Banu Raghuraman

expert panel

As banks and fintechs blur into one financial ecosystem, consumers are left deciding whom to trust with their money and their data. Members of the Senior Executive FinTech Think Tank explain why the winners of the next five years will be the institutions that treat trust, not technology, as their core product.The line between traditional banking and fintech has all but disappeared. Banks now embed AI-driven tools once associated with scrappy startups, while fintechs increasingly offer the deposit accounts, lending products and compliance infrastructure once reserved for chartered banks. The result is a financial ecosystem where consumers can no longer tell, at a glance, who is actually holding their money or making decisions about their financial lives.That blurring raises the stakes for trust. Members of the Senior Executive FinTech Think Tank, a curated group of financial technology leaders and advisors, agree that winning and keeping consumer trust over the next five years will require more than faster apps or smarter algorithms. It will demand transparency, consistency and a demonstrated commitment to acting in the customer's best interest.Their perspectives, drawn from decades of experience building products and companies across banking, payments and wealth technology, offer a practical roadmap for leaders navigating this shift.This piece builds on Senior Executive's recent look at where AI is and isn't earning trust in fintech, zooming out from specific AI use cases to the broader question of what it takes to win consumer trust as banking and fintech become one category.

expert panel

AI is already reshaping fraud prevention, account monitoring and personal finance tools, but fintech leaders say the industry is still falling short on transparency and on truly understanding the people behind the transactions. Members of the Senior Executive FinTech Think Tank break down where the technology is delivering real value, where it's falling short and what leaders should do next.Financial institutions have poured billions into artificial intelligence over the past two years, and the payoff is starting to show. Fraud detection is sharper, customer service is faster and personalization has moved well past generic marketing emails. Yet those gains have exposed a deeper challenge: an IDC study commissioned by Atlanta-based Sage found that 71% of finance leaders would reject an AI tool that was 99% accurate if it couldn't explain its answers. More than half would pay a premium for AI that shows its work. For every leap forward, executives are discovering how much further the industry has to go when it comes to transparency, customer trust and understanding people rather than simply transaction histories.To make sense of where AI is truly moving the needle in financial services, and where the industry keeps stumbling, we turned to members of the Senior Executive FinTech Think Tank, a curated group of financial technology leaders and advisors. Their answers point to a pattern: the easy wins are technical, and the harder, more valuable work is human.Here, they share where they see AI creating meaningful change today, and where they believe the industry is still getting it wrong.