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Are you involved in software projects within retail banking, or do you, as a leader at a bank, also oversee software quality assurance?
In this article, we will explore the key trends in retail banking for 2025 and what they mean for your QA team or CTO role.
From the rise of AI and digitization to the importance of compliance in software testing, we’ll guide you through the strategies to keep your bank at the forefront of digital transformation.
Source: The state of retail banking: Profitability and growth in the era of digital and AI
Successful institutions will focus on protecting margins through targeted investments in digitization and AI, including generative AI, to improve pricing, mitigate losses, control operating costs, and increase productivity.
The research shows that the channel landscape is shifting. Branches continue to play a role in customer acquisition and advice, but mobile is now the gateway to everyday banking for a growing majority of consumers in various markets.Banks, therefore, need to design their distribution so it leads with mobile.
Banks continue to invest deeply in technology, even as they realize it will not be easy to realize significant revenue or cost benefits from these investments.
AI and generative AI, in particular, will be instrumental in the development of next-generation deposit capabilities.
Mobile is becoming the primary orchestrator of customer interactions, guiding customers - if needed - to the appropriate channel.
"One Western European bank we worked with deployed more than 100 personalized campaigns powered by AI, resulting in conversion rates increasing three to five times, while campaign durations compressed from several months to less than four weeks.
Gen AI could be used to clean-sheet a mortgage appraisal review process by searching for comparable properties, comparing them based on rules, and synthesizing findings. These capabilities could significantly accelerate an otherwise manual and operationally burdensome process.
In contact centers, gen AI has proven its capability to improve the quality of customer interactions and boost efficiency by offering real-time suggestions for script generation based on rapid customer profiles.
Gen AI has the potential to significantly enhance productivity in areas such as fraud detection and reporting.
As a CTO or QA Lead, you’re not just witnessing the digital revolution in banking - you’re living it, driving it, and shaping it every day.
Digital transformation is changing how banks operate, and your teams are at the center of making that happen. Whether it’s rolling out new features, keeping systems secure, or ensuring everything works seamlessly, what you do truly matters.
Let’s break down why these trends are so critical to your role - and how you’re leading the way:
In today’s banking world, digital is everything. And you are the one making sure that the tech behind it all works smoothly. Whether it’s mobile apps or AI-driven services, your job is to ensure that customers have a fast, reliable experience. For QA Leads, this means catching issues before they hit production,ensuring that every new release is rock-solid. Staying ahead of fintech competitors isn’t just about being first—it’s about delivering a product that works flawlessly, and that’s where your team shines.
Have you found your testing processes struggling to keep up with innovation cycles?
AI, generative AI, and all these exciting technologies—you’re the one making sure they don’t just stay ideas on paper. For the CTO, this means building the architecture that supports these innovations, but for QA, it’s about testing quickly, often, and effectively. Your QA team plays a huge role in making sure things are tested on the go without slowing down the process. By automating tests and embedding quality checks into every sprint, you’re ensuring that innovation happens without compromising quality. It’s a delicate balance, and you’re the one keeping it in check.
Is your QA team able to test quickly without sacrificing quality?
As everything goes digital, security becomes even more crucial. You are the one protecting the bank from the growing threats that come with more digital services.
For QA Leads, this means running security tests to make sure every line of code is solid.
It’s not just about finding bugs - it’s about preventing breaches, ensuring customer data is safe, and keeping the bank compliant with evolving regulations. Your team’s role in running penetration tests and spotting vulnerabilities early means fewer risks down the road. You’re the gatekeeper of security, and that’s no small responsibility.
Automation is transforming banking workflows. Your role is to ensure that these systems not only function but operate seamlessly across departments. By automating repetitive tasks, you reduce manual effort and eliminate bottlenecks, ensuring faster, more reliable results.
Whether you’re building the infrastructure or making sure automated systems work correctly, it’s up to you to ensure these systems do what they’re supposed to do, without a hitch. QA teams are essential here, too - you’re testing automated processes, making sure they run flawlessly, and catching any issues before they become big problems. By streamlining these processes, you’re helping the bank run more efficiently, and that’s a win for everyone.
Data is the lifeblood of modern banking, and you’re the one ensuring the systems that collect, process, and analyze that data are reliable. As CTO, you’re setting up the architecture, while as QA, you’re verifying that data flows are accurate and consistent. Whether it’s testing data pipelines or ensuring the analytics tools deliver correct insights, you make sure decisions are based on solid information. After all, if the data isn’t right, the decisions won’t be either—and your role in making sure everything is working as it should be is essential.
Technology never stops evolving, and you are the one ensuring your team keeps pace.
For the CTO, this means adopting the latest tools and technologies, and for QA, it’s about making sure those tools work as expected. You’re constantly learning, testing, and adjusting to stay ahead of the curve.
As AI, machine learning, and other cutting-edge tech become more central to banking, you make sure that your systems not only embrace these changes but do so with the highest level of quality and security. You’re not just following trends - you’re driving them.
Ultimately, you are the one ensuring that digital transformation isn’t just about new technologies, but about delivering secure, reliable, and high-quality experiences to customers. Your leadership ensures that your bank isn’t just keeping up with the digital era - it’s leading it.
And with you at the helm, both IT and QA teams are set to shape the future of banking in a way that’s innovative, secure, and built to last.
In today's digital-first banking environment, your software testing team is under constant pressure to deliver flawless releases at breakneck speed. With agile development cycles, testing can no longer be an afterthought. Every release must be thoroughly tested to avoid bugs that can impact the user experience and, more importantly, the bank’s reputation. A critical bug in production doesn’t just cause frustration - it can lead to lost customers and damaged trust. You ensure that quality is embedded throughout the development process, keeping pace with rapid deployment cycles while protecting the bank’s brand.
In banking, one overlooked bug can have major consequences. A faulty feature or system outage can lead to financial losses for customers, putting the bank's reputation at risk. In an industry where trust is paramount, you are the gatekeeper of quality, ensuring that every release is free of critical bugs that could damage customer relationships. The cost of a bug goes far beyond fixing it - it can lead to public embarrassment, regulatory scrutiny, and along-lasting hit to the bank’s credibility.
Your testing team’s diligence is vital in safeguarding the company’s reputation.
Banking is one of the most regulated industries, and every new software release must comply with stringent regulatory standards. From GDPR to local financial regulations, your role in ensuring compliance is crucial. Any deviation from these standards can result in costly fines, legal action, and further reputational damage.
You are responsible for making sure that the software adheres to all regulatory requirements, conducting thorough compliance testing to ensure that everything is in line before it goes live. Regulatory testing is not just a box to check - it’s your shield against regulatory penalties and market fallout.
By ensuring your testing processes meet all regulatory standards, you minimize risk and maintain trust with your customers.
But regulatory compliance is only one part -how can you ensure overall operational efficiency?
In today’s fast-paced banking environment, you need a testing tool that can keep up with rapid releases while ensuring flawless performance. Relying on manual testing or traditional methods no longer guarantees the quality and speed required.
Bugs don’t just cause minor hiccups - they can lead to reputational damage and costly regulatory breaches.
A dedicated tool like TestResults.io ensures that testing is fast, automated, and fully compliant, reducing the risk of human error and covering entire business processes with traceable results.
As a QA Lead or CTO in a highly regulated banking environment, you need a testing solution that not only delivers fast, reliable results but also ensures compliance with strict regulatory standards. With TestResults.io’s frozen engine feature, once your systems are validated,updates no longer require repeated validation - saving your team time while maintaining compliance. Every test is fully traceable and auditable, so you can confidently handle audits, regulatory checks, and revisions without disrupting operations. This is critical in meeting the high standards set by financial regulators and safeguarding your bank’s reputation.
Their expert support ensures your team can handle the initial validation process smoothly, leaving you to focus on ensuring the quality and security of your banking systems.
You need the complete control over your bank’s software ecosystem, ensuring that everything - from off-the-shelf solutions to custom-developed tools—works seamlessly together.
Testing entire business processes across all applications and devices, from e-mail workflows to batch processing, is essential to ensure your investments are secure.
TestResults.io simulates user interaction without relying on technical dependencies, offering a single, stable automation approach for all technologies.
This guarantees thorough, end-to-end testing across the entire system landscape, keeping operations smooth and compliant.
As other banks have already benefited, specifically how one bank was able to close a gap in their test automation thanks to TestResults.io, we’ll show you in the following case study.
A financial service provider using Front Arena, a trading and risk management platform, couldn't automate testing due to complex graphical tables that conventional tools couldn't handle.
Manual testing posed a business risk due to time constraints.
They found TestResults.io, which uses black-box testing to interact with Front Arena's complex UI.
With AI-powered table recognition, the tool automated the tables without additional coding or training.
After a quick setup, critical test cases were automated in days.
The team regained time, reduced business risk, and achieved the desired test coverage, ensuring system reliability without burdening resources.
In the fast-evolving world of retail banking, ensuring the quality and compliance of your software is non-negotiable.
As QA Leads and CTOs, you are the driving force behind this transformation.
The trends for 2025 highlight how critical it is to adapt quickly, leveraging tools like TestResults.io to automate testing, enhance operational efficiency, and meet rigorous regulatory standards.
The key to success lies in embracing these innovations while maintaining a laser focus on quality.
With the right strategies in place, you can lead your teams to secure, compliant, and flawless software releases.
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