Ping Identity executives: Andre Durand, CEO and Founder; Alex Laurie, Senior Vice President; Paul Inglis, General Manager of EMEA
In 2025 rapid technological advancements will push financial services organisations into uncharted territory as cybercriminals exploit evolving tools like AI to target vulnerabilities. Last year showed us on what scale this is possible, where in one instance, nearly 17 million customers had their names, addresses, financial account numbers and Social Security numbers exposed after an attack, leaving them at significant risk of identity theft and financial fraud. As digital threats grow, safeguarding customer identities will become an imperative for the financial services sector.
Ping Identity’s leadership team has identified three critical strategies to strengthen identity protection in 2025 embracing AI-powered verification, breaking down barriers to digital identity adoption and fostering transparency to maintain customer trust.
AI – trust nothing, verify everything
Andre Durand, Ping’s CEO and Founder, sees AI redefining how we communicate, how we work, and most importantly, how we trust. We can no longer implicitly trust what we see, hear, read, or receive, whether it’s an email, text, voice call, or even video call. In 2025, financial services must adopt the ‘trust nothing, verify everything’ mindset, as bad actors use AI to impersonate individuals at a record rate. We used to trust by verifying, now organisations should carry through the principle to only trust what’s been verified. In the identity world, verification will become the new authentication.
Breaking down barriers to digital ID adoption
If 2024 was the year deepfakes came to the forefront as a real world and costly threat to businesses, then 2025 will revolve around how organisations choose to secure their business, says Alex Laurie, SVP of Ping. Adopting new technology to combat these threats while putting control back in the hands of customers will be key. As such, we will see increasing adoption of digital wallets that safely secure digital identities and allow users to transact, travel, and verify identities at a moment’s notice. According to a new study, 74% of consumers like the idea of digital wallets or ID cards that are kept on personal mobile devices, but barriers to adoption are top of mind. Financial services will start adopting a seamless, gradual, and approachable rollout to digital IDs, helping ease consumer concerns while progressing to more widespread adoption. Those that cannot offer a secure, customer-centric experience will be at risk of falling behind early adopters who embrace this new wave of digital interaction.
Consumers will demand transparency
Identity fraud is clearly not a new phenomenon. From stolen credit cards to spam calls, consumers and therefore the providers they choose to bank, invest or insure with, have been dealing with identity theft and its ramifications for years, says Paul Inglis, General Manager of EMEA. Now, advancing technologies, such as AI, are exacerbating the risk. 2025 will mark the shift of consumers demanding more transparency from financial services around their security practices and use of AI. In fact, 89% of consumers already have concerns about AI when it comes to their identity security, and 97% have concerns about their personal data being online. Consumers will begin holding companies accountable, insisting the businesses they interact with do better when it comes to protecting their personal data amid the AI boom. Financial services must keep these concerns in mind in their approach to digital identity or else risk losing customer loyalty.
Change is on the horizon for financial services
In the rapidly evolving digital landscape of 2025, financial services must prioritise identity protection to stay ahead of increasingly sophisticated threats. By adopting AI-powered verification, facilitating the adoption of digital wallets and fostering transparency, organisations can safeguard customer trust and ensure their place in the future of financial services.