Navigating the Future: Operationalizing Business and Technology Trends for Financial Services in 2025

It’s that time again, when financial services firms (and their peers and competitors) are looking at the new year. They’re considering how to keep up with and implement technologies that will help them thrive.

To provide context about the potential impact of the many technologies available, Celent’s analysts prepared the annual Technology Trends Previsories series to help financial institutions make faster, more-informed tech decisions. A previsory—a portmanteau combining pre-view and ad-visory—delivers a view of financial services technology trends that Celent clients should have on their radar.

Let’s take a look at some of the recurring themes that became clear through the seven live previsory webinars (now available on-demand) and the accompanying previsory reports. Each identifies and builds on five key business and technology trends anticipated for the industry in 2025. The webinars and reports, linked in the table below, are chock-full of additional insights from Celent’s technology strategy team. We hope you’ll explore these materials in more depth.

As Zil Bareisis, our head of retail and payments, put it during the Retail Banking session, the webinars (and this post) are like a “whistle-stop tour,” providing just the top-level highlights of the robust materials and specific recommendations detailed in each of the previsory reports. Here, I’d like to call attention to some of the recurring themes that financial institutions should note in order to successfully implement their technology initiatives in 2025 and beyond.

Data management is more important than ever.

Knowing what “good” looks like in data management requires focused efforts and clear understanding of each industry’s needs. But regardless of the industry, the theme is clear: data management is more important than ever in financial services. The message came across in various ways: Break down data silos. Strengthen data analytics. Improve data sharing for safer transactions. Know how data is being used and how it’s kept private.

The need to get data management and data governance under control, especially with compliance and regulatory needs in mind (including those around data privacy and data locations), is particularly timely. The EU’s Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) will be applicable as of January 17, 2025.

Use the right artificial intelligence (AI) tool for the job.

Generative AI (GenAI) has been the subject of much attention in the past year. It’s gaining ground and moving well beyond large language models (LLMs). This “transformer technology,” as Neil Katkov, a director in our global Risk practice, highlighted, must be looked at comprehensively in order to understand its broad potential, such as LLMs, LLMs paired with machine learning (ML), agentic/multi-agent systems, and quantitative foundation models.

It's also important to keep in mind that AI and GenAI aren’t synonyms. The uses of AI go well beyond GenAI. A comprehensive view of artificial intelligence (including “classic” forms of AI) is essential in order to scale it across a financial institution. Selecting the right AI tool for your desired use case is important, both for delivery and in terms of return on investment (ROI).

FIs shouldn’t underestimate the costs associated with solution development, especially if GenAI skills need to be integrated into business processes. AI use cases will most successful if built on a strong foundation that can help avoid creating future technical debt. AI opportunities will be strongest when the use case is clearly defined, the data availability is assessed, ethical AI and data policy compliance are assessed, AI tool options are evaluated clearly, the technical requirements (e.g., infrastructure, scale, expertise) are considered thoroughly, the testing requirements and success factors are determined, and when cost and ROI are fully analyzed.

Get rid of silos.

We heard this advice in webinar after webinar: get rid of silos. Though perhaps not explicitly a technology trend, it’s a best business practice to get rid of the structural separations within an FI that can prevent cross-functional collaboration, complicate technology implementations, make them more costly, and negatively impact the overall customer experience.

As Monica Summerville, head of Celent’s Capital Markets practice, detailed, with technologies converging, the need to remove silos is clearer than ever. Cloud is emerging as a technology enabler. As other emerging technologies come together—AI and blockchain, quantum and blockchain, AI and quantum, for example—there’s an enhanced need for de-siloing not only data and tech stacks, but for de-siloing tech thinking. Teams that come together to work on tech initiatives can help ensure effective innovation and operationalize it.

Focus on your users.

Perhaps above and beyond all the technology specifics, FIs must always remain focused on their users. This includes customers and clients; it also includes staff.

Our previsories repeatedly highlight this theme. The terminology may vary or refer to multiple various elements of the process—the customer experience (CX), customer service, the value proposition, client-centric design, user-friendly dashboards, design thinking (focusing on workflows and the customer journey)—but each mention illustrates the importance of keeping users’ needs at the center of technology implementations.

Why are you selecting a tool? What will the outcome be for the user? How can effective tech initiatives best serve your relationships—and, ideally, strengthen retention and ROI? As Harry Huberty, senior analyst in our North America insurance practice, highlighted: everyone in a company can focus on innovation with a customer-first perspective.

Access all 2025 edition previsory webinars and reports

To access the on-demand versions of Celent’s Technology Trends Previsory 2025 webinars (approx. 45–60 minutes each), where Celent clients may also download the accompanying reports.

Connect with Celent

We hope that this series of webinars and reports expands your horizons and sparks new ideas. To set up a meeting with one of Celent’s analysts, please message us.