An era of broad-based growth in financial services

Mambu Insights Series data points to a clear answer: growth will be broad-based, but credit-heavy products will lead the way. Every product category in our research showed more than 20% planned growth over the next three years, illustrating that banks, lenders, fintechs, and neobanks are all preparing to expand further across the financial bedrocks of deposits, lending, and payments.

Across the board, this indicates that growth in and of itself isn’t really the focal challenge. The real challenge is choosing where to grow and how to differentiate in a crowded market.

If broad-based growth is universal, competition will intensify. With fierce competition, the financial service providers that break away and lead won’t simply be the ones with the best rates or the widest product menu.

Instead, they’ll be the providers able to launch the fastest as opportunities present themselves, adapt the quickest to market and regulatory shifts, and with the ability to create the finest digital-first experiences that customers simply can’t find elsewhere.

In other words, infrastructure will be the growth multiplier. With so many areas expanding, a flexible, scalable platform will be more valuable than doubling down on one product.

Institutions that tie themselves to rigid, product-specific systems will struggle to effectively capture broad-based demand as market expectations consistently shift. Alternatively, institutions that build on agile, composable foundations will have a competitive advantage because they can compete across categories without the drag of legacy systems.

The clear winners: credit-led products

Within the parameters of this broad-based growth, one area in particular stands out as a clear winner. Credit-heavy offerings such as commercial lending, asset finance, and revolving credit/purchase finance are set to see the biggest lift. (See B,C, and F in the images).

Interestingly, these are not niche opportunities being exploited, but categories that providers already prioritise today.

Standing already at a current portfolio penetration of 40-43%, the expected growth of each of them will reach a penetration close to 70% within the coming three years.

Commercial lending

Commercial lending is a growing priority as providers look to address unmet demand from SMEs and mid-market firms, which often lack access to tailored financing.

At the same time, sustainability initiatives and infrastructure projects are creating fresh investment opportunities.

Together, these factors present lenders with a chance to close funding gaps, drive growth, and support long-term economic transformation.

Asset finance

Asset finance is gaining momentum as customer preferences shift away from outright ownership toward financing and leasing models.

This trend reflects demand for greater flexibility, cost efficiency, and access to high-value assets without the burden of full ownership, creating new opportunities for providers to expand their offerings and capture growth.

Revolving credit and purchase finance

Revolving credit and purchase finance, including BNPL-style products, are becoming key priorities as demand for flexible credit accelerates among both consumers and SMEs.

Providers see strong potential in embedding these solutions into digital platforms, enabling seamless access to financing at the point of need and driving deeper engagement.

A Mambu partnership: the growth multiplier

As touched upon briefly, to truly succeed with the coming broad-based growth and intensifying competition, a new approach to core banking infrastructure will be pivotal.

The winners will be those who can deliver fast, agile, and seamless digital experiences.

This is where a Mambu partnership and our composable core platform become your strategic solution.

As the founders of composable banking, our composable approach allows financial institutions to rapidly and flexibly assemble independent, best-for-purpose systems. Our cloud-native and API-first design empowers banks and fintechs to be as agile as modern challengers.

Instead of being locked into one vendor within a monolithic legacy system, a partnership with Mambu provides you with the foundation to build, launch and scale virtually any type of financial product faster and more flexibly than ever before.

Our composable core solution helps institutions avoid the risks of "big bang" transformations and reduces time to market for new products.

You can test, launch, and scale credit-heavy offerings alongside deposits and payments, all on the same agile, customisable, and scalable platform.

By leveraging Mambu's platform, financial institutions can directly address the demands of credit-led growth:

Commercial lending with Mambu

Commercial lending requires flexibility to address diverse business needs, from SMEs seeking working capital to larger firms financing sustainability and infrastructure projects.

Mambu’s platform is designed to support this variety, enabling institutions to quickly configure and launch tailored loan products without being held back by legacy systems.

Our composable architecture makes it simple to connect with credit decisioning, risk management, and analytics tools, giving lenders the agility to adapt offerings as markets evolve while maintaining speed, accuracy, and scalability.

Asset finance with Mambu

Asset finance is rising in importance as customers increasingly prefer leasing or financing over outright ownership, particularly in areas such as green equipment and point-of-sale solutions.

Final thoughts

The future of growth in financial services over the coming three years is broad-based and credit-led.

Success will hinge not only on a single product bet but on the ability to implement winning strategies that grant a distinctive edge over competition within those product markets.

The technology available to you to execute will be every bit as defining a factor as to which product decision-makers decide to place their wagers.

At Mambu, we believe the winners of this next phase of financial services won’t necessarily be limited to where they grow, but by how they grow.

We make more possible.