2025 Year in Review: What This Year Revealed About the Future of Banking

Last year, I gave ChatGPT the articles I wrote during the year and asked it to write a “year in review” style article. It was pretty good, so I did the same this year. This article is the result of that.

This year, a clear pattern emerged across my writing. Whether the topic was digital platforms, commercial banking, marketing, or technology priorities, the underlying message was the same: banking is no longer being reshaped at the margins. It is being redefined at its core by rising expectations, sharper competition, and a narrowing window for incremental change.

Across four articles published this year, I explored different facets of that shift. Together, they tell a broader story about where banks are falling behind, where they are overcorrecting, and where disciplined focus can still create durable advantage.

The Platform Problem Is Really an Experience Problem

One of the most persistent issues facing banks today is the assumption that a single digital platform can serve every customer segment equally well. In practice, most digital banking investments over the last decade were optimized for retail consumers. Commercial, small business, and affluent customers were expected to adapt.

They are no longer willing to do so.

In writing about the platform problem, I argued that the challenge is not simply technical. It is strategic. Banks want to serve multiple segments with shared infrastructure, but without breaking either the experience or the organization. Too often, the result is a compromised middle ground where no segment is truly well served.

The solution is not fragmentation. It is intentional platform design. Banks need unified foundations that can support differentiated journeys, workflows, and service models. This requires thinking beyond channels and features and instead designing around customer context, complexity, and scale from the start.

Commercial Banking Has Entered a Modernization Race

Those expectations are especially visible in commercial banking. Retail digital experiences have quietly reset the bar, and business clients now expect the same clarity, speed, and self-service in their financial tools.

The race to modernize commercial banking is not being driven by novelty. It is being driven by necessity. Fintech firms and non-bank platforms are targeting specific pain points with focused, intuitive solutions. Large banks are investing aggressively. The gap is widening for institutions that delay.

What stood out most in examining this space is that modernization is not just about replacing systems. It is about rethinking how commercial banking works. Relationship management, onboarding, treasury services, and credit workflows all need to operate as part of a cohesive digital experience. Without that cohesion, even strong products struggle to scale.

Importantly, this is not a large bank only problem. Regional and community banks can compete, but only if they avoid replicating the fragmented approaches that created the current challenges.

Digital Marketing Is No Longer a Separate Discipline

Another theme that surfaced this year is the growing disconnect between how banks market themselves and how customers actually experience them.

Traditional digital marketing models focus heavily on acquisition. Funnels, campaigns, and lead generation still matter, but they are no longer sufficient. Customers judge banks based on what happens after the click. If onboarding is clunky, if personalization is shallow, or if engagement fades after account opening, marketing spend is effectively wasted.

In writing about the need to rethink digital marketing, I emphasized that marketing must be tightly integrated with the product and experience layers. Messaging, offers, and journeys should reflect real customer behavior and real capabilities. When marketing promises exceed operational reality, trust erodes quickly.

The most effective banks are treating marketing as part of the experience, not a precursor to it.

Technology Discipline Matters More Than Ever

If experience is the destination, technology is still the vehicle. One of the risks I explored this year is how easily banks can lose focus when prioritizing technology investments.

In reviewing bank technology priorities, the contrast was clear. Some capabilities consistently deliver value, including cybersecurity, cloud modernization, real time payments, data platforms, and practical applications of AI. Others attract attention disproportionate to their near-term impact.

This does not mean banks should avoid innovation. It means they should apply discipline. Technology strategy should be grounded in measurable outcomes, operational resilience, and the ability to adapt over time. Chasing trends without clear use cases only adds complexity to already strained environments.

The banks that are winning are not necessarily adopting the most technology. They are adopting the right technology, in the right sequence, with clear accountability.

What This Year Made Clear

Looking back across these articles, several themes consistently emerged.

Customer expectations are converging across segments. Retail, commercial, and affluent clients increasingly expect the same level of digital competence, even if their needs differ.

Fragmentation is the enemy of scale. Whether in platforms, marketing, or operations, disconnected systems undermine both experience and efficiency.

Speed now matters as much as size. Banks no longer have the luxury of multi-year transformation cycles without visible progress.

Discipline beats hype. Clear priorities and execution matter more than chasing every new idea.

Looking Ahead

As banks move into the next year, the challenge will not be identifying what needs to change. That part is becoming obvious. The harder work lies in making deliberate choices, aligning teams around shared goals, and executing with consistency.

The opportunity remains significant. Banks that invest in flexible platforms, modern commercial experiences, integrated marketing, and pragmatic technology strategies can still build strong, defensible positions.

What this year reinforced for me is that the future of banking will not be defined by bold vision statements alone. It will be defined by how well institutions translate that vision into everyday experiences that actually work.