Regional and community banks are the backbone of local economies across Europe and Latin America. Yet, as digital transformation accelerates, these institutions face a unique set of challenges: legacy technology, limited IT budgets, complex regulatory environments, and the imperative to maintain close, trust-based relationships with their customers. While global banks often dominate the conversation around AI-powered modernization, the reality is that smaller, locally focused banks have just as much to gain—and perhaps even more to lose—if they fail to adapt.
Unlike their global counterparts, regional and community banks operate with leaner resources and must navigate a patchwork of local regulations. Decades of incremental technology investments have left many with a tangled web of legacy systems and siloed data, making modernization seem daunting. The result is a growing gap between what customers expect—seamless, personalized digital experiences—and what many local banks can deliver.
Key challenges include:
AI is not just another tool in the modernization toolkit—it is the catalyst that can help regional and community banks leapfrog traditional barriers. By automating manual processes, enhancing compliance, and enabling hyper-personalized customer experiences, AI empowers smaller institutions to compete with digital-native challengers and global giants alike.
For example, generative AI and automation can accelerate the migration from mainframes and monolithic architectures to cloud-native, modular platforms. This shift not only reduces costs and increases agility but also lays the foundation for new, AI-powered services that resonate with local customers.
In Europe, several regional banks have demonstrated how AI can transform local proximity into a digital advantage. By leveraging AI-powered development platforms, one European bank reduced its mobile app release cycle from quarterly to every two weeks, while improving defect rates by 40%. This rapid innovation allowed the bank to respond quickly to local customer needs, delivering new features and services that strengthened community ties.
Another example comes from a French investment bank that adopted domain-specific AI models trained on years of regulatory decisions and compliance documentation. This approach enabled the bank to identify regulatory breaches that generic AI models missed, ensuring both speed and accuracy in a highly regulated environment.
Traditional modernization projects can be prohibitively expensive and time-consuming for smaller banks. However, AI-assisted modernization offers a pragmatic alternative. Instead of attempting to replace legacy systems wholesale, banks can use AI to document, refactor, and expose core business logic as modern, API-accessible services. This phased approach transforms mainframes from liabilities into assets, enabling innovation without disrupting day-to-day operations.
For instance, a major European bank faced a €200 million, five-year modernization quote for its legacy systems. By leveraging AI to automate code analysis, documentation, and microservices generation, the bank reduced costs by 80% and went live with new modules in months, not years.
Regional and community banks must balance modernization with strict regulatory requirements and the need to maintain customer trust. AI-powered compliance frameworks can automate monitoring, risk detection, and reporting, adapting to evolving regulations and reducing manual effort. This is especially critical in regions with complex data residency and privacy laws, such as GDPR in Europe and similar frameworks emerging in Latin America.
AI also enables hyper-personalization—tailoring products, services, and interactions to individual customer needs. By unifying data across channels and leveraging advanced analytics, banks can anticipate needs, recommend relevant products, and deliver proactive support, all while maintaining the personal touch that sets them apart.
For regional and community banks ready to embark on their AI-driven modernization journey, the following steps provide a practical roadmap:
Regional and community banks that embrace AI-driven modernization are already seeing tangible benefits:
The future belongs to regional and community banks that can harness AI to break free from legacy constraints and deliver the digital experiences their customers expect. By addressing technology, data, process, skills, and cultural challenges in tandem, these institutions can move from incremental change to transformative impact—without the scale or resources of global banks.
Publicis Sapient stands as a trusted partner for this journey, combining deep industry expertise, proven frameworks, and a relentless focus on outcomes. With AI as the catalyst, regional and community banks can unlock new sources of local value, strengthen customer relationships, and secure their place in the digital future.
Ready to accelerate your modernization journey? Let’s talk about how AI can help your bank thrive in the era of digital transformation.