The next chapter of financial services is being written not by regulators or technologists alone, but by the leaders at legacy institutions grappling with transformation at scale. I met with Abhinav Anand, Head of Value and Lending at Citi; Nikki Katz, Head of Digital at Bank of America; and Megan Brewer, Head of Firmwide Innovation Strategy and Market Innovation at Morgan Stanley. What emerged were three distinct, yet thematically aligned, visions for the future of banking, each driven by urgency, discipline, and an unflinching commitment to relevance.
The Spending-Borrowing Spectrum
At Citi, Anand is leading an effort to blur the lines between spending and borrowing. His team views financial decision-making not as a series of isolated transactions but as a continuum that evolves over time.
“Historically, we treated spending and borrowing as discrete needs. But that’s not how customers think,” he said. “They want flexibility and control in one place.”
Citi Flex Pay, which is integrated with Apple Pay and also available in Citi’s App, allows cardholders to shift purchases into installments post-transaction. Anand sees this not just as a competitive product but as the beginning of a much broader trend, banks integrating smart credit options at the point of sale with the same fluidity as consumer fintechs.
That integration, however, comes with an advantage fintechs struggle to match: scale and trust.
“We may not offer a new line of credit at the point of need like Klarna or Affirm,” he said, “but we bring the protections, transparency, and customer service that people expect from a top-tier bank.”
It is working. Citi’s buy now, pay later product ranks in the top three in the U.S., according to JD Power, and Anand believes the next step is more embedded experiences at the point of sale, particularly in ecommerce.
From Products to Relationships
For Katz, the defining shift in banking is away from siloed product development and toward what she calls “relationship-focused” platforms. Her team at Bank of America supports over 58 million digital clients and is investing heavily in creating “personalized, proactive, predictive” financial experiences.
The clearest example is Erica, BofA’s AI-powered financial assistant, which has handled over 2.5 billion interactions since launch. But Katz emphasizes that the future is not about flashy AI. It is about trusted systems that help clients understand and act on their financial lives with greater clarity.
“If I could start a bank from scratch today,” she said, “I would focus first on human-centered design. Not on products, but on what clients are actually trying to achieve in their lives.”
That focus extends to employees. BofA’s transformation includes arming frontline staff with high-touch digital tools to ensure that the human experience is just as advanced as the client-facing one.
Rethinking Innovation at Scale
While Citi and BofA are focused on consumer banking transformation, Morgan Stanley is tackling a broader mandate: preparing the firm for disruption across investment banking, asset management, and wealth.
Brewer, who leads the firm’s innovation labs and strategy, points to an infrastructure-first approach to transformation. Morgan Stanley has invested heavily in tech modernization, not just to cut costs but to create space for meaningful innovation.
“You cannot adopt new tools if your engineers are buried in legacy systems,” she said. “Tech modernization and innovation are two sides of the same coin.”
Morgan Stanley runs on about a petabyte of data per second and pushes 15 million code builds annually. Rather than treating that scale as a constraint, Morgan Stanley views their data and distribution as assets. In addition, Brewer’s team has built three public cloud labs and over 20,000 square feet of innovation space to enable secure experimentation with both startups and incumbents.
Her team engages nearly 1,000 companies a year, and operates a “white glove evaluation” process on a selection of those giving feedback early and honestly.
“We want everyone we meet to succeed,” Brewer said. “But we expect them to know their differentiation and be laser-focused on one use case, not ten.”
The AI Reality Check
Across all three firms, AI is no longer a novelty. It is a necessity. But the tone has changed. The executives were unanimous: AI is overhyped in rhetoric but underestimated in potential.
Brewer believes agentic AI, software agents that can perform complex tasks, will radically accelerate productivity. She cited one major tech firm that now generates 20 to 30 percent of production code using AI. Another startup is already at 80 percent.
Still, Brewer cautioned, the real power of AI will not be in replacing jobs but in replacing “rote work” like meeting notes, summarization, and basic customer interactions. The prize is higher-value human work.
Katz echoed that sentiment, noting that client trust is the foundation. “If the trust is there, they are more than ready for AI to do more,” she said. “In fact, they expect it.”
Anand, too, is watching emerging trends closely. While he is skeptical of the U.S. leapfrogging ahead of countries like India or Sweden in certain categories like account-to-account payments for consumers, he believes faster, more transparent payments will force broader adoption of real-time infrastructure, with AI playing a key role in fraud detection and personalized offers.
The Build vs Buy Dilemma
All three leaders emphasized disciplined evaluation when choosing to build, buy, or partner. Citi also operates a venture arm, and stressed the value of early-stage partnerships when done right.
“Start small. Pilot. Build trust. Then scale,” said Katz, outlining Bank of America’s framework.
At Morgan Stanley, the same principle applies. Brewer’s team gives startup partners a readiness questionnaire to test their maturity, and if they are not ready, they are told so directly.
“We do not want a vendor. We want a partner,” she said.
Anand’s lens is strategic: build when it is core to differentiation, buy when time-to-market matters, and partner when external expertise can unlock new markets. “There is no one-size-fits-all,” he added. “But if a fintech can help us go faster in a regulated way, we are all ears.”
What’s Next
For all three executives, the future is not abstract. It is urgent. Katz is focused on embedding advice into daily interactions. Anand is doubling down on flexible lending at scale. Brewer is watching the convergence of quantum, spatial computing, and AI finally collide with real-world use cases.
“There has never been a more thrilling time to be in finance,” Brewer said. “After a decade of hype, the technology is becoming real.”
Each leader’s playbook is shaped by scale, security, and complexity. But they share a common thread: curiosity over compliance, relationships over products, and readiness over perfection.
As the line between tech company and bank continues to blur, it is not the fintechs that legacy players should fear. It is the banks that fail to change.
For more like this on Forbes, check out The 3 Innovation Challenges Keeping Bank CEOs Awake At Night and Why Banks Are Embracing Embedded Finance To Stay Competitive.