What emerging signals should finance leaders have on their radar?
This article is part of Stravito’s Foresight series, which highlights signals: early seeds of change that may develop into future trends and influence the future.
- For a broader view of the trends and signals influencing consumer behavior, read our previous deep dive.
- In this article, we explore signals that could influence the financial industry. Earlier articles covered retail and FMCG.
- Up next, we will cover pharmaceuticals and life sciences, followed by media and telecommunication
I spent a decade in fintech, and one of the things I enjoyed most was its complexity: from regulation and technology to supplier ecosystems and consumer behavior.
That complexity is intensifying as consumer expectations accelerate and the industry responds to AI, cyber threats, geopolitical uncertainty, volatile markets, new currencies, and financial innovation.
What gives money value in the first place? Only 3% of UK money exists as notes or coins, 18% is held in reserves, and 79% is created through bank lending, grounded largely in trust. As automated trading expands and prediction markets grow, financial systems are moving further and further away from value anchored in tangible assets. People can now bet on almost anything, from wildfires and election outcomes to whether a celebrity couple will get engaged, creating new ways for expectations and sentiment to influence perceived value.
But with every trend comes an anti-trend. As unpredictability grows, so will demand for predictability and monetary systems linked to real-world value. Meanwhile, as climate moves from a corporate social responsibility (CSR) nice-to-have to a core business concern, energy is moving from the income statement to the balance sheet.
With these shifts in mind, I asked foresight experts Marianna Mäki-Teeri of Futures Platform, Cecilia Tham and Mark Bünger of Futurity Systems, and John Beasy, a foresight analyst in government, to share one signal each that could influence the future of finance and explain how businesses can turn it into an opportunity.
But first, let’s look at three macrotrends impacting the financial industry right now.
3 macrotrends shaping the financial industry today
| Stravito is pleased to work with Euromonitor International, the macrotrend insights partner for this signal industry series. Stravito and Euromonitor customers can access Euromonitor’s insights directly through our integrations. |
David Zhang, Insights Manager at Euromonitor International, highlights three key macrotrends:
1. Cards are taking the lead in consumer lending
Global personal lending is entering a two-speed growth phase. Card lending is projected to grow at a 10% value CAGR from 2025 to 2030, ahead of other personal lending at around 4%.
This stronger momentum reflects consumers using cards not only for borrowing but also as integrated payment, rewards, and financing tools embedded in everyday spending. Meanwhile, other personal lending options, including buy now, pay later and microcredit, are gaining traction as alternative forms of finance.
Growth is moderating as concerns about non-performing loans increase and regulatory oversight strengthens. The result is a lending landscape where cards aren’t just for credit, capturing a larger share of future growth in consumer financing.
Question for leaders:
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How can we capture growing demand for flexible financing while ensuring that our propositions remain valuable, accessible, and responsible?
2. Mobile commerce is becoming a preferred payment channel
Mobile commerce, both in store and online, has grown quickly and is set to expand further. Beyond the widespread adoption of mobile devices, mobile banking apps and increasingly sophisticated digital wallets are driving this shift by making payments more convenient and enabling greater personalization.
By using transaction data, digital wallets can create additional value and deepen connections between consumers and merchants. Mobile commerce is expected to grow by USD 6.6 trillion over the next five years.
Question for leaders:
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How can we turn mobile payments and digital wallets from simple payment tools into platforms for deeper customer engagement, personalization, and loyalty?
3. Digital commerce is raising the bar for fraud prevention
Card fraud losses continue to rise, both in absolute value and as a share of total card payment value. Across the 47 markets researched, USD 30 billion was lost to card fraud in 2025.As AI advances, it is accelerating innovation in both fraud techniques and prevention capabilities. The US remains the world’s largest market by total card-fraud losses, creating a strong incentive for the industry to strengthen prevention and support effective regulation.
Question for leaders:
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How can we stay ahead of increasingly sophisticated fraud while balancing stronger security, a seamless customer experience, and evolving regulatory requirements?
[For a deeper look at the macrotrends shaping the future, read our previous article on consumer behavior. It explores five macroshifts across sectors and three signals that could significantly influence future consumer behavior.]
3 emerging signals finance companies can turn into opportunities
1. Nature as a stakeholder in a new era of measurable ESG reporting
Cecilia Tham, CEO, and Mark Bünger, CTO, Futurity Systems
About Futurity Systems: Powered by the world’s largest knowledge graph of innovation, Futurity blends data, imagination, foresight, and engineering to build better futures faster.
| Signal area: Technical, environmental |
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What? A nature-driven economy is emerging in which nature makes financial decisions Today’s economy is fundamentally unsustainable: we extract from nature but rarely account for the full financial and environmental costs. The World Economic Forum foresees a future where nature is treated as a formal corporate stakeholder, changing how we do business. We’re seeing a new nature-driven economy that could take shape: a future where animals, plants, and ecosystems become active economic participants. This means granting non-human life their own rights, ownership of assets, and the ability to make transactions and enter into contracts. This nature-driven economy is emerging from separate yet converging movements: the Rights of Nature movement in law, new science on non-human communication, and AI’s growing ability to conduct business autonomously and be recognized as legal persons. This is not science fiction. By connecting plants to sensors, agentic AI, and cryptocurrencies, a plant can now be in charge of an AI that manages a real business.
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So what? A nature-economy offers credible ESG-reporting opportunities Businesses operate and are measured in monetary values — fundamentally, businesses speak the “language of money”. Non-monetary concerns can be translated into business logic, but in the end, finance wins. For the environment to win, or negotiate, it must receive, hold, and manage money. That’s what giving nature a seat in the boardroom truly means. Giving nature a voice matters for business. It is a measurable leap in ESG reporting, in which nature is translated into actionable accounting terms. We see interest from bankers and regulators incorporating nature-driven decisions into investment funds and laws, as it offers businesses a chance to escape the “noise” of generic green marketing and ESG box-ticking. Actually embedding non-human living things as stakeholders in financial and operational governance? That’s almost unheard of and offers a real chance for differentiation – like Patagonia did when it put nature at the center of its governance model. |
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Now what? Early adopters can help set a new standard for financial ESG reporting Recognizing nature as a stakeholder within ESG reporting is a rapidly evolving shift. The more you learn about this change, the more it moves from “impossible” to “inevitable.” Banks, regulators and businesses are already giving nature a seat at the table in their organizations. We’re already working with financial institutions incorporating nature into the balance sheet. Also, the largest property developer in Thailand is using IoT sensors and AI to incorporate the needs of birds, insects, snails, and plants living into maintenance decisions. Embedding nature as a stakeholder lets financial institutions better assess long-term resilience and systemic risk, where climate and biodiversity risks become financial realities. Consumer preferences change fast. With increased awareness, a nature-driven economy could become the norm. Banks and financial institutions can stay on top of it, and pave the way for the future of financial ESG reporting or remain stuck in toothless green claims. |
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Question for leaders:
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2. Gen Z’s unease with AI could make human-led banking a strong differentiator
John Beasy, Foresight Analyst at one of the world’s largest government foresight organizations
| Signal area: Social |
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What? Gen Z is feeling increasingly resentful towards AI According to a Gallup poll, roughly 40% of Gen Z report feeling angry or anxious towards AI, compared to only 20% who feel hope or excitement. Despite these feelings, Gen Z has a high adoption of AI, largely driven by fears of being left behind economically or becoming uncompetitive in the labor market. This mirrors discourse that AI may create a “permanent underclass” in the economy. Overall, Gen Z feels that AI is making them dumber, creating low quality “slop”. Yet they feel compelled to use AI to remain competitive in a shrinking job market. |
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So what? AI-first finance could become a liability amongst young consumers This signal matters because it’s an organic, negative reaction towards what many in financial services see as a vehicle for innovation and efficiency. While AI may be popular among executives, investors, and technologists, it does not elicit positive emotions among Gen Z. This suggests that banks, fintech companies, insurers, and investment managers looking to attract Gen Z customers may need to reconsider how prominently they feature AI in their products and services. As this generation feels increasingly anxious about AI, it may not be a selling point but something to deliberately downplay. Financial services powered by AI, such as chatbot support or algorithmic credit scoring, could become associated with being “cheap,” “low-quality,” or socially harmful, eroding trust and adoption among young consumers. If AI products aren’t balanced with human oversight or ethical transparency, overuse of AI may become a liability rather than a differentiator in the eyes of the younger generation. |
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Now what? Keep people in the financial loop to win over Gen Z As Gen Zers place high value on authenticity, this could be an opportunity for financial institutions to differentiate themselves in the AI era. Gen Z may avoid AI-driven portfolio products, support channels, or financial advice, and may favor offerings that prioritize human-driven banking, advisory, and customer service. Financial brands could market that key products are human-designed, advisory and decision-making processes guarantee a “human in the loop,” and that customer support always makes a human available. Some may even be willing to pay a premium for services where extra cost supports premium “human guarantee” labels, advisors, and ethical standards. This could be an effective differentiator if competitors lean into full AI automation. |
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Question for leaders:
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3. Energy-backed money could reshape the financial system
Marianna Mäki-Teeri, Head of Strategic Foresight & AI, Futures Platform
About Futures Platform: Futures Platform brings together verified market insights, expert-curated future trend analyses, collaborative sensemaking tools, and purpose-built AI to help organizations understand and prepare for the future. It empowers strategy, market intelligence, and foresight teams to explore alternative futures, spot emerging risks and opportunities, and connect their insights to future-fit decisions.
| Signal area: Economic, ecological |
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What? Energy could serve as a new basis for money Fiat currency is government-issued money not backed by a physical commodity such as gold. It has been criticized for its various flaws such as detachment from real value, inflation and market crash, prompting the search for alternatives. One idea gaining traction is energy-based currency, a monetary system where the value of transactions is measured, in whole or in part, by units of energy. This idea of replacing gold with energy as the basis for money was reportedly proposed by Henry Ford in 1921. Recently, researchers have renewed interest in energy-based currencies to facilitate sustainable energy transitions and community development. Innovations include certificates based on renewable energy generation, energy-based blockchain currencies like SolarCoin, and tradable energy credits, testing grounds for the next wave of monetary models. |
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So what? Linking money to energy brings new opportunities and challenges If the world switched to energy-backed currencies, global financial institutions would need major changes, including clear systems to measure and verify energy use everywhere. Robust certification systems would be critical to sustain trust in such a currency. With energy as the new standard, money’s value would rise and fall with real-world energy prices, production and environmental conditions. This could reduce speculative volatility and tie financial markets more closely to real resources, supporting economic models grounded in sustainability. However, controlling inflation or deflation could become more difficult. Technical hurdles – like storing energy, conversion losses, and uneven infrastructure – could also slow adoption. Powerful players might manipulate energy markets, risking the stability of such a currency. |
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Now what? Move energy from the income statement to the balance sheet As the world shifts to renewable energy and the demand for energy-intensive technologies such as AI grows, linking currency to energy could incentivize investment in sustainable infrastructure. This would synchronize economic growth with environmental objectives and reduce the global carbon footprint – offering new opportunities in ESG reporting. Nations with abundant renewable energy sources like solar, wind, and geothermal power may attract capital inflows and improve their trade balances. This could shift geopolitical influence away from dominant currencies like the US dollar. Businesses can stay ahead by following developments in energy certification, measurement, and verification standards, monitoring early experiments in energy-backed digital assets and tradable credits. Enterprises with high energy exposure may also begin treating energy as a strategic asset rather than merely a cost, positioning themselves to benefit if energy-referenced value systems gain traction. |
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Question for leaders:
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No one can predict what the future will look like; however, these signals indicate underlying needs and forces: the search for predictable and tangible value, the need for authenticity, and how fast-rising climate and energy risks are rewriting the rules of economic growth and risk.
The next competitive edge will come from deciding and acting on the right signals, smarter and faster than your peers. Which of these signals will matter most to your organization, and what are the actions you should take today? What would it cost if your competitors acted first?
Spotting signals is only half the work. The next step is to analyse them in the context of your own business, industry dynamics, and broader macrotrends. Stravito helps teams connect emerging changes with existing knowledge and turn foresight into informed action.
In the next article, we will explore signals that could influence the future of pharmaceuticals.
Below are some questions to bring to your next executive meeting.
| Executive self-reflection questions |
| 1. Which decisions or investments should we consider today if energy, nature, and a ‘human guarantee’ become new sources of value or regulation? |
| 2. What criteria will help us decide whether to lead, follow, or take a different path as these trends emerge? |
| 3. If competitors act on one of these emerging changes first, how could it affect our revenue, brand position, or regulatory standing? |
Maria Selting Theorell is a futurist, tech philosopher, fractional CMO and strategic marketing consultant to Stravito. See more about her here.
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