Today’s fintech options extend beyond individual apps or features, influencing how customers open accounts, manage their money and access financial guidance. As consumer expectations are increasingly set by intuitive, always-on digital experiences, banking institutions must ensure those interactions feel seamless, secure and genuinely supportive.
The challenge here isn’t in adopting more tools, but using technology in ways that reduce friction, reinforce trust and strengthen the human side of banking. To help, members of Forbes Finance Council share how institutions can evolve their fintech options to deliver better user experiences, and what that evolution looks like in practice.
1. Use Automation To Free Up Teams For Real Conversations
Fintech should remove friction, not remove people. Automating underwriting, servicing and routine tasks frees banks and lenders to focus on real conversations with customers. The combination of speed and human guidance is what will define standout banking experiences in 2026 and beyond. – Jeremy Gilpin, Community Bankshares, Inc.
2. Update Legacy Systems And Streamline Processes
Banks should focus on fintech solutions that engage consumers across banking channels, create personalized experiences, improve performance and empower their organization to develop operating strategies that harness new opportunities. By updating legacy systems, streamlining processes or even outsourcing certain technologies, banks can facilitate seamless, richer and faster consumer journeys. – Octavio Marquez, Diebold Nixdorf (NYSE: DBD)
3. Ensure Your Tech Genuinely Benefits The Customer
Financial institutions must prioritize user experience over buzzwords. Bankers are not technologists, and technologists alone fail to deliver an optimal banking experience. These two units must work in unison to ensure that the end user is truly yielding added efficiency and benefit from technology. Otherwise, the pursuit of reduced friction risks coming at a price of convolution. Less is more. – Matthew Carlucci, Integrity Cap
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4. Provide Fintech-Level Onboarding And Alternative Investment Options
Banks can enhance their user experience by adopting fintech-grade onboarding, reducing account-opening steps from 100 clicks to under 30. A major growth driver in 2026 will be seamless access to alternative investments. With white-label private-markets platforms, banks can serve new wealth segments, boost retention and diversify revenue without building products in-house. – Stephen Richards Evans, Red Lions Capital
5. Balance The ‘High-Tech, High-Touch’ Equation
The banks that win in 2026 will redefine the “high-tech, high-touch” equation: using AI agents as the high-tech backend to power personalized, human-centered services on the frontend. This will improve the customer experience and internal efficiency. – Ray Wu, Alumni Ventures
6. Pair Intelligent Technology With Human Advisory
Banks can improve the user experience in 2026 by pairing intelligent technology with a more human advisory approach. AI-driven insights, frictionless global onboarding and integrated fintech ecosystems will help clients make clearer, faster financial decisions. Ultimately, innovation should simplify complexity and bring clients closer to high-quality advice, not replace it. – Erika Muller, WS Investment Group RIA Panama
7. Leverage The Benefits Of Both Banks And Fintechs
Banks aren’t built as tech companies, which makes strong fintech partnerships essential to advancing the user experience. Fintechs can more readily experiment and refine AI-driven capabilities, while banks provide the regulatory rigor and stability to scale them safely. Together, they bring better, more innovative services to market faster. – Brandon Spear, TreviPay
8. Prioritize Security, Speed And Personalization
Banking institutions can enhance fintech offerings by adopting AI-driven personalization, expanding open banking APIs, enabling instant payments and strengthening cybersecurity. Streamlined digital interfaces, seamless mobile-first design and integration with third-party financial tools will further improve accessibility, efficiency and overall user trust. – Brian Dunhill, DF-direct
9. Shift From ‘Digital’ To Intelligent, Anticipatory Services
To advance user experience, banks must move from “digital banking” to intelligent, embedded, anticipatory financial services. It is critical to assess the market to determine which third parties are critical to success, which ones meet your bank’s standards and how they connect to the existing tech stack. – Paul Davis, Bank Slate
10. Support Real-Time Interoperability
In 2026, the biggest way banks can improve the fintech experience is by embracing real interoperability. When banks, wallets and payment systems can communicate in real time, money moves instantly and users get a seamless experience across platforms, borders and rails. – Moshe Kimhi, Neema
11. Give Users A Simple, Centralized View Of Their Finances
Banks need to stop bolting fintech on and start rebuilding from the customer backward. That means one login, one clear view of cash, taxes, investments and credit in real time. AI should advise, not sell. Fewer fees and more transparency are essential. In 2026, speed, clarity and control win, not more apps. – Karla Dennis, KDA Inc.
12. Build For Ease Over Technical Capabilities
Banking institutions can improve their fintech options by remembering this is a human-to-human interaction, not just technology. Work to eliminate friction in every touchpoint. Design platforms simple enough for an intelligent 13-year-old to navigate. Stop obsessing over technical capabilities and focus on user ease. Keep the actual end user at the center of every decision to win in 2026. – Leo Anzoleaga, Leo Anzoleaga Group at Luminate Bank
13. Invest In Core Infrastructure
Banks should treat fintech like deep-tech: invest in core infrastructure, not just interfaces. In 2026, the winners will use AI-driven personalization, seamless embedded finance and secure interoperability across platforms. True UX gains come from upgrading the engine, not repainting the dashboard. – Alexandra Vidyuk, Beyond Earth Ventures
14. Integrate Automation And Seamless Digital Experiences At Every Touchpoint
Banks must aggressively adopt modern technology or they won’t survive. The institutions that win in 2026 will integrate AI, automation and seamless digital experiences into every touchpoint. If a bank isn’t adapting, simplifying and modernizing, users will move to those that do. – Caroline Farah Lembck, LemVega Capital
15. Improve Cross-Platform Continuity And Reduce Identity Verification Friction
Banks will likely need to streamline digital onboarding by reducing identity verification friction and improving cross-platform continuity. The most effective shifts will come from integrating personalized, AI-enhanced risk scoring to make financial interactions adaptive. Once fintech evolves into the infrastructure, user expectations will focus on security and clarity rather than just features. – Ahijah Ireland, Green Zone Capital
16. Move To Cloud-Native Platforms With Open Finance
Banks can elevate 2026 fintech by deploying AI agents for autonomous tasks like real-time personalization and predictive CX, modernizing legacy cores with cloud-native platforms and enabling RTP or open finance for seamless embedded services. Prioritize personalization, behavioral biometrics and tokenized assets to build trust and loyalty. – Tomas Milar, Eqvista Inc.
17. Adopt Proactive, Context-Aware Fintech Systems
Adopt context-aware systems that automatically surface budgeting tools or AI-guided applications when they detect income shifts, rent increases or early homebuying signals. With modular trust layers that adjust verification based on real-time trust scores, low-risk users move faster and higher-risk users get clearer guidance. Real customer context makes banks proactive financial partners. – Neil Anders, Trusted Rate, Inc.
18. Focus On Speed, Clean Design And Real-Time Accuracy
Banks should focus on speed, clean design and real-time accuracy. Instant transfers, simple onboarding and reliable identity checks matter more than new features. Cut steps, reduce errors and make support seamless. The best fintech in 2026 will be the one that just works. – Anatoly Iofe, IceBridge Financial Group, LLC
The information provided here is not investment, tax, or financial advice. You should consult with a licensed professional for advice concerning your specific situation.
