The future of banking technology – trust, AI, data, and ecosystems

Banks have been talking about reinvention for a long time. What is changing now is that the future of banking technology is starting to take a clearer shape. Advances in artificial intelligence, coupled with stronger data discipline and more open forms of collaboration, are reshaping how banks operate and how customers experience financial services.

This article offers a structured overview of how leading consultancies and research bodies describe the shift – including Deloitte, Boston Consulting Group, Accenture, PwC, Forrester, and Economist Impact (in partnership with SAS). It also draws on longer-term perspectives, such as Huawei’s Future of Banking: A Glimpse into 2050 interview with futurist Brett King. A full list of referenced sources is included at the end of this article.

The exploration of global trends and their practical meaning brings one theme to the forefront. The future of banking technology will depend less on novelty and more on trust, though the evolution of innovation will remain vital Opportunities are emerging in data and systems, with the key differentiator being how technology supports decisions that matter to customers. All this marks a transition from digital convenience alone to financial technology that quietly builds confidence in the background.

The future of banking technology is empathy

Artificial intelligence has long been banking’s favourite buzzword. Yet what’s changing now is its purpose. Earlier applications focused on automation, from credit scoring to operational efficiency. Today, the emphasis is shifting towards more context-aware interactions that respond to intent, tone, emotion, and, increasingly, situational nuance.

Economist Impact reports that nearly all surveyed banks are experimenting with generative AI, though fewer than half have achieved tangible value. The findings suggest that translating experimentation into measurable impact depends less on intent and more on robust governance, data management, and organisational integration, which may not yet match the pace of technical development. BCG describes this transition as a move from “run-the-bank” to “change-the-bank”. Banks are redirecting technology budgets away from maintenance and towards strategic transformation. Accenture calls it the Age of AI – a time when algorithms in banking restore the human touch that digital convenience once eroded. Forrester outlines how this evolution may unfold, from assistive chatbots to anticipatory tools that predict needs, and eventually to agentic banking. In such models, personal AI could act on a customer’s behalf – compare mortgage options, adjust investments, or flag unusual spending automatically – interacting directly with a bank’s own AI.

Futurist Brett King, interviewed during Huawei’s Intelligent Finance Summit 2023, pushes the idea further, imagining personal AIs “talking” to bank AIs, each negotiating the customer’s best outcome. While that horizon remains some way off, many of the underlying capabilities are already taking shape.

The human outcome – inclusion and intelligence

AI in banking customer experience is not only about more advanced systems – it also shapes who gets access to financial services and on what terms. Mobile banking and digital wallets have already brought more than a billion people into the global financial system. As intelligence becomes more context-aware, it can extend inclusion from basic access to practical guidance, particularly in regions where financial literacy and branch coverage remain limited.

Machine-learning models already support personalisation and fraud detection, scanning millions of transactions to spot anomalies while tailoring recommendations to individual behaviour. In back-office functions, AI quietly automates reconciliation and reporting, supporting compliance processes and turning routine work into real-time insight. This includes capabilities such as AI-driven data extraction from documents.

Seen from this perspective, the real value of AI in banking lies in scale rather than spectacle. It enables more consistent, responsive services that can adapt to individual situations without relying on one-to-one interaction.

Data and governance as the trust layer

Every prediction converges on one truth regarding the future of banking technology: without reliable data, even the most advanced AI systems struggle to deliver value. BCG’s research shows that more than 60% of technology budgets still go toward maintaining existing systems. Legacy infrastructure and poor data lineage make innovation slow and expensive, and so simplification becomes a prerequisite for progress.

PwC offers a pragmatic route forward through neo-core platforms – cloud-native systems originally built by neobanks like Starling and now offered as Software-as-a-Service. Licensing full-stack SaaS banking platforms enables established institutions to modernise incrementally by reducing complexity without replacing existing systems. Economist Impact views data governance in banking as a foundation for responsible innovation and trust. Frameworks like DBS Bank’s PURE model – Purposeful, Unsurprising, Respectful, Explainable – show how governance can be a brand asset that enhances trust, not a regulatory burden.

Simultaneously, Forrester predicts a zero-click world in which human web traffic declines as machine-initiated traffic rises. Customers’ personal AIs will request information via APIs – “best mortgage rates”, “safest investments” – without visiting a website. To prepare for this shift, banks need to make their content and data machine-readable and transparent so that algorithms can find and recognise them as credible sources.

Cloud and blockchain: the enablers

Cloud infrastructure underpins much of this transition. Its scalability allows institutions to store and analyse vast datasets securely while reducing operational costs. It’s the unseen architecture that turns data strategy into agility.

Alongside cloud computing, distributed ledger technologies are introducing mathematical trust. Blockchain solutions are already shortening cross-border settlement times and improving traceability. For asset tokenisation and trade finance, smart contracts can execute automatically when conditions are met, embedding compliance directly into code.

Rather than replacing existing trust mechanisms overnight, these technologies reinforce them. They make trust more observable, auditable, and more closely tied to how data flows through financial systems.

Regulation as design

Regulation has long shaped how banking operates. Often seen as a constraint, it is increasingly influencing how new systems are designed and governed.

Economist Impact finds that two-thirds of global banking executives see new AI, data-privacy, and open-banking laws as enablers of responsible growth. BCG advises banks to treat compliance spending as an investment in resilience, using digital twins to model cyberattacks and liquidity shocks before they occur. Deloitte highlights that regulatory developments will increasingly shape how banks design and govern their operating models. As financial services evolve within interconnected ecosystems, the importance of coordination among institutions, technology providers, and regulators grows.

Technology is already supporting this transition. AI-driven monitoring systems scan transactions for suspicious behaviour, while smart contracts record rule-based actions immutably on blockchains. Together, these tools allow compliance processes to operate more continuously and with less manual intervention. This logic is visible in selected operational areas, such as debt management, where purpose-built platforms combine workflow automation with embedded compliance and clear auditability.

Forrester reframes this trend as one of consent and control. Customers are more willing to share data when they understand how it will be used. Regulation, then, becomes part of the experience – a strong signal of integrity. The smartest compliance is invisible: it builds confidence without interrupting how services are used.

Open banking, APIs, and ecosystems

Banking technology has been moving away from closed, self-contained systems towards more connected models. Open-banking regulation has accelerated this shift by standardising how data is shared across institutions. Secure APIs enable linking accounts, comparing products, and acting on insights across providers. What initially emerged as a regulatory requirement now underpins a growing share of innovation in financial services.

Economist Impact notes that partnerships with fintechs and big tech are now one of the most common paths to innovation. BCG highlights how large institutions are establishing joint innovation labs with companies such as Microsoft and IBM to access skills and capabilities they can’t build internally quickly enough.

Accenture takes a customer-centric approach, predicting a move from static product portfolios towards modular ecosystems. In this model, customers will mix and match services – mortgages, insurance, savings – through connected digital hubs. PwC identifies a related, yet new phenomenon: digital banks turning into technology vendors. For instance, Starling Bank’s Engine platform, as mentioned above, lets institutions license its full operating system – exporting both code and culture. In Forrester’s long-term view, future banking technology will become less focused on user-facing portals and more on the protocols that enable secure interaction between systems. As noted, open ecosystems will evolve into agent-to-agent economies, where AI systems negotiate and transact directly, reducing the need for direct human interaction.

The strongest banks of the next decade will think less like institutions and more like orchestrators. Banks that can connect partners and coordinate various platforms and data flows effectively are likely to be better positioned than those that rely solely on vertically integrated models.
A similar orchestration logic can already be observed in complex financial environments beyond retail banking, such as trading and commodity operations platforms that connect brokers, internal systems, and execution workflows within a single controlled framework.

The technology beneath transformation

Many of the themes discussed so far, from inclusion to regulation and personalisation, rest on a shared set of enabling technologies. These foundations are not new in themselves, but their combination is reshaping how banking systems are built and operated.

• Artificial intelligence and machine learning bring predictive power to decisions, personalisation to experiences, and automation to operations.
• Cloud computing delivers the scalability and flexibility to process data and deploy AI securely at a global scale.
• Blockchain and distributed ledgers provide transparency, security, traceability, and efficiency for payments, asset exchange, and compliance.
• Open APIs make it possible for these components to work together across organisational boundaries, allowing new services to emerge collaboratively at unprecedented speed.

Each of these technologies feeds the others. AI relies on cloud capacity to operate at scale; open APIs supply the data that fuels models and services; distributed ledgers verify the outcomes and build trust between parties. Together, they form the scaffolding for a financial system that is more adaptable and resilient over time.

People remain the true differentiator

Technology may set the direction, but people determine how it is applied. Behind every AI model are teams deciding how systems learn, which trade-offs they make, and whose interests they serve. This places human capability at the centre of transformation.

BCG reports that the “half-life” of digital skills is now about four years, which prompts organisations to rethink how they develop talent. Reducing managerial overhead and investing in practitioners who build, design, and deliver solutions have become practical priorities. Deloitte emphasises agility, highlighting the importance of speed and adaptability in rapidly changing markets. Meanwhile, Forrester observes the rise of a new executive role: the Chief Digital, Data & AI Officer – a single leader accountable for integrating these once-siloed disciplines. This reflects a broader effort to bring coherence to innovation at scale.

And while futurists like Brett King envision a future in which much of banking runs on autonomous systems, even he acknowledges that translating legacy processes into new paradigms will require human judgment for years to come. Technology can automate execution, but direction, accountability, as well as courage and empathy, remain human concerns.

From efficiency to emotional intelligence

Earlier phases of digital transformation focused on speed and efficiency. The next stage is shifting attention towards how banking interactions feel from the customer’s perspective. As AI becomes more embedded in customer interactions, banks will need to balance personalisation with responsible use of data and clear governance frameworks.

Accenture predicts that AI interfaces will soon understand context and intent, allowing conversations that feel less scripted and more responsive. Forrester’s analysis of European mobile banking apps supports this trend: leaders such as BBVA and PKO BP already use context-aware assistants that detect customer needs in real time.

Looking further ahead, Forrester predicts the rise of autonomous finance, where personal AI agents act on a customer’s behalf in their best interest across multiple services. Brett King vividly describes it in Huawei’s interview: a future without apps or logins, where decisions occur seamlessly in the background through smart devices and contextual cues. In this scenario, banking does not disappear – instead, it becomes less visible, blending into everyday activities and surfacing only when attention or intervention is required. It becomes something you feel, not something you consciously open.

Different paths to a similar future of banking technology

Although these forecasts broadly converge, each consultancy brings a distinct lens on the future of banking technology:

• Accenture champions the human side of AI, highlighting the return of relationship-led banking enabled by AI which may become the next competitive edge.
• BCG speaks in the language of strategy, focusing on rebalancing spend and aligning technology with business value.
• Deloitte pushes for structural agility and bolder leadership, as organisations need to adapt before disruption forces it.
• PwC offers a pragmatic stance: modernise through partnerships and proven platforms rather than reinvention.
• Forrester looks furthest into the customer experience, mapping how banking becomes invisible, connected, and agentic.
• Economist Impact and SAS centre on ethics and governance, reminding the industry that innovation without responsibility erodes trust.
• Huawei and Brett King stretch the horizon to 2050, imagining finance as an ambient, decentralised layer of life.

Taken together, these perspectives describe a shared direction. Banking technology is becoming less visible at the surface, while its behaviour, governance, and responsible impact become more important than ever.

How banks can act now

For banks navigating this transformation, the reports point to several practical priorities:

1. Refocus technology spending.
BCG urges banks to redirect budgets from maintenance to transformation, targeting projects that reduce complexity and free up resources for innovation.

2. Adopt modular architectures.
PwC advocates moving towards cloud-native neo-core banking platforms to modernise legacy environments. Deloitte, in turn, emphasises enterprise agility and the need for structural transformation. Whether through partnerships or licensed platforms, agility will matter more than building everything internally.

3. Operationalise trust.
Forrester stresses embedding transparency and consent directly into digital journeys, making ethical data handling visible to users. Economist Impact promotes explainable AI and granular consent mechanisms as part of responsible AI deployment.

4. Design for AI agents.
As interactions shift toward machine-led discovery, banks should optimise product data for algorithmic interpretation through what Forrester calls “machine-readable content”.

These priorities reflect a broader shift in how technology is understood and governed in banking: as an enabler of integrity, not merely a component of infrastructure.

Intelligent, invisible, purposeful banking

By 2035, banking may no longer feel like an activity. It will exist quietly behind everyday actions such as planning a trip or making a major purchase, surfacing only when needed.

Forrester calls this stage invisible, connected, insights-driven, and purposeful. Deloitte frames it as the outcome of sustained, bold transformation efforts across the enterprise. Economist Impact highlights the importance of balancing innovation with governance in order to maintain customer trust.

Beyond that lies a more speculative horizon: decentralised, AI-managed financial ecosystems where smart contracts and personal AIs govern the autonomous flows of money and data. Whether that arrives by 2050 or later, the direction is set. As systems become more intelligent, trust becomes the deciding factor in how customers accept and use them.

The future of banking: technology that earns trust

The future of banking technology is not about smarter algorithms or faster transactions, but about systems that people believe in – systems that evolve over time and operate in ways people can rely on. The next decade will reward banks that turn compliance into confidence, data into dialogue, and AI into understanding. As technology becomes invisible, it should lay the foundation for building and strengthening trust.

At Spyrosoft, we work with financial organisations to turn these global shifts into practical, measurable outcomes. We support initiatives ranging from modernising legacy environments to designing AI-enabled platforms, all while providing secure, human-centred digital experiences. Our teams combine deep technical expertise with a clear understanding of compliance and customer value. This enables us to guide clients from vision to implementation – ensuring every solution supports both innovation and trust. If you’re exploring how to future-proof your products or accelerate innovation in financial services, discover how we support organisations through our Financial Services offering.

Sources

Reports
1. Accenture. Banking: The future is back. Trends shaping the industry in 2025 and beyond, 2025.
2. Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Tech in Banking 2025: Transformation Starts with Smarter Tech Investment, May 2025.
3. Economist Impact and SAS. Intelligent banking: The future ahead, 2025.

Articles
4. Deloitte. Bank of 2030: Transform boldly, 2025.
5. Forrester Research. The Future of Banking: By 2030, Banking Will Be Invisible, Connected, Insights-Driven, and Purposeful, 2024.
6. Forrester Research. Predictions 2026: How Financial Services Can Thrive Amid AI Disruption, 2025.
7. Forrester Research. Banking’s New Power Role: The Chief Digital, Data, And AI Officer, 2025.
8. Forrester Research. Adaptive Mobile Banking: Forrester’s 2025 European Insights, 2025.
9. Forrester Research. How Emerging Tech Will Transform Digital Banking Experiences Over the Next Decade, 2025.
10. PwC. The next generation of banking technology, 2025.

Video interview
11. Huawei and Brett King. Future of Banking: A Glimpse into 2050. Video interview with Brett King, Huawei Intelligent Finance Summit, 2025.