Banking trends to watch in 2026

As we head into the second half of the decade, several emerging trends will come to the fore in 2026.  One trend that began gaining traction this year – and will continue to be a strong current throughout 2026 – is the shift from customer-first banking to human-first banking. This relates to the concept of ethical banking, which focuses on creating financial services that have a positive social and environmental impact.

Human-first banking aims to get even closer to the customer by understanding their actual human needs, rather than just consumer needs. For example, a bank should be acting as a coach to improve a customer’s financial health, not solely as an advisor on which products they should buy. Banks can build trust in a digital world through tailored and empathetic interactions, effectively simulating the experience customers formerly had with their personal banker.

To attain that level of hyper personalization, banks will need to be capable of processing vast amounts of transactional data, which can only be accomplished by deploying AI and big data tools. This requirement, in turn, will turbocharge progressive modernization, another trend that has been bubbling under the surface for the past few years.

Traditional banks are using progressive modernisation to deal with legacy infrastructure that is not fit for purpose in a digital-first, AI-driven world. Instead of a big bang replacement of core banking systems, which is risky and potentially take years, banks are creating change from within existing architecture and leveraging technologies that support a multi-core strategy. With this approach, they can add new cores for specific products that require greater agility and innovation. Modern cores are necessary for deploying the latest AI and big data tools because they provide a unified, real-time data foundation to deliver hyper personalization.

Fraud threats

Fraud will remain a top concern throughout 2026, as adversaries use AI to expand the range of techniques, such as impersonation scams and identity theft, as well as accelerate and scale fraudulent activity.

According to the UK Finance Half Year Fraud Report 2025, £629.3 million was stolen by criminals in the first six months of this year, and there were 2.09 million confirmed cases across both authorised and unauthorised fraud. Card not present cases rose 22% to 1.65 million and accounted for 58% of all unauthorised fraud losses. However, the good news is that there was a 21% increase in prevented card fraud in the first half of this year. The £682 million which was stopped from being stolen is the highest-ever figure reported.

To combat fraud, new and improved tools to help banks identify, verify and onboard customers will come to market in 2026. The move away from paper-based identity (ID) and widespread adoption of digital ID will play a key role in the fight against fraud, hence the UK government’s recently announced plans to roll out a new digital ID scheme.

In addition, I expect to see a fundamental shift in fraud detection using real-time behavioural analytics, data analytics for proactive risk identification, and other applications of AI and machine learning in this space.

Digital assets and stablecoins

Digital ID verification is also essential for fighting fraud in the digital assets and stablecoins space, another hot topic at several banking and payments industry conferences last year.

In 2026, digital assets and stablecoins will become much more mainstream. Banks have left the sidelines and are now actively engaged, running pilots, etc. For example, in September a consortium of nine European banks, including CaixaBank, ING and UniCredit, announced an initiative to launch a euro-denominated stablecoin.

With central banks and regulators developing a comprehensive agenda for digital assets, banks will need to blend traditional fiat currencies and assets with their digital counterparts. This trend is also driving a progressive modernisation approach, as legacy core banking systems weren’t designed to manage digital assets, nor do they support moving money via blockchain-based rails. I expect to see more banks looking to deploy a multi-core strategy where digital assets are managed and stored elsewhere, but they can still provide a seamless and unified experience to customers.

GenAI applications

No 2026 predictions piece would be complete without mentioning generative AI (GenAI), which dominates almost every conversation. But let’s cut through the hype and look at how far the banking industry has come.

Last year, I predicted that the industry would adopt a ‘meet-in-the-middle’ approach to GenAI, with banks beginning to uncover the real value that the technology can deliver. I also predicted consolidation, recalibration and stabilisation in the market.

My predictions held true, by and large. In 2025, institutions explored what is possible, relevant and achievable within the banking context, then specifically for each individual institution within its legacy architectures and technological environments.

This trend will evolve into more practical actions and initiatives over the next 12 months to provide greater clarity around where GenAI shines versus where it’s not applicable.

To gain clarity, it’s important to understand the difference between AI and GenAI. The latter is built on stochastic principles, which uses probability to model systems that appear to vary in a random manner. This means that the same input could potentially generate different outputs – this isn’t acceptable for automated financial operations, which requires much more determinism. Hence, I believe that GenAI will be used chiefly in scenarios where there’s human intervention. The interconnectedness among these trends is also noteworthy, with artificial intelligence (AI) and progressive modernisation acting as common threads.

One area where GenAI is applicable is in conversational applications. For example, banks will begin launching more interactive user interfaces, where customers will be able to interact with the bank as they would a human, moving beyond simple, frequently asked questions to actual actions.

Similarly in the back office, banks can leverage GenAI to provide guidance to their employees and accelerate certain tasks. Using the technology to improve efficiency and help staff do more will have a positive impact on customer experience, as processes will take much less time.

It will also help to bring unbanked segments or non-standard customers, which are difficult and costly to onboard because they require a bespoke assessment, into regulated financial services. Applying GenAI can make the bespoke process much more efficient by providing data-driven insights to support faster and smarter decision-making. This will make it much cheaper to serve these segments, including smaller and medium-sized enterprises, which will drive financial inclusion and improve customers’ financial health.

Stay Ahead of the Financial Curve with Our Latest Fintech News Updates!