Innovating Finance Together: A Conversation with Chris Walters, CEO of Finastra
A year into his role as CEO, Chris Walters has spent much of his time on the road – listening to customers, learning from teams, and leading Finastra through a new chapter of growth. From cloud modernization and AI innovation to ecosystem collaboration and customer co-creation, Finastra is reshaping its strategy to help financial institutions modernize, harness AI, and deliver meaningful results.
In this exclusive Pan Finance interview, Walters shares what he’s learned, what’s next for Finastra, and why focus, speed, and collaboration are driving its next phase of transformation.
YOU’RE COMING UP ON YOUR ONEYEAR ANNIVERSARY AT FINASTRA AND HAVE MET WITH HUNDREDS OF CLIENTS GLOBALLY. WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM THOSE CONVERSATIONS, AND WHAT’S SURPRISED YOU THE MOST?
One of the best parts of this job has been meeting our customers face to face – hearing about their business goals, what they need from technology partners to achieve their goals, what Finastra is doing well, and where we can improve.
What’s striking is how consistent the feedback has been, no matter where I am. Whether I’m in Singapore, London, Australia, or New York, the message is the same. Everyone wants to move faster. Banks are under pressure to deliver digital experiences, integrate new technologies seamlessly, realize AI driven benefits and stay compliant in an increasingly complex environment.
What’s surprised me most is the shared sense of urgency. Leaders are focused on modernization and simplification – finding ways to evolve legacy systems while still running their businesses reliably.
Those conversations have shaped our priorities. We’ve made deliberate changes to how we build and deliver products – simplifying, modernizing, and involving customers earlier in the process. It’s helping us stay aligned with what really matters to them.
HOW ARE THOSE LEARNINGS INFLUENCING YOUR STRATEGY FOR FINASTRA?
They’ve reinforced the importance of focus and execution. And they’ve really shaped our focus. What I’ve heard consistently from customers is that they want partners who help them move faster, simplify complexity, and support their delivery of measurable business results. That’s where we’re concentrating our energy – on modernization, AI, and execution excellence.
We’re modernizing our products to make them cloud first, more modular and easier to deploy. We’re streamlining how we innovate so customers see value sooner – whether that’s faster onboarding, more rapid new feature delivery, or simplified user experiences.
AI is an important enabler of all of this. We’re embedding it in ways that make a real difference – from timely AI driven support in our products to natural language data queries and document intelligence. These capabilities aren’t concepts on a whiteboard; they’re live and creating impact today.
Our strategy is simple: help financial institutions perform better every day. That means technology that’s reliable, secure, and continuously improving based on feedback from customers. We’re building mission critical solutions.
AI IS TRANSFORMING HOW FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS OPERATE. HOW IS FINASTRA EMBEDDING AI ACROSS ITS PRODUCTS AND WITHIN THE COMPANY ITSELF?
AI is front and center in every conversation we have with customers. The big question is not if they’ll use AI – it’s how they’ll use it responsibly and effectively.
We’re embedding AI at three levels in our product.
First, to make them easier to use – AI chatbots and educational tools.
Second, we want to make average users, super users of our products. There is so much functionality that no user can know all of it. We can use AI to surface the functionality needed or provide analytics that help individual users and banks optimize their performance.
Third, we’re building agentic solutions that can help the users of our software offload some of the most repetitive and time consumers’ activities that they regularly do.
Within our own operations, we’re taking a similar approach. AI helps our team work more efficiently so they can focus on higher-value efforts that can deliver value to customers more rapidly.
Our AI Task Force, working with outside experts, is helping us scale this work safely and transparently. Every AI capability we introduce goes through careful review to meet the highest standards for data protection and regulatory compliance.
The power of AI isn’t just about automation; it’s about insight. We’re all early on this journey, however it’s already helping our company and financial institutions make faster, smarter decisions that improve both performance and customer experience. That said there’s so much more that we all can do in the coming years.
HAVE YOU NOTICED ANY SHIFTS IN HOW BANKS ARE APPROACHING DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION — PARTICULARLY AROUND MODERNIZATION AND INTEGRATION?
Absolutely. For a long time, digital transformation meant incremental change. Now it’s about building a foundation for agility and creating systems that can scale, adapt, and integrate easily as needs evolve.
Modernization has become a business strategy, not just a technology project. Banks are rethinking how their systems work together, how data flows across the enterprise, and how quickly they can deliver new products to market.
That’s where Finastra comes in. We’re helping customers modernize at their own pace – whether that’s re-architecting core systems, moving workloads to the cloud, or exposing APIs for better connectivity. The key is flexibility. Every institution’s journey is different, but the goal is always the same: simplify, integrate, and accelerate.
HOW DOES FINASTRA STAY ALIGNED WITH WHAT CLIENTS ACTUALLY NEED – ESPECIALLY ACROSS SUCH A DIVERSE CUSTOMER BASE?
It starts with staying close to them. We spend a lot of time listening – through extensive research, advisory boards, product councils, and direct co-development with our customers. In the first six months of 2025, we engaged nearly 40% of our 8,000 customers in highly structured research to better understand their needs and how we can help them achieve their goals. This, combined with the ongoing collaboration, helps ensure we’re solving real business challenges, not just adding technology for its own sake.
Our teams are now more tightly connected to client feedback loops than ever before. We’re testing ideas faster, iterating quickly, and measuring results so that innovation translates directly into performance gains.
Trust also plays a huge part in this. Financial institutions need technology partners they can rely on for resilience, compliance, and data protection. We’ve invested heavily in strengthening those areas – not just in what we build, but in how we build them.
At the end of the day, our customers don’t just want new capabilities. They want confidence that those capabilities will deliver measurable value. That’s what guides us.
WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO BANKS LOOKING TO ACCELERATE THEIR OWN TRANSFORMATION JOURNEYS?
First, focus on outcomes, not technology for technology’s sake. Every investment should connect clearly to the business results you want, whether that’s faster lending decisions, better customer experiences, or improved efficiency.
Second, think in terms of progress, not perfection. Transformation is a journey. You don’t need to modernize everything at once, but you do need to start, learn, and build momentum.
Third, invest in your people. The most successful transformations I’ve seen are the ones where teams are empowered to innovate, experiment, and bring forward ideas. Culture is often the biggest differentiator.
And fourth, choose your partners wisely. Large technology efforts are complex, and it’s important that you have partners who have great breadth and depth of experience with an array of clients and products that are proven to deliver at scale.
Technology enables change, but people make it happen.
FINASTRA WAS RECENTLY NAMED FINANCIAL SOFTWARE PROVIDER OF THE YEAR BY PAN FINANCE. WHAT DOES THAT RECOGNITION MEAN TO YOU AND THE COMPANY?
It’s incredibly meaningful because it reflects the work of thousands of Finastra employees around the world and the trust our customers place in us.
This recognition reinforces that we are headed in the right direction. Our focus on modernization, AI, and execution is resonating. We’re proud of the progress we’ve made, but even more proud of the tangible outcomes we’re delivering for clients.
Awards are nice, but what matters most is impact. For me, this award is a sign that we’re building momentum in the right direction.
HOW DOES THAT RECOGNITION SHAPE YOUR AMBITIONS FOR WHAT’S NEXT?
It motivates us to keep raising the bar. The pace of change in financial services is only accelerating, and our clients need partners who can help them stay ahead of it.
We’re focused on continuing to modernize our platforms, expand our AI capabilities, and improve the overall experience for customers. That means faster deployment, more automation, and tools that make it easier for clients to innovate safely.
We’ll keep listening to our customers and adapting quickly. Our goal is to help financial institutions compete, grow, and perform with confidence – not just today, but for the long term.
FINASTRA’S MISSION IS TO BE THE PROVIDER OF CHOICE FOR MISSIONCRITICAL FINANCIAL SOFTWARE. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN IN PRACTICE?
It means reliability and trust are at the center of everything we do. Our software runs some of the most essential systems in global finance, and we never take that responsibility lightly.
Being the provider of choice means delivering the technology and performance our clients count on every day, while continuously evolving based on addressing customer needs. It’s about helping them move faster, manage risk better, and serve their customers more effectively.
We’re investing heavily in our products, in security, and in engineering talent to make sure we’re delivering both innovation and stability – because our clients need both.
Finally, “Innovating Finance Together” is Finastra’s purpose. What does it mean to you personally?
To me, it’s about partnership and progress.
“Innovating Finance Together” reflects how we work – shoulder to shoulder with customers, partners, and teams to solve real challenges. The best innovations come from collaboration, from different perspectives coming together around a shared goal.
It’s also a reminder of why we exist: to help financial institutions navigate complexity, unlock growth, and deliver better outcomes for the people and communities they serve.
Finance underpins so much of daily life. If we can make it smarter, safer, and more connected, we can make a real difference and that’s what motivates me every day.