AI reshapes competition in global banking
What if an artificial intelligence assistant could decide how to manage all your money?
Banking is closer to delegating the customer relationship than it may seem.
A growing sense of uncertainty is emerging among users who now check their finances on their smartphones and wonder who will actually be making the decisions in the future. This is not a minor concern: the relationship between people, money, and banks is entering a phase of rapid transformation driven by artificial intelligence.
The financial industry is experiencing a global turning point marked by the arrival of AI agents that are beginning to redefine how banks compete and engage with their customers.
According to Accenture’s Future of Banking Experience survey, a significant share of people globally — including in local markets — say they would be willing to use an “omnichannel” AI financial assistant to manage all their banking relationships.
Banking in transition.
This shift follows years in which digital wallets had already begun displacing part of the traditional payments experience, moving closer to becoming the main point of contact with users.
Now, with the rise of artificial intelligence, this trend could accelerate further, enabling financial services at the exact moment of need and reshaping the rules of the sector.
In this context, Juan Antonio García, Senior Client Account Executive responsible for relevant Financial Services clients in Colombia, notes:
“It won’t be long before customers can ask their favorite GPT engine a simple question: ‘Help me optimize the return on my available cash.’ That single prompt goes straight to the heart of the deposit business in the banking system.”
Over the past 25 years, fintech disruption has focused on replicating the traditional banking model, with limited results: no neobank has managed to rank within the global top 200 by assets.
However, the emergence of AI engines is beginning to structurally reshape the competitive landscape.
Fintech under pressure.
Unlike traditional search engines, where banks and financial services competed for visibility through links, AI models such as GPT engines process information on behalf of the user and deliver direct answers, reducing intermediaries in the digital experience.
This shift is also changing how institutions seek visibility in digital environments, in a phenomenon that is increasingly referred to as “top-of-prompt.”
In this new scenario, users are showing a greater willingness to delegate financial management to AI-based tools.
This forces financial institutions to rethink their strategy — from which products to keep under direct control to how to integrate into these ecosystems to remain relevant in recommendations.
Dual banking strategy.
On this point, García explains:
“Faced with this scenario, banks will need to move on two fronts. On the one hand, they must take an offensive position by developing their own AI capabilities, such as financial optimization engines integrated into their applications. On the other, they can explore partnerships with technology platforms that are already redefining the user experience.”
Some moves are already visible. Companies such as PayPal have advanced in integrations with OpenAI to enable payments within conversational assistants, while BBVA has developed solutions that allow users to explore financial products directly within environments such as ChatGPT.
From a defensive perspective, García adds that banks will need to redesign their experience with a more customer-centric approach, removing traditional silos between products such as deposits and credit, in order to build more integrated relationships that are less exposed to disintermediation by AI agents.
Customer-centric experience.
García also argues that:
“Evidence shows that people of all ages value having a nearby branch, especially for handling more complex issues. That is why banks must continue investing in these spaces, turning them into advisory centers, while fully digitizing day-to-day operations.”
Looking toward 2026, the financial sector is approaching a critical turning point.
Banks face the challenge of avoiding the loss of the banking experience to a new generation of technology players that no longer compete only on products, but on how every financial decision is made.
|
|
