There is no shortage of discussion about what artificial intelligence will do to (private and retail) banking. If you read posts, reports, analysis, it seems, the discussion is dominated by the models, the infrastructure decisions, the roadmaps, the use cases, the efficiency gains.
It is out of question that all the above-mentioned topics are essential - but they minimize AI to savings and technology – as if that alone would make the business case work. One of the success factors of every organization mastering transformation is to enable people to drive adoption.
Client advisors expect AI to take the tedious parts of their day, the checks, the research, the endless gathering. For having a real conversation with the client, the relationship and the trust of people, they need and want a workplace designed differently than today. Which is to say, the part worth wanting, and worth protecting.
Sir Richard Branson said it first and it has aged well.
“Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients.”
There are companies run as if it were true, and there are the others; the gap between them is usually visible from the front office. Your relationship managers or client advisors, they come first.
As routine is leaving in every kind of bank, the trust stays.
AI, in any case, is no longer the technology of challengers. It is in the water of every institution, neobank and private bank, local and international alike, and now, the case gets context.
• KYC and onboarding with agentic AI: take the lead time for advisors and clients down by as much as 80%
• Research with agentic AI: Takes the lead time for clients and advisors down by 30–50%
Handelsblatt's “AI in Banking” Summit: The incumbent, the challengers
We were in Frankfurt last week, speaking at Handelsblatt's “AI in Banking” Summit. The programme brought together voices from across the industry: from a 349-year-old private bank to challenger platforms building the next generation of financial infrastructure. And across the board, we saw what AI means, for private banks, large corporate banks and their partners – we list two contrasting examples, but over two days, this was the read thread the story followed.
- The incumbents: embedding AI controls, getting the bank to speed up.
Deutsche Bank Private Bank's Global COO, Yiping Li, walked through an AI-driven KYC case study in wealth management that compresses onboarding timelines from weeks into days.
- The challengers: speed with partners and internal data creates stickiness.
Metzler's Marco Di Sazio, of the Digital Assets & AI Innovation Lab, joined a panel with our chief data officer, Dr. Sina Wulfmeyer. Their shared argument was that successful adoption lives on real data. And a trusted partner for daily banking helps to bring the right quality and context to the advisors – which results in a better coverage of clients, and better outputs.
- All agree: Re-design the workplace for advisors.
Both sides are converging on the same problem from opposite directions: They are the ones whose people - and, by extension, whose clients - are being quietly courted elsewhere. As Revolut keeps scaling across Europe, hyper-digital and resolutely new, they still want retail bank relationships: It proves the point, the more digital we are, the more valuable the relationship manager becomes, provided the bank is ready to build a workplace people still want.
So, re-route the routine. Make the banker's role attractive again. Keep the human for the conversations that are genuinely hard. The moat was never the product list or the legacy branch network; it was always the relationship, and relationships are kept by people who are glad to be there.
The future is bright if you take care of your people’s workplace
So, the question worth revisiting: What do your people think of working at your bank, and are you equipping them to meet their clients' goals?
We believe the workplace of banking should stay attractive. We would be glad to help you keep it that way.
Your Advisor Is Your Asset: Why AI Transformation Must Put People First
There is no shortage of discussion about what artificial intelligence will do to (private and retail) banking. If you read posts, reports, analysis, it seems, the discussion is dominated by the models, the infrastructure decisions, the roadmaps, the use cases, the efficiency gains.
It is out of question that all the above-mentioned topics are essential - but they minimize AI to savings and technology – as if that alone would make the business case work. One of the success factors of every organization mastering transformation is to enable people to drive adoption.
Client advisors expect AI to take the tedious parts of their day, the checks, the research, the endless gathering. For having a real conversation with the client, the relationship and the trust of people, they need and want a workplace designed differently than today. Which is to say, the part worth wanting, and worth protecting.
Sir Richard Branson said it first and it has aged well.
“Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients.”
There are companies run as if it were true, and there are the others; the gap between them is usually visible from the front office. Your relationship managers or client advisors, they come first.
As routine is leaving in every kind of bank, the trust stays.
AI, in any case, is no longer the technology of challengers. It is in the water of every institution, neobank and private bank, local and international alike, and now, the case gets context.
• KYC and onboarding with agentic AI: take the lead time for advisors and clients down by as much as 80%
• Research with agentic AI: Takes the lead time for clients and advisors down by 30–50%
Handelsblatt's “AI in Banking” Summit: The incumbent, the challengers
We were in Frankfurt last week, speaking at Handelsblatt's “AI in Banking” Summit. The programme brought together voices from across the industry: from a 349-year-old private bank to challenger platforms building the next generation of financial infrastructure. And across the board, we saw what AI means, for private banks, large corporate banks and their partners – we list two contrasting examples, but over two days, this was the read thread the story followed.
Deutsche Bank Private Bank's Global COO, Yiping Li, walked through an AI-driven KYC case study in wealth management that compresses onboarding timelines from weeks into days.
Metzler's Marco Di Sazio, of the Digital Assets & AI Innovation Lab, joined a panel with our chief data officer, Dr. Sina Wulfmeyer. Their shared argument was that successful adoption lives on real data. And a trusted partner for daily banking helps to bring the right quality and context to the advisors – which results in a better coverage of clients, and better outputs.
Both sides are converging on the same problem from opposite directions: They are the ones whose people - and, by extension, whose clients - are being quietly courted elsewhere. As Revolut keeps scaling across Europe, hyper-digital and resolutely new, they still want retail bank relationships: It proves the point, the more digital we are, the more valuable the relationship manager becomes, provided the bank is ready to build a workplace people still want.
So, re-route the routine. Make the banker's role attractive again. Keep the human for the conversations that are genuinely hard. The moat was never the product list or the legacy branch network; it was always the relationship, and relationships are kept by people who are glad to be there.
The future is bright if you take care of your people’s workplace
So, the question worth revisiting: What do your people think of working at your bank, and are you equipping them to meet their clients' goals?
We believe the workplace of banking should stay attractive. We would be glad to help you keep it that way.