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HFS Pulse—The 2025 outlook for banking and financial services

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Big Picture: IT spend is rising unevenly, but the real differentiator is intent. BFS deals being closed are medium total contract value (TCV) and value-centric. The sector’s ROI obsession is fueling targeted AI deployments to build capabilities while addressing risk, compliance, governance, and legacy drag. Yet most ROI cases gloss over hidden costs—maintenance, mounting tech debt, and future infrastructure strain. The urgency to build quickly must not overshadow the need to build correctly. BFS enterprises must learn to manage their process and tech debt.

Th next big wave: Services-as-Software is emerging as the next big wave in BFS, with nearly half of all services expected to run through AI in the next two years. A new roadmap is already underway—one that rearchitects core functions and processes to align with this AI-first reality. Cyber and digital operations are just the starting point. To unlock real value, this shift requires tighter alignment between IT and the business.

Technology Arbitrage: Taken together—adoption and maturity—autonomous and agentic AI are now fully operational, far outpacing traditional AI. BFS firms are doubling down on a focused set of technology areas, creating clear opportunities for service providers to step in and unlock their full potential. In this new landscape, data will be the true differentiator for BFS firms aiming to lead.

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