The financial services industry is undergoing significant changes due to a combination of structural and market forces. These include a rising demand for hybrid advisory models, an increase in digital assets, ongoing margin compression in investment banks, the acceleration of T+1 settlement mandates across Europe, and a growing focus on sustainable investment strategies. In response to these challenges, companies are integrating AI and advanced analytics into their core operations, adopting blockchain and tokenization to access new asset classes, expanding cloud infrastructure and data platforms for greater agility, and implementing AI-driven solutions for compliance and cybersecurity. Together, these efforts are creating a new standard for personalized, resilient, and efficient financial services.
Both demand-side and supply-side trends are covered in our Financial Services Digital Services 2025 Market Insights™ and Financial Services Digital Services 2025 RadarView™, respectively. These reports present a comprehensive study of digital service providers in the financial services industry, including top trends, analysis, and recommendations. It takes a close look at the leaders, innovators, disruptors, and challengers in this market.
We evaluated 49 service providers across three dimensions: practice maturity, partner ecosystem, and investments and innovation. Of the 49 providers, we recognized 21 that brought the most value to the market during the past 12 months.
The reports recognize service providers across four categories:
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- Leaders: Accenture, Capgemini, Cognizant, IBM, Infosys, HCLTech, TCS, and Wipro
- Innovators: Atos, Broadridge, Genpact, LTIMindtree, and Tech Mahindra
- Disruptors: Birlasoft, DXC, Virtusa, and Zensar
- Challengers: Coforge, EXL, Hexaware, and Mphasis
Figure 1 below from the full report illustrates these categories:
“Financial firms look to boost customer experience with hybrid-advisory, enabling alternate investments and optimizing costs and compliance efforts,” said Robert Joslin, managing partner with Avasant. “They are exploring agentic AI solutions, global capability centers (technology and business operations), and investing in digital and asset-light solutions.”
The reports provide several findings, including the following:
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- Digitally empowered mass affluent clients are driving demand for hybrid advisory models that blend digital convenience with personalized expertise, needing real-time, tailored wealth solutions to meet evolving expectations.
- Investor appetite for alternatives and digital assets is accelerating the evolution of next-generation exchanges and digital-first market infrastructure, with market participants embracing smart contracts and tokenization of assets.
- Investment banks are grappling with shrinking margins, elevated cost-to-income ratios across core services, and fee compression, driving a strategic shift toward automation and digital efficiency.
- Accelerated T+1 settlement timelines in Europe and the US, alongside regulations such as FRTB and SFTR, are compelling financial firms to adopt RegTech solutions, enable real-time disclosures, and greater transparency in capital markets.
- Private credit and equity capital are transforming the ESG investment landscape by fueling green innovation, needing tailored solutions to meet sustainability goals, tapping into tax incentives, and aligning with supportive regulatory frameworks.
“Providers are enabling hybrid advisory services using robotics and helping clients automate digital assets trade processing,” said Praveen Kona, associate research director with Avasant. “Digital solutions are being offered to optimize compliance and assess ESG impact with predictive analytics to transform operations and optimize costs.”
The RadarView™ also features detailed profiles of 21 service providers, along with their solutions, offerings, and experience in assisting financial services enterprises in their digital transformation journeys.
This Research Byte is a brief overview of Avasant’s Financial Services Digital Services 2025 Market Insights™ and Financial Services Digital Services 2025 RadarView™. (Click for pricing.)