This article appeared for the first time in the May Bai Executive Report: Unlock value thanks to the optimization of technology. Find more articles by covering technological decision -making covering CX, fraud, basic updates and more.
The main technological priorities 2025 for American banks indicate a thrust to optimization to improve safety, improve efficiency and use data to manage risks and meet customer needs more quickly and more efficiently than competitors.
This emphasis is emerged from the current leadership conferences in Regularly search Bai / Prosight And in an integrated survey of more than 1,000 banking leaders at the end of last year.
Despite the biggest banks that largely beat the expectations of the first quarter, the leaders remain cautious in the midst of the softening of the loan of loan and persistent recession problems. The results among the small banks were more mixed; However, technological investments aimed at stimulating efficiency and improving the experiences of digital customers remain coherent themes in the industry.
“Most community banks are looking for efficiency wherever they can get it,” said Cal Dress, vice-president of the Division of Financial Institutions at Integris and author of “Understand the annual expenses of American banks in 2025. “”
“Banks really want operational efficiency because it is one of the best engines of profitability,” explains Roberson.
While banks are struggling with operational costs, economic uncertainty and security threats, technological optimization is essential to maximize the return on investment. Inherited nucleus systems, however, remain a major cost center and a barrier to digital transformation – by clarifying the urgency of modernization.
The Fin-2024 survey, which included banks’ responses with between $ 3 and $ 20 billion in assets, is the second annual report for Integris, a managed IT service provider based in the canton of Cranbury, NJ
“In the first report, we found that none of the managers (4%) in fact had a computer budget, even if we found that it was often the second or the third expense for a bank,” explains Roberson. Instead, many banks have expenses disseminated on different commercial units, creating a lack of visibility which can also make assessments of the return on investment elusive.
What is clear for IT expenses for systems, storage, applications and staff, as well as wider strategic technological priorities, is the primacy of cybersecurity.
In fact, 98% of bank leaders classified the “fear of cyber violation” as three main drivers of current IT expenses. Although the number of primary data violations in the United States has passed from a record summit of 2,842 in 2023 to 2,577 in 2024, The latest transunion data shows an increase in the severity of the violation. The cost of a violation for the financial sector is also 25% higher than other industries, with an average of $ 6.08 million per incident, According to IBM.
While banks and other industries adopt new technologies to modernize their operations, fraudsters also invest in technology to create more sophisticated and targeted attacks, and financial institutions will remain at the top of the objectives. Modernization of cybersecurity defenses in banking services is essential.
The implementation of AI
For the director of Temenos chief products, Sai Rangachari, the priorities of the integris survey sound true; However, he thinks that artificial intelligence (AI) would be the next on the list. “I did not have a single conversation in the past few months that did not involve AI,” he said.
The supplier of banking software recently conducted his own survey with Hanover Research, showing that 75% of banks explore the potential of generativeBut less than half have deployed it.
These results echo one year’s results Prosight investigation in which:
- 30% of financial institutions said they were already using AI
- 33% said they planned to use AI in 2025
- 24% said they did not intend to use AI
Although generating AI is more recent to financial institutions, Roberson stresses that artificial intelligence underpins many of the other main technological priorities, including data analysis and cybersecurity, where banks have long used automatic learning for model recognition.
For more recent AI applications as well as investments in digital transformation, in particular among smaller and rural banks, Roberson says that there is more than one “wait” approach, because managers focus on other means of stimulating efficiency and increasing deposits.
“Community banks simply do not know where they are going to make the most of them for their money with additional expenses,” explains Roberson. “They are curious to know things like AI and digital transformation, but I hear the term” dry powder “all the time. They wait to deploy it once they see the areas where other banks succeed. ”
Reach the limits of the inherited basic infrastructure
While banks consider that their technological roadmaps in the future, Rangachari says that digital transformation should lead everything else, from risk management to cybersecurity to customer experience to data analysis.
“At one point, if you do not transform your inherited technology, it is starting to limit your ability to invest in other areas,” he explains. “This cost will continue to exacerbate the problem because a higher risk perceived (transformation) often leads to inaction while banks have trouble recruiting new talents to work on inherited technology.”
Roberson is suitable: “Banks are very limited to what they can do with their inherited nuclei. There has been a large push for the main suppliers to develop at least one API, so that banks can be more innovative with auxiliary products and services. ”
Large banks pour billions into innovation and modernization with the challenge to know where to concentrate these dollars for the greatest strategic impact, says Rangachari. At the other end of the spectrum are community banks and credit cooperatives which are often limited by limited budgets, based on solid local relationships and in search of end -to -end solutions which can provide efficiency and value without excessive resources.
Regional banks are taken between the two because they must compete with the digital muscle of national players while trying to preserve the personal service that distinguishes them, he continues.
A regional bank working with Temenos begins its basic modernization with the commercial banking platform – its primary growth area. By building a modern foundation, the bank plans to gradually modernize its inherited retail systems, aligning the transformation with its strategic priority for obtaining commercial market.
A large bank attacks the transformation of a solution to one point at a time, gradually replacing obsolete functions without disturbing central operations. In both cases, the approach reflects a growing trend: align technological investment with strategy, not just the replacement of infrastructure, according to Rangachari.
This “progressive modernization” is less risky and requires less initial investment than large -scale replacement. A progressive approach also gives banks the possibility of pre -empting problems.
For example, data mapping is an important point of pain for most modernization projects. The AI plays a big role in the aid to banks to map data more effectively while identifying the dead angles or the disorders areas, explains Rangachari.
Take the way to follow: customers on products
“The efficiency of your staff is directly linked to the quality of your IT service and your support. You must first get this piece, ”adds Dress. “If that is done well, strong computer support improves the efficiency of banks, and from there, you can invest with confidence in new technologies. It is difficult to generalize in all banks, but investments that accelerate loans, boarding or deposits are almost always chargeable.”
In the end, the investment in technology that will stimulate the return on investment depends on who your customers are and what they need, whether it is the supply of accounting software within the framework of your small businesses, tools for forecasting cash flow suitable for cultivated cycles and equipment purchases or pre-approved loan options depending on the age of the automobile.
“This is the change: a proactive and personalized commitment fueled by the analysis,” explains Rangachari. “It’s not about having the data. This is what you do with it. ”
Digital transformation is not only to refresh the front. “You can’t transform a single layer,” he continues. “Your data is probably partitioned, and this is the real cost of not modernizing the nucleus or approaching transformation in a holistic way.”
Which focuses on data integration and personalized value delivery is aligned with broader trends in industry. In his latest analysis of the banking priorities of 2025, Accenture emphasizes the need to move from a model focused on the product to the one who puts customer relations at the center.
“The new technology will not only allow (banks) to better understand individual customers; It will also allow them to provide personalized advice and experiences, and to adapt offers to their specific needs, ”writes Michael Abbott, principal director of Global Banking Died at Accenture.
To achieve the return on investment for technological investments, banks must decompose the technological and cultural silos that undermine efficiency and customer information.
The gain? A deeper commitment, a stronger loyalty and a higher life value of customers, which will be essential advantages because the banks are faced with continuous uncertainty and are preparing for.
LORAINE DEBONIS is a contributor writer for Bai.