Digital Business Transformation in Financial Services: From Legacy to Living Business

The Existential Imperative for Change

In today’s rapidly evolving landscape, digital transformation is no longer a strategic option for financial services institutions—it is an existential imperative. The world has changed dramatically in just a few years, with customer expectations, regulatory requirements, and technological capabilities all shifting at an unprecedented pace. Banks, insurers, and other financial institutions must fundamentally reimagine themselves to remain relevant, competitive, and resilient. The journey from legacy systems to becoming a truly digital, data-driven, and customer-centric “living business” is now at the heart of the industry’s future.

The Unique Challenges Facing Financial Services

Financial services organizations face a complex set of sector-specific challenges on the path to digital business transformation:

Legacy IT Systems: Decades-old core banking platforms and siloed architectures hinder agility, innovation, and integration with new digital channels.
Regulatory Compliance: The sector is subject to stringent and evolving regulations around data privacy, security, anti-money laundering, and more, requiring robust governance and transparency.
Customer Expectations: Today’s customers demand seamless, personalized, and omnichannel experiences—whether opening an account, applying for a loan, or managing investments.
Security and Trust: With the rise of cyber threats and digital fraud, maintaining trust and safeguarding assets is paramount.
Competitive Pressure: Fintech disruptors and digitally native challengers are redefining the market, raising the bar for speed, convenience, and innovation.

From Digital Transformation to Digital Business Transformation

Historically, many financial institutions equated digital transformation with IT modernization—migrating to the cloud, digitizing paper processes, or launching a mobile app. But true digital business transformation is far more holistic. It is about reimagining the entire business model, operating rhythm, and value proposition for a digital-first world. This means:

Shifting from project-based thinking to a product mindset, where offerings are continuously evolved and improved.
Embedding data and AI at the core to drive real-time insights, automation, and hyper-personalization.
Designing experiences that put the customer at the center, across every touchpoint and channel.
Building agile, cross-functional teams that can rapidly respond to market changes and regulatory shifts.

The SPEED Framework: Accelerating Transformation

At Publicis Sapient, we guide financial services clients through this journey using our SPEED framework—a proven approach that integrates five essential capabilities:

Strategy: Defining clear value pools, prioritizing where to play, and aligning transformation with business outcomes. For financial institutions, this means moving beyond incremental improvements to bold choices about new markets, digital products, and customer segments.
Product: Adopting a product mindset, where digital banking, payments, or wealth management solutions are treated as living products—constantly iterated based on customer feedback and market data.
Experience: Designing seamless, intuitive, and secure experiences for customers and employees alike. This includes everything from onboarding and servicing to fraud prevention and financial education.
Engineering: Modernizing technology stacks, embracing cloud-native architectures, and building scalable platforms that enable rapid innovation while ensuring compliance and security.
Data & AI: Leveraging data as a strategic asset—enabling advanced analytics, real-time decisioning, and AI-driven automation for everything from credit risk assessment to personalized offers.

These capabilities are not siloed; their power comes from integration. When strategy, product, experience, engineering, and data work in concert, financial institutions can unlock new sources of value, adapt at speed, and deliver on their brand promise.

Real-World Impact: From Legacy to Living Business

The transformation journey is already underway across the sector. For example, Publicis Sapient’s partnership with Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) in Southeast Asia demonstrates how a traditional bank can reinvent itself as a digital platform business. By creating a joint venture, SCB Tech X, the bank expanded beyond core banking to offer fintech and non-banking services—such as food delivery and wellness—leveraging digital to reach new markets and customers. This required not just technology change, but a rethinking of business models, customer engagement, and operational agility.

Similarly, leading global banks are using data and AI to enhance fraud detection, automate risk management, and deliver hyper-personalized experiences. These initiatives are not just about efficiency—they are about creating new value propositions and building deeper, more trusted relationships with customers.

Overcoming the “Stuck Middle”

One of the greatest barriers to transformation in financial services is organizational inertia—the so-called “stuck middle.” While leadership may champion change and frontline teams aspire to innovate, middle management can be resistant, clinging to legacy processes and risk-averse mindsets. Overcoming this requires:

Clear communication of the transformation vision and its benefits for all stakeholders.
Empowering teams with the tools, data, and autonomy to experiment and learn.
Fostering a culture of continuous learning, unlearning, and relearning—critical in a world where technology and customer expectations evolve rapidly.

The Path Forward: Becoming a Living Business

The future of financial services belongs to the “living business”—an organization that is digital at its core, relentlessly customer-centric, and able to adapt at the speed of change. This is not a one-time project, but a continuous journey of reinvention. It requires:

Integrating SPEED capabilities to break down silos and drive holistic transformation.
Building strategic partnerships to access new capabilities and co-create value.
Embracing purpose-driven innovation, where profit and positive societal impact go hand in hand.

At Publicis Sapient, we are committed to helping financial institutions move from legacy to living business—unlocking new growth, resilience, and relevance in a digital world. The time to act is now. The opportunity is limitless for those ready to lead the transformation.

Ready to accelerate your digital business transformation? Connect with our financial services experts to explore how SPEED can help your organization thrive in the brave pursuit of next.