How Financial Institutions Can Grow Amid Economic Uncertainty

Executive Summary

• Five ways to absorb shocks, capitalize on disruption, and accelerate growth.
• How younger accountholders and SMBs are reshaping deposits, payments, and revenue.
• What competitive advantage looks like now (pairing innovation with modern back-office orchestration).
  

In 2026 and 2027, two themes dominate the outlook for financial institutions: uncertainty and fragility.

Economic pressure, regulatory volatility, and political change are converging just as you’re expected to grow deposits, improve efficiency, and bridge the new hybrid fiat-crypto monetary environment. Those who will outperform in 2026 and 2027 are adopting antifragile strategies designed not only to withstand disruption – but to grow stronger because of it.

In uncertain times, returning to first principles and ‘known knowns’ can help you see and capture the opportunity disruption creates, position strategically for the future, and compete effectively.

Strategies to Attract and Grow Younger Accountholder Relationships

Gen Z is the most durable driver of financial services over the next 3–5 years.

They’re reshaping the industry through preferences for mobile-only banking experiences, real-time debit-card payments and innovative financial experiences. And they’re increasingly banking with fintechs, neobanks and payment apps that draw them in with earning potential that outstrips savings accounts and CDs.

But winning Gen Z isn’t just about adding more features – it’s about establishing trust early and converting that trust into lifetime value as income grows, assets accumulate, and businesses take shape.

What you can do:

• Restore generational continuity in digital channels with family banking technology – such as parent‑child co‑managed accounts – to attract and retain Gen Z and Gen Alpha relationships. A slowing economy and rising inflation means younger segments of Gen Z will be leaning on their Gen X parents for support. This provides an opportunity to facilitate that support with family banking services that bring Gen Z back to your institution.
• Gen Z anchors behaviorally and psychologically to wherever their money grows fastest – and it’s why Robinhood has been so successful with this cohort. Offer fractional-share investing capabilities (especially fractional-share rewards on debit card spend) to attract Gen Z but also position your institution to capture a portion of the $15T in wealth that will be transferring to this group over the next twenty years.

Strengthen SMB Deposit Growth With Modern Payment Strategies

Gen Z is driving most new small-business formation in the U.S., but many of these young sole-proprietors are camouflaged in retail checking accounts that do not provide the services needed to start, run or operate a small- or micro-business.

Most of these camouflaged small-business owners rely on third‑party apps to accept payments, but only $1 of every $8 collected through third-party apps finds its way back to your financial institution.

Every payment that bypasses your institution limits both deposits and data on your accountholders – limiting your ability to deepen, retain, and monetize relationships. To reclaim those deposits – and the data they generate – consider adding payment services to your mobile-app UX that make it easy and fast for small businesses to get paid.

What you can do:

• Serve accountholders accustomed to mobile‑first banking by enabling payment acceptance directly within your mobile banking apps.
• Leverage existing data in your core to pre-qualify accountholders and enable instant approval of mobile payment acceptance – something payment apps using “PayFac” models can’t do.
• Make it easy for Gen Z small-business owners to fund new accounts using money stored at third-party fintechs, neobanks and payments apps – and move money with real‑time, debit‑rail‑based payment options.
• All third-parties serving Gen Z issue debit cards, the preferred payment method of Gen Z. Allowing Gen Z to register competitors’ debit cards with you gives them the ability to move money across providers in one place (your mobile app and digital UX) and creates the opportunity to repatriate those deposits back to your institution over time. 

Use AI‑Augmented Relationship Banking to Deepen Trust and Improve the Quality and Speed of Personal Service

As AI becomes embedded across everyday apps and services, accountholders increasingly expect their financial institutions to use it to deliver smarter, more personal support. This creates a significant opportunity to move beyond reactive service toward predictive, individualized guidance that helps accountholders plan for life events, reach financial goals, and feel protected.

AI‑augmented personal service makes relationship‑based banking scalable. By equipping staff with AI, you can deliver better, faster, still‑personal service cost‑effectively – without sacrificing trust. Over time, this high‑quality personal service becomes more valuable, not less, and commands a concierge premium. The market is already proving it: companies like Coinbase charge hundreds of dollars per month for access to support.

What you can do:

• Equip your staff with AI agents as assistants to deliver premium, concierge‑level accountholder experiences that clearly differentiate your financial institution.
• Elevate the quality and speed of hyper-personal service at scale – strengthening trust and relationships by thoughtfully embracing AI.

Reclaim Financial Relationships Through Data

At best, most financial institutions have visibility into only 20% to 25% of their accountholders’ total financial lives.

This gap severely limits insight, personalization, relationship protection, and growth. Success today requires more than unifying, cleaning, and normalizing the data you already have. It demands aggregating the financial data you don’t have – data scattered across the average 10–15 financial apps and service providers with whom American adults have relationships.

To unlock advanced analytics, automation, and the most impactful AI use cases, you must first achieve Minimum Viable Data (MVD) on your accountholders – the essential foundation for delivering fully informed and actionable insights.

What you can do:

• Leverage the trust you’ve earned and be the first to ask your accountholders to aggregate their fragmented financial data back to your financial institution.
  
• Close critical data gaps by thoughtfully automating requests to aggregate your accountholders’ data – so you can better protect, understand, serve, and create meaningful value for your accountholders…and provide one place (your app or digital experience) in which they can see and manage all of their money.

Modernize Back‑Office Orchestration for the Hybrid Monetary Era

Digital banks, fintechs, and forward-thinking financial institutions have shown what operating on a modern tech stack can do, but the competitive bar is rising again. As money increasingly moves across traditional rails and emerging digital networks, front‑end innovation alone is no longer enough to sustain growth or differentiation.

The new hybrid monetary environment requires a new back‑office layer: a hybrid ledger that bridges foundational cores and decentralized networks. Sustainable advantage now comes from infrastructure‑enabled execution – technology and data platforms designed to orchestrate value seamlessly across both worlds. This hybrid approach reduces complexity, lowers operational risk, accelerates innovation, and positions financial institutions to operate confidently as monetary models, rails, and assets continue to evolve.

What you can do:

• Enable personalized, consistent experiences across both native channels and third-party platforms by decoupling your product and pricing capabilities from legacy silos.
  
• Develop product and personalization logic across all systems, accountholder journeys, and providers by focusing on strategic orchestration – which requires sourcing and coordinating data from disparate places in real-time.

Ready to lead with confidence?

Unlock the complete 2026 Strategy Benchmark to learn how top-performing financial institutions are driving growth, improving efficiency, and navigating uncertainty.