Top Mobile Banking Trends for 2025 and AI’s Risky Half-Truths

Why 80% of AI Users Aren’t Profiting Yet in 2025

Banksy, “Bomb Love,” 2003. Through Bomb Love, Banksy challenges the audience to question the unsettling coexistence of tenderness and destruction, emphasising the artist's broader anti-war and anti-establishment message that resonates worldwide.

Thanks for reading the “Cashless” newsletter, an insider’s view on Asia’s fintech, CBDC, and AI for anyone striving to understand “the Asia Century.” I’m Rich Turrin, and these are my hard-hitting insights designed to educate and inform. Subscribe to get these emerging trends directly in your inbox every Sunday. Every week, I scan thousands of articles to find only the best and most valuable for you. Subscribe to get my expertly curated news straight to your inbox each week. Free is good, but paid is better.

Topics:

• The Future of Mobile Banking: The Top 18 Trends for 2025

• APAC Banks Dominate Digital Banking

• Banks' Agentic AI Dilemma: Only 58% Of Answers Are Right

• Humbled by Hype: 80% Use GenAI—80% Still No Profit

• China Finance Expo: The Latest Buzz On WeChat, MBridge & Digital Yuan

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Welcome,

Today’s art, “Bomb Love,” by Banksy, serves as a backdrop for today’s sobering events. This piece is one of his most iconic anti-war works and has been featured in exhibitions and protests alike.

The girl’s arms wrap around the bomb in a tender embrace as though it were a teddy bear, symbolizing society’s desensitization to violence and the normalization of warfare.

Despite the news, we’re going to explore mobile banking and AI to see how one is transforming banking, while the other isn’t just yet. I bet you can guess which is which!

Let’s start with mobile banking, and I encourage you all to look at today’s top story, which centers around the top 18 trends in mobile banking, all of which are backed up by examples currently in production.

It's a fun read and should make you wonder, as I did, why my bank doesn’t offer so many of these features! Sadly, many banks still do not understand that for many customers, “the app is the bank!” Now that is transformative!

It should come as no surprise to regular readers that APAC dominates digital banking, because banks here get that “the app is the bank.” APAC mobile banking apps have more daily users than either the US or the EU.

APAC banks were forced to develop their mobile apps to keep pace with the region’s adoption of real-time mobile payments. Not having a strong digital banking platform would be a death sentence!

Onto AI Agents, which are not living up to the hype surrounding them, both in terms of getting the answer right and making money.

I regularly rail against AI hype, and I have two reports that will shake your faith in the agentic revolution.

The first shows how Agentic AI only gets the answer right 58% of the time, a clear sign that letting these systems loose on clients is dangerous.

The second shows how readers looking for a big pay-off on AI you may have to wait a bit longer. McKinsey shows that, despite widespread adoption, AI isn’t yet generating revenue for most users.

McKinsey refers to this as a “paradox.” I call it a sad state where McKinsey believed its own hype and remains unhumbled.

Finally, I attended Shanghai’s International Financial Exhibition and caught up on the latest developments at WeChat Pay, the digital yuan, mBridge, and CIPS. Read up for the latest news.

Thanks once again for reading. I appreciate each and every one of you taking the time to open your inbox for me!

Rich

PS

Thanks for sharing with your friends! It’s a great way to say thanks.

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The Future of Mobile Banking: The Top 18 Trends for 2025

Mobile is now the primary expression of a bank's brand

This report is a page-turner and fun read that will help show you the killer features your mobile banking app should have now.

What makes this report such a page-turner is that it includes two real examples currently in production for each of the 18 trends.

Read this report to see what your bank apps is missing!

APAC Banks Dominate Digital Banking

APAC is a region of contrasts, and legacy systems are still a major drag

APAC is remarkable with mobile as the primary digital banking channel used by 38% of customers compared to 29% and 28% in the EU and the US.

APAC is the undisputed leading region in mobile-first banking, which makes sense given its global lead in real-time payments (RTP).

Read why once money goes RTP, there’s no going back, and banks have to become mobile players or perish.

Banks' Agentic AI Dilemma: Only 58% Of Answers Are Right

GenAI agents don't get the answer right, or understand confidentiality.

I’m sharing two papers today that will shake your confidence in the near-term use of LLM Agents in banking and financial services.

See why how the first report emphasizes bank’s elevated “duty of care” while the second shows in detail how Agentic AI can’t get the answers right! It’s a stunner!

Humbled by Hype: 80% Use GenAI—80% Still No Profit

Contrary to consultants' predictions, GenAI has a long hard road ahead.

McKinsey claims that there is a “GenAI paradox,” as its latest GenAI survey shows that 80% of companies have deployed it, but 80% see no material impact on earnings.

Read why there is no paradox, just a consultant who believed its own hype when it assured clients that GenAI would be easy to implement and is still unhumbled by the experience.

China Finance Expo: The Latest Buzz On WeChat, MBridge & Digital Yuan

Internationalization of the RMB remains a major goal of the PBOC.

I visited the International Finance Exhibit to explore WeChat Pay’s latest innovations in making payments easier and the PBOC’s latest cross-border transfer technology, mBridge and CIPS.

Lots of pictures and more than a few stories that made even the Western news.

Read on to see how mBridge and the digital yuan are alive and well.

Hot Topics for Premium Subscribers only

Imagine having someone combing through thousands of articles, over 50 RSS feeds, and 25 meticulously crafted Google searches—all to handpick the absolute best reports, just for you.

Each week, I distill this ocean of information into five concise, high-value reports, sharing the most essential knowledge you need to stay ahead.

But that’s not all. I also collect additional exclusive, hard-to-find gems, which I put in the section below—all in PDF format with my brief expert commentary.

To download them, no corporate email is required, no searching, and no links to other places are required. With a paid subscription, these insights are just a click away.

Here’s what you’re missing out on this week in the Premium Subscriber-only section below:

• Stablecoins: The Practitioner’s Guide

  This is one of the few guides written by stablecoin practitioners and the authors are absolutely candid in how they explain stablecoin’s rise, and future. It is a great read.

• BANKS AND THE EUROPEAN DIGITAL IDENTITY WALLET

  The digital euro is coming, yet many do not know about the EU’s digital ID wallet. Digital money will utilize a digital identity to reduce fraud. Some will say this is dystopia, personally, I already have both and love them!

• Greening intelligence: Charting the future of sustainable AI

  Big tech is demanding a lot of electricity to run AI, and how it will ever go green is beyond me. The reality is that while many are bedazzled by AI today, the energy problems will surface tomorrow.

• And that’s just three of SEVEN reports. You’re also missing the infamous Chart of the Day, which today covers: Breaking Down the $450 Billion of Trade Destruction from U.S. Tariffs