Banking leaders across Asia Pacific are increasingly convinced that general-purpose AI isn’t good enough for their industry. A new poll by FICO found that 77 per cent of senior banking executives and C-suite leaders in the region say it’s “extremely important” for AI tools used in banking to be purpose-built for financial services, rather than adapted from consumer products.
The poll surveyed 51 senior executives from banks across the region at FICO’s Banking Leaders Forum in Bali in August 2026.
Regulation, not cost, is the biggest hurdle
When asked what’s holding back AI adoption, respondents pointed to regulatory and governance concerns well ahead of cost or technology limits. Data privacy and security was the top concern, cited by 42 per cent, followed by regulatory and compliance risk (21 per cent) and model transparency and explainability (21 per cent). Just 16 per cent named computing cost or infrastructure as their biggest barrier.
“Financial institutions operate under regulatory scrutiny that most consumer technology companies don’t face,” said Dattu Kompella, managing director for Asia Pacific at FICO. “Banks need AI models that are explainable, auditable and designed from the ground up for compliance. Off-the-shelf consumer AI doesn’t meet that bar.”
Fraud detection is the first priority
More than 60 per cent of respondents said fraud and scam detection is the area where generative AI could make the biggest difference to their operations over the next 12 months, ahead of underwriting decisions (21 per cent) and customer-facing digital banking services (15 per cent).
Underwriting is also where banks see longer-term value: 64 per cent named credit underwriting and lending decisions as the back-office process that stands to benefit most from purpose-built AI.
Adoption looks set to move quickly. Nearly half of respondents (46 per cent) expect task-specific AI models to be deployed across fraud, compliance and underwriting within the next one to two years, while 26 per cent say they’ve already deployed such models today.
“The barriers aren’t about capability or price,” Kompella said. “Banks are concerned about trust, auditability and the ability to explain decisions to regulators. That’s exactly why purpose-built AI for financial services matters. It’s designed with those constraints in mind from day one.”
