Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping the financial services industry — offering powerful tools for automation, personalization and a better client experience. This means that many financial services companies are investing in secure, always-on, AI-powered customer services.

However, this upside does come with a downside: AI is also an effective enabler of modern fraud.  

Today, anyone with a browser can create a fake identity or generate a cloned voice with alarming accuracy. The threat escalates when these deepfake capabilities are combined with snippets of real personal data, turning impersonation into a powerful tool for financial crime.  

In this environment, it’s critical for financial institutions to focus on resiliency to balance the need to build competitive strength and maintain data security. This article explains what resiliency means to today’s financial institutions — and their customers. It also explores modern day threats within the financial services industry and outlines how choosing the right solution can not only protect your customers and your business but can also improve satisfaction and loyalty.

Financial Services Resiliency

Resiliency requirements have evolved from basic business continuity planning to comprehensive frameworks that demand proactive identification of vulnerabilities, rigorous testing and demonstrable ability to maintain critical services during disruptions. The 2025 regulatory landscape, particularly in the UK, US and EU, represents a significant step change in expectations, with requirements now embedded in rulebooks rather than remaining as guidance.

Financial institutions that treat these requirements as strategic imperatives rather than compliance exercises will be better positioned to withstand operational shocks, maintain customer trust and can potentially gain a competitive advantage.

The key to success lies in moving beyond minimum compliance to building genuine resilience capabilities that protect not just the institution, but the customers and financial systems that depend on it. As regulators increasingly view operational resilience as equally important to financial resiliency, banks must allocate appropriate resources and attention to meeting these critical requirements.

Also, operational resilience has become a critical priority for banks and financial institutions worldwide as they navigate an increasingly complex risk landscape marked by cyberthreats, technological disruptions and regulatory pressures.

Why Operational Resiliency Matters Today in Financial Services

Global regulators have elevated operational resilience to the same level of importance as financial resilience. These include:

  • UK Operational Resilience Rules: Mandating identification of important business services, impact tolerance setting, and rigorous testing by March 2025.
  • EU’s Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA): Establishing strict ICT risk management and incident reporting requirements, effective as of January 2025.
  • FFIEC Guidance: Introducing “maximum tolerable downtime” concepts in updated Business Continuity Management frameworks.

Financial services companies also face growing exposure to digital transformation risks and sophisticated cyberthreats that are difficult to identify and eliminate. This is compounded by third-party risks, as companies increasingly rely on vendors for critical services. Financial IT reports that between January 2023 and February 2025, there were at least 158 banking IT failure incidents.

Finally, financial and reputational consequences are at stake due to a lack of operational resilience. This means increased financial volatility and instability, significant reputational damage when service disruptions occur and potentially undermining customer and stakeholder confidence.

Let’s look at some essential pieces for enabling your company to help maintain its resilience even when unplanned disruptions hit it.

5 Key Components of an Operational Resilience Framework

A structured approach to resilience should address risk across systems, people and partners – with continuous improvement and review.

1. Governance and Culture: Board and senior management must set the “tone at the top” and consider the entire operations ecosystem. This means fostering a culture of resilience throughout the organization.

2. Critical Business Service Identification: Establish a repeatable process for identifying critical business functions and map interdependencies internally and externally, including third and fourth parties.

3. Impact Tolerance and Testing: Set realistic impact tolerances and recovery time objectives and conduct meaningful testing beyond tabletop exercises, using complex scenarios.

4. Third-Party Risk Management: Perform robust vendor risk assessments covering cyber, operational, and business continuity risks, then confirm critical third parties have adequate resilience measures.

5. Technology and Cybersecurity: Replace legacy systems with modern IT infrastructure and implement strong cyber-hygiene practices.

How Genesys Secures Channels with Partners 

Genesys orchestrates interactions across many primary communication channels, including voice, text, WhatsApp and others. All these channels are potential targets for fraudsters and are now a key part of financial services resiliency. Genesys builds its own level of resiliency and data security capabilities into its solutions.   

We also partner closely with experts in the deepfake voice space, including our Genesys AppFoundry® Marketplace partners like VOX, EQ and Pindrop, among others. Their teams contribute to how we stitch together technology in the most effective way possible on the Genesys Cloud™ platform to create more resilient environments. 

Responding to New Customer Behaviors

Based on actual and expected fraud losses from 2017 to 2027, Deloitte forecasts that generative AI could enable fraud losses to reach $40 billion in the US by 2027. Fraud is big business, and it requires that financial services companies use a variety of tools for protection and resiliency.  

Let’s translate this into customer impact. Think about how you call your bank today. The first thing many of us do is look for a 1-800 number on a statement or the back of a credit card. Then, when you call the 800 number, you must go through the steps of phone verification. This time-consuming process is very typical. 

More sophisticated financial services institutions offer better solutions within their apps, such as a help tab. Customers might choose in-app messaging, voice or a video call. That escalation process is an app feature that makes it very simple for customers. Plus, within the app, it’s already a secured call — and there’s no need for extra verification. This makes it tough for fraudsters to infiltrate; it also makes it better for clients and adds to the resiliency controls for a bank. 

Genesys is working with banks in Europe that have implemented this streamlined approach. We expect it will spread beyond banks in Europe to other geographies who recognize its convenience. 

Outbound Finds a Second Life in AI Security 

Finding a balance between fighting fraud and giving customers a positive experience is a complex challenge. For example, customers do not want to be stopped at the point of sale at a supermarket or in a restaurant to be told that their card has been declined. 

Yet, no one wants fraud, either. One is inconvenient and the other could have serious negative consequences. 

To balance these realities, additional verification has become commonplace, often as a call to ensure that a cardholder is the legitimate card owner. More advanced use cases include Genesys Cloud Predictive Engagement, which goes beyond verification to surface insights into customer intent. For example, after verification it might reveal that, based on a previous interaction, the current call is about a specific interaction, and that the caller is likely concerned about this particular transaction on their account.  

This can improve the subsequent customer-agent conversation. Embedding this advanced technology can reduce human error, improve customer satisfaction and reinforce other security and resiliency measures.  

It’s impossible to be 100% sure that your business and your clients are secure from fraud attacks. However, financial services companies can be assured by confirming their vendors pass rigorous resiliency and security checks and that there are compelling technology roadmaps for staying ahead of fraudsters.

Emerging Threats and Solutions in the Financial Services Industry

We expect capabilities and uses for AI will continue to increase. This likely includes the secure integration of the communication mechanisms and vehicles at our disposal now — plus new areas we may not even know about yet. 

AI will likely become even better at solving problems, but advancements may also be good news for fraudsters. It’s possible they will have even more tools available to impersonate people and their lives, gain access to their data, compromise that data, and get control of their money.   

For financial institutions, success depends, in part, on deploying AI within a framework built for resilience, flexibility and trust. Genesys Cloud brings this to life by embedding security into its architecture and collaborating with leading security partners to try to outpace threats. We believe the best approach is committing to a proactive approach. 

Genesys and Resiliency as Your Competitive Advantage 

In 2025, banking technology resiliency has evolved from an IT concern to a potential strategic differentiator. Institutions that excel in building resilient systems will not only meet stringent regulatory requirements, but also stand to gain customer trust and market share.

We believe the path forward demands balanced investments in modernization, security and human capital — because in an era of constant disruption, resilience is the new currency of banking. As one regulator noted, banks that master “the art of bending without breaking” are better positioned to survive in today’s challenging environment.

We believe that institutions that prioritize operational resilience will not only be better positioned to meet regulatory expectations, but also stand to gain competitive advantage through enhanced customer trust and business continuity.

 

Looking for a CX platform with advanced, built-in artificial intelligence (AI) technology? Read this eBook to learn how Genesys Cloud AI delivers secure, compliant, resilient and contextual customer interactions that are virtually effortless to set up and manage.