Backbase

2026 will be the year when AI moves from promise to performance in banking. Institutions that embed agentic assistants, workflow automation, and AI-driven compliance will convert hype into measurable ROI, including faster servicing, more efficient operations, and a dramatically accelerated SDLC.

Trust will emerge as the defining competitive edge of 2026. By unifying detection, decisioning, and case management — and layering continuous verification and content-authenticity checks — banks will cut losses, boost confidence, and turn safety into a growth advantage.

In 2026, payments will become fully embedded, invisible, and intelligent. Orchestration across cards, accounts, wallets, and digital currencies — plus instant settlement and programmable rails — will create new revenue at the moment of payment and set a new standard for reliability and transparency.

Open banking will evolve into open finance in 2026, creating a revenue engine for many financial institutions. Banks that productize APIs, monetize data, and embed services in partner ecosystems will shift from considering compliance costs to compounding distribution and realizing ecosystem-led growth.

In 2026, incumbents will face their toughest competitive test yet, but they’re far from out of the game. Those that unify their data and channels into a single, AI-powered platform will match digital natives on speed and surpass them on trust, governance, and accountable personalization.

By 2026, retail banking will quietly run in the background of everyday life. AI co-pilots will do everything from anticipating needs to automating money movement and elevating financial wellness, all while data-and-payments orchestration turns personalization into primacy and durable loyalty.

In 2026, private banking will be defined by AI-augmented relationships and intelligent advisory. AI copilots will enable relationship managers to raise the minimum baseline of service for every client, while explainable, data-rich advice drives retention, share of wallet, and trust at scale.

In 2026, wealth firms will fuse hyper-automation with human advice to scale white-glove experiences. Advisors will focus on life goals and strategy as AI handles prep, analysis, and next-best actions, paired with seamless onboarding and values-aligned portfolios for mass-affluent growth.

In 2026, SMB banking will be redefined, with speed, precision, and ecosystems-based intelligence as the baseline. Agentic collaboration, instant KYC, embedded finance, and dynamic credit inside the tools businesses already use will deliver context-aware service, faster working-capital decisions, and reliable growth.

2026 will mark the rise of the intelligent commercial bank: faster, more modular, and fully growth-oriented. API-led treasury, agentic operations, and AI-centric risk, running on composable architecture with ESG-linked offerings, will turn banks into orchestration platforms for real-time liquidity and enterprise value.