It’s been a very busy few weeks for Celent’s Banking and Payments team with so many conferences and client events taking place at the same time. While some of our team headed to the “entertainment capital of the world” – Las Vegas – for Money20/20, several of us went to Athens, the “cradle of civilisation”, for Finacle Conclave 2025.

For those that are not familiar with Finacle Conclave, it is an invite-only event hosted by Infosys Finacle gathering nearly 450 banking leaders and influencers from over 65 countries. Over the two days, the event agenda was packed with insightful sessions, from the latest updates from Infosys Finacle executives to bank leaders sharing the best practices from their transformation journeys.

Many of the topics discussed were captured neatly by the theme of the conference, “Next-Gen Now: Reimagine. Recompose. Realize.” The pace of change driven by developments in AI is forcing financial institutions to reimagine banking. To capture new opportunities and to stay relevant, many banks are moving away from monolithic legacy applications to composable architectures and investing into agile and resilient platforms. Agentic AI offers an opportunity to go beyond simple automation to rethink the underlying processes, and where and how the value is created. Given the pace of change, banks can’t afford to just experiment and learn – they need to accelerate their ability to realize value from their investments. And they can’t afford to wait for “next gen” platforms, they need “next gen” now.

The message from the stage and from private conversations during the networking sessions was clear: banks recognise and value the Infosys Finacle leadership and support in their transformation journeys. For me, a couple of examples stood out:

• Finacle Small Language Model (SLM). While large language models (LLMs) are pushing the boundaries as general-purpose solutions, they can be too slow, too costly, and too inaccurate for banking applications. In contrast, small language models are trained on domain-specific knowledge and are more effective to operate. Infosys Topaz Banking SLM is trained on banking knowledge, proprietary Finacle documentation, and Banking Industry Architecture Network (BIAN) standards. Using the Finacle SLM banks can securely build their own custom Al models that comply with industry standards.
• Finacle Experience Cloud, an agentic-AI powered UI/ UX development studio. According to Finacle executives, clients can mock up the design of their desired customer experience, and the agentic-AI assistant in the Experience Cloud will help turn that into a functional customer engagement application.

Another practical example of "composability in action" was a presentation from our colleague, Daniel Mayo, who spoke on stage on how banks are deploying next generation product and pricing strategies.

As the sun would set on the Aegean Sea shores, there would be more opportunities each night to connect with the industry leaders, be entertained by local musicians, and sample local delicacies. And on the closing gala night, an amazing drone show reminded us how innovative ancient Greeks were, and how their innovations made the world a better place, a worthwhile aspiration for us all as we relentlessly pursue progress with technology.

Thank you so much to Infosys Finacle for hosting us, taking the time to meet with us, and for such memorable experiences, until next time!