A new era for digital banking
On June 23, 2026, IN BANQUE 2026 took place in Paris, an essential event to decrypt the future of the financial sector.
Thibaut Ravisé, CEO and co-founder of QuickSign, participated in the round table titled “Evolutions and innovations in digital banking,” alongside François Deltour (Arkéa Direct Bank / Fortuneo), Pascal Luigi (BforBank), and Julien Dugué (TNP Consultants). Moderated by Claire Dollez (A Content Story), the discussions highlighted a major paradigm shift. After years focused on customer acquisition, digital banking has entered the era of profitability, differentiation, and the industrial integration of artificial intelligence.
I – New models of differentiation: From acquisition to value
In a competitive French and European market where users are increasingly multi-banked, the unique promise of a smooth mobile application is no longer enough. Online banks are now seeking profitability and the expansion of their offering (credit, savings, non-banking services). Above all, they are seeking to differentiate themselves through different approaches:
Fortuneo combines a “low price” strategy with a brand image based on trust
François Deltour shared his vision of a model where price positioning remains central: users today are looking for good value for money, but above all, performance-for-money. It is now necessary to reassure the customer with a sense of “free,” especially for the hook product (bank cards and everyday banking).
“We no longer talk about low cost but low price.” – François Deltour, Chairman of the Executive Board of Arkéa Direct Bank
Beyond rates, institutional trust stands out as a major lever for differentiation in digital banking. This way, Fortuneo cultivates a modern and agile brand image, while capitalizing on the robustness of its parent group (Arkéa Direct Bank). Faced with the sophistication of cyber threats and the proliferation of identity fraud, this historical legitimacy becomes a guarantee of security. It is a massive argument for acquisition and retention in the European market.
“In the era of deep fakes, being supported by a solid group is a very valuable asset.” – François Deltour, Chairman of the Executive Board of Arkéa Direct Bank
BforBank offers a sustainable and comprehensive experience
For his part, Pascal Luigi detailed BforBank’s differentiation strategy, which relies on a modular approach and diversification toward related services. He compared the modern banking offer to a building to illustrate how to retain the customer on the long term:
- The first floor concerns everyday banking (securing and simplifying the offer),
- The second floor represents savings, BforBank’s area of expertise
- And the third encompasses related services to offer a comprehensive and long-lasting experience.
“These approaches will allow us to enrich the value proposition gradually” – Pascal Luigi, Deputy CEO of BforBank
Differentiation through tech at the moment of customer acquisition
To differentiate durably, one must be able to maximize value while maintaining economic optimization and the relevance of acquisition journeys. François Deltour (Arkéa Direct Bank / Fortuneo) particularly insisted on the concept of “economic sustainability of the journey.” Integrating the best technological bricks on the market is an excellent thing, but acquisition costs must remain controlled.
Thibaut Ravisé (QuickSign) explains that tech must allow banks to differentiate themselves by solving the paradox of modern onboarding: ensuring conformity checks and anti-fraud efforts (especially against cyber threats and deep fakes) while offering maximum simplicity for the customer. A good digital onboarding journey must not only be fast; it must convert accurately, target the right profiles, and minimize unnecessary friction.
“A good acquisition journey today is not just a journey that goes fast. We want a journey that converts accurately, to have the right customers and to avoid a lot of problems downstream that we would prefer, perhaps, to take 20 seconds longer for but avoid later.” – François Deltour, Chairman of the Executive Board of Arkéa Direct Bank
II – AI today: Between UX automation and cost rationalization
Artificial intelligence is already an operational reality for online banks. However, its current deployment is subject to trade-offs by sector leaders, who balance between the pursuit of maximum efficiency and autonomy and the preservation of the customer relationship.
AI for productivity gains and streamlining customer journeys
Today, AI stands out as a powerful lever for internal optimization and process automation. Online banks use it massively to streamline the user experience and relieve operational teams.
- Optimizing customer onboarding journeys: AI, and this is not really new, allows for the automation of models. The user downloads the application, takes a photo of their ID, and the algorithms instantly extract the data to pre-fill the file, verify identity, and query control files.
- Assisting advisors: At Arkéa Direct Bank, generative AI is massively used as a co-pilot for customer relationship teams. It takes care of drafting response emails to customers in several languages, thus generating productivity gains and time savings in processing simple requests.
- Infrastructure and scalability management: The industrialization of tech is essential to support banks’ promotional marketing strategies. During massive acquisition campaigns, banks must rely on automation to absorb load peaks, to not run the risk of seeing their servers (and their conversion rates) collapse.
The debate on self-care and maintaining human relationships
But automation must not translate into the dehumanization of banking. If AI allows for increasing customer autonomy (self-care), the speakers agree that pure computing has its limits, especially when a user is stuck in the acquisition journey.
For BforBank, differentiation lies precisely in the ability to reintroduce the human element at the right time to reassure and secure the user.
“The customer can do everything by themselves BUT if you are stuck, you press a button and someone will unblock you. The customer will remain in control, it is the human who is the authority in the end.” – Pascal Luigi, Deputy CEO of BforBank
For AI to remain an asset today without damaging trust, Fortuneo imposes three fundamental rules:
- Utility: Algorithmic personalization must provide concrete value and not serve a purely commercial approach. It is necessary to differentiate between useful personalization and intrusion.
- Transparency: The customer must understand why a product is offered to them and what data is being used.
- Control: The user must retain the freedom to configure, refuse, or disable AI proactivity.
Economic pragmatism: deploying AI where it generates real value
Thibaut Ravisé also adds an essential nuance regarding the use of LLMs applied to document processing:
“Old reading and analysis technologies already provide us with extremely robust results on standard documents like an ID or an IBAN. Going after LLMs or generative AI on these standardized documents is consuming response time and additional costs for almost zero gain. AI must be deployed where it brings real economic added value.” – Thibaut Ravisé, CEO of QuickSign
In short, for complex, unstructured documents (such as proof of address or payslips), LLMs are a game-changer. However, for processing an ID or an IBAN, pre-generative AI technologies are largely sufficient.
III – The AI of tomorrow: Between agentic banking and sovereignty
What will digital banking look like in 2030? The speakers drew the outlines of a “conversational and agentic bank.” Tomorrow, AI will no longer be just a reactive tool within the application. It will transform into a proactive personal financial assistant. However, this revolution raises major concerns of technological dependency and data sovereignty.
Towards agentic banking?
For online banks, the ambition of tomorrow is to transform AI into a daily partner. Their goal: to develop a personal assistant, capable of anticipating customer needs, offering them the right savings product at the right time, or watching over their financial security through real-time spoofing (phone number usurpation fraud) detection systems.
“The bank of tomorrow is an invisible and ultra-efficient co-pilot.” – François Deltour, Chairman of the Executive Board of Arkéa Direct Bank (Fortuneo)
Nevertheless, faced with this growing autonomy, Pascal Luigi recalls that the bank’s responsibility will remain entire: the final action must always be initiated and validated by the consumer, who must keep control of their choices and practices.
Julien Dugué (Partner at TNP Consultants) went even further: eventually, consumers might use their own personal AI agents (provided by Google, Anthropic, or other Tech giants) to search for a loan. It is these autonomous agents that will query the banks and subscribe to the offer for the human.
However, François Deltour recalls that the master asset of banks against Big Tech remains trust, proximity, and regulatory compliance.
The warning on costs and sovereignty: QuickSign’s position
Faced with these projections, an awareness is necessary regarding the structural limits of AI. François Deltour himself recalled that while productivity gains promise to be significant, one must imperatively weigh the technological infrastructure costs (FinOps) which risk exploding.
For financial services to keep their independence and pricing power, they cannot delegate all their critical processes to third-party models or foreign Cloud infrastructures without keeping control. Data sovereignty is becoming the nerve of war.
The digital bank of tomorrow will only be able to keep its promise of an invisible and secure co-pilot if it relies on a sovereign onboarding infrastructure. Before letting AI agents subscribe to contracts or manipulate financial flows, institutions will have to ensure that the customer’s digital identity is infallibly certified and that the input data is protected against new cyber threats.
AI as a booster of banking innovation
Far from being a mere passing trend or a facade optimization tool, artificial intelligence stands out as the engine of digital banking. By 2030, the advent of a conversational bank and hyper-personalized assistants will redefine usage and value creation. For European financial institutions, the ability to master this technology represents an opportunity to reinvent the relationship of trust and push the boundaries of the customer experience.
“For me, AI is a huge opportunity for Europe, much more than a threat. Everyone has realized this, right up to the consumer. It is a beautiful path that is opening up. We must use these tools and know how to exploit them. We have a high-quality workforce in Europe to take advantage of them and no longer put ourselves in the shadow of the United States.” – Thibaut Ravisé, CEO of QuickSign
QuickSign supports this transition toward bold and secure innovation. If tomorrow’s algorithms must advise, guide, or subscribe autonomously, they must rely on certified and highly secure input data. By absorbing regulatory complexity and immunizing digital onboarding journeys against next-generation fraud (such as spoofing or deep fakes), QuickSign provides financial services with the essential technological serenity. Our role is to certify, enhance, and secure consumer data during digital onboarding. We secure your foundations today to give you the freedom to invent the bank of tomorrow, with complete peace of mind.
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Written by Marilou T.
