At the 2026 Curinos Insight to Impact Growth Summit May 12-13 in Nashville, retail banking leaders from 35 financial institutions gathered to discuss a reality facing the industry: growth has become materially harder, customer behavior is changing faster than institutions can adapt and AI is reshaping how financial decisions will be made.
But the conversations went beyond market trends and operational pressures. A consistent theme emerged across the Summit: the institutions that outperform over the next decade will not simply have more data or more AI tools. They’ll be the organizations that build better decision systems—connecting insight, execution and learning across the enterprise.
That shift sits at the center of Curinos One, the decision intelligence platform Curinos officially launched at the Summit. Throughout the event, speakers and discussions repeatedly reinforced the same idea: modern banking growth is no longer about isolated campaigns, disconnected analytics or siloed product strategies. It’s about creating coordinated, customer-centered decisioning systems that continuously improve over time.
Here are seven themes that stood out:
1. Growth is hard—and traditional playbooks are making it harder.
FIs have been moving from product-centric to customer-centered for the better part of a decade, and AI is now accelerating the pace. It’s enabling 1-to1 decisions at the scale at which a bank actually operates. It may not be long before institutions are negotiating with a consumer’s AI agent.
Source: Curinos Spring 2026 Review; Curinos Marketing Analyzer; Curinos Shopper Survey
But this “old world” approach is no longer sufficient in an environment where customers expect highly personalized, contextual experiences similar to those delivered by leading digital platforms. The “new world” begins with the customer and dynamically determines the right product, offer, pricing action or engagement strategy in near-real time against a unified enterprise objective.
All this comes at a time when the cost of getting it wrong is rising:
- Cost per checking acquisition rose to $559 in 2025—more than doubling since 2018
- Fully half of switching customers now hold 4+ banking relationships, up from only 7% in 2019
- Balance attrition is up 25% since 2019
At the same time, Curinos data challenge several long-held assumptions about growth:
- Fewer than 10% of banks achieved the commonly assumed 3% growth threshold in both customers and deposits
- 75% of deposit growth now comes from existing customers rather than new acquisition
- Less than 1% of prospects drive meaningful deposit value
- Most promotional deposit balances simply cannibalize existing bank balances rather than bringing in new money
The core message is clear: growth can no longer rely on volume-based acquisition strategies alone. Future growth will depend on improving visibility into full customer relationship value, using AI-driven decision intelligence and shifting investment from broad acquisition tactics to deepening and retaining high-potential existing customers.
2. Tomorrow’s most valuable customers may not look that way today.
One of the Summit’s most important discussions centered around how institutions define customer value.
A five-year cohort analysis reveals a pattern most banks can’t see, and most agentic workflows will never surface: many of the customers who appear least valuable at acquisition ultimately become the institution’s most profitable. About 20% of mass market customers evolve into relationships that are 3x more valuable within five years—representing as much as 60% of all deposit growth—as they consolidate balances, deepen product usage and increase engagement. But too many banks give up on them too early, focusing instead on balances at account opening instead of on the long-term relationship. The graduation to a high-value relationship has fallen off their radar screen.
Source: Curinos Spring 2026 Review; Curinos Marketing Analyzer; Curinos Shopper Survey
The same goes for relationship depth. Customers with deeper relationships show materially higher CD renewal rates, while rate-led acquisition strategies generate significantly higher churn (64%). In both cases, banks need to be able to see the relationship and act on that insight at the right time to ensure long-term value.
This is where decision intelligence becomes critical. Traditional segmentation models and static scoring systems often miss the dynamic behaviors that signal future value. Financial institutions increasingly need systems that can continuously observe customer behavior, identify emerging potential and adapt engagement strategies before those opportunities are lost.
3. Digital expands but balances contract. What to do?
Digital account opening continues to grow rapidly, but the disconnect is widening between digital acquisition volume and long-term relationship quality.
After 12 months, a scant 41% of digitally acquired relationships remain on the books, compared with three out of four for those sourced at the branch. And after two years, digitally acquired accounts display only 35% of the balances that are initiated in branches. Clearly no one has yet cracked the code on digital quality or, more accurately, lack thereof.
But opening an account through digital means is projected to account for well over half of all new accounts as early as next year. To make up for the 29% in lost balances of what had been $1 billion of deposits in 2023, retail bankers will have to add 54,000 new customers— a staggering 41% increase in only four years. That’s daunting, but clearly, inaction is not an option. So what action to take?
Source: Curinos Distribution Analyzer, Curinos Deposit Analyzer, Curinos Analysis
Simply accelerating digital acquisition isn’t enough. What’s needed is an improvement to onboarding, activation and relationship deepening once the digital customer commits. At the same time, banks will need to rethink how digital and physical channels can work together to motivate more customers to come through the door in the first place. They’re the ones likely to produce balances that are higher to begin with and stickier down the road.
The institutions seeing stronger outcomes are not treating digital and physical channels as competing strategies. They’re coordinating them as part of a connected system for customer growth.
4. When expanding the footprint, it pays to be known.
Awareness matters. It’s what’s driving the success of national banks as they expand their physical presence in their current markets and go de novo elsewhere. They display 56% unaided brand awareness where they have branches—only three U.S. markets show over 50% unaided awareness for a regional or super regional—and almost 20% unaided awareness where they have no branch presence at all. That compares with only 11% for regionals and super regionals that do.
This dominance translates to down-funnel results. Nationals enjoy being in the consideration set almost 30% of the time, and they clinch the sale 13% of the time. That’s 3-6x higher than their competitors, even including fintechs. And their power ratio, the collective market purchase rate divided by their branch share, is 4-7x higher than their competition that have branches.
Note: 1. Markets with at least 1% branch share | Nationals: Bank of America, Chase, Wells Fargo; Regionals: $10B+ in deposits; Community: <$10B in deposits; Direct banks are financial institutions that operate primarily online without physical branch locations, FinTechs are technology companies that utilize technology to innovative and improve upon a wide range of financial services | Credit unions do not have branch share and are excluded in the power ratio calculations | FIs with fewer than 50 respondents across fewer than 3 markets were excluded for statistical significance; community/credit unions were exempt | Power ratio calculated as simple average of all market’s purchase rate divided by branch share
Source: Source: Curinos Customer Knowledge 2025 | US Shopper Survey 2025 (N = 11,490) | Main Sample, Population-Adjusted
A strong brand presence takes the friction out of acquisition. It expands the consideration set, improves conversion rates and allows institutions to compete effectively even in markets where branch density is limited. If institutions want to capitalize on the branch presence they already have, they need to actively invest in brand and distinctiveness. Meaningful growth will depend on the combined force of brand scale and physical presence working together.
5. Segmentation alone is no longer enough.
The value that customers within a segment bring to a bank are remarkably consistent, even across all age bands. But Curinos research shows that less than 1% of prospects contribute to meaningful deposit growth over time. That means that Fis need to be able to find the right prospects within those segments if they’re looking to make a consequential impact on their balances. And that can be a tall order when only 6% of consumers switch banks each year, only 7% of regionals are in the consideration set to begin with and only 15% of prospects who do switch bring more than $10k in deposits with them.
Source: Curinos Deposit Analyzer, Curinos Capture, Curinos Analysis
Traditional funnel metrics such as response rates and acquisition volume are insufficient. The institutions outperforming today are moving beyond broad demographic targeting toward customer-level decisioning—identifying individuals most likely to deepen balances, consolidate relationships and respond positively to specific engagement strategies. That requires more than analytics dashboards. It requires decision systems capable of turning insight into action continuously and at scale.
6. Brand awareness compensates for low branch density, and vice versa.
Branch location still matters, but to drive acquisition it needs to be considered in the context of an FI’s brand. Strong brand awareness and distinctiveness render having prospects closest to the branch less important. This dynamic is what Curinos calls the “halo effect” that radiates from branch locations. Where banks are relatively unknown, on the other hand, proximity to branches becomes much more critical to acquisition because physical presence compensates for lower familiarity and trust.
Source: Curinos Deposit Analyzer, Curinos Capture, Curinos Analysis
The tradeoff brings into sharp relief “the marketer’s dilemma”: Do I spend money activating customers where I have strong brand today, and therefore low CPA, or do I build brand in new markets to drive success tomorrow, even if at a higher CPA today?
The broader implication is that branch strategy, marketing investment and brand management need to operate as one coordinated growth system. Institutions that succeed will be those that will optimize both physical distribution and brand positioning in concert—using customer-level data to determine where branch proximity matters most and where brand strength can substitute for network density.
7. How you reach them today predicts their value tomorrow.
Lower acquisition cost can be specious. Much of the time it doesn’t translate into long-term customer value. Consider digital display advertising versus direct mail. On the surface digital display appears significantly cheaper—about $350 per acquisition versus $680 for direct mail. But value down the road tells a much different story.
Digital campaigns primarily drive customers into digital onboarding journeys, where customers tend to fund accounts at lower rates and maintain smaller balances over time. Direct mail, by contrast, generally pushes customers toward branch-assisted onboarding. Although more expensive to attract upfront, these customers typically arrive with higher balances that stick around. At the same level of marketing spend, direct mail generates 34% more retained balances after 12 months because of more advantageous funding behavior and a relationship that lasts.
Note: 1. Assumes 80/20 mix of digital/branch originations for digital display; assumes 20/80 mix of digital/branch originations for direct mail
Source: Curinos Analysis, Curinos Marketing Analyzer
The lesson? Channel efficiency needs to be measured by profitable customer growth that’s sustainable rather than on cost per acquisition alone. And that means aligning marketing strategy with onboarding experiences that anchor the relationship going forward.
Conclusion
Banks traditionally have competed through scale, products, pricing or distribution. But increasingly, competitive advantage is shifting toward the ability to learn and adapt faster at scale. That means:
- Identifying relationship value earlier
- Coordinating decisions across silos
- Continuously learning from outcomes
- Moving from static campaigns to adaptive decision systems
- Aligning marketing, product, pricing and servicing around shared customer outcomes
The institutions that succeed will not simply collect more data. They’ll capitalize on it by operationalizing better decisions.
