MIAMI (Reuters) - Wall Street bankers are already upbeat about a revival in mergers and acquisitions this year that will buoy broader investment banking activity.

It may take some time for deals to materialize, but buyouts including bank deals could gain momentum in the second half of 2025.

Here are quotes from the Frontiers of Digital Finance conference in Miami:

AVINASH MEHROTRA, CO-HEAD OF M&A AMERICAS, GOLDMAN SACHS ( GS ):

You have four banks that have over a trillion dollars in assets. I think there's an expectation that the regulators would welcome at least another one or two in that stratosphere, so that we've got an environment where we have more competition.

But I think we are going to see the most activity in the regional bank space, which would include banks that are under $100 billion in assets.

On the timing, it is going to start a bit slower, but will pick up pace.

DAVID MACGOWN, MANAGING DIRECTOR AT BARCLAYS ( JJCTF ):

M&A activity has picked up markedly post-elections. There are a host of reasons driving the pent-up demand from what has been a couple of years of market turmoil across financial institutions, less sponsors and some skewed ratios.

Now there's pent-up demand for deals to get done. There are more deals in the market now, more assets for sale, but threading the needle and trying to get things done is challenging.

JEFFREY LEVINE, GLOBAL CO-HEAD OF FINANCIAL SERVICES AT HOULIHAN LOKEY ( HLI ):

More capital has been raised in the last three years than in the history of private equity, but it hasn't been deployed.

There's definitely been a mismatch between buying and selling and a lot has to do with interest rate environment and credit conditions, but that is shifting now.

We are seeing more activity in the markets. We have more deals already coming into the market in 2025 than we had in the last two years.