INDUSTRY
Financial Services
Banks, insurers and asset managers rebuilding cost bases and customer models under tighter regulation.
Engagements since 2021
Banks and insurers served in the last three years
Annual cost savings identified for clients since 2021
OVERVIEW
We work with retail and commercial banks, insurers and asset managers on cost, growth, technology and mergers, in markets where margins and regulators leave little room for error.
Financial services is our largest sector by revenue, and the one where the pressure on cost is most constant. We work with regional and national banks, life and non-life insurers, and asset managers across North America, Europe and Asia, usually with the chief executive, the chief financial officer or the chief operating officer.
Our work tends to sit where cost, technology and customers meet: cost programs that do not damage service, branch and channel redesign, core system decisions, and the integrations that follow consolidation. We bring partners who have worked inside banks and insurers, and benchmarks drawn from more than seventy engagements in the sector since 2021.
WHAT IS SHIFTING
01
Net interest income is no longer doing the work
As rates settle, banks that relied on margin expansion are finding their cost-income ratios exposed again, and cost programs are back on board agendas.
01
Branch networks are being redesigned, not just shrunk
The question is less how many branches to close than what each remaining location is for, and how advisory, servicing and digital channels share the work.
01
Legacy core systems are now a strategic constraint
Product launches and regulatory changes take months because of platforms built decades ago. Replacement is expensive, but so is waiting.
01
Consolidation among mid-sized players
Regional banks and specialty insurers are merging to spread technology and compliance costs over a larger base, and integration skill is becoming a differentiator.
“We had been told for years that the only way to fix our costs was to close branches. Vertex showed us the cost was somewhere else entirely, and the board could see exactly where.”
Chief Executive Officer, A regional retail bank in the United Kingdom
SERVICES
All services
Webinar: scenario planning for the 2027 board calendar
scenario-planning-2027-webinar
Event
Elena Marsh and Priya Raman
A one-hour online briefing for directors and executives on building scenarios, triggers and prepared moves into the board's regular cycle.
Scenario planning that boards will actually use
scenario-planning-for-boards
Article
Elena Marsh and Thomas Reid
Most board scenario exercises produce a thick report and no decisions. A lighter approach, tied to triggers and pre-agreed moves, makes them useful.
Making cost savings last: a breakfast roundtable for CFOs
making-cost-savings-last-roundtable
Event
David Okafor and Hannah Cole
A closed-door breakfast in London for finance leaders planning their next cost program, built on the findings of The CFO Cost Agenda 2026.
Operations AI Benchmark 2026: from pilots to the P&L
operations-ai-benchmark-2026
Report
Marcus Lindqvist and Priya Raman
How 286 operations leaders are using AI in maintenance, planning and quality, how much of it reaches production, and what the companies seeing returns do differently.
Zero-based organization design, done properly
zero-based-organization-design
Article
Hannah Cole
Designing an organization from a blank page sounds radical. Done well, it is the most practical way to remove layers and duplication without starting a political war.
The first 100 days after a merger
first-100-days-after-a-merger
Article
Lukas Brenner and Amara Nwosu
The first hundred days after closing set the pace for everything that follows. What to settle before day one, what to do quickly, and what to leave alone.
The CFO Cost Agenda 2026: why savings fade and what keeps them
cfo-cost-agenda-2026
Report
Thomas Reid and David Okafor
A survey of 412 chief financial officers on cost programs, how much of the savings survive, and the practices that separate durable results from temporary ones.
Making AI pay back in operations, not in pilots
making-ai-pay-back-in-operations
Article
Marcus Lindqvist and Kenji Watanabe
Most operations AI never leaves the pilot stage. The few use cases that pay back share a set of traits that have little to do with the model itself.
Pricing power after the inflation years
pricing-power-after-inflation
Article
Elena Marsh and Priya Raman
Companies raised prices faster than costs between 2021 and 2024. Customers remember. How to set prices now that the cover of general inflation is gone.
Why cost programs fail in year two
why-cost-programs-fail-in-year-two
Article
David Okafor and Thomas Reid
Most cost programs hit their first-year targets. The savings disappear in the second year, for reasons that are predictable and largely avoidable.