We live in modern times. Yet even in 2025, consumers feel the frictions in their experience of the financial world. Despite all the progress we’ve made, we cannot lose sight of how much lies ahead. The idea of “forget finance” is the general principle that personal finance and the daily work of managing money will continue to fade into the background as technology advances. If you don’t fully wrap your head around that end game, you won’t see the strategic opportunities and challenges for the credit union industry. In the next decade, financial services will be defined less by products and more by the absence of friction. The winners will make finance disappear by meeting people where they are and helping them enjoy everyday life.
The credit union mission will take on new meaning in this world of frictionless finance. Consumers will trade off an awareness of what is happening behind the scenes for convenience. Instead of people making every financial decision, some decisions will be made for them. Credit unions have an opportunity to build on their reputation of trust and inclusion by supporting member well-being as automation increases.
Credit unions have an opportunity to build on their reputation of trust and inclusion by supporting member well-being as automation increases.
Below are six new categories of finance that will each remove friction from the consumer finance experience. Some of these are already in motion and will feel relatively familiar, but developments like agentic and autonomous finance are still in early stages. The runway of innovation that still lies ahead of us could yet result in a radically different consumer experience in the next 5 to 10 years. As you consider these six categories, imagine the possibilities for a truly seamless future.
1. Intuitive Finance
Finance can be complicated and time consuming, especially when using an app that doesn’t make sense. Think about getting stuck and having to think more than you would like. Intuitive finance removes those sticking points through human-centered design, so that things work the way you think they should. Human-centered design reframes tools around people’s goals, not the organization’s—a principle that applies to any user experience but is especially important in financial services. If the interface makes our brain hurt (cognitive overload), we’ll go somewhere else. In contrast, many of us know the delight of using a tool that only surfaces the relevant information at the right time. An intuitive experience minimizes steps and uses visual cues to guide the user naturally. One example of this behavioral design is “gamification,” and it is also closely related to “anticipatory finance,” which can predict the next best action and stay one step ahead of the user.
Intuitive finance should spark joy!
2. Conversational Finance
In previous generations, people went to a branch or picked up a phone to get help. This service model worked well in traditional contexts, but the channels of service are changing, and “self-servicing” has become more prevalent. Getting things done on your own can be efficient and empowering, but many self-service tools are known to lag behind and create frustration (e.g., phone trees).
Enter conversational finance using AI. Now, the member can use natural language to ask questions rather than navigating through a menu, and answers are accessible because they use the same language in the response. Imagine the potential for improving financial literacy when members can ask about things they don’t understand and receive guidance on how to achieve their goals. Think of everything made easier with tools like ChatGPT. That’s just the precursor to member-facing conversational finance—not just a website chatbot, but a financial assistant ready to help in the form of a conversation, an approach that will replace online forms with dialogue. Industries from healthcare to travel have shown that conversational AI reduces call volume and builds trust through natural, real-time explanations.
3. Agentic Finance
In the near future, “agent-service” will likely replace “self-service.” Self-service can be a lot of work in retail settings, because the shopper is scanning items or clicking through forms to complete the purchase. AI agents will make it easier for the end user by taking care of the mechanics of these transactions. Agentic finance is the emerging trend of people delegating tasks to a financial agent who can complete financial tasks on their behalf, such as paying bills, moving idle cash to higher-yield accounts, and comparing interest rates on loans. This will allow the consumer to shift from micro-managing tasks to setting goals and boundaries, just like human delegation. You explain what you’re trying to do and the agent does it. Beyond today’s financial assistants, these agents will both answer questions and do the work themselves.
Every fintech provider that offers Generative AI today is trying to build the bridge from conversation to action by adding Agentic AI. However, the convenience of agentic finance means trust becomes even more critical. Just like human delegation, we need to know that the agent is serving our best interests. This type of trust will hinge on transparency and the option override so that members can monitor and guide agent actions.
4. Autonomous Finance
The evolution of agentic finance is autonomous finance. Just like the ubiquity of self-driving cars in cities like San Francisco, agents that perform online activities for us could become the norm. The ultimate expression of friction removal is autonomous finance, where the system continuously manages and optimizes your financial life within your parameters. Processes can be put “on autopilot,” so that they don’t need to be continuously managed. You’re notified of important exceptions, but most actions are taken without your intervention. Clearly there are heightened risks to manage at this frictionless future stage. As systems become autonomous, human oversight and governance could become even more indirect and arm’s-length. This makes system design and accountability essential, which is where risk managers and regulators will need to focus their attention. However, the convenience and benefits will continue to push this trend forward. “Self-driving money” could involve dynamic cash flow management, automated debt-payoff strategies, real-time credit improvement, and behind-the-scenes portfolio rebalancing. In this stage, agentic AI finance has matured into a fully autonomous system.
5. Embedded Finance
Imagine when all of finance becomes white label. We are already moving toward a world where consumers purchase goods and services without considering the financial institution behind the transaction. Isn’t that the goal? Money is just a means to an end.
Embedded finance is when the finance is buried in the retail experience, so that the consumer doesn’t interact with it—it shifts “shopping” to the front and “borrowing and paying” to the back. Credit unions will face a significant paradigm shift in terms of brand and loyalty when so much of the transaction experience is moving away from direct interaction. This also poses a significant challenge to the business model of relationship banking as financial institutions continue to fade into the background, or banking without the bank.
6. Deviceless Finance
Carrying physical objects can be annoying. Remember our parents’ generation of fat wallets, purses full of plastic cards and cash, and signing for every card transaction with pen on paper? Those days are gone, and the accessories have largely been replaced by the mobile wallet. But we’re not at the end of the story—so where is it headed? Think about how we used to unlock our phones with a passcode, then our thumbprint, and now it’s a face or retinal scan.
Pulling out a smartphone and opening the wallet can still be its own form of friction, and wearable objects, like a watch or ring, are slightly less cumbersome. In fact, there are signs of replacing consumer objects with biometric identity verification—payments already typically involve a biometric scan to confirm purchase.
But with each progression in the use of biometrics, there has been debate about the potential downsides, like loss of privacy. Not all members will trust biometrics, which is a completely legitimate concern, and some may not be able to use them, so credit unions should always maintain secure alternatives and communicate clearly how biometric data is protected and used. Even still, using biometrics for financial transactions will grow over time, so the question becomes how we navigate this trend as humans. With deviceless finance, your body is the payment credential and you are the wallet, there’s nothing to swipe or tap.
The Call to Action
For credit unions, the challenge is not just adopting new technology but re-imagining your role in the process.
Each of these trends builds on the last. Together they point toward a financial future where the most powerful feature is the absence of friction. For credit unions, the challenge is not just adopting new technology but re-imagining your role in the process. These trends point to a future where finance is less in the foreground and more in the background, which could pose a challenge to the branding and relationship-building of today. However, as finance fades further into the background, trust will become even more important. Consumers will grant deeper data access and more agency only if they believe the institution acts in their best interest. The institutions that succeed in the 2030s may not be the ones with the flashiest apps, but those that make money management the most seamless and trustworthy. This is the vision of self-driving, autonomous financial wellness.
Credit unions have an opportunity to design automation with purpose, by preserving awareness and keeping people at the center of innovation. You can forge that path for sustaining human connection and trust in a world where convenience may obscure the hidden risks. The goal is a member journey that builds toward better outcomes as money becomes simpler and more aligned with everyday living.
Credit unions have an opportunity to design automation with purpose, by preserving awareness and keeping people at the center of innovation.
