AI is becoming part of the operational backbone, AI agents are making autonomous decisions, stablecoins are reshaping payments, and a historic transfer of assets is putting wealth management to the test. In six theses, Matthias Lais and Kai Werner show how the role of the bank will change in 2026 – from product provider to financial infrastructure in a world of humans and AI agents.
Hard to believe, but the year is almost over again, even though it feels like it only just started. So much has happened in banking this year that time has simply flown by. Now it’s time to pause, sort through what we’ve experienced and look ahead: Which developments will shape banking in the year to come?
We – Matthias and Kai – have the privilege, as the leadership duo of neosfer, of working every day at the intersection of technology, regulation, startups, and banking practice.
For 2026, we expect the next evolutionary stage in banking’s digital transformation. In AI in particular, the technology is leaving the experimental stage and starting to visibly change processes and business models across the industry. Stablecoins are demonstrating that blockchain technology has now found a robust use case in financial services – one that can finally overshadow the shady reputation of many earlier crypto projects. Quantum computers still won’t be something you can just order online in 2026, but their future capabilities are already casting a long shadow. And then there’s the demographic angle: the largest intergenerational wealth transfer in history will fundamentally change who we are actually building the banking of the future for.
So here they are: our six Banking Trends for 2026.
Over the past three years, AI has been omnipresent in banking. It started with lots of slide decks about potential and was shaped by proof-of-concepts or demo environments. In 2026, the focus will shift: AI will move up a league and become a broad part of the bank’s operational infrastructure.
Concretely, that means that in more and more institutions we’ll see AI not just at isolated touchpoints, but across entire value chains – from software development and fraud prevention/fighting to onboarding and lending, all the way through risk, compliance, reporting, and operations. Terms like “AI fabric” or “AI platform,” which surfaced for the first time this year, will become more common next year. They describe the target state of an AI infrastructure that is provided centrally and that business units can access like a shared toolkit.
We see three key patterns:
The natural entry point for implementing AI in a bank is dedicated, clearly scoped pilot projects. But as soon as pilot projects #2 and #3 follow, one thing becomes obvious: “Uh-oh, we’re building ourselves 20 more silos. What we actually need is a shared data, model, and governance layer.”
In 2026, the pressure will grow to prove the impact of AI not just qualitatively but quantitatively. It will no longer be enough to say that the customer experience is better – what’s needed are hard numbers: for example, minutes saved per case, changes in staffing needs in certain processes, lower fraud losses, or faster credit decisions. Only if the effects are measurable can banks decide which use cases to prioritize, scale, or potentially shut down.
AI infrastructure doesn’t just affect IT and a few early business units – it will increasingly change roles, skills, and control functions across the entire organization. The decisive factor for success is not just the new technologies but the people who work with them, are accountable for them, and develop them further. Their mindset, skills, and willingness to change remain the critical success factor.
The gap in the market will widen: On one side, banks that are moving ahead and operating AI as productive infrastructure. On the other, institutions that are still talking about pilot projects in 2026. The strategic question is shifting away from whether AI should be introduced at all to how deeply and how quickly banks integrate AI into their infrastructure.
AI agents have already been heavily discussed in the industry this year. With the help of AI, agents can make autonomous decisions and execute tasks within defined guardrails. That makes them much more than co-pilots, where humans still make the final call, and very different from today’s chatbots, which mainly answer questions and hold conversations. Of course, agents can also still be used to prepare human decisions.
In 2026, the first AI agents will become visible in banking. Agentic banking won’t be the new normal across the industry by the end of the year, but the disruption potential is so great that it’s worth watching these early developments very closely.
In banking, we see three specific roles for AI agents:
With players like Revolut and Lloyds, the first banks have announced plans to introduce agentic financial assistants that will be directly integrated into their apps. These assistants will help around the clock with tracking spending, budgeting, saving, and investment decisions. With personal financial agents, banks will be able to address customer segments with personalized offerings that were previously uneconomical to serve.
In wealth management and corporate banking, AI co-pilots will evolve over the course of next year from supporting a few narrow tasks into true agents: they will help relationship managers before and after client meetings by bringing together relevant client data and portfolios, highlighting opportunities and risks, and suggesting meaningful talking points.
Banks will gain their first hands-on experience with agents in 2026. They’ll define agent profiles, test different candidates, integrate selected agents into their processes, and develop them further – similar to recruiting and onboarding new team members. And agents will control other agents, creating multi-layered agent systems.
People in banks will learn how to work with AI agents – both with the agents that belong to their customers and with their own in-house agents.
While AI agents will enter banking somewhat cautiously at first, we’re likely to see new bots emerge much faster in online retail: shopping agents that compare products, summarize reviews, understand discount logics, and autonomously place and pay for orders. In the U.S., major platforms are already experimenting with such shopping agents, and there are strong signs that the first solutions will hit our markets next year as well. Once that happens, payments will gain a whole new playing field:
As soon as a shopping agent makes purchases – for example office supplies, consumables, or cloud resources – transactions are no longer triggered by a conscious click but by an automated process. The bank will see payments where the initiator is an agent, not a human.
Today, customers authenticate payments directly in the checkout and click the pay button themselves. In agentic scenarios, they grant a shopping agent a mandate upfront with budgets and merchant parameters. The bank’s main job becomes checking whether a payment falls within that mandate and its risk models.
With protocols such as the Agentic Commerce Protocol from OpenAI and Stripe, the first open standards are emerging for how agents, merchants, payment service providers, and banks can work together.
All of this will also change questions of liability. If an agent buys unwanted products or initiates payments, the question is which party is responsible in case of a dispute. 2026 will be a year in which merchants, payment networks, banks, and regulators will have to find the first practical answers to these questions – technically, legally, and in terms of customer communication.
For a long time, stablecoins were a niche topic in the crypto universe. With MiCAR – the EU regulation on crypto assets – and the first regulated issuers in Europe, one thing is now clear: they are becoming a relevant building block for cross-border payments as well as for treasury and cash management in multinational companies.
Even in 2025, stablecoins already had a firm place in our Banking Trends article as well as in our blog.
In 2026, there are three developments we’ll be watching especially closely:
Companies will increasingly use stablecoins to move liquidity globally – outside of traditional cut-off times and SWIFT windows. That creates opportunities for banks to actively support these flows: with custody, proprietary token solutions, or “stablecoin-as-a-service” offerings for corporate clients.
Example: Container ships are loaded and unloaded 365 days a year – including weekends. Each additional day at the dock can quickly cost six-figure sums. Today, timely payments sometimes fail because of cut-off times and bank holidays. These aren’t amounts where the captain can just walk over to the harbor master with a credit card. With stablecoins, such payments can be executed in seconds even on weekends, so that the ship can set sail on time.
For banks to play a role, they need to comply with MiCAR – from reserve management and redemption rights to supervisory requirements and reporting. That’s complex and costly, but it opens up the opportunity to redefine their role in digital payments. The continued high level of trust many customers place in their banks is a significant advantage when it comes to establishing stablecoins among customer segments that have so far mainly used established banking products.
If AI agents initiate purchases autonomously, they need fully digital payment rails. Stablecoins are a natural fit as digital-native payment rails for agentic commerce and give banks the opportunity to position themselves with agent-ready accounts, settlement services, and risk management.
We’re convinced: stablecoins will continue to drive significant change in payments in 2026. And wherever there is movement, new business opportunities emerge.
Quantum computers are not yet commercially available – but the risk they pose is already real. Under the banner of “harvest now, decrypt later,” attackers are already collecting encrypted data today and waiting for Q-Day: the day when powerful quantum computers will be available to decrypt this long-stored data.
For banks, this is particularly critical: many types of data – such as account and transaction histories, credit data, or communications – must remain confidential for decades. Regulators in several countries have therefore begun recommending that institutions switch to post-quantum cryptography (PQC): cryptographic schemes that are considered secure even against quantum attacks.
From our perspective, 2026 will bring three levels of action:
Strategically, institutions need to decide how to integrate PQC into their security and IT strategy – with a roadmap, budget, and clear accountability. Central to this is the question of which data being created today will still be sensitive on Q-Day in a few years and therefore needs additional protection already now.
Technically, it’s about “quantum readiness”: assessing whether existing protocols like TLS, VPNs, payment networks, or core banking connections would withstand quantum attacks. At the same time, the pressure is growing to make systems “crypto-agile,” so that algorithms can be swapped out flexibly in the future without having to rebuild everything from scratch each time.
Regulatorily and in terms of communication, we expect supervisors in 2026 to ask much more pointed questions about PQC strategies, especially for critical financial infrastructures. Those who are prepared will strengthen the trust of supervisors, partners, and customers alike.
Post-quantum security is not just an IT topic – it’s a question of long-term reputation and resilience for every bank.
Alongside technological and regulatory shifts, a historic wealth transfer is underway between generations. Estimates suggest that over the next two decades, more than 100 trillion US dollars in wealth will pass globally from the Silent Generation and Baby Boomers to Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z.
For banks and wealth managers, this is more than just a very large number:
Millennials and Gen Z have grown up with 24/7 services, platform economies, and user-centric interfaces. They expect their wealth management to run via apps, digital channels, and increasingly AI-supported advice.
Sustainability, impact, personal values, and individual goals play a bigger role. It’s not only about preserving wealth, but allocating it in line with personal convictions.
We expect a growing willingness to accept AI agents as the first point of contact for day-to-day financial questions, combined with human advisors for complex, life-changing decisions.
That’s why 2026 will be the year we need to start fundamentally rethinking wealth management offerings. Because let’s be honest: building contemporary client experiences with context and purpose is the work of years.
Looking across these six trends, we don’t see a random collection of topics – we see the contours of a new banking operating model: AI and AI agents form the bank’s cognitive infrastructure; they analyze, decide within defined guardrails, and support customers and employees in their daily work. Stablecoins and new protocols for agentic commerce create the transactional infrastructure, making money flows faster, programmable, and available around the clock. Post-quantum cryptography and secure identity and authorization solutions form the trust and security infrastructure, protecting data over the long term and making interactions between humans, machines, and agents reliable. Finally, the great wealth transfer signals an impending shift in wealth management: as wealth moves toward new generations, expectations of wealth managers shift with it.
That makes 2026 a year of positioning. Banks will decide whether they are perceived primarily as historically grown product landscapes or as living infrastructure for financial decisions in a world of humans and agents.
Our image for the coming year: wherever institutions succeed in aligning technology, regulation, and customer expectations, they will create robust foundations for the next decade. Banks that take this step now won’t just react to trends in 2026 – they will actively shape the banking of tomorrow.
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