Read the full Brand Finance Banking 500 2025 report online here.
Brand Finance recently hosted the Brand Exchange Event: Banking 500 CMO Roundtable in the wake of the Brand Finance Banking 500 2025 report release. The report aims to provide leaders of banks with insights to successfully navigate a volatile operating environment with evolving customer expectations. The event and the roundtable offered insights into global banking trends, with a particular focus on the challenges senior marketing leaders face. The Brand Exchange aims to connect senior marketing and brand leaders to meet peers and share stories.
A central theme identified in the report, and reinforced by industry leaders during the roundtable, was the increasing importance of trust and strong branding within the banking industry. In an environment shaped by geopolitical uncertainty, rapid technological innovation, and shifting consumer expectations, trust is paramount. Challenger/ neobank brands made gains this year, with Revolut the fastest growing brand worldwide at +795% year on year. We asked the banking marketing experts how they plan to balance what seem like conflicting needs of innovation and trust.
Experts feel that both are within reach, but this relies on a strategic shift needed from product-centric approaches towards customer-centric models to strengthen confidence and loyalty. While challenger banks are driven by convenience and customer experience, incumbent banks must gear up their technological capabilities to analyse and leverage their significant databanks of consumer spending to enable greater customer-centricity and hyperpersonalisation of offers. For example, leveraging data to promote products to customers based on their life stage and key events such as a child starting university. Fundamentally, experts emphasised that banks need to think about customer convenience, starting with “brilliant basics” before chasing more exciting advanced innovations.
The marketing leaders also emphasised the importance of shifting focus from short-term goals such as new account switches, to long-term goals such as building trust. They talked about their experience of making a case for brand building over shorter term performance marketing. The techniques and tools the experts swear by are textbook change management - when developing a new campaign or positioning, bring other executives along on the journey with you to foster a sense of ownership and acceptance from the start.
We hope the Banking 500 journal proves useful to senior marketing leaders around the world in quantifying the long-term value they generate, and welcome conversations about how we can support bridging the gap between marketing and finance within your organisations.
The Brand Exchange Event: Banking 500 CMO Roundtable was held in London on Thursday 3rd April, 2025. If you are interested in joining future industry leader roundtables, please email enquiries@brandfinance.com
Read the full Brand Finance Banking 500 2025 report online here.
