kafka. Now they build on one governed self-service platform, processing 500M messages a day with zero unplanned downtime and €500k saved on maintenance each year.

Read the Rabobank story
ASN bank HQ

ASN Bank

Multi-brand Dutch financial services provider
‍
‍Legacy MQ and fragmented clusters made every new data flow a project. One governed platform replaced them, onboarding 50+ teams, freeing up 3 DevOps teams, and connecting on-prem events to cloud analytics.

Read the ASN Bank story
PTSB bank HQ logo

PTSB

1M+ customers, no in-house Kafka expertise
‍
‍Payments took 10 seconds to process. Within 4 months of starting with Axual, they run in under a second, with 100% SEPA-compliant processing and 99.99% availability.

Read the PTSB story

See how Axual fits your architecture, compliance requirements, and migration timeline

Book a demo

Frequently asked questions

What do banks use Axual for?

Four patterns dominate: real-time payment processing, regulatory compliance and governance, fraud detection with KYC and AML, and real-time customer experience. All four run on one governed streaming layer rather than separate stacks.

How does Axual handle SEPA and ISO 20022?

Payment events are validated against registered schemas in flight, and ISO 20022 structures are maintained across real-time flows.

Can events flow between on-prem and cloud?

Yes. Multi-cluster synchronisation supports hybrid deployments — on-prem transaction events reaching cloud analytics, as ASN Bank does today.

Is Axual an alternative to Confluent?

Yes, Axual is a European alternative to Confluent. Axual gives banks and insurers an enterprise Kafka platform built on open Apache Kafka and Strimzi, with governance, approvals and audit history included rather than added on. With no proprietary core, your exit strategy is straightforward: if you leave, you keep a standard Kafka cluster. That supports the third-party risk and exit planning DORA asks of financial entities. Axual is EU-owned and runs on your own infrastructure, in your cloud account, or managed by Axual in a European cloud. Rabobank processes 500 million messages a day on it.

Can we use Axual for real-time fraud detection and AI use cases?

Yes. Your data teams can build stream processing with Flink SQL or KSML on the same governed topics, without managing separate clusters. With the Axual MCP server, you can connect the AI model of your choice to your streaming data, under the same access controls as any other application. Your data doesn't pass through a vendor's AI layer.

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Does Axual reduce our concentration risk on US vendors?

Yes. Axual is 100% EU-owned and runs on-premises, in your own cloud or as a managed service on Scaleway, a European cloud provider. Because it is built on open-source Apache Kafka and Strimzi, you can also leave without rebuilding your applications. That supports the exit strategy DORA expects for critical ICT providers.

Can app teams work without direct Kafka access?

Yes. They work through Self-Service APIs and the portal. Ownership groups, environments, and approvals are enforced by the platform, so no Kafka credentials are issued to teams.

How much does it cost?

Pricing depends on deployment model, support level, and scale. Contact us for a quote.

What does migrating from an existing Kafka setup involve?

Axual is built on Apache Kafka with standard APIs, so existing producers and consumers keep working, and migration happens in flight rather than as a cutover. Teams already on Strimzi can keep that environment and add governance on top

‍

We run Confluent today. How do we move to Axual without disrupting payments or trading systems?

You don't switch in one go. Axual Distributor replicates topics, schemas and consumer offsets from your live Confluent cluster, so both platforms run side by side. Teams then move application by application, with a fallback path at every step. We do the migration for free, and Axual runs on a fixed-price contract, so there are no consumption surprises as volumes grow.

How does Axual help our platform team govern Kafka at scale, and pass a DORA audit?

Axual gives every development team self-service access to Kafka, within guardrails your platform team sets once. Teams create topics, register schemas and request access themselves, and every change is approved and logged automatically. That gives you the audit trail DORA asks for under ICT risk management, without building your own governance tooling. Rabobank runs this way with 300+ development teams and [500M+ messages a day].

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