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Core banking trends 2026: AI, resilience & real time transformation

2026 trends: the future of banking report written over purple background, on left hand side is a mockup of the report

For our 2026 Trends report, we gathered insights from senior leaders at 10x Banking and partners across the industry to reveal what’s next. The signal is clear: after years of incrementalism, banking is entering a phase of accelerated, structural change. 

2026 trends mockup

Real‑time is becoming table stakes, resilience is being designed into the architecture, and fourth‑generation, cloud‑native cores are breaking banks free from decades‑old “cathedrals of code.” Embedded intelligence is moving from pilots to operating model, while embedded finance and next‑gen engagement are reshaping how institutions connect with customers and businesses. 
 

Read on for a summary below or dive into the full report to explore the strategies and perspectives shaping the next era of banking.

 

Group-Pink

2026 won’t be about small steps, it will be about structural shifts that redefine how banks compete.

Tom Bentley CRO at 10x Banking
The shift is already underway: banks are moving from third‑generation, vendor‑locked cores to fourth‑generation, cloud‑native platforms designed for extensibility, compliance, and event‑driven, real‑time experiences. This isn’t just a tech refresh – it’s about unlocking speed to market, modular innovation, and pricing/decisioning at the edge of every customer interaction.
 

Resilience and compliance by design

Group-Pink

Resilience must be built into the architecture, not bolted on later.

Katherine Yeung Chief Risk Officer at 10x Banking

In practice, this means preparing for a tougher regulatory and operating environment. From the EU AI Act to Vietnam’s Law on Personal Data Protection, the direction is clear: build real‑time risk visibility, assure critical third parties and supply chains, and strengthen explainability and data lineage. ESG scrutiny is rising too – pushing banks to embed climate and sustainability into operational planning so resilience becomes a driver of trust and growth.

Our partners are seeing the same forces at play.

Group-Pink

As regulatory complexity intensifies and the pace of change increases, banks will need to leverage AI to monitor, interpret, and implement regulatory updates in real time.

Mathias Faure Chief Product & Technology Officer at audax
audax highlights the rise of AI‑driven compliance automation – shifting compliance from reactive to proactive by tracking rule changes, testing policy impacts, and operationalizing controls at real time. They also urge clearer tech strategy and pragmatic low‑code/no‑code with guardrails to accelerate governed change. The direction of travel: proactive governance, value “by design,” and modernization that reduces TCO while increasing agility.
 

Intelligence and engagement

Structural intelligence is becoming a competitive frontier. GFT observes that the breakthrough is architectural: AI is moving from a peripheral “assistant layer” to a structural component of the operating model – powered by adaptive cores, agentic operating models, and trust frameworks for explainability and auditability. In fact, 70% of banking professionals now see agentic AI as a game‑changer, signaling a shift from AI‑enabled to AI‑executed banking.
 
Meanwhile, Moneythor points to engagement going beyond transactions – banks are scaling gamified saving challenges, prize‑linked rewards, and conversational experiences that let customers ask, act, and analyze in real time. And partners like SunTec show how real‑time economics at the edge – governed pricing, billing, and offer factories – turn speed into sustainable value creation.
 

The bottom line

2026 is a defining year. Modernization, resilience, compliance automation, and intelligent engagement are converging. The institutions that win will treat governance as an accelerator, embed AI into their operating model (not just channels), and build for real‑time from the core out. The full report lays out the architectural patterns, regulatory watch‑list, and partner plays that will separate leaders from laggards.

Read the full 2026 Trends report to explore the forces reshaping banking and the strategies that matter now.