Community banks and credit unions face rising delinquencies, margin pressure, and a disconnect with young consumers. As M&As accelerate, institutions must modernize tech and retain local trust to survive.

Our midyear report revisits the top trends we named in early 2025 to see what’s shaping the market, evolving fast, or fading in the rearview mirror.

As consumers turn to fintechs and payment providers for timely, solution-based support, banks are losing relevance. Staying in the game means shifting from product pushing to customer-led journeys.

GenAI gives banks unprecedented tools to create a more personalized experience for their customers, but some use cases are easier to implement than others.

Mass affluent consumers are a $177.2 trillion global market that banks have struggled to serve. Now emerging technologies are finally enabling them to capture this lucrative demographic.

Generative AI has ample applications within financial services over a three-year horizon, with payments the most promising sector because of its breadth of potential use cases.

ChatGPT is the talk of 2023. In the banking industry, generative AI technology has promising use cases in marketing and customer service, and it has the potential to make machine learning applications more accurate and efficient.

The Web3 opportunity is real, but it’s tempered by misconceptions and little-understood risks. Financial services providers must first understand what Web3 really means to avoid disintermediation by fintechs and first-mover incumbents.