Bankers’ Strategic Priorities
Strategic priorities help community financial institutions focus on areas to drive value, providing a roadmap for achieving long-term goals.
When asked about their strategic priorities for 2025, increasing operational efficiencies topped the list. Banks with asset sizes of $500M - $5B were most likely to select this priority. Deposit growth and technology modernization rounded out the top three, demonstrating bankers’ focus on expanding their accounts and updating technology to meet customer expectations and deliver enhanced functionality.
Increasing Operational Efficiencies
Deposit Growth
Technology Modernization
While the top three strategic priorities stand out, the survey also reveals other areas of focus following closely behind:
Strengthening Cybersecurity
Mergers and Acquisitions
Opening New Branches
Customer Support
Market Expansion
Loan Growth
Industry Insight
Having clear strategic priorities enables banks to guide their future plans, anticipate and respond to challenges and meet the needs of their customers and stakeholders. As banks experience increased competition and market pressure, many are exploring how AI and automation can help increase efficiencies to remain competitive, reduce operational costs and enhance customer experience. The continued theme of increasing efficiencies also plays into several other strategic priorities identified, including cybersecurity and customer support.
Due to past economic strain and interest rates, banks are focused on capturing and growing deposit accounts. While U.S. bank deposits declined throughout 2022 and most of 2023, they did start recovering in late 2023.5 Building strong relationships with customers is paramount as banks focus on deposit growth. In addition to the 10% that chose mergers and acquisitions as a top issue poised to affect the industry, 30% of bankers also view mergers and acquisitions as a strategic priority for their institution.