Change is a constant in financial services, but the pace, scale and complexity of change today is unlike anything the industry has seen before and the pressure to keep up is growing. However, despite starting with the best of intentions, many financial institutions can over-engineer their approach to change, focusing on frameworks rather than outcomes. And when this happens, the reality can never match the intention.
Effective change isn’t about rigidly following a single methodology. It’s about pragmatism. The most successful organisations prioritise what works for their individual circumstances to deliver the best value. They understand that effective change is about aligning delivery with business goals, designing for regulatory compliance and enhancing innovation in order to make change part of how the business runs, not something that’s done to it. Let’s see how they achieve that.
Focus on Outcomes, Not Methodologies
The first, and most important, principle of effective change is clarity of purpose – the ‘why’ and not the ‘how’. Every initiative should focus on tangible business objectives, whether that’s improving the customer experience, increasing operational efficiency, reducing risk or unlocking a new revenue stream.
All too frequently, change teams become siloed and inadvertently lose sight of why the change matters. This can lead to expensive, delayed or misaligned outcomes. High-performing businesses prioritise alignment from the start, defining success with shared KPIs and ensuring that delivery work is constantly mapped to determine measurable impact. Because when everyone involved understands how their work drives broader strategic goals, decision-making becomes faster and more coherent.
Engage the Right People Early, and Keep Them Engaged
Change isn’t just about technology or process; it’s about people. And in a sector that’s both complex and heavily regulated, change can’t be the responsibility of one team alone. It must be a cross-functional effort from the start. That means involving IT, Compliance, Risk and Ops as well as other teams throughout the process, because they all have a stake in the transformation. Without early collaboration and clear ownership, change efforts can stall due to competing priorities or hesitant decision-making.
This is where a unified change model helps. Rather than centralising everything under one rigid governance structure, progressive businesses distribute ownership. Change Teams act as connectors, aligning local priorities with strategic objectives and translating decisions into day-to-day actions. This builds investment, reduces resistance, uncovers risks earlier and enables faster, smoother implementation.
Incorporate Regulation Into the Design
Change in financial services organisations must be compliant by default, but it shouldn’t impede innovation. The key is to build assurance into the design from the outset, rather than retrofitting controls later. In this way delays, rework and tension between oversight and delivery can be avoided.
However, this requires close collaboration between Change, Risk and Compliance teams from the start. It also means leveraging tools that allow for traceability across requirements, risk controls and deliverables into agile delivery models that create compliant and commercially viable solutions.
Embed Change
Over the years, we’ve found that one of the most common failures during change management is treating it as a standalone communications exercise where a team delivers the project, sends some emails and assumes the change is effected. However, meaningful transformation doesn’t just happen because people are told about it. Real, lasting change happens when it’s embedded into the way people work every single day.
This means incorporating change into business-as-usual (BAU). It also means giving teams the tools, training and support they need to adopt the new ways of working with confidence.
Treat Change as a Core Capability
The most innovative and, therefore, successful financial services organisations don’t see change as a project to be delivered, rather as a core organisational capability that’s built into their culture, structures and people. And they invest in the talent, skills and tools needed to manage change well, repeatedly.
This mindset unlocks more sustainable transformation. But it also means hiring and developing progressive leaders, empowering teams to own change in their specialist areas, standardising toolkits for repeatable success and maintaining strategic alignment and oversight.
Summary
Ultimately, delivering change isn’t about the perfect process; it’s about understanding what you’re trying to achieve, involving the right people early, designing for compliance and embedding change into BAU. We help organisations see that change doesn’t have to be disruptive. When it’s built into the fabric of how a business operates, it can actually become a source of resilience and adaptability, and give you a competitive edge.
If you’d like more information about any of the issues discussed here, contact us.
