With the primary half of 2025 behind us, it’s time to sit up for what the second half of the 12 months will deliver. The primary two quarters have been filled with change: from the stablecoin frenzy and cuts to the CFPB within the US, to new regulatory crackdowns throughout Europe and the reversal of Part 1033, reshaping the way forward for open banking. In the meantime, banks and fintechs are ramping up their use of AI, navigating new regulatory necessities, and adapting to international momentum round real-time funds and digital identification.
With all of this alteration, it’s exhausting to think about the surprises that the following two quarters will deliver. And whereas I can’t predict all the surprises, there are 5 tendencies that banks and fintechs shouldn’t ignore as we transfer into the second half of the 12 months.
The open banking dialog evolves
Within the EU, PSD3 and the Monetary Information Entry (FIDA) framework are being finalized and the UK is shifting ahead with Open Banking 2.0 below the Joint Regulatory Oversight Committee (JROC). In distinction, the US is in a interval of regulatory uncertainty. The CFPB is pulling again from Part 1033 and JPMorgan revealed to knowledge aggregators that it plans to extend the associated fee for them to tug shopper knowledge. Banks have to hold a detailed eye on the evolving conversations round open banking as ripple results happen throughout the globe.
AI turns into an arms race in monetary companies
AI is shortly changing into desk stakes for monetary companies organizations. AI-native fintechs are setting new expectations round service, automation, and personalization. And companies are now not stopping at chatbots and GenAI applied sciences. As an alternative, banks throughout Europe, the US, and Asia are more and more integrating agentic AI, and even hiring AI brokers for duties like underwriting, compliance, and customer support. Count on the second half of the 12 months to deliver a continued rise in AI literacy applications and inside tooling as companies upskill groups and scale back reliance on third-party distributors by turning as a substitute to agentic AI.
Tokenization takes over
Within the first half of 2025, we noticed main pilots for tokenized deposits, treasuries, and real-world property (RWAs). Within the latter half of the 12 months, we are able to count on to see actual world implementations, notably in wholesale funds, interbank settlement, and liquidity administration. Regulatory readability can be starting to transpire. Jurisdictions just like the EU, Hong Kong, and Singapore are beginning to outline authorized frameworks for tokenized monetary merchandise. This may occasionally immediate US regulators to make clear the remedy of tokenized deposits and securities.
Id verification turns into a battleground
With rising fraud, easy-to-create deepfakes, and a rise in embedded finance, monetary establishments are shifting from one-time identification checks to steady, context-aware identification verification. The second half of this 12 months will deliver elevated adoption of reusable digital IDs, decentralized identification frameworks (DID), and superior biometrics tied to behavioral alerts. As all the time, the problem will probably be balancing a low-friction consumer expertise with excessive safety.
Actual-time funds reshape expectations
FedNow is gaining traction within the US, ISO 20022 started rolling out earlier this week, and stablecoin-powered cross-border initiatives are on the rise. All of those elements, plus a rise in stablecoin adoption are making real-time funds the norm and are elevating buyer expectations. Banks that may’t meet these expectations threat shedding floor to extra nimble gamers.
Photograph by Pixabay
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