Tech Trends to Keep on Your Radar in 2026
With market forces already in motion, 2026's real differentiator will be the technology trends financial institutions choose to act on—and how fast they move.
In our first article of this series, we explored the market forces that will shape banking in 2026, from evolving consumer expectations to regulatory pressures and economic headwinds. But understanding where the market is headed is only half the story. The technology decisions financial institutions make this year will determine whether they capitalize on those market shifts or get left behind.
This article focuses on the technology trends that will drive competitive differentiation and advantages in 2026. From the infrastructure investments that enable real-time experiences to the AI capabilities that deliver measurable outcomes, these are the technology trends that we think will define the year ahead.
1. AI Transforms Mobile Banking from Channel to Financial Command Center
Mobile banking has been table stakes for years. What's changing in 2026 is what mobile banking actually means. The transactional model—checking balances, transferring funds, depositing checks—is giving way to something far more sophisticated: a financial command center that’s always on.
AI is transforming mobile from a channel into a comprehensive financial advisor, combining insights, usage patterns, spending implications, and always-on financial guidance with real-time access to expertise when you need it. Every bank has mobile banking. Not every bank has mobile banking that works for you.
"With AI, mobile banking is able to form a personality around each customer, rather than a generic user experience," says Anthony Morris, Chief Industry Innovation Officer at nCino. "Personalized agents create profiles that understand your financial life—your goals, your patterns, your concerns. The real advantage for institutions will be in developing mobile experiences that deliver the right insight, at the right time, in the palm of your hand.”
2. From AI Everywhere to AI Where It Matters
Currently, most of the industry is focused on a race to technology rather than a race to value. Who has the most agents? Whose chatbot has the most capabilities? Who can claim "AI-native" the loudest without proven results?
That changes in 2026. Consumers will notice the difference between banks that deployed AI to check a box and those that built it to deliver outcomes. Precision is the new efficiency. Instead of deploying AI everywhere and hoping it sticks, the smart play is pinpointing the exact problem you're trying to solve and building AI to fix it.
Consumers don't need their bank to do everything with AI—they need it to do the right things well. Banks that use AI to build products that work at the speed people live at will earn loyalty. The ones chasing headlines about agent counts will be left explaining why none of them delivered value. The shift consumers will feel isn't more AI, it's precise AI.
"If every bank is chasing the efficiency gain and speed is the primary metric for success, where will the differentiation lie?" asks Morris. "Differentiation comes from experience, knowing your customer and being their always-on 'financial partner.' The real value comes from the insights learned from processing untold amounts of data — underlying trends, implications, and predictions uniquely focused on any one customer. AI allows banks to truly embrace a 'segment of one' perspective."
3. Conversational AI Becomes Banking's New Interface
Conversational AI has already changed how people engage in their everyday lives, from creating recipes to comparing complex business proposals. It's fundamentally changing the way people think and operate, and banking can't be the exception. The reality is that customers will demand their financial services keep up with the AI experiences they're getting everywhere else because they're already embracing AI for purchasing decisions across other parts of their lives.
But the transformation isn't just external. Employees are demanding their employers, especially financial institutions, keep up with the AI experiences they're getting elsewhere. Think about how employees at banks work today—many are still constantly switching between screens, hunting through multiple disparate systems for information, and trying to piece together a complete picture of their customers. It's cognitive overload disguised as productivity.
Generative AI and conversation is becoming the expectation. With the vast amount of information available to employees today and the high demand, AI allows information to flow naturally through conversation, and employees can focus on what matters most: customer relationships, decision-making, and value creation. The financial institutions with the real-world data foundation will separate from the pack. The impact for consumers in 2026 is banking that meets them where they are. The impact for bankers is getting their time back to do what they do best: build relationships and solve problems.
4. Enterprise Agents Move from Experimental to Operational
“As an industry, we are at the precipice of seeing background agents scale at an enterprise level,” Will Jung, Chief Technology Officer at nCino, notes. “But to focus on what this actually unlocks, I have a theme for 2026—continuous."
Banking has been accustomed to static and point-in-time experiences. When someone needs a new account with a new financial institution, that's when the institution verifies they're a real person and their funds are legal. But the bank only considers verifying again when they open a new account or request more credit.
Background agents triggered specifically by transactions and interactions will enable continuous monitoring, continuous underwriting, and continuous assessments. This opens up opportunities for insights and relevant products to be provided to customers at the right moments. This experience truly delivers on the personalization promise that banks have been making for years.
The technology is ready. The question is whether institutions are prepared to move beyond pilots and proof-of-concepts to production-scale deployment. The banks that do will create experiences that feel prescient rather than reactive, meeting customer needs before those needs become urgent.
5. Continuous Monitoring Replaces Point-in-Time Banking
The shift to continuous experiences represents a fundamental reimagining of how banks understand and serve their customers. Traditional banking operates in snapshots—checking creditworthiness at account opening, reassessing at loan application, or monitoring for fraud after suspicious activity. This reactive, point-in-time approach leaves gaps where customer needs go unmet and risks go undetected.
"The experience I described previously, and indeed what agents expect when they are built, is that the right context is available in real time—when the agent needs it. In that sense, banks need to invest in real-time architecture. Architecture that enables data to move in real-time," says Jung. "This investment includes moving away from batch processing to more real-time integrations or streaming to open accounts and process payments in real time."
In certain global markets, real-time payments and settlements are already a base expectation. Instant verification, real-time account opening, and instant card provisioning are the norm. Yet some markets still require two to three days for a standard transfer to complete.
"Institutions that have already invested in this real-time infrastructure and are in a market that enables this—they will be the ones who truly capitalize on what this new AI world offers us," Jung adds. Without that foundation, even the most sophisticated AI remains limited by yesterday's data.
6. AI-Powered Verification Eliminates Lending Friction Across All Channels
One trend with real transformative potential in 2026 is AI-powered verification that happens in real time during the application process, and it's expanding far beyond mortgage lending into commercial and consumer lending channels. Traditional verification is one of the biggest friction points across all lending—it's manual, slow, and often requires multiple back-and-forth interactions with borrowers to gather documents. This creates delays that can jeopardize rate locks, miss market opportunities, or lose deals altogether.
"We're reaching an inflection point where AI can orchestrate verification across multiple data sources simultaneously—pulling bank statements, employer verification systems, tax transcripts, and even payroll providers—then intelligently reconcile discrepancies and flag issues for loan officers in seconds rather than days," explains Casey Williams, General Manager of Mortgage at nCino. “The technology can identify income patterns, detect anomalies, and even suggest alternative documentation paths when standard verification fails. For borrowers, this means potentially getting from application to clear-to-close in days instead of weeks, with far less hassle gathering documents.”
In mortgage lending specifically, the technology can now orchestrate verification across multiple data sources simultaneously—pulling bank statements, employer verification systems, tax transcripts, and payroll providers—then intelligently reconcile discrepancies and flag issues for loan officers in seconds rather than days. The technology identifies income patterns, detects anomalies, and even suggests alternative documentation paths when standard verification fails. For borrowers, this means potentially getting from application to clear-to-close in days instead of weeks, with far less hassle gathering documents.
The same principles apply to commercial lending, where verifying business income, cash flow, and financial health has traditionally required extensive documentation and manual review. AI-powered verification can analyze business bank statements, accounting system data, and tax records simultaneously, providing loan officers with a complete financial picture in minutes. This is particularly powerful for small business lending, where speed often determines whether a business can seize a growth opportunity or weather a cash flow challenge. For lenders across all channels, verification automation reduces operational costs, improves accuracy, and allows loan officers to focus on relationship-building rather than document chasing.
No matter what happens in the year ahead, nCino will continue to serve as your ally, helping your financial institution transform challenges into opportunities and navigate the evolving banking landscape toward a profitable and sustainable future.