Quinlan & Associates and Synpulse see a pressing need for retail banks to adopt hyper-personalisation, amidst lower customer retention rates and sizeable upside potential. 

Hong Kong, 3 December 2025 – Quinlan & Associates, in partnership with Synpulse, has released a landmark report examining the case for retail banks to hyper-personalise their customer journey. 

The report, titled, Tailor-made – Hyper-personalising the Retail Banking Experience, evaluates the current state of retail banks’ personalisation efforts to point out key gaps, potential benefits of hyper-personalising the user experience, and the strategic and operational ingredients required to accomplish the same. 

“Despite 74% of customers stating personalisation as important / critical to their banking experience, only 44% have experienced a personalised banking experience, of which 52% were unsatisfied” said Benjamin Quinlan, CEO of Quinlan & Associates, and lead author of the report. “As a result, the customer retention rate of the banking industry has been on the decline and is lower than that of other industries.” 

The authors stipulate that addressing the personalisation gap could unlock significant upside for retail banks, with customers being: (1) 63% more likely to open an account; (2) 36% more likely to engage; (3) 94% more likely to purchase a product / service offering; and (4) 69% more likely to keep an account. 

“Banks’ current personalisation efforts are disconnected, fragmented across channels, products, and customer journeys”, stated Salomon Wettstein, Managing Partner & Head of North Asia of Synpulse. He added that “Banks must make every interaction relevant, seamless, and valuable for both customers and themselves, through embedding personalisation more deeply across their ecosystems and enabling customer-driven preferences to deliver consistent and context-aware engagement across platforms.” 

The report explains that to deliver a truly hyper-personalised experience for their customers, retail banks need to address several key strategic and operational pillars, including developing the ability to curate a focused vision to implement hyper-personalised use cases at scale, unifying customer data across the organisation, and enabling real-time decisioning on the strategic front, while on the operational front they need to build a fit-for-purpose talent base, proper data infrastructure, data governance guardrails, robust cybersecurity, sustainable financial management, and requisite capability development. 

“Achieving true hyper-personalisation in retail banking requires more than just advanced technology – it demands a clear strategy supported by strong operational foundations”, stated Mr Quinlan, with Mr. Wettstein adding – “Success will be largely driven by how financial institutions digitally engage customers, craft a compelling value proposition, and design a minimum-friction customer journey.”