After years of defensive spending and intense scrutiny on technology costs, quality and testing teams inside banks are beginning to see early signs of a shift in priorities.
As digital transformation accelerates and operational resilience remains firmly on the regulatory agenda, senior leaders appear increasingly willing to reconsider how much underinvestment in software quality really costs.
That reassessment is starting to show up in budget expectations. The Global Quality Index 2025/26, produced by quality engineering specialist Planit, part of NRI, and supported by global software firm UiPath, suggests that testing and quality functions may be entering a more constructive funding cycle after a prolonged period of constraint.
Based on responses from 208 quality leaders across industries including banking and investment services, the survey found that 38% of respondents expect an increase in budgets for quality and testing activities over the next 12 months.
A further 27% anticipate budgets will remain unchanged, while only 14% expect reductions. This marks a sharp change in sentiment compared with the previous year, when 83% of respondents reported budget pressure within their organisations.
For banks and financial institutions operating under tightening regulatory expectations, rising digital complexity, and persistent pressure to modernise core platforms, the renewed willingness to invest reflects a growing recognition that quality engineering is no longer a discretionary cost.
Accelerating digital transformation
The report places this shift against a backdrop of accelerating digital transformation. Eighty-three percent of respondents said their organisation has already embarked on a digital transformation journey, yet nearly one in five admitted they are struggling to meet software quality demands as transformation efforts scale.
In regulated environments, the consequences of quality failures extend beyond customer dissatisfaction to include operational disruption, regulatory exposure, and reputational damage.
Despite these pressures, perceptions of software quality remain broadly positive. Sixty-eight percent of respondents rated their organisation’s software quality as “Good,” while 27% described it as “Excellent.”
The report cautions, however, that strong self-assessments can obscure structural weaknesses that only become visible as systems scale, release cycles shorten, and AI-driven development accelerates delivery.
“Automated testing should be more deeply promoted, and AI technology can further enhance testing efficiency and accuracy.”
– GQI survey respondent
One of the most persistent challenges identified by respondents is the need to increase delivery speed without compromising quality. Thirty-nine percent cited this as their primary concern, reflecting a familiar tension for banks seeking to modernise while maintaining stability, security, and compliance.
Unclear or incorrect requirements, collaboration issues between teams, and shortages of skilled quality engineers were also highlighted as significant obstacles.
In response, many organisations are reassessing how and where quality investment is applied. The survey shows quality efforts remain heavily concentrated in late-stage testing and defect removal, accounting for 27% of total effort.
Earlier lifecycle activities such as requirements analysis and design receive significantly less focus, despite long-standing evidence that late defect discovery dramatically increases remediation costs. These findings reinforce the growing emphasis on “shift-left” quality strategies within agile and DevOps environments.
Automation drive
Automation continues to sit at the centre of these investment decisions. On average, 45% of testing activities are now automated, with API testing leading at 48%. Automation is widely viewed as essential to keeping pace with modern release cadences, particularly in large financial systems where manual testing alone cannot scale.
At the same time, the report stresses that automation requires skill, precision, and ongoing maintenance to deliver sustainable value.
The growing role of artificial intelligence is reshaping this landscape further. Eighty percent of respondents reported they are already using, or plan to use, AI in quality delivery within the next 12 months.
Common use cases include generating documentation and reporting, creating test automation code, and producing test cases and scripts from business requirements.
While adoption is accelerating, the survey shows many organisations remain at an early stage, with only a minority having a well-defined strategy for integrating AI into quality processes.
Participants who have adopted AI report tangible benefits. Ninety-one percent said they have experienced improvements, most commonly increased delivery speed, reduced repetitive effort, and improved accuracy.
As one survey respondent put it, “automated testing should be more deeply promoted, and AI technology can further enhance testing efficiency and accuracy.”
At the same time, the report makes clear that investment alone will not resolve deeper structural challenges. Data privacy remains the most significant barrier to AI adoption, alongside skills shortages and concerns over data quality.
These constraints are particularly acute in banking, where regulatory obligations and legacy systems can limit how quickly new technologies are deployed.
For financial services QA leaders, the budget uplift identified in this year’s Index may represent a narrow window of opportunity. The coming year will test whether increased funding translates into earlier quality integration, stronger automation foundations, and more resilient systems, or whether quality remains constrained by legacy practices and fragmented tooling.
As digital transformation accelerates and AI-enabled development raises both expectations and risk, the findings suggest that banks investing in quality engineering now are positioning themselves not just to move faster, but to fail less often, and with far lower consequences.
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REGULATION & COMPLIANCE
Looking for more news on regulations and compliance requirements driving developments in software quality engineering at financial firms? Visit our dedicated Regulation & Compliance page here.
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