Beyond ’27: Finance & Essential Services

Finance & Essential Services

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WELCOME MICHAEL MILLER

insights and the actionable intelligence you need to navigate an ever-evolving market.

From Advocacy to Travel, through to Wellness, Sport and Finance, each specialised session is built for genuine collaboration. Our commitment is to work hand-in-hand with you, ensuring every interaction is efficient, effective, and delivers real outcomes.

This program embodies our dedication to being your trusted partner, helping you to not only meet but exceed your objectives in 2027, and beyond.

We look forward to helping you build a future that produces real, measurable success.

WELCOME TO BEYOND’ 27, WHERE WE GET REAL ABOUT THE FUTURE OF YOUR BUSINESS .

The premise behind Beyond’27 is straightforward: we’re here to help you cut through the noise, get ahead of the curve and genuinely grow your business.

The reality is that the world is changing fast.

What worked yesterday might not work tomorrow.

We’re seeing incredible progress, but also a lot of uncertainty.

Beyond’27 is about helping you find that sweet spot between bold innovation and practical application.

It’s about bringing together our unparalleled expertise and insights to engage in dynamic dialogues that directly address your most pressing needs. We believe in leading upfront, giving you real

Michael Miller, Executive Chairman, News Corp Australasia

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Finance & Essential Services

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CONTENTS FINANCE & ESSENTIAL SERVICES

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Introduction Finance & Essential Services

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Headwinds to navigate Early visible proof points

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Enduring needs Safety & Security, Freedom, Control, Trust

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Tailwinds to leverage Early visible proof points

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The wrap Beyond 2027

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BEYOND THE NOISE LEIGH LAVERY

INTRODUCING

continues to shape decision-making across these categories.

That is the central idea behind this white paper series. In Finance and Essential Services, we explore the headwinds brands will need to navigate, the tailwinds they can use to grow, and the enduring human needs that give those shifts meaning.

Our belief is simple: the brands best placed to grow will be the ones that can read both the changing world around people, and the enduring needs within them.

We’re excited to share these insights with you, and we hope they serve as a practical guide as you build for sustainable growth through 2027 and beyond.

THE GROWTH DISTILLERY.

At The Growth Distillery, we exist to help businesses understand people more deeply and make better decisions because of it.

Our role is to decode the forces shaping consumer behaviour, separate the signals that matter from the noise, and turn that understanding into opportunity.

That task has never felt more urgent.

The world is changing quickly. Technology is reshaping how people compare, switch and seek advice. AI is accelerating access and expectation. Economic pressure, rising scrutiny and declining trust are changing the conditions in which brands compete.

And yet, beneath all of that change, something important remains stable: what people fundamentally want. The tools, platforms and behaviours may evolve, but enduring human needs do not move nearly as quickly. The desire to feel safe, in control, supported, empowered and able to trust

Leigh Lavery, General Manager, The Growth Distillery

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Finance & Essential Services Finance and essential services are moving into a more exposed future. From banking, superannuation and insurance to energy and other household essentials, categories once protected by inertia, complexity and low switching are now facing consumers who can compare providers in minutes, ask AI for advice, learn from creators and challenge pricing, policies and service standards far more easily than before.

What unites these sectors is that they sit underneath the everyday, and are essential to a good life. They help people manage money, protect against risk, power their homes and plan for the future. That makes them unusually exposed when trust slips and uniquely valuable when confidence is earned.

But more access has not created more certainty. Beyond 2027, the advantage is more likely to sit with the brands that turn complexity into confidence, automation into accountability, and information into guidance people can actually use.

According to The Growth Distillery, Reframe Switching 2025 report, 3 in 5 Australians agree essential services now feel like they're running them – not the other way around.

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Headwinds to navigate

Australians reported $2.18 billion in scam losses in 2025.

PRE DI CTE D H E ADWIND #1 Today’s cyber anxiety will cement a permanent trust deficit.

A much tougher trust environment will shape the next phase of this category.

Scams, cyber breaches, hidden fees and high-friction service moments are already making scepticism feel rational. What still reads as caution today points to a future in which distrust becomes the baseline setting, especially in categories that are supposed to protect people’s money, data and households.

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Early proof points

Better access to information has not restored confidence. CommBank’s 2025 Financial Fitness report shows that while most Australians have financial goals, 48% do not feel confident they can achieve them, and 62% say there is at least one thing stopping them from becoming more financially confident.

already visible

Scams have already made financial harm feel mainstream. The National Anti-Scam Centre’s Targeting scams report for 2025 shows Australians reported $2.18 billion in scam losses in 2025, with 274,577 reports involving financial loss across Scamwatch, ReportCyber, IDCARE, the Australian Financial Crimes Exchange and ASIC, making the consequences of bad actors feel immediate and personal.

Financial fragility makes every provider interaction feel higher stakes. The ABS General Social Survey: Summary Results, Australia, 2025 shows that 21.7% of Australians were unable to raise $2,000 within a week for something important in 2025, up from 18.7% in 2020. In a market where so many households have limited room to absorb shocks, hidden costs, poor support and opaque decisions are likely to be judged more harshly.

Cybercrime is becoming constant rather than occasional. In Australia, a cybercrime is reported every six minutes, reinforcing how regularly households are exposed to digital risk and how easily security concerns can become part of everyday decisionmaking. (Australian Signals Directorate)

The rise of AI advice is further accelerating the decline in trust. Independent testing found AI financial advice was correct only 56% of the time – misleading 27% and wrong 17%. (Investing Insiders UK, 2026).

Cyber risk is no longer abstract for providers and institutions. The latest national insights from the IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report show a widening risk premium for heavily regulated sectors.

While the average cost of a standard corporate data breach in Australia sits at AUD $2.55 million, breaches within the Australian financial services sector have scaled to an average of AUD $7.1 million per incident. This stark discrepancy underlines how quickly a security failure translates into an immediate, heavy commercial liability.

Taken together, these are early signals of a market in which trust will become slower to build, faster to lose and harder to win back once lost.

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Headwinds to navigate

69% of customers would consider switching after a bad experience.

PRE DI CTE D H E A DWIND #2 Intensifying competition will expose the limits of price-led retention.

As the category becomes more crowded, providers are increasingly being judged in markets where rates, fees and features are easier to compare than ever before.

That points to a future in which price alone becomes a weaker retention tool.

When providers feel interchangeable, loyalty gets thinner, switching gets easier, and every poor experience gives consumers another reason to leave.

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Early proof points already visible

but not necessarily through traditional institutional channels or reliable sources.

Loyalty penalties are keeping price comparison front of mind. The ACCC’s 2025 electricity market update found that 37% of customers – nearly 2.5 million households – were paying prices at or above the default offer. While households on the same electricity plan for more than three years were paying $221 more per year on average than customers on new plans.

Transparency is becoming a competitive retention lever. KPMG’s 2025 Trust in AI research found that 83% of Australians would be more willing to trust AI systems when assurances are in place, while only 30% believe current laws and safeguards are adequate, suggesting price or convenience alone will not hold people if the system feels unaccountable.

A single poor experience is increasingly enough to trigger exit. PwC Australia’s Customer Sentiment Survey 2025 found that almost 69% of customers would consider switching after a bad experience, showing how little room providers have to recover once trust slips.

Taken together, these are early signs of a market where price and product features alone will struggle to sustain loyalty.

As comparison gets easier and trust gets harder, switching becomes less the headline issue and retention becomes the real commercial battleground.

Younger audiences are already finding financial conversations outside institutional walls. ASFA’s June 2026 retirement advice research found that Australians aged 18–34 are ten times more likely than those over 65 to consult social media for retirement information, even though social media ranks as the least trusted source overall. At the same time, only half of Australian adults have consulted any source of retirement information at all. That points to a market where younger audiences are increasingly reachable,

Beyond 2027, loyalty is more likely to be won through fairness, clarity and accountable support than through price alone.

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Enduring needs Beneath these shifts sit needs that are too deeply rooted in human behaviour to move with technology cycles, rate changes or interface updates. In Finance & Essential Services, the most relevant needs remain safety and security, freedom, control, empowerment and trust.

The tools around them will keep changing. The needs themselves will not.

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“Feelings of dread are the major determinant of public risk perception – driven not by probability but by factors of controllability, voluntariness and whether a known agent is responsible.”

Paul Slovic, Science, 1987

66% of Australians say they still prefer human support from their financial provider.

The Growth Distillery, Technographics Finance, 2026

This need endures because financial and household decisions still carry real consequences. People do not simply want protection in theory; they want to know someone is responsible when something goes wrong. That is why safety and security will remain a constant, even as the systems delivering it become more digital and more automated. Someone who can be questioned, challenged and held to account.

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“Freedom is the opportunity to realise one’s own potential – not just the absence of constraint, but the active capacity to shape one’s own life.”

Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom 1941

87% of Australians agree that managing finances properly gives you freedom in life.

The Growth Distillery, Moments that Matter Wealth, 2025

Freedom remains central because money and essential services are rarely goals in themselves. They are enablers of how people want to live. The deeper need is not product ownership; it's self-direction, choice and the ability to shape one’s own future – and that need does not weaken just because the category becomes more digital, more automated or more complex.

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“Expectations of personal efficacy determine whether coping behaviour will be initiated, how much effort will be expended, and how long it will be sustained.”

Albert Bandura, Psychological Review, 1977

66% of Australians are just keeping up, or would not cope with an unexpected expense.

The Growth Distillery, Lighthouse, June 2026

People need to feel they can influence an outcome before they act. More information does not automatically create that feeling; in fact, 3 in 5 Australians agree that these days, core consumer/household services feel like they’re running them, not the other way around. The need is not for more data alone; it's for a clearer sense of agency – the feeling that the system can still be understood, navigated and influenced.

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“Trust is the willingness of a party to be vulnerable to the actions of another based on the expectation that the other will perform a particular action important to the trustor.”

Mayer, Davis & Schoorman, Academy of Management Review, 1995

Today,

8 in 10 Australians agree they are tired of companies ‘claiming’

to be trustworthy – they need to see and feel it, not just hear it.

The Growth Distillery, Reframe Switching, 2025

As the category becomes more automated, trust becomes even more critical. It will become more demanding. People never stop reassessing whether the institution handling their money, data or essential services deserves to be there. In a more fragmented advice environment, that judgment is likely to happen more often and with less patience. The need remains because vulnerability remains built into the category itself.

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Tailwinds to leverage

62% still say they prefer human support from their financial provider.

PRE DI CTE D TAI LWIND #1 Beyond 2027, the winners will turn automation into accountability, and information into human understanding and guidance.

As pressure, complexity and self-service continue to rise, the strongest growth opportunity will favour brands that help people make confident decisions without making them feel dependent. The goal is not to take control away from consumers. It is to turn raw information into guidance that feels human-interpreted, purposeful and useful enough to act on.

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Early proof points

for those who actively engage with a financial professional compared to those who do not.

already visible

Younger audiences are already assembling advice across informal channels. ASIC’s 2026 finfluencer warning says 63% of Gen Z Australians rely on social media for financial information, while 56% somewhat or completely trust financial information on social media and 52% trust finfluencers.

Humans still want humans in the moments that matter. The Growth Distillery’s Technographics Finance report found that despite 82% of Australian consumers using mobile banking apps, 62% still say they prefer human support from their financial provider.

AI is creating new entry points, but not necessarily better judgment. The ASIC Moneysmart Gen Z Financial Behaviours Report found that nearly two-thirds (64%) of young Australians say they trust AI platforms for money advice, and 63% are confident in its accuracy, even though 1 in 5 (18%) are actively using these tools to make decisions about their financial future. This stark reliance reinforces the need for guidance that shows up early, feels credible, and helps people act with more confidence.

Financial independence is now a mainstream life goal. A national 2026 consumer insights study by wealth manager MLC found that 55% of Australians now rank achieving financial stability as their single highest personal priority: outranking health, fitness, and relationships. According to MLC, this reflects a fundamental mindset shift where financial independence is no longer viewed as mere asset accumulation, but as the mandatory emotional foundation for overall lifestyle autonomy and choice.

Support is becoming part of the value exchange. The FAAA Value of Advice Study found that the top emotional benefit of seeking professional guidance is an immediate reduction in mental burden, with nearly 2 in 3 (66%) advised Australians stating that their financial adviser directly helped reduce their financial stress and worries. Furthermore, the research established a distinct ‘+12 point delta’ in overall quality of life and personal happiness

This points to a future in which the most valuable brands are not simply informative. They are interpretive. They help people feel more capable without making them feel less in control.

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Tailwinds to leverage

85% of Australians report greater confidence in a brand featured in a journalistic environment.

PRE DI CTE D TA I LWIND #2 The reassurance premium of trusted published expert voices will dictate both human credibility and AI recommendations.

As audiences increasingly use AI, creators, comparison tools and third-party platforms to navigate complex decisions, the source of reassurance matters as much as the advice itself. In low-trust, high-stakes categories, self-promotion is weak proof. Brands need credible settings where trust is earned, purpose is made visible through advocacy and real contribution, and authority can turn attention into action and action into loyalty.

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Early proof points already visible

Trusted editorial environments carry strong borrowed credibility. The Digital News Report: Australia 2026 found that consumers trust the established news brands they personally use (54%) more than twice as much as information found on social media (21%) or generated by AI chatbots (19%), proving that standard editorial verification remains a vital benchmark for authority.

This collective trust carries a strong commercial mandate. Think News Brands 2026 found that 85% of Australians report greater confidence in a brand when they encounter it within a journalistic environment. That suggests where a message appears is becoming almost as important as what it says.

Recognised experts still matter at the moment of decision. The Edelman Trust Barometer reveals that while peer-level validation on social platforms opens the door to new choices, consumers explicitly rely on technical experts to cross-verify facts before moving to implementation. In fact, 57% of consumers state they would only consider trusting a complex financial or corporate recommendation if a recognised, vetted authority vouched for it, proving that credibility remains structural.

Brands need credible settings where trust is earned, purpose is made visible through advocacy and real contribution, and authority can turn attention into action and action into loyalty.

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THE WRA P The practices will keep shifting – more agentic AI, more finfluencers, more comparison behaviour, more frictionless switching.

The deeper opportunity is steadier than that.

Beyond 2027, the brands best placed to grow are likely to be the ones that make people feel protected, capable, clearly guided and able to trust what they are being told.

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