Speed, Proof, Trust: The 2025 Banking Playbook Hurtles into 2026

Key Takeaways from This Blog:

• AI must be governed, not avoided. Leading institutions are formalizing AI roadmaps, agent policies, and pilots to scale efficiently while managing risk, bias, and accountability, using AI to grow revenue, not just cut costs.

• Deposits are being rebuilt around real-time and digital fluency. Instant payment rails paired with digitally enabled universal bankers create stickier relationships, proactive attrition management, and more resilient, relationship-priced deposits.

• Winning engagement means focusing on lifetime relationships, not transactions. Banks that invest in data, analytics, and multigenerational journeys, teaching before selling and delivering utility at key life moments, outperform those competing on price alone.

Well, another strategic planning season is in the books (over +20 years of doing this), and it's been quite a good time. Thanks to all the community banks and credit unions who had me in their shops this year, and to all the folks I met at conferences, building plans and executing strategy. The discussions were, as always, robust and increasingly aimed at addressing the inertia and status quo that can dominate daily life at a financial institution.

During this time of reflection, it is worthwhile to take a moment and share some of the headline themes that we've hashed through in this season.  It wasn’t a calm year, but we did get some greater clarity on the longer-term emerging issues, like the generational shift and the primacy of digital strategy, and on what banking leaders focused on to deal with the tumult and disruption in their business.

Here’s what we discussed and a few commitments I saw:

1) AI Governance & the World of Agents

• Adopt an AI roadmap with model catalogs, vendor due diligence, bias testing, and fair lending overlays.
• Approve an agent payments policy (consent artifacts, auditability, liability waterfall, reversal rights).
• Launch a controlled pilot in‑house; measure fraud lift, Opex saves, and revenue substitution.
• Reduce duplicative and redundant operating processes held together with tribal knowledge, retire legacy account types, and consolidate vendors, but pair it with revenue per dollar spent targets. You can’t cut your way to high performance.

AI is already here, so build your place in it.  Think of it as an unprecedented opportunity to scale our business differently.  Imagine doubling your size against the same level of expense and generating new revenue sources.

2) Instant Rails + Universal Banker = Deposits, Redesigned

• Certify use cases, then train “digital universal bankers” to originate, resolve, and move funds cross-channel with screenshare and e-signature as defaults.
• Stand up real-time payments and relationship pricing tied to multiproduct depth; create reverse tier savings for resilience; expand upper tier structures for affluent households.
• Institute deposit attrition triggers and intervene before the ACH outflow hits.

Consumers and businesses will seek out real-time payment options that support their finances.  They should be able to get this from us. We can win here if we prudently leverage our inherent trust in this new tool set.

3) Redefine Engagement

• Get your data and analytics strategy built out now! Measure funded balances and long run cross sell, not just applications or new customers/members. Set targets for how relationships should look, train and measure effectiveness, then tweak but do not abandon the effort.
• Launch multigenerational programs and life event journeys that reach: parents with kids near +10 for payments/financial education tools; + 30–35 year-olds for home buying knowledge; +60 for home equity tools to manage retirement and asset transfers. Focus on advocacy like never before to protect and nurture relationships.

Bottom line: 2025 rewarded institutions that are embracing the speed of change that the world now requires.  They understood their audience, taught before they sold, delivered utility at the moment of need, and wrapped automation in governance. The next cycle will not be won by price alone. It will be won by relationship utility, operational clarity, and the courage to focus on a few priorities early.