Building on the heritage of our long-running Future Shopper research, the study reveals both the forces reshaping enterprise purchasing and the sector differences across seven priority industries that determine how suppliers earn attention, build confidence, and turn preference into decision.
Enterprise procurement in financial services moves under extreme tension. The rise of AI, embedded finance and data-driven models has raised the bar for enterprise procurement, forcing incumbents to accelerate innovation to stay competitive.
VML’s "The Future Buyer: Finance" report examines how finance buyers research, evaluate and select suppliers for major investments – and what it takes for suppliers to win their business.
Download our 2026 Finance report
While financial buying groups average 6.6 stakeholders, internal risk, compliance, and CFO teams hold decisive veto power. Because career stakes are so high, buyers will choose a familiar, safe brand over an innovative challenger unless that challenger provides iron-clad, board-ready compliance proof.
Generative AI is now the dominant starting point for enterprise finance research. Independent digital evaluation does the heavy lifting long before direct outreach begins, meaning buying teams often determine their preferred partner before your sales team is contacted.
While digital discovery and machine evaluation dominate early phases, financial buyers draw the line at automated negotiation. Wary of losing relationship depth and commercial leverage, enterprise buyers demand direct access to senior human experts when evaluating high-stakes contracts.
Finance procurement combines extensive use of digital tools with a continuing preference for human contact.
The world of B2B marketing is being disrupted. 55% of buyers now begin supplier research with Generative AI. To win, your brand must be found by AI, trusted by people and approved by the buying group. Introducing The Future Buyer Report series by VML – a comprehensive study of modern B2B buying behavior based on first-party research with 750 buyers across eight international markets. Seven reports, seven industries – delivering a clear view of what influences buying decisions and how brands can act.
According to VML's "The Future Buyer: Finance Report 2026," purchasing decisions involve an average of 6.6 stakeholders. Internal Finance teams hold the greatest meaningful influence over final decisions at 75% (significantly higher than the 63% all-B2B average), followed by the C-suite at 54% and IT/Technology at 50%, while central procurement influences 40%.
Financial procurement suffers high initiative attrition due to regulatory and financial risk. Deals primarily collapse due to risk or compliance concerns (36%), insufficient or unclear ROI projections (35%), budget reallocations (32%), and sudden strategic shifts (32%).
Generative AI is now the leading discovery channel, with 55% of finance buyers starting research using GenAI tools, ahead of traditional search engines (44%) and direct supplier outreach (39%). Among finance buyers who use AI for work, 80% use GenAI frequently or always during supplier research. In addition, 39% form a firm supplier preference before speaking to any supplier and 60% form preferences prior to formal RFP evaluation
Price is among the least influential criteria in financial services procurement. When selecting suppliers for major investments, lowest price ranks near the bottom at 20%, far behind provable ROI (45%), strong brand reputation (43%), and a clear implementation roadmap (42%). Furthermore, when competing suppliers are evenly matched, price is the decisive tiebreaker for only 10% of buyers (ranking dead last), beaten by brand reputation (21%) and supplier responsiveness/ease of working (20%).
Financial services buyers are increasingly open to AI-led evaluation. 63.7% would feel fairly or fully comfortable approving a significant purchase where AI conducted the primary evaluation. This includes 38.4% who would be comfortable if the criteria were defined by a trusted human and 25.3% who believe AI evaluation can be more consistent and less biased than human review.
Yes. A supplier’s AI capability was the primary differentiating factor for 25.3% of financial services buyers when choosing between comparable suppliers. It also contributed meaningfully to the decision for a further 55.5% – meaning 80.8% say supplier AI capability has already influenced selection in some way.
Financial services buyers are most concerned about losing relationship depth and negotiation leverage with key suppliers, cited by 69.2%. Data privacy and security risks follow at 67.8%, while 61.6% worry that AI could optimize for what is measurable rather than what is strategically right.
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