> **来源：[研报客](https://pc.yanbaoke.cn)** # Unconstrained Banking A new age of possibility Trend 1 The future of money Trend 2 The future of experience Trend 3 The future of work and talent Trend 4 The future of technology Trend 5 The future of risk and regulation Trend 6 The future of competition # About the report Accenture's top banking trends 2026 is more than a forecast; it's a guide to a future where the limits that once defined banking are disappearing. For generations, technology, structure and risk appetite constrained what banks could achieve. Today, those boundaries are dissolving. Generative AI (gen AI), digital assets and the potential for new business models are rewriting the rules, creating possibilities that were unimaginable just a few years ago. The future of banking is being written now. This report distills insights from our global client work, boardroom conversations and research, offering a clear look at what's happening and why. It also offers actions banks can take to unlock capacity, accelerate innovation and redefine what's possible. Our mission is to equip banking leaders not just to adapt, but to lead—transforming constraint into opportunity and shaping the next era of banking. # Research snapshot This year, the Top Banking Trends team began by defining the core themes shaping the industry. Candidate trends were developed through internal crowdsourcing, drawing on insights from senior leaders across key domains. Shortlisted ideas were validated using a rigorous, mixed-methods approach: four surveys with banking executives, commercial banking clients and retail banking customers, supported by economic modeling and complementary research techniques. This process ensures every trend is both evidence-based and highly relevant to the industry. # Michael Abbott Senior Managing Director - Global Banking and Capital Markets Lead in Connect with Michael # Preface Banking is entering an era defined by the removal of long-standing constraints. For centuries, the limits of technology, organizational structure, risk appetite and even imagination have bound the industry to a certain shape. Today, the convergence of gen AI and agentic AI, digital assets and new business models is not only challenging those limits, but shattering them. Imagine de-coupling capacity from headcount and physical infrastructure and unlocking the power of tens of thousands of employees at a fraction of the cost. Imagine being able to understand risk in its entirety in real time. Imagine turning customer experiences into a seamless continuity of conversations. These possibilities are suddenly viable; in fact, they're changing the face of competition. Welcome to the age of unconstrained banking. We explore the phenomenon in these pages, focusing on six key areas: money, experience, work, technology, risk and competition. To ensure the perspectives we share would be current and actionable, we drew on insights from hundreds of global client engagements and board-level conversations, complemented by proprietary research and analysis. We also expanded our author team to include specialists in each area. Our aim is to address the critical questions we're hearing from banking leaders around the world: How will the industry evolve over the next five years? How can banks balance innovation with prudent risk management? What new forms of competition and collaboration will emerge? And most importantly, how can leaders prepare their organizations to thrive in this rapidly changing environment? Banking is a diverse and complex industry that defies simple definition. We invite you to explore these trends as both a guide and a catalyst for unconstrained thinking. Trend 1: The future of money # Dumb money gets smarter # Authors Sulabh Agarwal Managing Director - Global Payments Lead Brian Shniderman Senior Managing Director - North America Payments Lead Everything we know about money is about to change, except that it will still be money. A new phase is taking shape in how money is stored, moved, used and made smarter—and ultimately, how it works for banks and customers. Digital currencies such as stablecoins, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and tokenized deposits are poised to enter the mainstream, redefining where and how money flows. Payment rails, the networks that move money between parties, are evolving. New interoperable rails—shared payment infrastructures that allow different systems and networks to connect seamlessly—along with data-rich, programmable payments are making today's transactions smarter. These shifts represent both a risk and an opportunity for banks. Digital currencies could push payments and revenue outside traditional banking, while smarter transactions could place banks at the center of a new revolution. Based on our analysis, if digital currencies continue to gain traction, up to $13 trillion in transaction value could shift to alternative payment methods by 2030, putting an estimated$ 13 billion in payment fees at risk. At the same time, tokenization and smart contracts enabled through digital currencies provide a significant opportunity for payment players to reduce costs and create new revenue streams. Momentum around agentic payments is growing quickly. It's not just about reducing friction; it's about delegation: money moving on its own, through intelligent agents acting for customers. Soon, money will be working for its owner, never idle and always optimizing itself. Capturing this opportunity will require focus, as fintechs and big techs are racing ahead with faster, cheaper and more intuitive ways to store, move and use money. Banks need to start shaping these disruptions, more so than reacting to them. The real opportunity lies in orchestrating the trust, technology and intelligence that make smart money move safely and purposefully, putting banks back at the center of value creation. To seize the moment, banks must develop a clear digital currency strategy and modernize the systems that enable the movement of money. They should also deepen their understanding of what customers truly value and build trust in agentic payments. Dumb money is about to get smarter. # What's going on Consider the three major evolving elements that make up this trend: how money is stored and moved, how it is developing its own intelligence and how it is working harder for organizations and individuals. # New ways of moving and storing money Money has always evolved with technology. Once dependent on physical gold, coins and other tangible assets—costly and inefficient forms of exchange—it has, in the past decade, expanded to include nontraditional payment methods that have drawn the attention of regulators, the payments community and customers alike. Anyone watching the evening news is familiar with the tickers flashing the daily swings of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Today, three emerging types of digital currencies are gaining traction, each offering greater stability than Bitcoin and serving distinct roles in the evolving money economy. (See Figure 1.) Figure 1: Three types of digital currencies are emerging <table><tr><td></td><td>Stablecoins</td><td>CBDCs</td><td>Tokenized deposits</td></tr><tr><td>What</td><td>Privately issued digital tokens designed to maintain a stable value relative to a fiat currency</td><td>Central bank-issued digital money</td><td>Commercialized bank deposits represented on a distributed ledger</td></tr><tr><td>Who issues</td><td>• Subsidiaries of insured depository institutions • Qualified non-bank entities and payment stablecoin issuers</td><td>• Central banks/payments authority</td><td>• Regulated banks</td></tr><tr><td>Example</td><td>• USDC • USDT • PYUSD • EURS</td><td>• Sand Dollar (Bahamas) • JAM-DEX (Jamaica) • e-naira (Nigeria)</td><td>• JPM Coin/JPMD • Citi Token Services Tokenized Deposits for Corporate Clients</td></tr><tr><td>How it is used</td><td>• 24/7 cross-border transfers • Crypto-trading liquidity • Programmable payments</td><td>• Inclusive payments (retail) • Resilient public money • Wholesale settlement/Real-Time Gross Settlement modernization • Cross-border corridors</td><td>• Corporate treasury management • Programmable trade finance • B2B payments (among issuer's corporate clients)</td></tr></table> This list is non-exhaustive. Source: Accenture Research analysis. Stablecoins, by design, redefine where money is stored and how it moves. They are gaining traction across North America. In Europe, new consortiums are working to issue euro-denominated versions.2 Total transaction volume reached $51 trillion over the 12 months ending in October 2025, but we know that a lot of the activity is not strictly related to payments. After adjusting for maximal extractable value (MEV)—strategies that profit from reordering transactions within a block, often executed by automated bots—and intra-exchange transactions, the estimated payment-related volume stands at $10.7 trillion. This reflects 88% year-on-year growth, equivalent to 81% of Visa's payments volume and 6.3 times that of PayPal.4 (See Figure 2.) Figure 2: Stablecoin transaction volume has even surpassed Visa's Adjusted stablecoin volume versus other financial systems (average last 30-day rolling volumes) Source: Accenture Research analysis based on Visa Onchain Analytics Dashboard and Artemis, as of 11/19/2025 Note: Average last 30-day rolling transaction volumes in USD for financial systems. Stablecoin volume excludes Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) bots. # 87% of financial institutions are exploring tokenization as complementary tools to issue digital versions of traditional assets. Even early stablecoin issuers that once faced near collapse now hold reserves rivaling those of sovereign balance sheets. Tether, the world's largest stablecoin issuer, is now the eighteenth-largest holder of US Treasuries, surpassing major economies like Germany, Saudi Arabia and South Korea. In the second quarter of 2025, Tether purchased $8 billion in US Treasuries, ranking as the seventh-largest net buyer among institutional holders.5 Tether's ascent underscores how digital currencies have quickly evolved from fringe innovation to systemic players. As many as 135 countries are exploring CBDCs—sovereign alternatives to traditional money—though only three have launched.<sup>6</sup> Unlike private stablecoins or tokenized bank deposits, CBDCs carry state backing and legal-tender status, enable direct monetary policy, foster financial inclusion, lower transaction costs and reduce exposure to private-issuer risk. As more pilots mature, we expect significant developments over the next two to three years, with Europe in particular making strong progress toward launching a digital euro.<sup>7</sup> Tokenized deposits, meanwhile, are gaining ground as the bridge between blockchain and traditional banking, allowing commercial banks to issue secure, programmable digital versions of deposits while maintaining regulatory safeguards. These deposits offer faster, cheaper settlements, greater transparency and new opportunities for innovation in payments and asset transactions. Tokenized deposits also preserve commercial banks' role in money creation, as they remain bank liabilities, unlike CBDCs or fully reserve-backed stablecoins. Our Future of Money survey shows that $87\%$ of financial institutions are exploring tokenization and tokenized deposits as complementary tools to issue digital versions of traditional assets, thereby improving liquidity and settlement flexibility.[8] In the UK, the Tokenized Sterling Deposits initiative led by UK Finance brings together major banks such as HSBC, Barclays and NatWest to test blockchain-based digital money. Running until 2026, the project aims to modernize the UK's payment infrastructure by combining the trust of regulated deposits with the efficiency and programmability of blockchain.[9] Overall, digital currency adoption remains uneven, with crypto-related services leading deployment, followed by stablecoins.[10] CBDCs and tokenized deposits are still in the early stages of deployment but should gain momentum as the market matures and regulators clarify boundaries. The EU's MiCA framework and the US's GENIUS Act are laying foundations for digital asset oversight, fostering confidence and accelerating adoption.[11,12] From a customer perspective, corporate clients are driving much of this momentum. Their goals are practical: faster cross-border settlements, automated transactions through smart contracts and simplified recurring payments. Many expect their cross-border payments to shift from traditional solutions such as Swift, ACH and SEPA to digital currencies, non-bank payment solutions and digital wallets such as Coinbase, Wise, Airwallex and PayPal.[13] As digital currencies move from pilot to scale, they are reshaping the very architecture of payments. The focus is shifting from creating new forms of money to building smarter, faster and more connected ways to move it. # Money that's becoming intelligent The fusion of AI and digital money is creating a new phase: money that can act, decide and optimize on its own. The first step in that evolution is programmable money, where payments execute automatically once specific conditions are met, such as a cargo scan at a port or an invoice verification. In trade and supply chains, programmable money enables escrow-on-delivery, milestone payouts and automated compliance checks. These programmable payment capabilities reduce disputes, improve working-capital efficiency and make cash flow more predictable. Programmable money is also redefining corporate treasury. Consider how Siemens, operating in 190 countries and managing transactions in over 100 currencies, partnered with J.P. Morgan Payments to modernize its fragmented treasury network. Using blockchain, virtual accounts, application programming interfaces (APIs) and programmable money, Siemens automated payments and liquidity transfers based on predefined rules such as balance thresholds and intercompany events. The results were striking: a $50\%$ reduction in bank accounts, $70\%$ less management effort, $80\%$ automation of cash application and more than $20 million in annual savings. With real-time visibility and control, treasury has evolved from a reactive function to a strategic enabler of growth.[14] But this evolution extends beyond programmability. When digital currencies, tokenized deposits and CBDCs connect with real-time payment rails, card networks and FX platforms, money flows across the fastest and most efficient routes. These interoperable payment rails function as a global "money router," shifting control from closed networks to open orchestration layers. As payments become more intelligent and interconnected, transaction data—covering identity, compliance and context—now enables instant verification and reduces manual checks. This valuable data was often overlooked, but now overlay applications built on real-time payment rails and ISO20022 data are unlocking its full potential. These services consolidate information flows, eliminate reconciliations and provide actionable insights, allowing money and intelligence to move together. India's Unified Payments Interface (UPI) offers an example. By connecting banks, fintechs and wallets on a single real-time network, it enables instant transfers using a phone number or virtual ID. This open model drives more than 15 billion monthly transactions; the International Monetary Fund has praised it as a benchmark for inclusive digital finance.[15] Cross-border expansion has already cut remittance costs by more than $10\%$ compared to traditional payment methods.[16] The same principle applies to liquidity management and settlements. Always-on, real-time settlement shortens cash-conversion cycles and enables intraday treasury functions such as automated sweeps, programmable netting and pay-on-receipt flows. Firms gain liquidity precision but must rethink pricing, buffers and risk controls to accommodate instant outflows. Circle, the US-based issuer of the USDC stablecoin, has partnered with Arf, a Switzerland-based blockchain liquidity platform, to demonstrate how stablecoins can transform global settlements. Using USDC, Arf extends short-term liquidity to licensed payment providers, enabling real-time settlement without prefunding. This model eliminates correspondent-banking friction, frees trapped capital and improves liquidity efficiency.[17] # Money that's working harder # 35% of consumers are willing to let AI handle the final selection and purchase on their behalf. The next stage of evolution is agentic money, where intelligent financial agents act on behalf of users to manage, optimize and move funds automatically. Agentic money uses AI-enabled agents that operate within clear rules and consent frameworks. For corporates, these agents can predict cash flow needs, schedule settlements and optimize FX timing, turning payments from reactive to proactive. For consumers, the agents act as digital assistants that anticipate needs and execute approved transactions. Our Global Holiday Shoppers Survey 2025 found that $35\%$ of consumers are willing to let AI handle the final selection and purchase on their behalf, though most still prefer to review or approve before checkout.[18] Amazon's "Buy for Me" feature shows this future in action. Still in beta, it allows Amazon's AI agents to complete purchases on behalf of customers, even on third-party websites, without redirecting them from the Amazon app. The AI handles product discovery, data entry, checkout and payment authorization under user-defined rules, signaling a future where transactions become fully automated and context-aware.[19] # What's at stake When we asked corporate clients about their cross-border payment preferences, we noted a shift toward non-traditional payment methods including digital currencies, non-bank payment services and wallets. PayPal launched a stablecoin and partnered with OpenAI to enable agentic purchases via ChatGPT. 20,21 In a closed-wallet environment, that means bypassing traditional payment players completely. As noted, if this trend materializes for corporate cross-border payments, roughly $13 trillion in transaction value could move from traditional to alternative payment methods by 2030, putting about $13 billion in payment fees at risk. It will reshape how banks compete for cross-border flows. (See Figure 3.) Expected change in method used by corporate payments clients for cross-border transactions Figure 3: Non-traditional cross-border payments challenge $13 billion in fee revenue *Assumes average cost of transaction decreases to 0.1%. Source: Accenture Research analysis based on our Future of Money Survey and Payments Revenue Model. But the implications extend far beyond fees. Once digital wallets operate seamlessly across multiple currencies, they could make correspondent banking obsolete, reshape trade and compress traditional banking revenues.[23] The shift to programmable, always-on money will require a new balance between speed, control and trust. Programmability will also disrupt trade finance. As smart contracts and conditional payments become mainstream, many traditional documentary processes could disappear, putting trade finance fees at risk for banks.[24] The pressure to create new, programmable products and services will only intensify. # 78% of financial institutions expect fraud to increase significantly due to the expansion of digital currencies and agent-based systems. At the same time, fraud risk is rising. Seventy-eight percent of financial institutions expect fraud to increase significantly due to the expansion of digital currencies and agent-based systems. Yet $60\%$ still lack dedicated response plans or forensic tools, relying instead on basic procedures and workflows that won't scale in an autonomous environment.[25] The real challenge lies in execution. Ambition is widespread, but action lags. Institutions that act early by setting clear strategies and collaborating with peers, other industry players and regulators will capture the efficiencies and client benefits already within reach. Those that hesitate risk being left behind as the economics of payments evolve. # What to do This space is changing daily; banks can't afford a wait-and-see approach. We recommend the following actions: # Define a digital currency strategy. Banks can play one or more roles in the digital currency arena, as issuers, custodians, facilitators or a combination of the three. A few banks may choose to take on every role, but most will find they're better served by considering the trade-offs and focusing on one. To win as an issuer, for example, a bank will need to leverage its trust and regulatory strength to issue or integrate fully backed, compliant tokens that deliver real payment and treasury utility. It will need to do this while building ecosystem partnerships and robust risk management. To win as a custodian, a bank will need to provide secure, transparent and compliant safekeeping of digital assets and reserves. It will need to combine institutional-grade custody infrastructure, real-time reporting and regulatory assurance—positioning the bank as a trusted bridge between traditional finance and tokenized money. To act as a facilitator, a bank will need to enable seamless issuance, transfer and redemption by integrating blockchain rails with existing payment systems. It should also offer compliance, liquidity and settlement infrastructure that powers the broader stablecoin ecosystem without necessarily issuing coins itself. In all cases, banks will need to collaborate with central banks, fintechs and international partners to shape standards and share costs. Participating in pilots and consortia is the path to shaping the digital currency economy. Seven in ten banks view offering digital currencies as a moderate to high business challenge; the transition won't be easy.[26] But that's not a reason to hold off or shy away from bold moves. Western Union, a long-standing leader in cross-border payments, announced its plan to launch a stablecoin in October 2025 to stay competitive in the digital remittance landscape.[27] To start: Identify the strategic role your bank would play most effectively, then collaborate with central banks, fintechs and international partners to shape standards and share costs. Explore opportunities to join pilots and consortia. # Upgrade the core to enable smart money. To play with smart money, banks will need to upgrade their core systems to integrate with blockchain and distributed ledger technologies and strengthen cybersecurity. Seventy-six percent of financial institutions report they still have work to do to enable smart money, which cannot run on brittle legacy systems or batch-based architectures.[28] The effort ranges from middleware and API upgrades to full-stack rebuilds or complete digital core overhauls. Leading banks are taking different approaches to build their technology infrastructure. Some, like JPMorganChase, are building bank-led permissioned blockchain networks for payments, while others like Nationwide Building Society are investing in building resilient digital cores that allow them to adapt quickly to market changes.[29,30] To start: Modernize the bank's core to unlock smart money—moving beyond brittle legacy systems to architectures that integrate blockchain, distributed ledgers and stronger cybersecurity. Leaders are advancing through targeted upgrades or full digital core transformations, building the resilient infrastructures smart money demands. # Focus on customer intent. # 69% of corporate clients saying they want digital currency wallets. The challenge for banks is that demand varies widely and customers often struggle to clearly define what they need. This means banks need to heighten their attention to customer intent—and in some cases, offer a map to what's possible, much as Apple did when it introduced the iPhone. For example, our research reveals a clear perception gap in wallets, with $69\%$ of corporate clients saying they want digital currency wallets, yet only $37\%$ of financial institutions recognizing that demand.[31] The catch? Closing a gap is one thing (in this case, the bank can build services such as digital wallets, tokenized savings and programmable payments). But this isn't a one-and-done activity. Banks need to prepare to keep learning in real time and adjust quickly as new intents come into focus. To start: Analyze customer intent to uncover unmet and emerging needs. Tailor solutions to segment-level needs, not a "customer of one" approach. Prioritize offerings that deliver the greatest impact for those segments, avoiding broad, generic designs. By analyzing intent at the segment level, you can create scalable solutions that resonate deeply with your most important audiences. # 57% of business leaders believe agentic commerce will become mainstream within the next three years. # Embrace agentic payments. Already, $57\%$ of business leaders believe agentic commerce will become mainstream within the next three years.[32] Prioritizing secure payments, identity verification and transaction intent validation is the place to start. These key investment areas will define their relevance as agentic teams take over transaction routing, optimizing payment timing and delivering real-time decision-making. These capabilities will also serve banks well as AI agents work for customers, analyzing invoices and cash balances, identifying early payment discounts, calculating effective annualized yields versus deposit returns and executing payments at precisely the right moment. Finally, banks will be able to help businesses use their spare cash more wisely, like paying suppliers a little earlier to earn discounts, which is almost like getting extra interest on money that would otherwise just sit idle. To start: Build a secure, AI-ready payment foundation that prioritizes a UX/CX engine, enabling corporate customers to "program" their money—creating custom rules, external connectors and validation interfaces. These capabilities will allow agentic systems to autonomously optimize payment timing, liquidity and financial decisions on customers' behalf. Trend 2: The future of experience # Banking everywhere it matters # Authors # David Levi Managing Director - Customer Engagement Lead, Financial Services # Antonio Coppolecchia Managing Director - Accenture Song Financial Services Lead, EMEA # Kim Kim Oon Managing Director - Accenture Strategy, Financial Services # As AI and GPT-powered conversational interfaces improve and proliferate, customer expectations are shifting just as they did with the advent of digital banking some 25 years ago. People will expect to do more online with their primary banks than they do today (which is mostly checking their balances or paying bills). They will expect their online interactions to be as fluid and adaptive as they are when talking with a knowledgeable branch manager. And they will expect these experiences to follow them beyond their bank's apps and website to external AI platforms. To meet these expectations, banks are beginning to rethink user experiences, designing their own GPTs from the "outside-in" centered on customer intent. This means understanding context at a more granular level, understanding customer needs in real time and following them across channels and time. It also involves finding ways to show up for their customers when they are using third-party agents as their proxies in the market, for example, when shopping for services. As part of this process, banks will need to reconsider the role of the branch. In a world where digital experiences can blur the line between real and fake, physical locations represent trust and safety. They're important and they will remain so. And yet, to deliver on evolving customer experiences, banks will need to blend bespoke, AI-driven digital interactions with the enduring value of human connection and physical presence. They will need to reconsider the form of a branch to ensure it seamlessly fits into customers' lives. They will need to offer customers the convenience, speed and depth they want across the digital and physical world—and never lose the thread. # What's going on Three major indicators illuminate what's next for customer experience in banking: # First, people are relying more on AI. # 86% of consumers would trust their main bank to deliver smart AI assistants. Our Global Holiday Shoppers Survey 2025 found that $60\%$ of consumers are open to using agentic AI throughout the purchasing process, from simply generating ideas to handling everything from plan to purchase.[33] There's a healthy appetite for AI in banking as well. A significant majority $(65\%)$ of the respondents in our Future of Banking Experience Survey said they're open to using a GPT-like financial assistant available through a gen AI platform or a digital wallet, while $71\%$ said they would welcome an AI assistant in their primary bank's mobile app.[34] The caveat? Most participants in the latter survey said they want a strong form of control in AI-supported banking interactions. More than four-fifths (82%) said they would want to approve each action, and 79% said they would want a one-tap pause option.[35] Banks' strong trust foundations do lend equity to their AI offerings; a large majority (86%) of consumers would trust their main bank to deliver smart AI assistants. Just below half (49%) said they would trust other gen AI platforms to deliver banking services, though those levels were higher among Gen Z and Millennial customers, at 62%.<sup>36</sup> Early movers include UK-based Starling Bank, which offers a feature that can understand plain-language questions like "How much did I spend on groceries last week?" and deliver instant breakdowns and charts in response.<sup>37</sup> More banks are launching such assistants by the day. Some banks are also using their high levels of trust and their AI capabilities to move into other markets. Take the UK-based digital bank, Revolut, which acquired Swifty, an AI-powered travel agent, in September 2025.[38] Our survey data indicates consumer interest; up to more than half (54%) of our respondents said they would be willing to use an intelligent digital companion within their main bank's mobile app to help with nonbanking services. Their most-cited examples: buying groceries, consumer electronics and travel booking.[39] A management board member of VeloBank put it this way: "For now, you can talk to [the bank's AI assistant] Vela about every aspect of personal finances, but soon we want her to be able to help our customers with everyday challenges—organizing a vacation, buying tickets to a match, finding a theater or cinema that meets their preferences."40 # Second, big tech is bringing AI into the physical world. Tech companies are competing to produce the best-in-show AI native wearable. OpenAI's acquisition of io Products for $6.5 billion heralds a near-term pipeline of new personal devices where experiences won't live on apps so much as in ambient, multimodal agents.[41] The newest Meta Ray-Ban Display AI glasses, produced in partnership with Luxottica, give us a glimpse of a possible future. These "spectacles" offer a near real-time translation and an integrated augmented reality display.[42] In banking, wearables have been a promising yet uneven channel: most traction concentrates on smartwatches, while some banks have gone further with mixed results; Intesa Sanpaolo launched the first payment ring in Italy in 2023; more recently, it started offering a payment bracelet, KBC, in Belgium, discontinued support for passive rings and bracelets after limited uptake.[43,44] As Al-native wearables evolve from simple taps to context-aware assistants, the opportunity moves beyond today's largely transactional use, toward glanceable balance checks, in-store credit offers or advisor co-planning holographic overlays, right before the customer's eyes. # Third, people (still) crave personal connection. Customers want to connect in person with their bankers at physical locations and banks are starting to meet their desires more precisely with innovative new takes on the traditional branch. Sure, customers average more than 150 mobile touchpoints a year.[45] Yes, most mobile banking apps have very good ratings and $72\%$ of our respondents said they wouldn't even need internet banking (their primary bank's website) if the bank's app offered full feature parity.[46] But don't be fooled by those numbers. Consumers still favor branches, as proxy for human interaction, for more complex tasks and needs. What's more, many people also place branches among their top three preferred channels for more complex activities. One channel doesn't win all. (See Figure 4.) Figure 4. Customers favor branches for complex needs Channel preference by banking task Source: Accenture Future of Banking Experience Survey 2025 # 63% of customers like the idea of a physical bank that helps them orchestrate their lives. Banks are responding, upping their branch game. Even as they reduce the number of branches they have in certain regions, they are introducing new concepts with heightened experiences in mind. Digital-only banks are also increasingly aware of the importance of physical presence. Revolut, for example, opened a pop-up "smart booth" at the Primavera Sound music festival in Barcelona, offering an opportunity for a seamless banking touchpoint at a lifestyle event. The festival attracts a highly international, travel-heavy audience that maps to Revolut's core target customers; the booths provided discounted tickets, fee-free cash withdrawals for Revolut customers, competitive foreign exchange rates and card dispensing.[47] Meanwhile, UnionBank is leaning into branch experiences designed to support customers seeking guidance on major financial decisions—and sometimes even non-financial life choices. The firm, based in the Philippines, unveiled a refreshed wealth center in 2025 with a private lounge for high-value transactions and a biometrics-secured space for clients accessing their safety deposit boxes.[48] Customers are welcoming these changes: a majority (63%) like the idea of a physical bank that helps them orchestrate their lives; even more (76%) would use micro branches or smart booths. Interestingly, millennials were 18 percentage points more likely than boomers to say they would use a smart booth (83% vs 65%), according to our research.[49] # What's at stake As the world evolves from digital to AI-enabled experiences, banks are facing challenges to their primacy and their ownership of the customer experience. Consider: On primacy, banks could quickly see more "money-in-motion" away from the bank, deposit balances fragmenting and primary-account status eroding. Share of wallet will favor the business that offers the best value and the smoothest APIs, if it wins consumer trust. And banks face threats across the four major, interrelated layers of the customer experience: the brand (organization, owner of the experience), the channel (location or device), the interface (how the consumer connects) and the execution (who makes the choices and delivers the outcome). (See Figure 5.) Figure 5. AI-enabled experiences threaten banks' control of the customer experience Four layers of the banking experience <table><tr><td>Layer</td><td>Definition</td><td>Example</td></tr><tr><td>Brand</td><td>The entity the consumer picks to begin their banking experience</td><td>Traditional bank, digital bank, aggregator, digital wallet</td></tr><tr><td>Channel</td><td>Where that experience takes place</td><td>Traditional branch, online banking, mobile banking, wearable device</td></tr><tr><td>Interface</td><td>How the consumer connects</td><td>Conversation with a human, interacting with a digital interface, rule-driven chatbot</td></tr><tr><td>Execution</td><td>How choices are made and fulfilled</td><td>Executed by the banker, self-service</td></tr></table> This list is non-exhaustive. Source: Accenture Research analysis. Historically, banks managed the entire experience. Digital advancements gave rise to new alternatives, moving banking outside of the bricks-and-mortar realm and offering customers more options within layers; however, these options limited banks' ability to provide ongoing, contextually relevant personalized interactions across all channels and interfaces. Now, AI is offering even more options within layers and enabling bespoke interactions, but also enabling other businesses to insert themselves between banks and their customers. It's a horizontal expansion of options for customers, but a vertical compression of the bank's ability to coordinate and control experience layers. (See Figure 6.) Figure 6. Customer experience options expand horizontally as banks' control compresses vertically Source: Accenture Research analysis. On the horizontal, consider: A customer's experience may start without interacting with a bank. Using a gen AI assistant or another channel, such as a social media app, customers can carry out activities beyond traditional banking channels—either independently or with a banker's support. On the vertical, banks' ability to coordinate and control experience channels is shrinking as external parties wedge themselves between banks and their customers, pushing banks to accept limited roles making products or handling execution. Take digital wallets. With one-click checkout and tap-to-pay options, they displace the bank's channel and obscure the bank's brand, while curating the interface and capturing a slice of the interchange fees. Banks still provide the balance sheet, but wallets now own the surface of the relationship. As gen AI lowers the effort to compare, orchestrate and switch between all banking products and processes, a wave of innovation could accelerate disruption across every banking journey and product. That wave would land on fertile ground. In one of our studies conducted in 2024, $61\%$ of global banking customers stated that they have stayed with their main bank seven years or more, but many are "lazy loyalists" who stay out of inertia rather than enthusiasm.[50] They don't advocate for their bank; they don't talk it up to friends. And they are diversifying, holding accounts with more than two banks and two digital wallets on average. Forty percent of customers interested in a smart-banking AI assistant said they would consider adding another relationship or switching banks if this service is unavailable through their main bank.[51] # Banks' ability to coordinate and control experience channels is shrinking as external parties wedge themselves between banks and their customers. # What to do With so many forces in motion—technological, behavioral and competitive—the challenge is significant. We recommend considering foundational, no-regret moves that strengthen the core, and strategic actions that embed bank-designed experiences within external AI ecosystems. # Foundational, no-regrets moves These actions will help keep customers' contexts intact, raising the quality of their experiences while lowering cost-to-serve. # Use customer intent to link experiences across channels. Channels operating in silos raise the cost-to-serve and churn when they aren't tethered to context. Banks should ensure seamless context and continuity of conversation and customer intent preservation across all touchpoints. Your broad goal should be to develop a foundational customer context and intent layer ("intent engine") that every channel can read from and write to. This engine will unify three key elements in real time: identity (who the customer is), consent (what the bank is allowed to do with their data and how to contact them) and context (what the customer is trying to achieve and where they are in the journey). It detects intent and ensures the continuity of the customer's conversation across touchpoints. To start: Use the mobile interface as the "first stop" and the center of your orchestration. Pilot one or two customer journeys—complete paths customers take to achieve a goal (opening an account or resolving an issue) where mobile and the contact center share a single customer context (identity, consent, history and intent). Once you prove the orchestration works well, scale it up and continue with additional pilots across other channels. # - Blend conversational and agentic experiences with graphical interfaces. The future of digital experience will center around AI-smart assistants, much smarter than today's chatbots. Customers will expect assistants that are as responsive and intuitive as commercial GPTs to help them with financial decisions. To get there, blend conversational and agentic features into traditional graphical user interfaces, including control measures and explainability to support trust. To customers, the result should feel like a natural extension to existing experiences and like texting with your banker. To start: Select one or two journeys (for example, spending analysis, dispute resolution or credit origination) and embed an AI assistant into your existing mobile and web interfaces, enabling people to "hand off" to the AI, within clear guardrails, and with clear opt-out, pause, overrule and reconsider options. Monitor progress on indicators such as uptake, satisfaction and need for follow-up actions. # Don't neglect the bank's physical presence. In a world where it's increasingly difficult to sort what's real from what's fake, something solid projects safety and soundness. The branch will be an increasingly important, brand-strengthening counterbalance to an AI-driven world. (Witness all the Apple stores.) To start: Experiment. For example, tap a small number of flagship branches in priority areas to test advice centers (with private rooms and co-planning tools). Or pilot microformat smart booths with extended hours and services in high-traffic locations (for card printing, remote ID, video advice). Or, open, move and expand community centers that cater to small and medium-sized business customers. # Actions to integrate bank-designed experiences into external AI engines External AI assistants can be viewed as threats to brands or as distribution engines. As they proliferate and their capabilities advance, banks have several options to consider, depending on the product or service in question: # Expose the bank's brand in new channels. Banks could choose to integrate into GPTs, messaging platforms or wearables if and only if their brand stays visible. PayPal's partnership with OpenAI offers an example. In 2026, ChatGPT users will be able to use a PayPal checkout button to pay for their purchase online without leaving the conversation with the AI bot.[52] The Spanish banking group BBVA offers another. The company has developed an app within ChatGPT that allows users in Germany and Italy to explore its banking products using natural language.[53] To follow that model, banks will need to expose their product, pricing and servicing via partner APIs, make content readable by large language models (LLMs) and invest in generative engine optimization (GEO) so the offers surface in AI answers. Some banks may publish parallel, machine-targeted sites exclusively for AI agents. Doing so gives AI agents a more structured source of offers, pricing and policies, along with clear action endpoints, reducing misinterpretation and improving discoverability by AI crawlers. To start: Prioritize one external AI or messaging platform and launch a pilot that exposes a limited set of branded services via partner APIs, supported by LLM-readable content and GEO. Test the platform to ensure that the offers are appearing as they should, and that follow-through (or escalation to bank-offered assistance) is easy. # Prepare for a product manufacturer role with external AI agents. As an alternative, banks could accept vertical compression, shoulder responsibility for product management and compete primarily on price, speed of service, reliability and regulatory-grade fulfillment for selected offerings. In this model, the bank still owns regulated product management—design, pricing, risk, compliance and fulfillment—while external AI assistants own the customer interface and orchestrate comparisons across multiple providers. This setup is already technically feasible for standardized, low-advice products but the harder questions are strategic and regulatory: how much brand disintermediation the bank is willing to accept and how liability is allocated when an AI agent is in the middle. Banks that choose this path start by embedding their execution engines directly into partner AI agents only for simple products, while keeping complex advice-heavy product experiences in channels banks control. The upside is access to an additional fast, low-friction distribution channel. The trade-offs include brand disintermediation—driven by the agent's suggestion rankings—and margin compression due to revenue sharing with the owner of the AI agent. To start: Choose a product with clear eligibility and pricing rules (for example term deposits or small personal loans) where you would, in principle, accept a manufacturer role. Prototype how pricing, eligibility and fulfillment could be embedded into a partner AI assistant with clear volume limits, explicit allocation of liability and defined margin-sharing rules with the partner. # Build "life event" ecosystems so that the bank's brand still earns the front door. Some banks might defend against invisibility by extending the brand to orchestrate high-impact customer life experiences, such as buying a home or a car, or starting a business. Banks would then curate partners inside their experiences, with an eye towards offering exceptional one-stop shopping and building a reputation as the easiest place to do complex things. A brand that's the easiest place to handle complex needs is harder to disintermediate. The challenge will be committing to the investment needed to provide world-class service quality. Customers won't tolerate less for long. To start: Select a single, high-value life event (for example, home buying or renting) where your brand/product positioning could serve as a key differentiator. Look to create an end-to-end experience combined with unique product features that will be hard for AI engines to replicate and/or disintermediate. Trend 3: The future of work and talent # Agentic AI shatters traditional capacity barriers # Author # Andrew Young Managing Director - Global Talent & Organization Lead, Financial Services By 2026, agentic AI is expected to expand beyond early scaled deployments towards broader adoption across the banking industry. Leading banks are deploying AI agents across operations, where they work alongside employees and independently handle defined tasks. These shifts are rapidly changing the nature of work and will ultimately unlock new efficiencies and growth. Growth will no longer be constrained by how many people a bank can hire. The vision of the "10× bank"—where one person manages a team of AI co-workers to deliver exponentially greater impact—is coming into focus. Yet success depends on putting people at the center of change. Executives must empower employees to reimagine workflows and co-design intuitive human-AI interactions that elevate work rather than replace it. Banking hasn't faced a disruption of this magnitude since the arrival of spreadsheets or the internet. To manage it well, leaders must turn this transformation into an opportunity for all employees. Success will hinge first and foremost on strong, purpose-driven leadership—to set a clear vision, model change and empower teams. Beyond leadership, three tenets will shape lasting impact: rethinking work around business intents rather than rigid processes; building in-house AI expertise supported by ecosystem partnerships and equipping HR to manage a combined human-AI workforce. Designing for adaptability and people will turn disruption into shared progress. Early results already show that CEO-sponsored, purpose-driven AI programs deliver more than 2.5x higher ROI than AI efforts lacking clear vision and leadership support.[54] # What's going on AI is dissolving long-standing constraints on human capacity, ushering in a new era of "unconstrained banking." Traditional links between revenue, cost and capacity are breaking—allowing organizations to rethink not just productivity, but the economics of growth itself. Four major signals illustrate how this reinvention of work is accelerating. First, AI agents are rapidly scaling and integrating. Advances in foundation models mean today's AI systems can already match or exceed task-level human activities in an expanding share of knowledge work.[55] Meanwhile, enterprise tools for designing and deploying AI agents have matured. Using platforms from major cloud providers, banks can now build intelligent agents aligned with their brand, compliance and service standards, making adoption faster, safer and more scalable. Second, AI is elevating every area of the bank. AI agents are driving performance across domains from software engineering and risk management to know your customer (KYC), claims and customer service. BBVA, for instance, has enabled 11,000 employees with AI tools and the impact is already clear across all business areas. Employees are saving an average of three hours per week, with $80\%$ of licensed users active daily. They are