Money in Motion: A $124 Trillion Moment of Truth

I just checked my phone. Five banking apps. Three investment platforms. Two digital wallets (not counting my iPhone).

Sound familiar?

Your customers now choose financial providers like items from a menu, selecting specialized services rather than committing to a single institution. This fragmentation reflects a fundamental shift in banking, driven by two converging forces: the largest wealth transfer in history and the uncompromising demand for tailored services and products.

Trust me when I say, I don’t want the complexity of multiple banks and apps. But if I can’t get what I need, I will find it elsewhere.

The $124 trillion opportunity banks can’t afford to miss

Right now, $124 trillion is beginning to shift from older generations to younger ones. This transfer will happen over just 23 years, not in some distant future. For banks, this isn’t just money changing accounts. This represents a fundamental transformation in how wealth flows across generations and accounts.

Look at the warning signs. According to the Williams Group, 90% of family wealth disappears by the third generation. Most heirs feel unprepared. Only 22% of parents inform their children about inheritance plans before age 25. This knowledge gap creates vulnerability and opportunity.

Your younger customers invest differently. They prioritize impact investing, ESG considerations, and philanthropy. Two-thirds of customers under 40 allocate 70% of their investments to ESG opportunities. They demand different tools, different approaches, and different conversations about money.

Your customers won’t wait

Remember when waiting 2-3 days to move some money around was acceptable? Now, even 2-3 hours feels like an eternity. And given the market volatility we’ve seen lately, even a few hours can mean the difference between a good financial choice and a bad one.

The Financial Conduct Authority discovered that 66% of younger investors spend less than 24 hours deciding on investments. A shocking 14% make these decisions in under an hour. This isn’t just impatience. This is a new operational reality.

Your customers expect to move funds instantly between checking, savings, investment accounts, and retirement funds. They want to monitor positions across distributed accounts. They need the ability to move money at precisely the right moment to seize opportunities in increasingly volatile markets.

And they want to do so with ease. Ironically enough, this is also a key desire for wealth advisors serving these customers: less context switching, more customer focus. A case in point is during significant life events.

Gartner research showed that approximately 50% of younger generations prefer to visit an agent at a bank branch or speak to someone on the phone for major events compared to digital-only channels. The demand for blended experiences that combine digital speed with human expertise has never been higher.

Financial wellbeing starts with knowing your customer

With 48% of consumers feeling financially worse off than last year, your institution has a profound opportunity to deliver meaningful value through holistic wellbeing services.

But here’s the hard truth. Only 40% of financial services companies are confident their customer profiles are both complete and accurate. With today’s technological capabilities, how can there be such a wide gap? Without foundational data, personalized guidance becomes impossible.

Think about what your customers actually experience. Most have fragmented financial identities spread across multiple institutions. They receive disconnected advice based on partial information. They struggle to make confident decisions amid complexity and uncertainty.

Even if your customers are loyal and stick with your bank, the likelihood that your customer data is complete is low. The rise of Open Banking and Open Finance initiatives promises to solve this problem, but most institutions still struggle to align strategy and execution.

What customers truly want is reassurance from trusted experts who see their complete financial picture and can provide guidance based on that holistic view.

Three imperatives for surviving the great wealth transfer

To thrive in this new landscape, focus on three practical initiatives.

Connect everything

Create an ecosystem that bridges all endpoints, from modern APIs to legacy systems and third-party providers. In the Open Banking era, the banks seeing 30% higher customer satisfaction are those enabling seamless data sharing across institutional boundaries.

Your customer doesn’t care about your technical debt. They care about complete financial visibility that enables better decision-making and customer experiences. Process orchestration turns fragmented systems into cohesive customer journeys.

Apply the right level of governance

As AI-driven advisory services expand, establish governance that maintains trust without sacrificing speed. Financial institutions that operationalize AI in one central platform reduce compliance risks while accelerating service delivery.

This isn’t just about risk mitigation. It’s about turning regulatory requirements into competitive advantages through consistent, auditable processes.

Stay agile

The financial landscape changes constantly. Implement operations that enable continuous adaptation to changing market conditions. Banks that build standardized, reusable process components launch new products with 45% less effort.

Your technology must evolve as rapidly as customer needs, with modular components that can be reconfigured without disrupting existing services.

Finding the human balance

The ultimate challenge isn’t technological. It’s human.

Your customers need proper guardrails alongside instantaneous advisory services. They need the freedom to move quickly alongside the wisdom to think long-term. They need digital convenience alongside human expertise.

The most successful institutions will recognize that customers increasingly choose specific providers for specific purposes. They’ll open their ecosystems to gather information across institutional—and even industry—boundaries, creating complete customer profiles that enable truly holistic advice.

Your success won’t come from simply moving money faster or cheaper.

It will come from orchestrating processes that help customers make better financial decisions in real time, transforming the greatest wealth transfer in history into the greatest opportunity for financial wellbeing we’ve ever seen.

For more on this topic, you can watch Sathya Sethuraman, field CTO at Camunda, and Shane Ernest, senior product marketing manager at Camunda, discussing the issue in the video below.

This article is the third in our Financial Services Reflection Series, examining how 2025’s banking predictions are playing out in reality. Read Sathya Sethuraman’s original “2025 Banking & Financial Services Predictions” and explore our solutions for building adaptable banking operations.