The world’s top banking executives are accelerating artificial intelligence (AI) spending at a pace unprecedented in the industry’s history, yet the same technology driving their growth ambitions is simultaneously handing cybercriminals more sophisticated tools to attack them, according to findings published in the KPMG 2025 Global Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Outlook for Banking and Capital Markets.
The five trends identified by banking CEOs as most damaging to long-term organisational prosperity are cybercrime and cyber insecurity at 86 percent, AI workforce readiness at 78 percent, successful integration of AI into business processes at 77 percent, competition for AI talent at 75 percent, and the cost of technology infrastructure at 75 percent. Four of the five are directly tied to a single force: AI.
Banking CEOs are simultaneously registering growing confidence in near-term returns on AI investment. Sixty-five percent of CEOs have made AI a top investment priority, with 69 percent expecting to see a return within one to three years, a dramatic compression from the three to five year timeline most anticipated just twelve months ago. Fraud detection and prevention remains the most valued AI application, cited by 24 percent of banking CEOs as their primary area of benefit, followed by enhanced decision-making and data analytics at 22 percent.
The cybercrime concern deserves particular attention because of the internal contradiction it exposes. Attack surfaces are expanding precisely because of digital banking platforms, open banking application programming interfaces (APIs), and AI integration, with hackers and criminal syndicates now employing the same AI tools to breach bank cyber defences, pursue payment fraud, and install ransomware. This dynamic explains why 57 percent of banking CEOs are prioritising cybersecurity above all other risk mitigation investments.
The workforce dimension is equally pressing. Eighty-three percent of banking CEOs say they are prioritising workforce reskilling to unlock AI’s potential, while 79 percent acknowledge that AI is fundamentally redefining entry-level skills requirements across the sector. Relationship managers must now interpret AI-generated insights. Compliance officers must understand algorithmic decision-making. Risk teams must oversee automated systems that operate faster than human review cycles. Technology fluency has become a prerequisite, not an advantage.
KPMG’s One Africa Head of Financial Services Pierre Fourie situated the challenge squarely within the African banking context. “Technology, in particular AI, presents a huge opportunity, but also a challenge in terms of where to prioritise, how to achieve a measurable return on investment, and how to ensure responsible and safe adoption to maintain trust. Banks need to modernise legacy IT, cope with rising financial crime risk, made more difficult by sophisticated scams using AI, address new competitive threats from fintechs and nimble, cloud-native banks, and comply with complex and changing regulations,” he said.
Insurance sector findings from the same survey point to a parallel trend. Eighty-two percent of insurance CEOs expressed confidence in their company’s growth prospects, up from 74 percent in 2024, while 83 percent identified cybercrime as the single biggest barrier to organisational growth.
Across both banking and insurance, a unifying theme runs through the data: confidence underpinned by disciplined transformation. AI investment is accelerating, cybersecurity is paramount, environmental, social and governance (ESG) compliance is rising in strategic importance, and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) remain a primary lever for building scale and capability. For Ghanaian banks navigating a rapidly digitising domestic economy, the KPMG findings serve as both a benchmark and a warning: the institutions that will lead are those that master AI’s risks as effectively as they exploit its rewards.
