AI-native banks

The banking software vendor Backbase describes AI-native banking as an operating model in which AI is the foundation of how the bank runs. Most banks, in its view, are AI-enabled: a chatbot on the website and a fraud model in one channel, each working in isolation.

Bain sets targets for an AI-native bank: ten times the productivity, a 90 percent shorter time to market and 80 to 90 percent of processes running without manual steps. Its example is NatWest, which cut the time from idea to live marketing campaign from more than 60 days to one. Bain puts deterministic systems such as the ledger, payments and entitlements underneath the agents: the agent chooses which tool to call, and the tool behaves the same way every time.

Solaris, the Berlin embedded finance provider with a full German banking license, announced its transformation into what it calls Europe's first AI-native bank. AI agents are to handle operational processes while people keep responsibility for control and governance, and end-to-end processes are redesigned to meet regulatory requirements. Solaris names the EU AI Act and DORA as its regulatory frame. Its majority shareholder is the Japanese SBI Group, and it names its partners ADAC and Boerse Stuttgart Group as focus areas for AI-driven financial services. Its banking-as-a-service customers keep the existing APIs.

In the United States, Customers Bank works with OpenAI on lending, deposits and payments and calls this a step toward becoming one of the first AI-native regional banks in the country.

An agent that opens an account or releases a payment does work that a bank employee used to sign off. BaFin's principles for algorithms ask for clear responsibility for each model, and DORA treats every model provider as an ICT third party. Bain expects smaller, flatter teams, with product and engineering roles merging, and more oversight work as the volume of automated decisions grows.

The AI agent governance page covers owners and limits for agents, and the core banking page covers the systems underneath.

An AI-native bank is a bank whose operations run on AI agents by design, while people set the rules and remain accountable. The opposite is a bank that adds AI tools to processes built for people.

Solaris in Berlin, which holds a full German banking license, announced its transformation into what it calls Europe's first AI-native bank.

An AI-native company builds its products and processes around AI from the start, so that AI does work other firms give to staff or older software. For a bank, the term means the operating model described on this page.