Curinos welcomed banking executives from more than 30 financial institutions to its Commercial & Wealth Summit, in Chicago, September 29 and 30. Curinos experts and guest speakers delved into the key drivers of future growth, both near-term and longer–term. Topics included the current state of the industry, the role of governance in pricing, Wealth compensation strategies and trends in treasury management. Presenters evaluated and looked into the future of stablecoin, private credit and the quickly evolving role of AI in banking. The high-energy gathering was a great opportunity for participants to hear from panel members but also from each other. From the presentations and discussions, here are seven timely themes that resonated.
1. Comparatively low-cost business-banking balances are intensifying competition, and churn indicates commercial customers are willing to move.
As higher acquisition rates continue to drive up overall commercial portfolio rates, business banking remains a reliable source of lower-cost deposits. But competition for them is intensifying, not only from traditional providers but from digital players as well – and these businesses are paying attention to their offers. In the first seven months of the year, net churn accounted for about one-quarter of the commercial money in motion. As with consumer deposits, today’s higher rates have prompted more shopping among businesses.
Average Industry Rates Paid | Jul ‘25
Jan ’25 – Jul ’25 Balance Churn | All Products | Commercial
Source(s): Curinos Consumer, Small Business, Commercial Deposit Analyzers.
Note(s): For Commercial, SB and BB, Non-Interest DDA/Checking includes NIB DDA, ECR DDA, and Analyzed DDA. Interest DDA/Checking includes IB DDA, Hybrid DDA and IOLTA. For Small Business, Other includes Escrow, Off Balance Sheet Sweeps, On Balance Sheet Sweeps and Others.
2. In Wealth, exception pricing is no longer the exception, even after the recent Fed rate cuts.
When Fed funds were low, as they had been for most of the past 15 years, there was relatively little daylight between published deposit rates and those actually paid. They were called exceptions for a reason. Today, the gap is yawning, and “exceptions” have become the norm. Although it’s eased somewhat since last year, the difference between stated and actual acquisition rates is still almost five times what it was only three years ago. And don’t expect the breach to narrow appreciably until Fed rates approach 3%, if that. Line of sight matters. Data that reveal actual rates paid are essential in monitoring the competition and, in turn, remaining competitive.
APY | Wealth Savings | Aug ‘22 – Aug ‘25
Source(s): Curinos Wealth Deposit Analyzer, Curinos Standard Rate Data | Note(s): Simple averages displayed | Page displays all data available at time of production and benchmark may differ from that of Wealth Deposit Analyzer tool
3. Stablecoin: Early use cases and GENIUS Act provide some guidance on where it’s headed.
Stablecoin is pegged to the U.S. dollar and therefore, unlike most tokenized currencies, provides a “source of truth” for what its value is and will be. But its day-to-day application for most consumers, at least for domestic transactions, appears to be little different from existing transactional platforms like Venmo and Zelle. Still, it’s increasingly taking hold in cross-border commercial transactions, particularly those involving third-world currencies. Settlements don’t require an intermediary and are instantaneous, and many recipients prefer to hold stablecoins as stored value rather than converting to local currency. The GENIUS Act is providing regulatory guidance on such things as reserve requirements, issuer obligations and risk control, but concerns over security and interoperability remain. That said, the consensus from our Summit experts was that as many as 10% of all transactions will be tokenized by 2030.
4. Private credit: Commercial lending’s barbarian at the gate, or frenemy?
Private credit is on fire. It’s currently only $2 trillion of the $30 trillion in outstanding commercial lending, but its growth has been spectacular, nearly doubling in the past five years. Its success has been tied to the growth of private equity and leveraged buyouts, which in recent years have provided the scale to make it viable and sufficiently attractive to private investors, who often realize double-digit returns. Advantages to borrowers include privacy and term certainty while issuers benefit from not being held to the same reserving requirements as commercial banks. But this may not be all bad news for banks. Summit guest Blue Owl often seeks a bank’s financial backing for greater leverage of its capital, especially for its burgeoning real estate-lending practice. Still, the Wall Street Journal recently called the private credit market “frothy,” and Jamie Dimon is concerned that, in addition to its lack of transparency, it hasn’t been stress–tested in a trying economy.
5. Wealth management firms are on the hunt for talent and making highly attractive offers to the right advisors, and their books.
As firms across the industry continue looking toward wealth management to drive growth and profitability, competition for advisors (and their books) has increased. To that end, many firms are offering advisors bonuses of more than 300% of their annual revenue to move. These bonuses assume that advisors can bring over a large percentage of their clients and are often in the form of forgivable loans that tie advisors to their new firms for a longer period. But large bonuses are not the only factor driving advisor movement or retention. Advisors also consider factors like institutional support, client stickiness and brand name when deciding whether to make a move. Advisors working at larger banks, for example, receive far more support than their counterparts at independent broker-dealers, particularly regarding referrals from other lines of business that make it much easier to add new clients to their books. In addition, clients at larger private banks may be relatively stickier to the institution (as opposed to the advisor), decreasing the percentage of the book that would move with the advisor.
6. Optimizing treasury management will be critical as banks make major investments in user experience.
Curinos research has shown that for the second year in a row doubling down on pricing optimization has increased annual growth to gross fees. The average bank in our Treasury Management Fee Analyzer has raised fees by over 6% YTD (annualized) with increases in all product families except depository service. While ACH, wire and info services have all shown positive volume growth, pricing changes have still been the primary driver of growth for most products. This comes at a time when banks are making major investments in new capabilities like faster payments, virtual accounts and (eventually) stablecoin platforms. Because these new capabilities may open up a limited incremental revenue stream (although it’s hardly guaranteed), it will continue to be critical for TM banks to hold the line on pricing to capture the value of the investments they’re making in their service offerings.
Note(s): YoY changes based on averages across banks; fees are cumulative in each period; certain banks were excluded from families due to being outliers
Source: Curinos TM Analyzer
7. Advances in banking technology are typically incremental. AI is changing that.
AI and advanced analytics are now the top technology priorities at banks, and their adoption is moving beyond compliance, fraud detection and IT support into the customer experience, where marketplace expectations are moving forward almost as quickly as the technology itself. But it’s critical to keep in mind that AI is an enabler and needs to follow strategy, not drive it. That means continually integrating humans into the mix for problem-solving, review and course correction. These human touchpoints can ensure the right guardrails are being respected and that the source of data and the outputs are transparent and auditable. (Off-the-shelf platforms often lack these safeguards and therefore risk compromising security and privacy.) That means getting the right stakeholders involved early and bringing them along in the process, so they’re invested and become ambassadors. They need to be shown that to the extent AI is best for the customer, it’s best for the enterprise and ultimately best for them.
