Financial Services Forecast

Financial Services in 2026

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Forward-thinking financial services leaders are already preparing for what lies ahead.

Our team at SIS International Research works closely with financial institutions worldwide to identify emerging opportunities and address strategic challenges. We would like to share some key insights about what is driving change in your industry.

Success will depend on understanding the shifts happening across banking, insurance, and wealth management, and knowing how to act on them.

Table of Contents

Financial Services Forecast: Where Growth Capital Concentrates Next

The financial services forecast points to a structural reordering of profit pools. Margin is migrating from balance sheet intermediation to data-rich orchestration layers. The institutions capturing it share three traits: modernized core systems, tokenized payment rails, and disciplined participation in embedded finance distribution.

The opportunity is not abstract. It sits inside specific business lines that compound when leadership commits capital ahead of the cycle. The financial services forecast below identifies where that capital earns the highest return.

The Financial Services Forecast Favors Orchestrators Over Originators

Banks that win the next decade behave less like originators and more like orchestrators of money movement. ISO 20022 migration is the unlock. Richer payment messaging lets institutions price corridors, detect fraud, and reconcile receivables in ways the legacy MT formats could not support.

JPMorgan’s Onyx, Citi Token Services, and HSBC’s Orion have moved tokenized deposit and bond settlement from pilot to production. The strategic point is not the technology. It is that real-time gross settlement combined with programmable money compresses the working capital cycle for corporate clients, which justifies a premium on transaction banking fees.

According to SIS International Research, treasury executives at Fortune 500 corporates increasingly evaluate banking partners on payment hub architecture and ISO 20022 readiness rather than relationship tenure. The institutions that lead on these criteria are winning primary operating account share at a measurable premium.

Embedded Finance Distribution Is the Highest-ROI Channel

Embedded finance has matured from a fintech narrative into a serious distribution channel for incumbents. Goldman Sachs powering Apple Card, Stripe Treasury sitting on partner bank charters, and Adyen’s embedded acquiring inside Uber and eBay are the reference cases. Each shows the same pattern: the brand owns the customer, the bank owns the rails, and the economics split on interchange optimization and deposit float.

The forecast for this channel is positive for institutions that decide early what they will license. Account-to-account payments, BIN sponsorship, and KYC-as-a-service are the three highest-margin licensable assets. Banks that package these with clean APIs capture distribution they could never afford to build through branches.

Source: SIS International Research analysis of financial services profit pool migration.

Open Banking Adoption Reshapes Customer Acquisition Economics

PSD3 in Europe, the CFPB Section 1033 rule in the United States, and CDR in Australia push the same outcome: customer-permissioned data flows out of incumbents and into whoever underwrites or services best. The institutions treating this as a threat are defending. The institutions treating it as a sourcing channel are growing.

Lending is where this matters most. Cash-flow underwriting using permissioned account data outperforms traditional bureau-only models for thin-file segments and small business. Lenders that integrate this data report lower acquisition costs and better risk-adjusted yield than peers still anchored to FICO-only decisioning.

SIS International’s structured expert interviews with senior risk and product executives across North American and European lenders indicate that cash-flow underwriting is now table stakes for digital small-business credit, and the institutions building proprietary data normalization layers are pulling ahead on approval rates without sacrificing loss performance.

Stablecoin Settlement Becomes a Treasury Tool, Not a Speculation

The financial services forecast for stablecoins has shifted decisively. Visa settling card transactions in USDC on Solana, PayPal launching PYUSD, and BlackRock’s BUIDL providing tokenized treasury yield are operational use cases, not experiments. The MiCA framework in Europe and the GENIUS Act in the United States give corporate treasurers the regulatory clarity to use stablecoins for cross-border supplier payments and intraday liquidity.

The opportunity for incumbent banks is custody, on-ramp, and reserve management, not issuance. Bank of New York Mellon and State Street are positioning here. The economics resemble securities servicing more than payments, which suits the operating model of large custodians.

Wealth and Mass Affluent Advisory Compound Through the Cycle

The intergenerational wealth transfer in North America and Western Europe is the most predictable demand signal in the forecast. Morgan Stanley’s E*TRADE integration, Charles Schwab’s RIA custody platform, and UBS’s acquisition of Credit Suisse all target the same pool: mass affluent and high-net-worth households needing planning, tax, and alternatives access.

The differentiator at the top of the segment is alternatives distribution. Apollo, Blackstone, and KKR have built feeder structures into private credit and infrastructure that wirehouses now distribute through model portfolios. Wealth platforms with credible alternatives shelves are taking share from those without.

The SIS Position on Where the Forecast Becomes Actionable

Based on SIS International’s market entry assessments and competitive intelligence engagements across banking, payments, and wealth, the institutions translating this financial services forecast into earnings growth share a sequencing pattern: they modernize the core, then license the rails, then layer distribution partnerships. The order matters because each step funds the next.

SIS conducts B2B expert interviews with treasurers, chief risk officers, and heads of payments to map where decision authority actually sits inside enterprise buyers. The output is not a market size. It is a buyer map showing which functions sign which contracts, what evidence they require, and what timing windows align with budget cycles. That is the input a financial services forecast needs to drive capital allocation rather than describe it.

Key Questions

Where will financial services profit pools concentrate over the next five years?

Embedded finance licensing, cross-border B2B payments, tokenized settlement, and mass affluent advisory. Card interchange in developed markets and branch-led deposit gathering will continue to compress.

What does ISO 20022 migration unlock commercially?

Richer payment messaging supports corridor pricing, structured remittance data, and faster reconciliation, which lets transaction banks charge a premium for treasury services that legacy MT formats cannot deliver.

How should incumbent banks respond to embedded finance?

Treat it as a distribution channel, not a threat. License BIN sponsorship, account-to-account rails, and KYC infrastructure to brands that own customer relationships incumbents cannot economically reach.

Is stablecoin settlement relevant to corporate treasury?

Yes. With MiCA and the GENIUS Act providing regulatory clarity, stablecoins are now used for cross-border supplier payments, intraday liquidity, and tokenized treasury yield. The opportunity for banks is custody and reserve management.

What separates winning lenders in an open banking environment?

Cash-flow underwriting using permissioned account data. Lenders integrating this with bureau data achieve lower acquisition costs and better risk-adjusted yield, particularly in thin-file and small-business segments.

Over SIS Internationaal

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