Why I Chose Finance 2025 Services
Through AI-driven education and processes, companies are redefining operations, enhancing customer experiences, and achieving significant cost savings. The European Central Bank (ECB) and the Bank of England are expected to cut rates more aggressively in 2025. Banks, who have enjoyed several years of strong profits when interest rates were high, will see their profitability decline. Most large financial institutions (77%) say non-interest expenses such as wages have grown faster than revenues since 2022.
As the threat of cyberattacks, geopolitical tensions and economic uncertainty all intensify, banks and financial institutions must increasingly dedicate resources to ensuring operational resilience. This includes establishing robust contingency plans to enable business continuity in the face of supply chain disruption and customer behavioral change caused by war, global pandemics, climate-related disruption or any other threat. Demonstrating resilience to uncertainty is critical to building consumer trust as well as surviving all manner of potentially existential threats facing financial services organizations in 2025. 2025 is poised to be another challenging year, testing firms' resilience as they navigate uncertainties.
LONDON, 21 January 2025 – In 2025, the value of the top 25 IT services brands has reached USD163 billion, according to a new report from Brand Finance, the world's leading brand valuation consultancy. This growth is driven by more favourable market conditions, with IT companies benefiting from interest rate cuts, a rebound in corporate spending, and sustained demand for emerging technologies, notably AI. Guidehouse is a global AI-led professional services firm delivering advisory, technology, and managed services to the commercial and government sectors. With an integrated business technology approach, Guidehouse drives efficiency and resilience in the healthcare, financial services, energy, infrastructure, and national security markets. The financial services sector is evolving rapidly, driven by digital advancements, fintech growth and shifting consumer behaviour. "Private equity investors with significant capital view wealth management, insurance, specialised lending, and fintech sectors as attractive due to resilient markets and scalability through consolidation and operational improvements.
By employing tools such as the Total Workforce Index™ business leaders can choose the best fit for their business needs. This trend has enabled firms to streamline operations, improve service delivery and focus on core competencies. Since 2022, the European Central Bank (ECB) has collected annually the outsourcing registers of all its supervised banks. They estimate 10% of audited contracts covering critical functions are not compliant with the relevant EU regulations.
Firms will need to create a benchmark for the quality and trustworthy nature of that data to determine which will have the most material impact, as any misjudgements will be costly. AI is one of many technologies innovating the life cycle and we’re seeing it within the London market as participants strive to harness data right across the distribution chain. The convenience of managing financial affairs from centralized apps and digital-first platforms is pulling more and more customers away from traditional financial institutions. This is accelerating thanks to the ongoing rise of fintech startups and challengers, as well as the "super apps" such as WeChat or PayTm. These offer payment and financial services alongside communications and lifestyle functionality such as ride-sharing and e-commerce.
Managing workforce costs will be a key C-suite priority in 2025 and high on hiring managers’ agenda as they will naturally remain cautious. Overall, banking leaders and stakeholders in Europe, the US, and some other markets have every right to enjoy the industry’s strong recent performance. But is this banking performance the result of banks’ having addressed the fundamental challenges they face—rendering the performance sustainable and putting banks on track for long-term value creation—or was it driven largely by external factors? "The industry will face challenges in its AI adoption including, AI biases, high development costs, cyber security, and compliance issues. AI isn’t yet a substitute for a qualified human financial adviser though, and clients with complex financial needs will still need a human advisor for the foreseeable future, particularly when it comes to servicing vulnerable customers. "As the value of crypto surges following the Trump election win, we will continue to see increasing institutional interest in cryptocurrencies in the UK, both as an investment opportunity and as a viable form of payment.