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News and resources on retail banking, consumer finance and reinventing customer experience in finance.

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Expert opinions

Viacheslav Kostin

Viacheslav Kostin CEO at WislaCode Solutions

Neobanks vs Traditional Banks: Digital Innovation and Sustainable Finance Reshaping Banking

Digital-first banking is transforming financial services through sustainability, personalisation, and accessibility. Discover how neobanks are redefining customer expectations. The financial services landscape is experiencing a fundamental shift. Neobanks have emerged as agile, technology-driven alternatives that prioritise customer experience, ...

/payments /retail Innovation in Financial Services

Nikunj Gundaniya

Nikunj Gundaniya Product manager at Digipay.guru

The Future of Contactless Payments: What Every Bank Should Watch in 2026

Imagine your customer walking into a pharmacy. They pick up their medicines, tap their phones at the counter, and complete payment before the queue even moves. Your customers now expect this speed in payment everywhere. A recent study by Statista shows contactless payments will cross $8 trillion in global volume by 2026, and the shift is accele...

/retail /inclusion

Cliff Bunting

Cliff Bunting Director at PurplePatch Broking Ltd

2026 and the Exposure of “Standard” Credit Bureau Pricing

Lenders are examining their credit data costs with more scrutiny than at any point in the past decade. After years of routine renewals and inherited terms, many organisations are now finding large differences in what they pay compared with similar institutions. In some cases, the variance reaches several million pounds over a single contract term....

/regulation /retail Banking

Ben Goldin

Ben Goldin Founder and CEO at Plumery

Banking trends to watch in 2026

The interconnectedness among several emerging trends in 2026 is noteworthy, with artificial intelligence (AI) and progressive modernisation acting as common threads. One trend that will continue gaining momentum throughout 2026 is the shift from customer-first to human-first banking, which aims to get even closer to the customer by understanding t...

/retail /predictions

Utsav Shah

Utsav Shah CEO at Kaaj

The Age of Agentic AI: Why Small Business Lending Needs More Than Just Automation

While much of the financial industry’s AI conversation has focused on large language models and basic automation, Utsav Shah explores what comes next: agentic AI systems that can reason, produce decision ready analysis, and take action across workflows and why they’re essential to solving the economics of small-dollar business lending. Generative

/ai /retail Banking and Lending Solutions

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Trending

Cliff Bunting

Cliff Bunting Director at PurplePatch Broking Ltd

2026 and the Exposure of “Standard” Credit Bureau Pricing

Ben Goldin

Ben Goldin Founder and CEO at Plumery

Banking trends to watch in 2026

Bo Harald

Bo Harald Chairman/Founding member, board member at Trust Infra for Real Time Economy Prgrm & MyData,

We have started with WHY. Now the HOW is becoming easy..

/retail

Research

Impact Study

Case Management: The key to revolutionising cross-border payments

While the challenges of case management and inefficient E&I processes are not new, the need to address them is more pressing than ever – especially given the G20’s roadmap deadline and the impending global migration to ISO 20022.  In today’s digital era, end-users expect payments to be faster, cheaper and more convenient than ever before – whether domestic or cross-border. As global payment barriers are overcome, banks are tasked not only with meeting customer demands, but business and regulatory ones too.  Enhanced cross-border payments – as supported by the G20’s roadmap and the richer data that ISO 20022 provides – are becoming a real differentiator, with the capability to unlock tremendous value for institutions. However, while a lot of attention is paid to seamless transactions, one area has historically been overlooked: exceptions and investigations (E&I).  This continues to present a significant challenge for both payment providers and corporates, and is impacting numerous networks and technologies. Yet, if harnessed effectively, E&I tools can help institutions significantly reduce costs, speed up processing times, improve transparency and, by extension, satisfy the G20’s targets.  This Finextra impact study, in partnership with Swift, explores:  The advantages of effective E&I processes;  Why solutions are needed to reach the next level; and  How banks can effectively embed them in their infrastructures. 

317 downloads

Impact Study

Reimagining customer journeys: How can banks upscale experience and boost retention?

To stay competitive and better serve their customer base, financial institutions (FIs) must urgently reimagine their customer journeys — from onboarding to the broader lifetime experience — or risk facing a hit to their market share. Technology has significantly transformed the financial services industry, particularly over the last five years. Challenger banks and fintech firms have rapidly gained popularity thanks to their ability to offer fast, simple, digital services. According to data from Plaid, nearly nine out of 10 consumers were using a fintech application in 2023. This percentage will continue to grow.  Financial institutions (FIs) must urgently reimagine their customer journeys or risk facing a hit to their market share. Indeed, today’s customers are more likely than ever to switch primary banking relationships if they do not receive the services they are looking for. Young, digital natives continue to shape this market, with research revealing that 44% of Gen Z customers have changed their primary banking relationship in the last 12 months. The call to competition cannot be ignored.  But how can FIs innovate to meet these demands, while simultaneously running legacy systems? This Finextra impact study, in association with Hyland, explores how financial institutions can:  Reinvent onboarding and Know-Your-Customer (KYC) processes;  Upscale the overall customer journey;  Look to artificial intelligence (AI) for product enhancement and integration; and  Present real-world case studies for each of these objectives. 

351 downloads

Impact Study

NextGen retail banking: A roadmap to successful modernisation

Learn why retail banks must transition to modern, composable, future-ready infrastructures today – and how they can devise journeys that are tailored as well as cost-effective. A significant portion of the retail banking landscape still relies on legacy systems, some of which can be costly and hamper innovation. According to a report from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), 58% of the UK’s financial services firms use legacy infrastructure for some operations, while 33% depend on it for most of their activities. In North America, the picture is similar, with around 40% of US banks still using the Common Business-Oriented Language (COBOL) – a coding language dating back to 1959. Some surveys indicate that up to 70% of bank IT budgets are spent on maintaining these legacy systems.   Today, with rapidly evolving consumer demands, technological advancements, stiff competition, and regulatory upheaval, outdated infrastructures are no longer tenable – and risk negatively impacting banks’ efficiency, agility, and customer experiences. So, how can retail banks modernise, while controlling costs and ensuring minimal impact on day-to-day business applications?   This Finextra impact study, produced in association with Oracle, analyses:  The key challenges of legacy banking systems  How to draw up a tailored roadmap for modernisation  How to quantify progress and measure success 

386 downloads

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FinextraTV

Mutual Understanding: How Partnership is More Than Just a Supplier Relationship

Describing the current industry as on the cusp of something generational, Simon Broadley, CEO, Furness Building Society spoke at SBS Summit in Paris about the growing importance of quality partnerships. Broadley described how organisations are beginning to understand how it is not feasible to build what they need in-house and are frequently turning to outsourcing these skills and competencies to 3rd party suppliers. Broadley describes these partnerships as more than just a supplier relationship and now requires a deeper, mutual understanding of objectives, missions, and ambitions.

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Long reads

Hamish Monk

Hamish Monk Senior Reporter at Finextra

How can banks improve their onboarding processes?

In a report published by UK Finance in January 2025, the trade association stated that in an “increasingly competitive and congested financial services industry, with legacy banks and fintechs going head to head, improving the customer onboarding experience is key for those serious about growth.” Onboarding is the process by which financial insti...

Stephanie Storry

Stephanie Storry Consultant at PSE Consulting

How will UK BNPL regulation impact merchants?

Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) has quickly become a retail staple in the UK. With consumers increasingly seeking flexible payment options, BNPL services have surged in popularity, promising an easy way to split payments into bite-sized chunks. But with this growth comes a growing wave of regulatory attention around rising default levels and consumer pr...

Sehrish Alikhan

Sehrish Alikhan Reporter at Finextra

Solving modern KYC challenges

In today’s digital age, banking is expected to be seamless, frictionless, and to make it plain and simple: easy. However, with a constantly shifting regulatory landscape, increased demand for hyper-personalisation and desire to be digital – financial institutions have obstacles to overcome to keep up with consumer demand. A pain point in the digit...