“AI doesn’t call for a faster way of working, but for a completely different way of thinking.”
The financial sector is on the brink of a major transformation. IT landscapes are becoming increasingly complex, costs are rising, and artificial intelligence is forcing organisations to rethink how software is developed. At the same time, there is growing focus on digital sovereignty, with organisations seeking to reduce their dependence on technology companies, particularly those based in the United States. According to Justin Terpstra, Director Financial Services at Sopra Steria Netherlands, all these developments are now converging. “Organisations that use AI simply to speed up existing processes are missing the biggest opportunity.”
In his role, Terpstra is responsible for commercial strategy within the financial sector. Together with his team, he supports banks and insurers with technology-related challenges and continuously looks ahead to developments that are reshaping the sector. In his view, the focus is no longer solely on commercial issues, but increasingly on the impact of new technologies on organisations.
AI agents
One of the biggest changes he sees is in software development. “In the past, you would put together a team covering a wide range of roles: developers, testers, an architect and a product owner. Now, we increasingly see a single developer being supported by multiple AI agents that take on different roles, with the human acting as the controlling factor, monitoring those agents and ensuring that everything works as intended. This changes not only how projects are delivered, but also how we advise our clients. Where previously you might have needed a team of ten people for a project, you may now be able to do it with a team of three.”
Complexity of the IT landscape
According to Terpstra, many banks and insurers are currently struggling above all with the complexity of their IT landscapes. Years of expansion have made systems increasingly complicated, while IT costs have continued to rise. Organisations have tried to contain those costs by moving work to nearshore and offshore locations, but Terpstra says the intended savings have often been offset by growing complexity.
“The discussion needs to shift,” he says. “It should no longer be: how can we get the same work done more cheaply? Instead, we should be asking: how can we organise the work in a fundamentally different way?” This, he believes, is precisely where AI has the greatest potential.
Many organisations are currently experimenting with pilots and proofs of concept. According to Terpstra, that is a logical first step, but it is not where the greatest value will ultimately be created. That value will only emerge when organisations fundamentally change the way they work.
Orchestrators
AI can be used to make existing processes faster and more efficient, but the real gains come when organisations rethink how their IT organisation should be structured. “That also means thinking about how you develop software and how development teams are composed. Do you give an existing team AI tools? Or do you redesign the team, with AI agents embedded in the development process from the outset? That is a fundamental difference and will also change the composition of a team and the way it works. I expect developers to increasingly become the orchestrators of AI agents. Their experience will remain hugely important, but their role will shift from writing code themselves to directing, monitoring and improving the work produced by AI.”
According to Terpstra, this can be both exciting and daunting for employees, but it also creates opportunities to take on greater responsibility and raise the quality of software development to a higher level.
Centre of Excellence
Terpstra is already seeing this development among clients. Sopra Steria and his team, for example, are helping insurers establish a Centre of Excellence for Agentic AI. This enables employees to learn how to apply AI effectively in their day-to-day work. According to Terpstra, organisations can choose to use AI to achieve more with the same number of employees, but AI can also enable smaller teams to maintain the same level of productivity.
Terpstra sees a concrete example of this in the health insurance market. At the end of each year, the number of customer enquiries rises dramatically as consumers have the opportunity to switch health insurers. “If AI can handle the bulk of these enquiries, organisations will not need to scale up their call centres as much, allowing employees to focus instead on conversations where human interaction genuinely adds value.”
Balancing innovation and regulation
At the same time, Terpstra stresses that AI brings new challenges. The financial sector handles highly sensitive data and must constantly strike a balance between innovation and strict regulation. Banks and insurers want to harness the potential of AI, but they cannot afford to make mistakes. Data relating to bank accounts, mortgages or insurance policies requires a very different level of care than in many other sectors. “That is something we also emphasise in our To Protect What’s Precious campaign. Whether it is your banking information or your medical data in a health app, the last thing you want is for that information to fall into the wrong hands. To me, that is what Human Tech is all about: technology that protects people, supports them and earns their trust, while ensuring that humans always remain in control.”
Nevertheless, he warns against taking an overly cautious, wait-and-see approach. When the sector moved to the cloud, he believes it was sometimes slow to respond to developments. With AI, he would rather see organisations have the confidence to start experimenting sooner, while of course remaining within the boundaries of security, compliance and responsible data use.
He envisages a future in which banking apps become far more intelligent than they are today. Rather than simply displaying balances and transactions, customers could ask an AI assistant to provide insights into their insurance policies, potential savings, savings goals or financial planning. According to Terpstra, this could fundamentally transform the customer experience.
Autonomous AI-driven cyberattacks
Alongside the opportunities, Terpstra also sees a clear downside. Cybercriminals are increasingly deploying generative AI at scale to identify vulnerabilities in systems and carry out attacks. Terpstra explains: “In the past, finding vulnerabilities in IT systems was the work of the traditional hacker, who would keep probing until they found a way in. Today, cybercriminals use a wide range of generative AI tools on an industrial scale to gain access to systems. We are even seeing autonomous AI-driven cyberattacks, in which swarms of thousands of automated AI agents carry out individual actions.”
At the same time, AI is also becoming an important defensive tool. During software development, AI agents can automatically perform security checks, identify vulnerabilities and conduct security testing, enabling organisations to significantly strengthen their digital resilience.
Digital sovereignty
Another topic that Terpstra believes is rapidly gaining importance is digital sovereignty. Banks and insurers are becoming increasingly aware of the risks associated with being entirely dependent on US technology. Organisations that operate critical infrastructure or handle sensitive data are therefore taking a closer look at European alternatives.
According to Terpstra, only a European technology partner with European roots and its headquarters in Europe can offer genuine digital sovereignty. “US companies are, by definition, subject to the CLOUD Act and are required to comply with international sanctions. A current real-world example is the International Criminal Court (ICC). Partly in response to geopolitical developments, the ICC has decided to implement the European open-source solution openDesk. This allows the ICC to reduce its dependence on non-European suppliers and strengthen organisational continuity.”
He believes Europe is taking significant steps to turn digital sovereignty into a reality. He points to recent developments such as the European Central Bank’s collaboration with a group of European cloud providers, the European Commission’s Cloud Sovereignty Framework and De Nederlandsche Bank’s decision to use the German cloud platform STACKIT. He also expects regulators to eventually introduce requirements for financial organisations regarding their software back-up arrangements. “Suppose your system goes down tomorrow. What back-up solution do you have in place to ensure that you can maintain business continuity?”
It is precisely at this intersection of strategy, technology and execution that Sopra Steria aims to support organisations. According to Terpstra, the company differentiates itself by providing end-to-end support to clients: from consultancy and strategy to software development, architecture, cybersecurity, cloud services and European cloud solutions that address the growing need for digital sovereignty. This enables Sopra Steria to support organisations throughout their entire digital transformation.
A common thread
The combination of technology and the financial sector has been a common thread throughout Terpstra’s career. While studying International Business & Management Studies, he built websites in Canada to help fund his stay and taught himself how to code. He subsequently worked at companies including Aegon, where he was involved in the digitalisation of pension processes, followed by roles at Mirabeau, Cognizant and Microsoft.
Ultimately, his move to Sopra Steria was driven primarily by its culture. For him, its entrepreneurial spirit, collaborative approach and freedom to develop new ideas were decisive factors. He also strongly believes in Sopra Steria’s position as a European player. “That is becoming increasingly important, particularly as topics such as digital sovereignty and European technology move higher up the agenda.”