The economic shocks of 2023 appear to have calmed, but financial conditions remain far from easy for retail banks and their clients. For banks, the windfall gains from net interest margin must be viewed against the consumer willingness to shop around for better savings rates and rising credit risks. For consumers, the cost of borrowing remains high, and they continue to be concerned by persistent inflation and cost of living challenges. Banks are also burdened by compliance challenges, yet need to become more agile and deliver solutions faster.

The result is that IT spending for retail banks around the world is set to grow into 2024 and beyond. We believe that the future success in Retail Banking rests on achieving greater speed and agility with 57% of banks saying it's a key driver of their technology strategy. Of course, banks have long sought to achieve agility through technology investments, from automating record-keeping and internal workflows to increasingly digital-first customer engagement. However, we think banks now have the opportunity to take organisational agility to the next level with technologies such as cloud, low code platforms, and Generative AI.

This report summarizes Celent’s guidance to clients around five key industry themes and 15 retail banking technology priorities for 2024. The five themes are consistent across retail and corporate banking and will guide our research agenda for 2024. As always, the report draws on some of our recently published insights, but much of the content is new, published here for the first time.