18/07/2025
Balancing Compliance and Customer Expectations:
European banks are operating at the intersection of three seismic forces: relentless digitalisation, evolving customer expectations, and a rapidly expanding regulatory framework.
As the financial ecosystem modernises, institutions face mounting pressure to deliver intuitive, always-on digital services while simultaneously meeting increasingly complex compliance demands for future-proof banking against rising cyber security threats.
Urgency in Numbers
The numbers reflect this urgency. According to Bitkom’s 2024 Digital Finance report, 86% of German banks are increasing investment in digital infrastructure and compliance management. These investments are not discretionary; they’re essential for survival.
New regulations such as the EU’s Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) and the revised NIS2 Directive are transforming compliance into a board-level responsibility. As ENISA notes, DORA “places digital resilience at the core of financial supervision” shifting it from IT departments to executive accountability.
At the same time, digitally-native customers are benchmarking their banking experiences not against legacy competitors, but against the likes of Apple, Amazon, and Google. In this new environment, banks must challenge the assumption that security, compliance, and customer experience are mutually exclusive.
Security vs. User-Friendliness: Breaking the Binary
One of the most persistent tensions in banking is the trade-off between security and convenience. Robust security has historically introduced friction into the customer journey with complex passwords, cumbersome authentication steps, and transaction delays. In contrast, the sleek experiences offered by fintech challengers and Big Tech set new expectations for seamless digital engagement.
Yet the idea of choosing between security and user experience is a false dichotomy. Smart IT dissolves this binary.
Modern authentication no longer relies solely on what users know (passwords), but on what they are and how they behave. Biometric verification, device profiling, geolocation checks, and behavioural analytics enable continuous, background risk assessment. A recognised customer accessing an account from their usual device and location may complete a transaction instantly. Conversely, suspicious behaviour, such as a login from an unknown location or an uncharacteristic transaction, can automatically trigger step-up authentication.
This adaptive, invisible approach enhances trust without degrading the user experience. It turns security from a disruptive checkpoint into a seamless safeguard embedded within the user journey.
Compliance as an Innovation Catalyst
Historically, compliance has been a reactive, labour-intensive burden , an operational cost absorbed to avoid regulatory fines. Today, that mindset is shifting. With the advent of regulatory technology (regtech) powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning, compliance is becoming a lever for efficiency, intelligence, and growth.
The modern compliance space , which spans AML, KYC, ESG reporting, and operational resilience , demands continuous monitoring and real-time responsiveness. Manual processes are no longer viable.
Smart regtech solutions automate complex tasks:
- AI-powered transaction monitoring learns customer behaviour to flag anomalies and reduce false positives, enabling analysts to focus on genuine risks.
- Natural language processing scans regulatory updates across jurisdictions and alerts teams only to material changes.
- Graph-based link analysis traces beneficial ownership structures across borders, exposing hidden connections in seconds.
These technologies do more than reduce cost. They elevate the quality and speed of compliance operations, transforming the compliance function into a centre of intelligence. For institutions under pressure to comply with DORA’s rigorous ICT risk requirements or NIS2’s incident response timelines, this kind of automation is not optional, it’s essential.
More strategically, AI-powered regtech turns regulatory data into a competitive asset. By surfacing trends in customer behaviour and risk, these platforms create new opportunities for tailored products and proactive customer engagement. Regulatory compliance, once seen as a cost of doing business, is now a driver of resilience, reputation, and even revenue.
As adoption of AI accelerates within compliance workflows, the challenge of regulatory oversight intensifies. In the UK, Financial Conduct Authority CEO Nikhil Rathi warned that “AI [is] developing faster than market regulators can make rules,” noting that the FCA will rely on principle-based guidance rather than prescriptive regulation to keep pace. This underscores the need for banks to build durable, adaptable governance frameworks that can manage AI risk responsibly, rather than waiting for regulators to define the guardrails.
Modern Service and Support Structures as Enablers of Future-Proof Banking
A future-ready bank is defined not just by what it delivers to customers, but by how it empowers its employees and sustains its infrastructure.
The intelligent digital workplace is a cornerstone of that capability. Secure cloud-based environments, mobile device management, and unified collaboration platforms allow employees to serve clients effectively , whether from a flagship branch or a remote office. When these tools are integrated, they dismantle silos, streamline decision-making, and enhance agility.
But technology alone is not enough. The modern bank also needs a proactive IT service infrastructure. Traditional helpdesks , reactive, fragmented, and under-resourced , are being replaced by intelligent service management systems that use AI to resolve routine issues, route tickets efficiently, and pre-empt failures before they impact operations.
Leading institutions are extending this proactive posture to the physical-digital frontier through smart field service management. Technicians equipped with mobile apps and real-time asset data can maintain ATMs, PoS terminals, and secure branch systems with precision and speed. Predictive maintenance models ensure minimal downtime, while secure remote access tools reduce risk and response times.
This orchestration of digital workplace, intelligent service desk, and secure field services is the infrastructure through which resilience, compliance, and customer satisfaction are delivered at scale.
Best Practices: Real-World Lessons from Financial Leaders
The transformative potential of smart IT is not theoretical. Across Europe, leading institutions are already reaping the rewards of integrated digital strategies.
● Salt Bank, a 100% digital entrant in Romania, built its core systems on a modular, API-first platform. By combining cloud-native architecture with automated compliance workflows and mobile-first design, Salt launched in under a year, acquiring over 100,000 users in its first fortnight. Its success lies not in a single innovation, but in a coordinated, smart IT strategy that aligned agility with regulatory readiness.
● BBVA, one of Europe’s largest incumbents, embraced digital transformation at scale. With sustained investment in cloud infrastructure, analytics, and AI-driven sales models, the bank doubled its digital sales in four years and achieved a cost-to-income ratio among the best in its peer group. Compliance was not a barrier but an enabler , a structured transformation of risk management into a strategic function.
● ING took a different route, betting on hyper-personalisation. Leveraging vast datasets and machine learning, ING delivers tailored financial insights directly to users through its mobile app, positioning itself not just as a bank but as a proactive financial coach. The result is stronger customer loyalty and deeper engagement, with AI simultaneously improving service and compliance.
● ABN AMRO exemplifies how automation and governance can co-exist. The bank deployed Robotic Process Automation (RPA) across customer due diligence workflows, freeing analysts from repetitive tasks while maintaining high audit standards. Its federated operating model (central governance with decentralised delivery) provides a scalable blueprint for automation in regulated environments.
Each of these institutions faced the same foundational challenge: how to align digital agility with regulatory rigour and customer demand. Their success lies in recognising that smart IT is not a project, but rather a principle that must be embedded across the organisation.
An Integrated IT Strategy is a Strategic Imperative
In what has become a new era in European future-proof banking, the days of siloed priorities are over. Security, compliance, and user experience are not separate pillars but mutually reinforcing outcomes of a unified, intelligent IT strategy.
Beyond the digital realm, banks must now navigate risks driven by geopolitical tensions and environmental instability. Events like the 2025 Iberian grid failure and increasing regulatory pressure on digital sovereignty illustrate how IT infrastructure is deeply entwined with global politics and climate resilience. Regulations like DORA and NIS2 implicitly demand continuity plans that account for blackouts, sanctions, and supply chain vulnerabilities.
A bank that embeds behavioural analytics into customer journeys improves both safety and satisfaction. A compliance team armed with AI tools delivers faster, more accurate reporting and unlocks insights for product innovation. An employee empowered by a digital workplace solves problems faster, elevating customer trust and loyalty. This is the essence of future-readiness.
But designing and executing such an integrated strategy is complex. It requires deep sectoral knowledge, cross-disciplinary coordination, and an ecosystem of capabilities that few organisations can develop alone.
That is where Getronics comes in.
With a proven track record in regulated industries, a comprehensive portfolio of infrastructure, workplace, and cyber security services, and a presence in over 180 countries, Getronics partners with banks and insurers across Europe to design, deploy, and manage integrated IT frameworks that are resilient, compliant, and customer-centric.
To learn more, download our white paper, Achieving IT Resilience, and discover how Getronics can help future-proof your institution with the strategic IT capabilities needed to thrive in an era defined by change.
