February 3, 2026—Last week, Cornerstone Advisors released its What’s Going On in Banking 2026: AI, Crypto, and Fraud: Oh My! report written by their Chief Research Officer, leading banking and fintech thought leader and spirited author Ron Shevlin. This report provides financial institutions with a clear view of industry trends through fresh insights from the author and compelling survey data collected from over 400 financial institution executives nationwide.
According to the report, bank and credit union executives are heading into 2026 with optimism despite economic and political uncertainty, competitive threats, and rising fraud losses. This optimism rests on expectations of a more favorable rate environment, modest loan growth, and regulatory easing that could free capital and reduce compliance drag.
Key Takeaways include:
1. Growth Priorities: Deposits, New Relationships, and Lending Mix
Banks and credit unions continue to prioritize deposit gathering and new customer/member growth. For banks, deposit growth and new customer growth remain top priorities, while concerns about cost of funds and the rate environment have eased from 2025 levels. Credit unions similarly rank new member growth, efficiency, and consumer fraud at the top of their list of concerns, with data showing cost of funds falling lower on the list than in prior years.
On the lending side, commercial real estate and C&I loans are clear strategic priorities for banks, with a higher share of executives calling them “high priority” versus 2025. Mortgage and refi lending are also rising in importance, while interest in microloans has notably cooled, suggesting a tilt toward larger, higher-impact relationships.
2. Competitive Landscape: Megabanks, Fintechs, and Crypto-native Players
Perceived competition from big fintechs such as PayPal and Square and challenger banks like Chime has grown. The share of executives citing big fintechs as a “significant threat” jumped to 80 percent, challenger banks to 70 percent. This may reflect fintechs’ pursuit of bank charters and deeper encroachment into core financial services. Meanwhile, only 29 percent of respondents cited crypto providers as a major threat, despite Coinbase’s and other players’ push into payments, trading, custody, and “everything app” positioning.
Executives cited in the report reveal a belief that smaller, community-oriented institutions can still win on trust, local presence, and the depth of their relationships—but only if they modernize products and digital experiences quickly enough to stay relevant. The widening gap between affluent and lower-income consumers, and rising delinquencies in subprime segments, further intensify the need for smarter credit strategies and differentiated value propositions. Community banks and credit unions may excel in meeting this need.
3. Fraud and Risk: From Cost Center to Strategic Battleground
Fraud—especially first-party fraud, when a genuine customer uses their own real identity and account to intentionally deceive the institution for financial gain, rather than using stolen or fake identities—is now framed as a strategic threat, not just an operational nuisance. Around 40 percent of banks and 50 percent of credit unions saw fraud losses increase in 2025, and a majority expect further increases in 2026.
In response to new and growing threats, three-quarters of banks and credit unions plan to increase fraud prevention and dispute budgets in 2026. However, prior year data shows that, while many FIs have reported plans to adopt fraud, BSA, and AML platforms, implementation has fallen behind. The report underscores that the quality of the fraud resolution experience directly impacts customer confidence and card usage after an incident, turning fraud handling into a critical loyalty lever.
4. Data, AI, and the “No AI without Data” Paradox
2025 will be remembered as the year banks and credit unions woke up to AI—when they stopped just talking about it and started digging into what it could really do for them. But as they soon realized, AI tools are only as good as the data on which they are built.
Banks and credit unions report high confidence in their data strategies, but the author is doubtful of this self-reported data, pointing to other research that shows that community institutions are perhaps only midway to acceptable data quality, especially in sales and marketing. His core point is stark: without strong data foundations, AI efforts in any business area are likely to fall flat. Institutions are urged to tackle barriers such as hesitant executives, limited analytics skills in key functions like marketing, and vendors that push features instead of supporting real organizational change and better data execution. In short, there is no meaningful AI strategy without a credible, prioritized data strategy.
5. Tokenization, Stablecoin, and Instant Payments: Choose Your Lane, or Drive in All
The report frames stablecoins and tokenized deposits not as a binary choice but as components in a broader tokenization strategy, with four adoption options: ignore, use third-party rails, issue a stablecoin, or tokenize deposits. Roughly 9 percent of banks plan to invest in tokenized deposits in 2026, while most institutions are still in discussion mode around blockchain, stablecoins, and tokenized money. About 40 percent of respondents think tokenized money will become a “common utility” akin to ACH or debit rails, though nearly 30 percent still say it’s too early to tell.
Regulatory uncertainty, lack of client demand, and technology gaps are the primary brakes on tokenization. Instant payments adoption, on the other hand, is growing slowly, with credit unions showing faster growth in volume than banks. Account-to-account transfers, payroll, and last-minute payments remain leading use cases.
6. Fintech Partnerships as Growth Engines
More than half of banks and nearly two-thirds of credit unions already partner with fintechs for products and services, and roughly half plan to expand these relationships in 2026. Yet 43 percent of banks and 36 percent of credit unions still have no fintech partnerships at all. The report’s author argues that smaller institutions cannot achieve meaningful growth without external partners to bring new products to market.
Today, partnerships center on the design or implementation of mobile wallets, payment facilitation, credit reporting, rewards, and fraud-related services, with institutions planning for future expansion into embedded lending, subscription management, and other value-added offerings. The barriers to this development are as often organizational as they are technical: uncertainty about due diligence for smaller vendors, internal approval processes, ROI measurement, and execution discipline once a deal is signed. Strategically, institutions are urged to treat partnership capability as a core competency, not an experiment.
The complete Cornerstone Advisors report is available for download on their website.
As the year progresses, count on EasCorp to keep you informed on our blog. If the articles and research we share sparks ideas for your organization, or if you have any questions, please contact us. We’d love to have a conversation with you.
Editor’s note: This information is provided for educational purposes only and is the opinion and research of Cornerstone Advisors. The complete Cornerstone Advisors report is available for download on their website.