Dimensions: Retail Banking IT Pressures & Priorities 2025

The banking industry is undoubtedly in a period of change, one which is driving new commercial opportunities across a range of products and customer segments. However, banks also continue to face many challenges. Against the background of rising political and economic uncertainty, increasing competitive pressures, and a lengthening list of compliance requirements, financial institutions are under pressure to deliver more for customers at a greater pace – and at a lower cost – than ever before. At the same time, the urgency to invest in product development and support revenue and margin improvement is also growing. The combination of these factors is driving growth in technology investment across the board as banks look to deliver the greater agility and operational efficiency required to navigate today’s operating environment.

The plans and budgets of any individual bank will be driven by their own individual needs and priorities, but there are some important themes across the industry. The executives polled for Celent’s 2025 Dimensions study are clear that delivering on the need for greater resilience while also maintaining the pace of product development will lead the agenda this year. Digital account opening, broader enhancements to the digital channels, new payment services, and further taking advantage of the opportunities of open finance are all prominent areas to which many banks are allocating resources.

Underpinning this will be strong growth in the adoption of AI and advanced data analytics technologies (including GenAI), which will support a range of use cases across the front and middle office. In many cases, these projects will build on the investments made into data management through 2024. Digital identity and automation are also important focus areas, not least in supporting improvements to experiences in the digital channels. The further adoption of cloud services will be a common element through many of these projects.

To shed light on the business pressures and technology priorities of the industry, Celent has completed its latest global survey of senior executives at retail banks: The Celent Dimensions Survey 2025. This study captures the insights and opinions of 245 respondents to provide an in-depth view into attitudes across the industry, as well as highlighting the leading technology priorities for the year ahead and the products and processes that will see the greatest change.

Key findings from the research include:

• The operating environment remains challenging. At a global level, 53% of banks believe it is more challenging to win and retain customers than it was 12 months ago.
• Product development is high on the agenda. In total, 44% of banks report that investing to deliver enhanced products or propositions is one of the three most important drivers of their technology strategy.
• In response, growth in technology budgets is increasing. The executives surveyed in Celent’s Dimensions study indicated that IT spending will grow by 5.8% on average this year, while banks in North America report budget expansion of 6.3%. Expectations for 2026 are even more positive, with the industry expecting an average budget increase of 6.4%.
• The biggest single product-level priority this year is digital account opening, which is a priority for 36% of the market. Other top investment areas are digital channel enhancements, new payment services, and open finance.
• Underpinning this will be further investments in AI technologies. This is the single biggest area of technology investment for 29% of banks and will support a range of use cases across the front, middle, and back office. GenAI will continue to be an important element of the broader push towards greater use of data across the organisation, and 65% of banks plan to launch customer-facing services using the technology in 2025.