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State of the Union: Agentic AI in Financial Services

As we approach the Point Zero Forum 2025 in Zurich, I find myself reflecting on how agentic AI is fundamentally reshaping the financial services landscape. This isn’t just another incremental technological advancement – it represents a paradigm shift that’s transforming how financial institutions operate, serve customers, and manage risk.

The Dawn of Autonomous Financial Systems

The financial sector has entered a new phase in its AI journey: from passive assistance to active agency. While traditional AI systems have operated within predefined constraints—retrieving data, summarizing reports, streamlining workflows—agentic AI moves beyond these functions to plan, execute, and adapt complex tasks with minimal human intervention.

What distinguishes agentic AI is its powerful combination of autonomy, adaptability, and coordination capabilities. These systems can make independent decisions, learn from feedback loops, and interact with other AI agents to execute comprehensive workflows. The global market for agentic AI in financial services is projected to grow at an impressive rate of over 40% annually, potentially reaching $80 billion by 2034.

According to Citi’s latest research, references to agentic AI by BigTech in corporate documents and press articles increased 17x in 2024 and are expected to go parabolic in 2025. This signals a significant shift in the industry’s focus and investment priorities.

As financial institutions face increasing pressure to optimize operations, reduce costs, and deliver personalized services at scale, agentic AI offers a powerful solution for automating processes while maintaining accuracy and compliance.

Real-World Applications Transforming Financial Services

The practical applications of agentic AI across financial services are diverse and already delivering tangible results:

Wealth Management & Retail Banking

Investment firms like JPMorgan Chase are deploying AI agents to autonomously monitor markets, detect non-obvious correlations, and optimize portfolio allocations. These systems provide adaptive financial advice, real-time savings goal optimization, and personalized investment portfolios.

HSBC’s “Amy” has moved beyond simple customer service to provide more nuanced financial assistance.

For retail customers, virtual financial assistants and tax planning agents are becoming increasingly sophisticated, with Capital One ranking second in “AI maturity” according to Evident AI’s 2024 index, demonstrating how traditional banks are embracing this technology.

Corporate & Institutional Banking

In corporate banking, agentic AI enables custom lending offers, optimized loan structures, and dynamic pricing models. Financial planning agents and adaptive tax planning systems help institutional clients navigate complex financial landscapes.

Royal Bank of Canada, is leveraging agentic AI to provide custom research insights and real-time market alerts to institutional investors, giving them a competitive edge in fast-moving markets.

Risk & Compliance

Perhaps most critically, agentic AI is transforming risk management and compliance. Self-learning systems continuously refine fraud detection strategies, identifying new fraud techniques as they emerge. These systems can autonomously assess loans, using local data to evaluate risk without direct human involvement.

Citigroup has established an AI governance board that actively reviews AI-driven decisions for fairness and bias mitigation, while Barclays has adopted a human-in-the-loop model for AI-driven loan approvals to maintain compliance with regulatory standards.

In compliance, agentic AI refines risk assessments in real-time, dynamically responding to emerging threats and anomalies. This capability is particularly valuable in an era of rapidly evolving regulatory requirements and sophisticated financial crimes.

Operational Efficiency

Behind the scenes, agentic AI systems automate routine tasks with context-aware workflows, streamline complex operations, and handle invoice processing and reconciliations. The technology leverages advanced language models to analyze situations, determine appropriate actions, learn from outcomes, execute complex processes, and adapt strategies based on changing conditions in real-time.

Fintech companies like Covecta have demonstrated how agentic AI can handle lending and credit underwriting autonomously, reducing processing times by 80%. Meanwhile, digital-first banks like Revolut and Nubank are experimenting with fully AI-driven operational models, setting the stage for a new banking framework.

The Adoption Landscape: Progress and Challenges

The financial services industry is embracing agentic AI at an unprecedented rate. According to a Bank of England survey in 2024, 75% of financial firms reported already using AI, with an additional 10% planning to adopt it within the next three years.

A recent SS&C Blue Prism survey revealed even more ambitious adoption plans, with 87% of organizations actively deploying new AI technologies, 94% considering AI core to their entire business operations, and 76% planning to implement agentic AI systems within 12 months.

However, this rapid adoption isn’t without challenges. The same survey found that 74% of respondents face difficulties in adopting the latest AI technology, with around one-third citing security and compliance concerns, 36% concerned about employee skills, 34% worried about employee fear of losing jobs, and 33% facing technology integration requirements.

Moreover, some reports suggest that as high as 85% of AI initiatives fail, underscoring the gap between AI’s promise and its practical application in enterprise environments.

The Regulatory Landscape

As agentic AI adoption accelerates, regulatory frameworks are evolving to address the unique challenges these systems present. The EU AI Act represents a significant step in this direction, categorizing AI systems into different risk levels and establishing governance requirements.

Agentic AI’s autonomy and potential to operate with minimal human intervention raise unique regulatory challenges. The EU approach focuses on ensuring that while these systems can operate autonomously, proper oversight mechanisms, accountability frameworks, and transparency requirements are in place.

Financial institutions are responding by establishing robust AI governance structures. JPMorgan Chase and HSBC have appointed Chief AI Risk Officers to oversee responsible AI usage, while Citigroup’s AI governance board actively reviews AI-driven decisions for fairness and bias mitigation.

Point Zero Forum 2025: Addressing the Future of Finance

The upcoming Point Zero Forum in Zurich (May 5-7, 2025) will serve as a critical platform for discussing these developments and their implications. As an ambassador to this prestigious event, I’m particularly excited about the dialogue that will unfold around agentic AI and other transformative technologies.

The Forum will bring together over 2,000 of the world’s leading policymakers, central bankers, regulators, and industry experts to tackle pressing challenges in the financial ecosystem. One of the key questions guiding the 2025 dialogue will be: “Will Agentic AI-driven intelligent systems redefine industrial productivity and unlock new frontiers of innovation?”

The Forum will address two primary themes:

  1. The impact of geopolitics and macroeconomics on technology in financial services, exploring the state of adoption for distributed ledger technology, artificial intelligence, green tech, and wealth tech.
  2. The path to Europe’s digital sovereignty, focusing on establishing resilient policies, infrastructure, and innovation while addressing demographic challenges.

Looking Forward: Challenges and Opportunities

While the potential of agentic AI is immense, significant challenges remain. Financial institutions must navigate concerns around trust, data privacy, cybersecurity, and regulatory compliance. The technology raises questions about job displacement and algorithmic bias that must be addressed thoughtfully.

From my perspective, having worked at the intersection of technology and finance for decades, I see three critical success factors for organizations looking to harness agentic AI:

  1. People-centered transformation: As I’ve often said, “The most important asset that you have is your people.” How organizations bring their people along on this journey, helping them develop new skills and capabilities, will determine long-term success.
  2. Strategic integration: Agentic AI shouldn’t be deployed in isolation but integrated into broader digital transformation strategies that consider the entire ecosystem of technologies and business processes.
  3. Governance and ethics: Establishing robust governance frameworks that ensure responsible, transparent, and accountable use of agentic AI will be essential for maintaining trust and regulatory compliance.

Conclusion

We stand at the threshold of a new era in financial services, one in which agentic AI will fundamentally reshape how institutions operate, serve customers, and manage risk. The technology’s ability to autonomously make decisions, learn from experiences, and collaborate across systems represents a quantum leap from traditional automation.

Leading financial institutions are already demonstrating the transformative potential of agentic AI, from JPMorgan Chase’s market monitoring systems to Citigroup’s governance frameworks. The rapid adoption rates—with 76% of financial organizations planning to implement agentic AI within a year—underscore the industry’s recognition of this technology’s strategic importance.

As we prepare for the 2025 Point Zero Forum, I encourage financial leaders to consider how this technology can be harnessed responsibly to drive innovation, efficiency, and inclusion. The forum’s focus on AI-driven intelligent systems and their potential to redefine productivity aligns perfectly with the agentic AI revolution unfolding in financial services.

Remember, as I often say, “We are at the beginning of a marathon. It’s not a sprint.” The journey toward fully realizing the potential of agentic AI will require sustained commitment, thoughtful leadership, and collaborative approaches across the industry.

I look forward to continuing this conversation at the Point Zero Forum in Zurich and engaging with many of you on this fascinating topic.

Oliver Bussmann is a global technology thought leader and ambassador to the Point Zero Forum. With extensive experience as a former Group CIO at UBS and SAP, he advises financial institutions on digital transformation strategies and emerging technologies.

Image Credit: Wanan Wanan | shutterstock.com

Please note that this newsletter reflects Bussmann Advisory’s and Oliver Bussmann’s personal views and not those of any organization we are involved with. This newsletter is for educational purposes only and none of its content should be construed as investment or financial advice of any kind. More information on www.bussmannadvisory.com.

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The Blockchain Comeback: How Institutions Effectively Use Digital Assets

This blog post first appeared in Forbes.

A wave of skepticism hardly hit the crypto assets market in 2018, especially observable by a massive drop in ICO volumes. This sharp decline was mainly due to offerings of poor quality and a lack of regulatory oversight. 2019 will be a transition year on the way to a regulated market of tokenized assets. Security tokens are at the core of the rebound and three major disruptions are accelerating the redefinition of financial markets:

The digitization of existing assets

One of the main reasons which caused investors to lose interests in ICOs and cryptocurrencies was the lack of oversight on that new fund-raising method and the poor quality of the assets they received in return of their investments. To overcome that deeply-rooted problem, the trend is to turn towards known and well-recognized asset classes like tokenization of securities and add the efficiency and safety potential of decentralized ledger technologies.

An evolving infrastructure for digital assets

Supporting the digitalization of existing assets, a strong and reliable infrastructure is needed to provide a seamless experience for the end-user, namely individual and institutional investors wanting to diversify their asset allocation. Since the beginning of 2019, an upsurge of established global financial exchanges announced a handful of projects aiming at developing the trading of digital assets in a regulated environment. With different levels of progress, all major players have at least announced collaborations with technical experts and companies to develop deeper knowledge in this ground-breaking technology advancement.

A more transparent regulatory framework

There is a need for regulatory approval in all jurisdictions and broader market acceptance from all existing players in the industry. From the regulatory perspective, a major shift towards digital assets can be observed at the moment. But at its current state, it won’t happen before 2020. The Swiss legislator, considered to be one of the first to rule on that matter, will soon vote on such legislation. However, even if successful, the ruling will take effect on January 1st, 2020.

Today’s insufficient market infrastructure level

Currently, the market infrastructure still needs to overcome psychological and technological hurdles to trigger interest from institutional investors. Three main reasons explain the lack of trust in the existing market infrastructure: insufficient market readiness, lack of education of market players and investor related factors. Insufficient market infrastructure and market readiness can be defined by the limited integration between traditional money and digital assets, a low level of liquidity and transparency of current digital assets and no enterprise-grade custody solution available, making the investor itself bear the responsibility of holding the asset, or having to rely on relatively inexperienced custodians with low volume capabilities. The lack of education of market players is characterized by the recent development of decentralized ledgers and not enough time for established market players to adopt that technology to-date. Furthermore, there is no standard for security tokens. Lastly, investor related factors are comprised partly from a disjointed and inconsistent investor experience with crypto asset-based exchanges with renowned names having experienced systematic technical problems or having been hacked. Also, the lack of institutional grade investment products hindered the attractiveness of digital assets to meet the needs of sophisticated investment strategies.

What assets to be tokenized, only cash, shares and real estate?

In theory, all existing asset classes can be put into digital certificates “tokens”. From listed and unlisted equity, bonds, real estate, luxury goods and investment funds, every asset class already has been tokenized, but not in all cases was it proven to be an improvement of existing processes or adding any kind of value. One central criterion is that it’s only useful to tokenize assets, which can be after only be transferred via blockchain. With the current state of legislation, it does not bring value to tokenize tangible assets such as real estate and luxury goods since both asset classes can still be sold outside of the blockchain or any other exchange. However, the digitalization of intangible asset classes such as debt, equity and derivatives can already benefit from smart contract characteristics in managing the entire asset lifecycle such as issuance, electronic voting rights, dividend payments and automated shareholder registers.

Following are the Finoa research results on potential developments of digital asset classes for the upcoming 8 years:

Tokenized Economy

Source: https://finoa.io/#research

A clear trend can be observed that intangibles will cover most of the projected market volume with more than 95% of the total if we include “Other financial Assets” as intangibles.

Traditional & new players competing for the market share

Competition between the existing exchanges and newcomers will be key to determine the future of the digital assets’ providers. On one side, existing market leaders have the most potential to grasp the largest market share. With an existing base of trusted customers including the largest institutional firms, an established brand image and a proven ability to scale, only a technological change is required to address the new market of digital assets. Since they are and will remain regulatory compliant, exchanges will set the standards for security tokens to be listed, as they already do, increasing investors’ confidence and broad market acceptance. On the other side, new market players are entering the space with disrupting technologies and more flexibility to adapt quickly to changing market conditions. However, even with a more efficient technology, new actors are facing structural problems to set foot in the industry. First, regulatory conditions like exchange and broker-dealer licenses are needed to operate in most countries. In addition, distribution and connections to financial institutions are still lacking to gain broader market presence, acceptance and confidence.

The first half of 2019 has and will continue to witness traditional market players entering the digital assets space at a fast pace. Singapore’s SGX partnered with Nasdaq to develop a blockchain settlement system. In Europe, Deutsche Boerse and SIX also partnered with technology companies to integrate digital assets in their offering starting this year already.

Newly established companies are starting to get traction in the security tokens space with names like Coinbase Prime to create an institutional trading platform or t-Zero which offers a regulated platform for security token offerings. Also, daura and Sygnum joined forces with Deutsche Boerse and Swisscom to build a tokenized ecosystem with a focus on issuance of security tokens.

Dependent on regulatory approval

To conclude, digital assets show a great potential for the future of the financial service industry. To support its successful development, customers and institutional players will soon decide on whom to partner with for new security tokens issuance. Furthermore, the regulatory approval will be the most time costly condition to get the ecosystem up and running. 2020 will be a transition year for the development of the market infrastructure for security tokens. Momentum will build up in 2021 and 2022 before going to a generalized market acceptance and towards a more tokenized economy.

Oliver Bussmann is Founder and CEO of Bussmann Advisory; ex-chief information officer at UBS and SAP.

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