While competitive pricing remains important for acquisition, long-term customer loyalty is more often earned through consistent, high-quality service and meaningful experiences, according to the latest Salesforce Connected Financial Services Report – Second Edition. In fact, the report found that 46% of Australian consumers – including 55% of high earners – would stay with a financial provider that delivers excellent customer experience, even if it raised rates or fees.
Based on insights from 9,500 global financial services institutions, including 500 from Australia and 500 from New Zealand, the 2025 report uncovers insights into shifting expectations around digital experiences and customer sentiment around AI. It reveals that those future-focused institutions more likely to succeed are those that address customer pain points more efficiently and proactively with digital innovations – enhancing customer service, strengthening relationships and driving sustained growth.
Key stats
A more positive outlook
While economic uncertainty is still an issue globally, the report highlights that consumer outlook overall is more positive. As consumer confidence grows, so does the expectation for smarter, more proactive financial support.
In Australia, consumers have experienced a mixed bag of challenges and opportunities over the past few years. While some indicators suggest signs of recovery and wage growth, others point to continued pressures on household budgets and subdued consumer confidence. Regardless of market conditions, with no two customers the same, building strong relationships remains critical in the financial services industry.
Customer expectations are rising, but delivery is lagging
The report found that rising customer expectations are colliding with ongoing service friction. While digital banking is now standard, it’s not always seamless. Nearly half (47%) of global customers say they often need to repeat information to different service representatives. Meanwhile, 85% of bank reps say customers are more demanding than ever and 65% say it’s increasingly difficult to balance speed with quality service.
This growing complexity is forcing banks to rethink what personalisation really means. It’s no longer enough to use a customer’s name in an email. Today’s customers – particularly younger generations – expect interactions and offers tailored to their financial goals, behaviours and preferences.
IT is now the architect of customer experience
With more than half of customers preferring digital, self-service channels, institutions are under pressure to deliver simple, intuitive and fast experiences.
This shift is elevating the role of IT from a technical function to a growth enabler because customer experience relies on the systems and data that power it.
Customers now benchmark their banks not against peers, but against tech giants offering instant, intuitive, personalised digital journeys.
The link between AI integration and consumer confidence
While customer sentiment is influenced by broader economic and political forces, the sharp rise in AI adoption across the financial services sector between 2023 and 2025 aligns with growing consumer confidence in their personal financial security — suggesting a correlation between the two.
In 2025, 82% of Australian financial advice businesses are using, piloting or planning to use AI – well ahead of the global average of 64% and placing Australia at the forefront of AI-driven financial services.
Advisers are using AI to reduce costs, streamline operations and expand access to underserved communities, making financial advice more affordable and available. ASIC’s 2024 data supports this trend, noting that 61% of licensees planned to increase AI investment over the next year, with a shift toward more sophisticated use cases.
Globally, one-third (31%) of consumers now expect AI as integral to their financial experience and three-quarters (76%) believe it will be standard within five years. In 2025, 65% of consumers also expect AI to speed up transactions – up sharply from 46% just two years earlier.
And yet, AI is only as reliable as the data it learns from and acts on, making data accuracy and accessibility key priorities for financial services businesses. With data volumes growing rapidly, 88% of technical leaders agree that AI is only as effective as the quality of its inputs.
Data maturity is the differentiator
How data is structured, integrated and activated across systems has become vital to driving future growth. Without a unified and governed data foundation, initiatives in AI, personalisation and compliance remain limited in impact or capacity to scale.
Many institutions, despite being rich in data, still struggle to turn it into actionable insights. Disconnected systems, legacy infrastructure and the lack of real-time integration continue to create bottlenecks – not in data availability, but in its usability.
For IT leaders, the priority has shifted from data collection to data architecture. In fact, 93% of financial services executives believe they should be getting more value from their data — signaling maturity, not just volume, now sets the pace for innovation.
From complexity to capability
Financial institutions that thrive in the years ahead will be those that convert internal complexity into customer-focused capability — streamlining processes, integrating platforms and delivering personalised, end-to-end experiences that feel seamless to the customer.
Salesforce’s AI-powered CRM provides the foundation to meet these rising expectations at scale. And with deep experience across the financial services sector, Infosys | Simplus helps organisations activate these capabilities through end-to-end digital transformation services and AI technology.
