The Service-oriented architecture (SOA) paradigm has been gaining momentum over the last few years. Although the banking industry has often been mentioned as an early adaptor of service-oriented technologies, there is still a lack of knowledge concerning bank requirements on IT architectures and whether an SOA is suited to meet them. In this paper, we present the results from an empirical study which quantifies the qualification of service-oriented technologies for the German banking industry. By using data collected from the German banking industry, it turns out that SOA is apparently suited to meet predefined needs of this industry. However, there are differences in the expectations among various groups of banks. In addition, this paper presents the status quo of SOA adaptations in German banks.