Rebuilding Trust in a Multi-Platform Finance Journey

However, the rise of disruptive forces such as AI advancements and increased competition from fintech and other non-bank providers means the financial industry is feeling pressure to build brand visibility and stand out from competitors, whether through better customer experience, digital engagement, or a deeper understanding of audience behaviour. 

Because of these advancements, the way people discover, compare, trust, and choose financial providers has changed. Customers are no longer moving through a linear customer journey. They’re exploring across platforms, asking AI tools for answers, and watching creators explain services and products – building a view of multiple brands before even clicking onto their website or making a decision.

We’ve pulled together a snapshot of how different sectors are evolving, what customer behaviour is telling us, and what brands need to start paying attention to now.

Banking revenues remain strong, with global revenues reaching around $5.5 trillion and net income at $1.2 trillion. Payments continue to expand, and investment is becoming more accessible to a broader audience. However, growth across the industry doesn’t always last, and investors aren’t convinced. Bank valuations still sit around 70% lower than other industries, suggesting the market sees this as a short-term peak rather than long-term growth.

This reflects a lack of confidence in how sustainable that growth really is.

Brands like Monzo, Revolut, and Starling have raised the standards of what customers expect from a financial product. Not just in terms of the features they offer, but also in the user experience. These app-based banks are turning ‘boring’ financial tasks into personalised experiences, with clear interfaces, real-time insights, and communication that connects with customers, meaning banking feels less transactional and more supportive. 

This means it’s no longer just about rates or product structure, but brand signals and experience. 

Gamified experiences have also helped support challenger banks increase their market share, with elements like badges, rewards, spending summaries, and saving ‘pots’ or challenges to make banking more fun. 

Mobile is now the dominant banking channel, and users expect a frictionless experience and consistency across touchpoints, whether that’s switching devices or moving between digital platforms and human interaction. Having a unified brand personality across touchpoints means a connected experience that users find easier to trust, and that carries through into decision-making. 

Taking a look at Barclays’ Corporate Outlook for 2026, there’s a growing sense that businesses are moving with a mix of caution and renewed intent following the November Budget. 86% of businesses feel confident about their prospects, a turnaround from Barclays’ Q3 2025 findings, in which 55% shared that they were putting decisions on hold. Some of the key themes of investment lie in technology, such as AI, to help increase scale and improve efficiency for businesses or upskill their existing employees.

In corporate banking, decisions are often larger in scale and more complex than a traditional purchase, involving multiple stakeholders and more caution or scrutiny. For brands operating in this area of finance, building a story about how funding can be used, whether that’s for growth, expansion or efficiency.

This is where you use marketing to build competitive advantage – by not just offering deals or shouting about your corporate finance account benefits (although these are still important), but by demonstrating experience, sector-specific insights, and credibility in helping support brands with these decisions. 

Insurance Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) activity increased significantly in 2025, driven by large deals over £1bn. This strong deal activity is set to continue in 2026, with ongoing competitive auction processes – especially across the UK and European markets, where there’s been increased activity. 

Property and casualty (P&C) insurance remains one of the most comparison-heavy areas of financial services, but more of the journey is happening before the decision-making stage. 

The P&C market is becoming more complex and volatile, facing climate risk, liability pressures, and shifting conditions, making policies harder for users to understand.

This shows a clear direction for finance brands: simplify complex products and answer the questions your audience needs to know – which is what we call User-Centred Search. 

Insurance and other financial decisions are carefully considered, with users turning to search engines, social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram, and LLMs to find answers to their questions. The brands that show up with clear, helpful and genuinely useful answers are more likely to be trusted and considered when it’s time for customers to make a decision.

The FCA has shown that non-advised investing continues to grow. At the same time, Deloitte predicts that retail investor exposure to private markets in the US will increase from $80 billion to $2.4 trillion by 2030 – driven by digital platforms making these products more accessible. 

This growth contributes to how decisions are made. With more people investing without advice, they need to build their own understanding before committing to a platform, which means more time spent researching across multiple platforms. 

We already know that decision-making is no longer linear, so having your brand intertwined with content creators discussing wealth and asset management, providing tips cited in content you’ve created and being visible where these consumers are researching is how to build brand dominance. 

To help drive your brand in this category, the FCA has highlighted that investors prioritise feeds, credentials, regulatory status and recommendations when selecting advisors or platforms. 

The financial lives survey shows some of the factors considered when choosing a non-advised investment platform provider, including low platform fees, user-friendly website, good customer support, brand reputation, good educational materials and community/social features. 

This is a clear signal that brand marketers should use paid to capture early demand and recognition, PR to build brand reputation and credibility, and organic search and content to simplify the complex investment decisions. Social media is also a great tool to make financial concepts easier to grasp and build a community around investment decisions – and keeping your website friendly with a good UI and UX, with solid creative across channels will allow for a recognisable brand image and the perception of an easy-to-use platform. 

The payments industry is the most valuable sector of financial services, generating $2.5 trillion in revenue and $2.0 quadrillion in value flows, amounting to 3.6 trillion transactions worldwide. 

In the 2025 McKinsey Global Payments report, they predict that revenue growth will continue at 4% annually through 2029. Still, they could range from 3% to 6% depending on how ongoing pricing pressures, regulatory scrutiny and the growth of platform-driven payments disrupt the industry.

The World Payments Report noted that banks are seriously underprepared for the acceleration of platform-driven payments. Only 5% of global banks have high business and technology scores to dictate their readiness. To prepare, brands need to accelerate their preparations to gain a competitive advantage, particularly because non-cash transactions are increasing year-on-year. 

Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) is a clear example of how financial decisions are becoming embedded in everyday experiences. Since its launch in 2014, BNPL has grown from a minor presence to capture 8% of all online and physical POS payments, with that share forecast to rise slightly to 9% by 2030. In a cost-of-living crisis, being able to pay in three instalments has been a lifeline for consumers making slightly larger purchases, with the average spend in the UK rising to £114 per transaction.

With the sector’s rapid growth, the FCA has announced plans to tighten its regulation in 2026, with stricter affordability checks and stronger consumer protections. 

Even though the user base has expanded, the number of frequent users has remained steady, suggesting that many new users make BNPL purchases sporadically. Financial decisions aren’t always a separate, considered process; they are made in checkout, which changes what trust looks like. Users have less time to evaluate in checkout, but they still need confidence in the split payment or BNPL options for you to be chosen. This happens through brand building on the platforms with embedded finance options. 

The most common items purchased with BNPL are clothing, home electronics and appliances, including refrigerators or washing machines, purchased by nearly a third of British BNPL users. Tie this kind of storytelling into your brand to resonate with customers looking to make these purchases with a BNPL provider.

AI is becoming part of both banking operations, with 75% of financial services firms already using AI, and further adoption is expected over the coming years. With increased regulatory requirements and governance, and fragmented data systems and privacy, digital transformation across branches has been a slower process. 90% of bank employees struggle to access specific data, which limits the effectiveness of AI within financial operations. Looking forward, the key will be balancing advancements and improvements to their service whilst building trust. 

At the same time, AI is affecting how users discover and compare financial service providers. Over half of UK users now encounter AI overviews in search results. Research by Lloyds Banking Group shows that AI has rapidly become a tool for personal finances, with 56% (approximately 28.8 million people) admitting to using it in the past 12 months to help manage their money, with predominant areas including investment research, debt management strategies and future financial planning, such as pensions. 

You want to be the brand cited in LLMs such as ChatGPT to provide clarity on these queries, which means aligning your channels with how AI surfaces information. Reflect real user questions, build authority that AI systems can reference through the likes of PR and further your marketing strategy beyond your website so that AI can easily find and cite you. Doing this will help boost trust among potential customers. 

Across all parts of financial services, growth is driven not just by new products or technological advancements, but by changes in how people discover, evaluate and choose providers. 

Customers are more digital, less loyal and more intentional with their decisions – exploring options across multiple platforms, comparing information and looking for reassurance before committing to a provider. 

Because of this, brands can’t rely on traditional marketing channels; instead, they should focus on showing up where people are searching early on in their decision journey, simplifying the complex information in the finance industry, and creating a connected experience across marketing channels to build trust and confidence with customers.