Retail banking customers have more choice and transparency than ever — yet satisfaction with banking services is not improving. Instead, digitally active consumers are growing fatigued by complexity: multiple apps, multi-step authentication, and the cognitive load of managing fragmented financial products. The gap is not in information or options. It is in action. Customers want financial outcomes — save more, pay less, switch better — without the effort of achieving them. AI agents now make it plausible for a bank to close that gap: acting on a customer's behalf before they even formulate a request.

Which everyday financial decisions — savings allocation, subscription cancellation, loan refinancing — are customers most willing to delegate to an AI agent, and where do they draw the line on trust? How should proactive, agent-driven banking be designed to feel safe, transparent, and reversible rather than a loss of control? What data signals and permission models would make delegated financial action viable within EU regulatory frameworks?

In this project we are looking for concepts that explore what a proactive banking experience could look and feel like — where the bank initiates beneficial actions on the customer's behalf rather than waiting to be asked.