Why Decision Intelligence Is Becoming Banking’s Next Competitive Battleground
This article is adapted from a presentation given by Curinos Chief Business Officer Pete Gilchrist and Curinos Managing Director Bob Warnock on May 19 at Citi’s 2026 Beyond the Basics Conference.
Growing deposits is hard, expensive and getting more so.
Loan volume is up almost 8% in the last five years, but deposits haven’t kept pace—up only 3%. That imbalance has created mounting pressure on banks to find new, sustainable sources for funding. It’s putting significant burden on all business segments, and that in turn has led to churn that’s gotten expensive. As a result, banks have passed through lower betas during the falling rate cycle than they did when rates were rising (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Falling Rate vs. Rising Rate Cycle Beta by LOB
Source(s): Curinos Analysis, Curinos Deposit Analyzer | Notes: Falling rate beta based on Aug 2024 – Mar 2026; rising rate beta based on Feb 2022 – Jul 2024
Figure 2: Digital vs. Branch
Source: Curinos Distribution Analyzer, Curinos Analysis
At issue is not that digital channels are ineffective per se. It’s that most institutions still optimize digital acquisition around volume rather than long-term customer value. Banks are good at opening accounts but less so at building primary relationships. The distinction matters, especially as wallet fragmentation continues to accelerate.
So what to do?
The first step is to recognize that the problem can’t be solved by spending more on marketing, or favoring one channel over another, or leaning too heavily on rate. Any durable success needs to transcend organizational siloes and be centered squarely on the customer. Easy to say, but how? By putting in place a decision layer that converts data and insights that most banks already have into impactful executions.
The Missing Layer: Decision Intelligence
Banks have signals, channels, CRMs, marketing automation tools and pricing engines. What many lack is the intelligence layer to connect them.
That’s where AI-enabled decision intelligence comes in. Rather than optimizing products, campaigns or channels independently, it continuously evaluates customer behavior, predicts likely outcomes and dynamically adjusts actions in real time.
Decision intelligence is one native platform, not individual products stitched together. Offers, channels and timing are selected by the engine, governance and compliance guardrails are built in, and models update automatically from every interaction. It continuously learns from hundreds of optimizations per day, every cycle compounding on the last. That’s in marked contrast to traditional approaches, which can take 120-180 days from insight to optimization, a scant two to three “optimizations” per year!
Curinos’ entry in decision intelligence is Curinos One, built expressly for financial institutions. It uses AI to close the gap between data and outcomes to drive revenue by using data from third-party and first-party signals and Curinos’ proprietary benchmark data. Learning feeds directly back into the engine as it observes customer signals, decides optimal actions, acts through existing channels and continuously improves from outcomes.
Curinos One Capture is already making a marked difference in acquiring customers efficiently. Over time, Curinos One will respond to four more imperatives of customer growth and profitability: growing balances, accelerating primacy, retaining and deepening relationships, and optimizing the overall portfolio (Figure 3).
Figure 3: Curinos One: The Decision Intelligence Platform for Financial Institutions
The 1% Problem
Traditional acquisition strategies optimize for response rates, but response doesn’t equate to value. Many acquired customers generate little long-term profitability. In fact, fewer than 1% account for meaningful deposit growth. To find them, decision intelligence through Curinos One Capture is designed to identify prospects who are most likely to switch, choose the bank, bring meaningful balances, and deepen their relationship over time (Figure 4).
Figure 4: The Narrowing Acquisition Funnel
Note: New-to-Bank (NTB) customers are defined as those with tenure under one year; Backbook (existing) customers have tenure of one year or more | Balance acquisition includes deposits from new customer acquisition, account openings by existing customers,and balance increases | Deposit tiers are determined by total relationship balances at a customer’s 1st month with the FI | Scope is limited to the Retail LOB and Deposit Products only (Checking, MMDA/Savings, CDs)
Source: Curinos Deposit Analyzer, Curinos 2024-2025 US Shopper Study, Curinos Analysis
That kind of precision creates dramatically improved outcomes. In one case study of a Curinos client, AI-driven targeting produced:
- More than 2x higher response rates
- 5.5x higher average balances at acquisition
- Comparable retention performance to organically acquired customers
It’s important to note that these results were achieved without relying on aggressive promotional pricing.
From Campaigns to Continuous Learning
Historically, deposit campaigns operated like periodic events. Teams designed offers, launched the campaigns, waited for results, analyzed outcomes, and repeated the process months later.
AI-driven decision intelligence changes the cadence. Instead of static campaigns, banks can now continuously test treatments, learn from customer behavior and optimize interactions dynamically across onboarding, CD renewal, balance augmentation and retention.
One $100B+ asset bank using Curinos One generated more than $1.6 billion in new balances while reducing acquisition cost of funds by about 75% versus traditional acquisition. That produced a 10x payback in the first year alone (Figure 5).
Figure 5: Real Acquisition Results from Curinos One
The Competitive Shift is Real
For years, banks competed on products, rates, and channels. Going forward, they’ll compete on decisions:
- Which customer receives which offer?
- Through which channel?
- At what moment?
- With what expected outcome of lifetime value?
The institutions that answer these questions most effectively and most quickly will increasingly outperform their peers. Decision intelligence will allow them to:
- Connect signals faster
- Act with greater precision
- Learn continuously
- Align decisions around long-term customer value rather than short-term volume
Simply adding more AI and data to the mix is a faster way to be average. True differentiation and exceptionalism will emanate from decision intelligence.
