Financial Services

Financial services – the M&A state of play

The number of financial services M&A deals and their total deal value decreased in H1 2026 as compared to prior periods. However, H1 2026 still saw a number of deals globally in the sector, where the strategic necessity to execute M&A overrode near-term geopolitical and macroeconomic instability.

In H1 2026, the top 10 announced financial services deals had a combined deal value of over US$100 billion. They were led by the US$27.5 billion acquisition of aircraft lessor Air Lease and HSBC’s US$13.6 billion move to take full ownership of Hang Seng Bank, with US regional bank consolidation accounting for three deals worth almost US$30 billion, alongside major insurance and asset management transactions.

Most of these deals required regulatory clearance in several jurisdictions – a clear sign that buyers are committed to financial services M&A for the long term.

Top 10 publicly announced financial services deals in H1 2026 were as follows:

Source: Mergermarket

As the transactions above indicate, despite softer activity levels, buyers are still pressing ahead with deals and seeing the opportunity to harvest long-term value in the sector.

Headline deal figures for the first half of 2026 do not appear to reflect the long pipeline of deal flow building across the sector.

The broader picture is of dealmakers who remain active but highly selective, adopting investment methodologies focused on:

• The expansion of product lines with immediate value enhancement
• Financial technology differentiation
• Access to new geographic markets.

Together, these themes point to a market where financial services dealmakers are building a global and tech-centric dimension into their M&A strategies.

For these reasons, despite the decline in activity in H1 2026 driven by broader market forces, we see financial services as a high-conviction sector for M&A over the next 12-18 months and beyond consistent with the strength of other recent periods.

The banks are back

One of the biggest engines of sustained financial services M&A is the active return of banks to growth-driven M&A globally. This was initially led by stronger US banks, but other regions are now following.

In the decade following the 2008 global financial crisis, banks retreated from deals to rebuild their balance sheets, exiting non-core services such as wealth management, asset management and insurance to focus on traditional banking.

Over this period, large-scale bank acquisitions were rare. For example, ANZ Banking Group's A$4.9 billion purchase of Suncorp Bank in 2024/5 was the first sale of a large bank in Australia for more than a decade.

That cycle has now turned. Banks are pursuing M&A again, looking beyond core banking to accelerate growth and hedge against diminishing returns from interest rates.

For example, Spain’s Santander recently announced a US$12.2 billion deal to acquire US-based Webster Financial, securing its position as one of the ten largest retail and commercial banks by assets in the US. The deal gives Santander the scale to compete profitably across its priority markets in the US, the UK and Europe.

Banking consolidation is a theme in Europe, where policymakers see scale as crucial to the region’s long-term competitiveness.

Over the last 12 months, regional and domestic bank transactions have continued, including UniCredit’s €37 billion public takeover bid for Commerzbank, ABN AMRO's €960 million acquisition of NIBC Bank from Blackstone, and an unprecedented fight for dominance among Italian banks including Monte dei Paschi di Siena (the world's oldest bank), Intesa Sanpaolo and Mediobanca.

We expect further domestic and regional bank consolidation across markets globally in 2027 and beyond.

Asset and wealth managers seek scale

Deal activity in wealth management, private banking and asset management is a further sign of banks’ appetite for growth.

UK bank NatWest agreed a £2.7 billion deal to acquire wealth manager Evelyn Partners from buyout firms Permira and Warburg Pincus. In Germany, Advent International acquired FNZ Bank, ABN AMRO bought private bank Hauck Aufhäuser Lampe, BNP Paribas acquired HSBC's German private banking business, and Commerzbank bought a majority stake in sustainable real asset manager Aquila Capital Investmentgesellschaft.

Alongside this wave of bank-led activity, asset managers themselves have turned to M&A to build scale and expand geographically. US-based Nuveen, for example, almost doubled in size to become one of the world’s largest active asset managers following its US$13.5 billion acquisition of UK firm Schroders in February 2026.

We expect consolidation in wealth and asset management to continue, as active managers facing intense competition from low-fee passive alternatives merge with peers to achieve economies of scale.

Private equity investors are also focused on this space, attracted by platform opportunities in wealth management and adjacent sectors, where stable earnings and economies of scale are available without the regulatory burden that comes with deposit-taking.

A notable example is New York-based CC Capital's A$3.3 billion take-private of leading Australian wealth manager Insignia Financial.

In 2026, Westpac, another of Australia's big four banks, completed the sale of its RAMS mortgage business, which holds A$21.4 billion in home loans, to a consortium led by non-bank lender Pepper Money alongside investment firms KKR and PIMCO. Ashurst Perkins Coie advised CC Capital and Westpac, respectively, on these transactions.

It remains to be seen how quickly AI will reshape business models in the sector, and how this could affect M&A appetite.

Private equity firms take insurance templates global

Insurance is also undergoing a period of significant transition.

Insurance brokers, agencies and other insurance-adjacent businesses have proven highly attractive, especially to private equity, because of their stable earnings, recurring client relationships and the fragmented nature of the market. At the same time, dealmakers are reconfiguring insurance portfolio companies to focus on specific product lines and customer bases.

The US and Europe led the initial wave of insurance M&A, and these deal strategies are now being deployed further afield.

EQT and CVC made a A$5.4 billion take-private approach to insurance broker AUB Group in late 2025, by way of example. More recently, listed Australian company Steadfast, which operates a range of insurance broking and underwriting agency businesses, agreed to an A$7.7 billion take-private proposal from a consortium comprising specialty insurer Amwins Group and private equity firms KKR and Dragoneer Investment Group. If the transaction completes, Steadfast's operations will be separated, with its retail broking arm passing to KKR and Dragoneer and Amwins running the underwriting agency business.

The deal shares common themes with a transaction completed in 2025, in which private equity-owned Ardonagh Group (based in the UK) teamed up with Australia's Envest Group to acquire ASX-listed PSC Group, a competitor of Steadfast, and split its UK and Australian assets between the bidders. Ashurst Perkins Coie advised on each of these transactions.

These deals illustrate private equity’s appetite for quality financial services assets in Australia and the UK, and the benefits of building a platform of scale.

Payments breaks down borders… and silos

Of all the financial services sub-sectors, payments is the most globally integrated. Capital, customers, licences and technology often span multiple jurisdictions, requiring dealmakers to take an ever-widening international perspective.

Emerging payments and fintech players are adding banking and wealth services to their global product lines by acquiring local banks, asset managers and other regulated entities. These acquisitions allow them to speed up market entry as transferring existing licences is often faster than applying for new ones in each jurisdiction.

This is driving deals of all shapes and sizes. Stripe and private equity firm Advent offered to acquire PayPal for US$53 billion before abandoning the transaction a few weeks later; Ebury raised £550 million from investors including Santander, Centerbridge and Vitruvian; and UK-headquartered Zepz, which started out in remittances, acquired Pomelo, a provider of credit cards designed for money transfers.

Traditional banks are also pursuing deals that expand their capabilities across the value chain. UK bank Lloyds bought Curve, the developer of a secure digital wallet that consolidates cards and alternative payment tools on a single platform, and Capital One agreed a US$5.15 billion deal to acquire Brex, a corporate credit card and expense management fintech.

The payments sector shows that technology is no longer a separate story from financial services. Banks, payments businesses, fintechs and other financial institutions increasingly compete for the same targets, driven partly by fear of missing out and partly by the need to modernise, as the risk of stagnation grows with the mass adoption of AI and automation across financial processes.

Payments will remain a leading driver of financial services M&A in the months and years ahead.

Executing on the opportunity

The addressable market for financial services M&A is vast. As transactions become increasingly global and cross-border, dealmakers will need advice that combines a global outlook with detailed regional expertise.

Financial services transactions involve intensive diligence on regulatory, compliance and risk issues across multiple jurisdictions and, with fintech disruption, on emerging technology, data and cybersecurity risks. Factoring these issues into deal execution can prove just as important as the commercial drivers of a transaction.

As financial services businesses follow opportunities across borders, they need advisers who can do the same. A fully integrated international footprint has never been more important.