Traditional banks are facing increasing pressure from challenger banks, which are disrupting the financial sector with their innovative, tech-driven solutions. These digital-first competitors are offering faster, more convenient services that appeal to tech-savvy consumers who demand seamless banking experiences.
Traditional banks are facing increasing pressure from challenger banks, which are disrupting the financial sector with their innovative, tech-driven solutions. These digital-first competitors are offering faster, more convenient services that appeal to tech-savvy consumers who demand seamless banking experiences.
As a result, traditional banks are feeling threatened and must adapt quickly to avoid losing market share. To stay relevant, they must embrace digital transformation, accelerate their product offerings, and adopt modern technologies that enhance customer experience.
To understand what’s next for digital banking, we sat down with two experts, Maria José Gonçalves, the Head of Professional Service at ebankIT, and Vitor Moreira, the Lead Software Architect.
With years of experience working closely with financial institutions, they share their insights on the key technologies that will shape 2025 and beyond.
From cutting-edge design strategies to the technologies driving innovation, Maria José and Vitor provide valuable perspectives on how banks can enhance user experiences and stay competitive in an ever-evolving industry.
Maria José Gonçalves points out two key areas where neo-banks and other challengers excel over traditional banks. The first one is—client interaction. Their user interfaces and customer journeys are highly attractive, extremely user-friendly, and primarily mobile-focused. Everything is digital, they operate without physical branches.
The second crucial factor is their rapid delivery of new products to clients. Traditional financial institutions must speed up their time to market and present all products through digital channels in an attractive manner. Failing to do so will result in losing ground to challenger banks.
Gonçalves gives the example of launching a new product loan or a card, which usually takes one year to launch for more traditional banks while competitors can do it much faster.
Traditional financial institutions must step up and launch new products within three to four months if they desire to keep up with the competition.
Maria José Gonçalves also advises financial institutions to prioritize agility by utilizing platforms like ebankIT that enable quicker product launches.
AI is a crucial consideration for all financial institutions, with adoption necessary within the next year. It enhances customer engagement and communication, particularly through the use of chatbots and automated scripts.
Chatbots transform customer interactions by offering quick, precise, and conversational assistance. They manage routine inquiries like checking account balances or transaction histories and tackle more complex issues such as resolving credit card disputes or providing tailored financial advice.
By integrating seamlessly across apps, messaging platforms, and websites, chatbots create a cohesive banking experience that boosts efficiency and customer satisfaction.
The banking industry is currently facing numerous fraud challenges, and AI can assist in preventing and detecting suspicious activities to safeguard customers. By utilizing AI that learns user habits and cross-references this information with the extensive data banks possess, institutions can proactively alert customers and even halt transactions before funds are withdrawn from their accounts.
AI can also automate the extraction and verification of data from unstructured documents like loan applications, tax forms, and customer submissions. This capability accelerates workflows, reduces errors, and improves compliance with KYC and AML requirements. A mortgage provider, for example, can use AI to process applications faster, improving customer onboarding and operational efficiency.
A lot of financial institutions are considering cloud technology according to Maria José Gonçalves. It is a much more flexible approach in terms of deployment, and also offers different hosting models and service models that can help the financial institutions in driving innovation.
Investing in cloud-native, multi-layered digital core systems that emphasize continuous integration, modular deployment, and smooth third-party connectivity will guarantee scalability, flexibility, and real-time functionality.
Vitor Moreira emphasizes the significance of integrating a native-driven architecture with the development of microservices. Utilizing a cloud-native infrastructure and containerized environments allows for the efficient deployment and scaling of AI solutions.
By implementing CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment) pipelines, testing and updates are automated, ensuring AI models maintain security, compliance, and effectiveness as they grow.
This strategy will provide financial institutions with the best way to expand in this cloud-ready setting, enabling quicker customer interactions.
At ebankIT, we’ve been listening—and we’re ready to deliver.
Maria José Gonçalves states, "ebankIT has consistently been at the forefront of innovation. We are actively exploring ways to integrate AI into our platform. Our efforts are focused on various levels, beginning primarily with internal or back-end systems, which we refer to as back-office models."
Regarding cloud technology, ebankIT latest versions are designed for new deployment models that utilize the cloud, offering support and flexibility for all financial institutions due to our cloud-agnostic approach. This means ebankIT can operate on any cloud, whether private or public, based on the clients' preferences.
This approach will provide ebankIT customers with the best means to expand in a cloud-ready setting, improving their capacity for quicker interactions. From the beginning of the user's journey to the final product delivery, the process will be faster.
Explore more of the upcoming technologies that you should prioritize in 2025 by reading the complete Trends and predictions report.