Next-Gen Now: Deposit Trends for 2026
Deposits are the bedrock of banking stability - anchoring liquidity, trust, and funding margins. Yet, this once predictable product line is under unprecedented pressure. Global deposits stand at $70 trillion, but nearly $23 trillion sits idle in near-zero-yield accounts, vulnerable to migration toward higher-return instruments and embedded finance offerings. Meanwhile, retail deposit growth barely moved the needle in 2025, rising just 0.5% after two years of stagnation.
The competitive landscape is shifting fast. Customers now expect not only competitive returns but also personalized, frictionless experiences akin to what tech giants deliver. Neo‑banks and fintech platforms are attacking deposits with superior onboarding, instant payouts, and goal-based saving “wrappers.” Brokerages, money‑market funds, and high‑yield mutual funds/ETFs are siphoning idle balances with yield-led propositions, often embedded inside investment super‑apps. Big tech ecosystems and super‑app wallets monetize float through seamless payments, loyalty, and embedded savings - setting new usability benchmarks. In parallel, crypto wallets, tokenized assets, and DeFi rails are normalizing real-time yield discovery and programmable money for a subset of customers.
For banks, this is not just a growth challenge but a funding and margin risk. As deposits become more mobile and rate-sensitive, banks face higher beta, greater repricing volatility, and increased reliance on wholesale funding directly impacting net interest margins and liquidity buffers.
The mandate is now clear: reinvent deposits for relevance and resilience. Below are three strategic themes shaping deposit innovation in 2026 and beyond.
Authors:
Madhusudhan B R, Priyanka Diwan, Anmol Khiwal
Emerging Business Models
Distribution is being rewired around the customer’s primary journeys. Embedded deposits capture liquidity at the point of commerce by placing bank-backed accounts directly inside platform journeys: Gig workers can receive instant payouts into an account tied to their work app, while merchant ecosystems embed operating accounts into daily business workflows. However, embedded deposits may behave as utility balances with high velocity, low loyalty, and highly sensitive to changes in platform incentives. With deliberate lifecycle design, banks should strategize to be primary relationship holders and avoid the risk of becoming invisible infrastructure providers.
In parallel, deposit marketplaces will also be on the rise, shifting acquisition from relationship-led to rate-led discovery. Platforms such as super.money’s SuperFD and Stable Money enable customers to compare offers and open FDs digitally across issuers, accelerating tactical liquidity capture and improving pricing transparency. Marketplace-acquired deposits are often episodic and price-led. Left unmanaged, they can increase funding volume without improving franchise value. The strategic imperative is to treat marketplace deposits as a controlled conversion funnel - pair fast onboarding with time-bound pricing, lifecycle or behavior triggered nudges and cross-sell plays to convert episodic balances into enduring relationships.
Product Innovation
Deposit economics is shifting from static to adaptive constructs that reward relationship value and engagement. Dynamic pricing - usage based, behavior aware rates - moves banks beyond commoditized offers to differentiated economics. AI-driven personalization builds goal-based journeys, with contextually justified interventions that increase balances without eroding trust. However, this shift must be governed carefully. Dynamic pricing introduces explainability, fairness, and regulatory scrutiny risks that banks must address through transparent rules and clear customer communication.
Looking ahead, tokenized deposits are becoming strategically urgent as stablecoins scale into mainstream treasury rails. The GENIUS Act created a clearer U.S. regulatory framework for stablecoins, allowing large platforms to launch stablecoin-based value propositions. It highlights the divide: stablecoins can’t pay interest; tokenized deposits can, while also remaining insured. In response, banks are advancing regulated, bank-grade digital money: JPMorgan positions tokenised deposits as benefiting from traditional banking infrastructure and regulatory safeguards; MAS-led Project Guardian trials have executed FX use cases using tokenized deposits; and real-world corporate networks are already leveraging tokenized deposits of partner banks such as HSBC and DBS for multi-currency, real-time payments.
Deposit Platformisation
Deposit is becoming a platform play - not a core feature. With banks moving beyond “core refresh” toward real-time, API-first deposit rails, the shift requires an event-driven foundation (streaming data, microservices, and modular product configuration) so pricing, nudges, and offers can respond to customer context in-the-moment, across channels and partner ecosystems.
A key realization in 2026 is that many capabilities once treated as “deposit operations” are not deposit-specific at all: interest computation, freezes/liens, fees, limits, posting, and entitlement checks can be abstracted into reusable platform services consumed by deposits, loans, and other product domains. This is how banks avoid rebuilding the same logic repeatedly and accelerate change safely. Additionally, leading regulators and industry initiatives are exploring shared-ledger and tokenised liability models that reinforce the direction of travel: compliant programmability and interoperability where infrastructure and policy clarity exist.
The success of deposit platformisation should be measured not in systems replaced, but in repricing speed, balance stickiness, cross-product activation, and time-to-launch for new deposit propositions.
What Bankers Should Focus on in 2026
Deposits are not disappearing, but they are being redefined. The question is whether your banks will lead that reinvention or watch from the sidelines. It is time that banking leaders move from strategy decks to live pilots. The capabilities to compete already exist, but winning will depend on how deliberately banks sequence pilots, govern innovation, and convert experimentation into scalable operating models.
Call to action:
- Stand up a dual channel acquisition strategy. Use embedded partnerships for primacy (gig/SME ecosystems) and marketplaces for tactical liquidity; wire analytics to convert episodic balances into core relationships while actively managing balance volatility and pricing sensitivity.
- Operationalize adaptive products. Launch dynamic pricing pilots with transparent governance; embed AI models for goal-based journeys and deposit engagement; explore tokenized deposit proofs of concept where regulatory clarity exists. All this, with transparent governance, explainability, and regulatory alignment.
- Accelerate deposit platformization. Prioritize microservices/APIs, streaming data, and compliance by design; govern front-to-back to avoid “technology theater” and deliver measurable speed to market. To avoid ‘technology theater’, ensure modernization translates into deposit profitability and stability.
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