The Silent Shift: Banks and the Question of Relevance in Digital Financial Life

Customers’ current accounts, loans and brokerage portfolios are often held at different institutions – which means multiple apps are needed just to maintain a basic overview. A consolidated view of personal wealth is simply missing for anyone who does not consistently use a single provider.

At the same time, more and more people are no longer turning to their bank for financial advice. Instead, they research independently online, ask questions in specialist forums, or increasingly consult an AI. ChatGPT, Claude and similar language models are taking on the role of first point of contact for personal financial decisions. Open-source projects like Simple Banking already make it possible to connect bank accounts and brokerage portfolios directly to AI tools, effectively building a personalised financial app without ever opening a traditional banking app. The classic customer interface is thus losing its relevance, and banks are losing an important touchpoint with their clients.

The Real Problem: Fragmentation

Why are banks losing the customer interface? Not because their design is poor. But because their data picture is too narrow and offers too little added value for clients.

A traditional banking app shows what the bank itself manages: its own current account, its own savings account, perhaps its own brokerage portfolio. What’s missing is everything else: the securities account at a neobroker, the crypto portfolio, the company pension plan, the ETF savings plan at a different provider. On top of that, the informational value of classic banking apps is frequently low. Transaction history, yes; but little context, minimal analysis, no support for understanding one’s own financial situation. Trading and investment apps recognised early on that users want an engaging interface and used gamification elements to drive interaction. But even here, the full picture is missing: clients who hold their portfolio at a neobroker see only that slice, not their complete wealth – an opportunity for banks to fill this gap and win clients back.

The rise of so-called finfluencers (individuals or channels with large audiences creating content around financial topics) on YouTube and TikTok, or platforms like Finanzfluss and Finanztip, is equally emblematic of clients’ desire for more information on financial matters. These communities offer not just content, but also a space to ask questions: “How much should I invest in ETFs each month?” or “Explain my portfolio to me.”

The Path to Relevance: 360-Degree Wealth Overview

Banks that want to retain the customer interface long-term need to show a complete picture of their clients’ wealth – regardless of where that wealth is held.

In practice, this means not just displaying their own products, but also integrating external portfolios, accounts at other institutions, and financial positions from third-party sources into their own platform. The bank becomes the central hub for the entire financial life, not just its own portion of it.

This transformation is technically demanding. The critical building block is a reliable, high-quality connection to external portfolios and accounts. This is exactly where wealthAPI is positioned: as a BaFin-licensed account information service provider, wealthAPI aggregates wealth data – portfolio positions, securities transactions, tax information – from over 3,500 banking and broker connections.

What’s at Stake

The question is not a technical one, it’s strategic: which platform will be the primary reference for personal financial life in five years?

AI tools are getting better. Creator platforms are growing. And anyone who shows their clients only a fraction of their assets will fade into obscurity—quietly, without much fanfare. We’re already seeing funds from sold positions in one brokerage account being transferred via SEPA Instant to a neo-broker and reinvested there. Traditional account transfers usually involve a lot of manual effort and are complicated. Opening a new account with a neo-broker isn’t, so assets are slowly migrating away, invisible to banks without an external data connection.

Banks that invest today in a comprehensive wealth overview are not just securing an app feature. They are securing their relevance as a financial partner.

Conclusion

The customer interface is not purely a technical feature. It is the foundation of the client relationship. Whoever loses it loses the direct line to their clients – and ultimately their trust and their business.

The key does not lie in better UX design or marketing campaigns. It lies in data quality and breadth: access to the complete financial data of existing clients – including the assets they currently hold elsewhere.

My prediction: the customer interface that manages to combine a complete overview of personal wealth with strong financial content – ideally personalised – will ultimately win the competitive race.