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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
Data intelligence platform GoodData has unveiled a suite of finance-focused applications for its recently launched composable AI platform.
The company’s new offering combines its AI Lake, AI Hub, and AI Apps into a single platform that will give financial institutions the tools they need in order to build and deploy AI agents.
Founded in 2007 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, GoodData most recently demoed its technology at FinovateFall 2017 in New York.
The challenge of managing unstructured and unorganized data across multiple platforms—let alone turning that data into actionable insights—is a difficult one for financial institutions. And for those firms looking to take advantage of AI to add personalization, greater efficiency, and agility to their operations, these data management challenges are all the more acute.
Add to this the unique regulatory and data governance demands in financial services, including transparency and auditability, and it is clear to see why a growing number of fintechs are working to create solutions that enable firms to deploy trusted AI technologies at scale that feature built-in governance, including semantic grounding and compliance controls.
One such innovator is full-stack data intelligence platform GoodData, which has just launched a set of new finance-focused applications for its recently unveiled composable AI platform. The new offering combines GoodData’s AI Lake, AI Hub, and AI Apps into a single platform for enterprise data intelligence, giving financial institutions the tools they need to build and deploy AI agents.
GoodData’s platform will bring trusted automation to banks, insurers, and other financial institutions via embeddable, compliant, and auditable AI agents. The agents detect and investigate fraud in seconds, providing the kind of audit trails that regulators can rely on and keeping portfolios compliant in real-time. This makes the compiling, checking, and disclosure submission processes of regulatory reporting easier, while still maintaining the high standards for compliance, governance, and security that are required in financial services.
“Financial institutions face some of the world’s strictest data governance rules, and our goal is to make compliance simpler,” GoodData CEO Roman Stanek said. “This platform lets them innovate with AI while ensuring transparency, trust, and regulatory alignment, modernizing client experiences and improving risk management without compromise.”
GoodData’s layered platform features AI Lake, which transforms structured and unstructured financial data into a governed semantic layer, ensuring AI agents are grounded in accurate, compliant, and context-aware data to enhance decision-making. The platform also includes AI Hub, which delivers orchestration and governance with built-in guardrails, escalation paths, and compliance workflows; and AI Apps, embeddable agents, copilots, and automations that add personalization to client-facing applications and enhance back-office operations, including regulatory reporting and fraud detection.
Headquartered in San Francisco, California and founded in 2007, GoodData last demoed its technology at FinovateFall 2017. The company’s composable platform empowers businesses to turn data into insights and insights into action, and integrates into any data environment across public, private, on-premises, or hybrid cloud. GoodData leverages no-code interfaces, SDKs, and APIs to support the full data analytics lifecycle from data modeling to AI-powered insights. Today, more than 140,000 organizations and 3+ million users including Visa, Travelodge, and Twilio rely on GoodData’s technology.
The initial agenda for FinovateEurope 2026—February 10 and February 11 at the Intercontinental O2 in London—has just been released. And while there are still plenty of elements to be added to the two-day event, we are already seeing the contours of a conference that will help attendees better understand the opportunities in emerging technologies like quantum computing, learn the latest strategies for fighting fraud and financial crime, and find the most effective use cases for both AI and digital assets like stablecoins.
There’s plenty to share in the weeks to come. For now, here are six of the early highlights from Days One and Two.
Day One: All About AI
Boom, bubble, or something else entirely, the AI revolution in technology continues to be one of the defining characteristics of innovation in our times. To this end, the first day of FinovateEurope 2026 will feature a number of sessions dedicated to the AI phenomenon and how banks and other financial institutions are putting this new technology to use to offer new products and services faster and better serve their corporate and retail customers.
On the afternoon of Day One, FinovateEurope will host an Executive Briefing titled The AI Competitive Imperative & Ten Solutions You Need to Know About Today. This session will discuss how firms can successfully integrate AI into core financial services operations. The briefing will cover strategies to deploy AI safely and compliantly, ensure that AI initiatives are aligned with the company’s business and change management strategy, and successfully scale their AI projects from pilot to production.
Later that afternoon, FinovateEurope will feature a Keynote Address: Agentic AI—A New Frontier in Banking, How Can FIs Harness it to Reimagine Enterprise Processes. Agentic AI is one of the most exciting developments in AI, with applications from cybersecurity to e-commerce. What needs to happen to ensure that Agentic AI delivers real value for both customers and banks? And what about the issues of trust and identity? How should banks operate in a brave new world in which bots are customers? Our keynote address on Agentic AI will cover all this and more.
FinovateEurope 2026 wraps up Day One with a Power Panel: AI, Everything, Everywhere, All at Once, Beyond the Hype—How Financial Institutions Can Use AI to Make Money or Save Money. This panel will showcase a variety of viewpoints on where we are in terms of AI, fintech, and financial services. Where are the greatest opportunities: product innovation or customer journeys? What are the best use cases for financial institutions and do we have the right KPIs to measure success? And what does it mean for financial institutions to “lean into” the opportunities in AI—where do the potential rewards most clearly outweigh the potential risks?
Day Two: Cyber Security, Quantum Computing, and Stablecoins
If Day One is dedicated to all things AI, Day Two offers a tour of many of the other enabling technologies and top challenges in fintech and financial services.
Wednesday morning, FinovateEurope will feature a Power Panel: Financial Crime & Cyber Security—How Banks & Fintechs Can Work Together to Meet the Challenges of the Digital Era. This session will look at some of the new tools and technologies that are available to help combat financial crime. The conversation will cover the role of digital identity and biometric authentication—as well as AI and machine learning—in the current fight against the fraudsters. The panel will also examine ways that fintechs and banks can partner to better defend customers from both contemporary and evolving threats.
AI is not the only advanced technology that fintechs and banks are exploring. Quantum computing, with processing power that dwarfs that of supercomputers, could have a major impact on industries from technology to communications to defense. FinovateEurope’s Quick Fire Keynote: How Quantum Computing Could Transform Banking—What Are the Use Cases for Banks? will provide insightful commentary on what bankers—and their technology partners—need to know about the promise and risks of quantum computing.
There are many areas where the UK and Europe are ahead of the US—sustainability, open banking and open finance, for example. But has the new clarity in stablecoins in the US courtesy of the Genius Act given the States an edge vis-à-vis the UK and Europe when it comes to these digital assets? FinovateEurope’s Fireside Chat: Stablecoins and Tokenized Deposits in the Real World—Hype vs Reality will look at the current regulatory status of digital assets like stablecoins in the EU and discuss what to look for in the next phase of cryptocurrency adoption in the region.
There’s plenty more conversation coming—from discussions about bank modernization and the power of platform banking partnerships to the growth of open banking, open data, and open finance. Be sure to check out our FinovateEurope 2026 hub—as well as our coverage here on the Finovate blog—for the latest updates.
Modern treasury solutions company Qolo has forged a “strategic alignment” with Huntington National Bank.
The alignment comes as the two companies unveiled a new virtual account management (VAM) platform, Connected Deposits, and follows a strategic investment Huntington made in Qolo earlier this year.
Headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Qolo made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2022 in New York.
There is a wide range of challenges facing banks when it comes to treasury management these days. Interest rate uncertainty, rising regulatory scrutiny and compliance costs, working capital optimization, and technology challenges—from modernization to cybersecurity—are all issues that have made treasury management that much more difficult for CFOs, treasury managers, and their teams.
Over the summer, PwC published its 2025 Global Treasury Survey which showed how “the role of treasury continues to evolve into a more strategic, innovative and data-driven partner” that is a fundamental part of value creation for businesses. Quantitatively, the survey noted that approximately 40% of its 350 respondents—treasurers from around the world—said that they were not leveraging an in-house banking or payment centralization model. 65% of organizations queried said that they are planning to expand API use in the next few years.
This is the context in which we learn that modern treasury solutions provider Qolo has announced a “strategic alignment” with Huntington National Bank. The alignment follows a minority strategic investment the financial institution made in the Fort Lauderdale-based fintech earlier this year, and comes as the two companies announced the launch of a new virtual account management (VAM) platform, Connected Deposits, for Huntington National Bank’s commercial customers.
“Our alignment with Huntington reflects a shared vision for the future of commercial banking,” Qolo Founder and CEO Patricia Montesi said. “Treasury management is getting more complex and dynamic across almost every industry, making Virtual Account Management tools like the one Huntington is launching with Qolo increasingly essential. Together, we’ve built a solution that empowers businesses to operate with greater agility, transparency, and control.”
Connected Deposits is a Virtual Account Management (VAM) platform, built on Qolo’s technology, that enables real-time cash visibility, automated reconciliation, and seamless fund segregation for multi-entity businesses—all within a single parent account. The new offering is designed to help the bank’s corporate customers better manage their complex operational needs—from payments to reporting—via an API-first architecture.
Qolo anticipates that Connected Deposits will show banks how technology can enhance treasury management by reducing account maintenance costs and eliminating manual payment reconciliations. Instead, Connected Deposits, with its real-time visibility into cash positions across all entities and projects, not only enhances compliance and risk controls, but also generates new fee income opportunities for banks via modern treasury services.
“With Qolo’s technology powering Connected Deposits, we’re able to offer enhanced efficiency across complex cash management needs for our commercial clients,” Huntington’s head of national deposits, Alex Tsarnas, said. “This platform strengthens our ability to serve clients with specialized requirements while reinforcing Huntington’s commitment to innovation and client-centric solutions.”
Founded in 2018 and headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Qolo made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2022 in New York. At the conference, the company demonstrated how its Companion Core provided banks with fintech functionality that worked in tandem with their current systems, enabling them to offer their customers a range of new services without the need to undergo a disruptive, wholesale core replacement.
This week’s edition of Finovate Global examines recent fintech news from Mexico.
Earlier this month, ResearchAndMarkets.com published its Mexico Embedded Finance Databook Report for 2025. The 230-page report noted that the embedded finance market in Mexico is expected to reach more than $18 billion this year and top $22 billion by the end of 2030. Among the key takeaways from the report is the increasing traction of embedded credit products such as Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL), and the growth of embedded payments in mobility, food delivery, and social commerce driven by growing smartphone use and government support for digital, real-time payments options. Embedded finance solutions such as lending are enabling non-fintech businesses in Mexico to leverage APIs and BaaS to expand their offerings, the report notes. This is helping bring more financial services to underserved communities in the country. It is also creating greater competition for companies in both the lending and payments spaces.
Mexican Fintech Plata Double Valuation on Latest $250 Million Fundraise
Mexican digital financial platform Plata has secured $250 million in new equity funding. The round, which includes both a primary equity raise and a secondary equity transaction, was led by Kora and featured participation from Moore Strategic Ventures, Audio Ventures, Spice Expeditions, Hedosophia, as well as several US and European family offices. The funding builds on an earlier investment by Televisa-Univision and boosts Plata’s valuation to $3.1 billion.
“The growth we have achieved in such a short time demonstrates a clear strategy and a shared conviction: build a strong institution from its foundations,” Plata CEO and Co-Founder Neri Tollardo said. “This transaction reflects investors’ confidence, the strength of our technological model, and the talent we have assembled. We set out to create a digital bank built on innovation, operational excellence, compliance, and efficiency—and today, we are seeing the results of that effort.”
Plata received its banking license in December 2024 and is waiting for authorization to begin banking operations. The company boasts its own technological and operational infrastructure, including a core banking system that enables a fully digital, branchless model with automated risk management and 24/7 personalized customer service. Over the past 30 months, Plata has topped the two million mark in terms of active credit customers, making it one of the fastest-growing digital financial platforms in Latin America. The company’s Plata Card gives users two months to pay without interest and up to 15% of cash back in real money.
“We believe Plata represents the new standard for digital banking in emerging markets,” Kora Co-Founder Nitin Saigal said. “In a very short time, the company has demonstrated impressive execution, combining technological innovation with a clear vision for financial inclusion. We are excited to continue strengthening our partnership and to support Plata in this new phase of growth.”
Revolut obtains Mexican banking license; SumUp goes live
This week we learned that two Finovate alums—Revolut and SumUp—are actively exploring opportunities in Mexico. Revolut announced this week that it has received final regulatory approval to initiate banking operations in Mexico. The authorization came from the National Banking and Securities Commission (CNBV), with approval of the Bank of Mexico. Now a Multiple Banking Institution in Mexico, Revolut is the first independent digital bank to directly apply for and complete the full licensing and approval process in the country.
“We are exceptionally proud of our team and the bank we have built here in Mexico,” Revolut Bank S.A., Institución de Banca Múltiple CEO Juan Miguel Guerra said. “We are very grateful to the authorities for this vote of confidence and their commitment to fostering competition in the industry, and we are confident that our offering will benefit millions of people across the country.”
Revolut is a digital banking and financial services platform that offers a wide range of solutions, including multi-currency accounts with real-time exchange rates; stock, cryptocurrency, commodity, and ETF investing and trading; as well as business accounts, corporate cards, and expense management tools. Founded in 2015, Revolut serves as a financial services “super app” for more than 65 million customers around the world.
Meanwhile, payments platform SumUp announced its official launch in Mexico this week. The company has introduced its SumUp Go card reader to the Mexican market, enabling merchants to accept payments anytime, anywhere, with no monthly fixed costs. The card reader is compatible with all major credit and debit cards and features both exceptional battery life and unlimited 4G cellular connectivity due to its built-in SIM.
“Expanding into Mexico marks a pivotal step in SumUp’s strategic growth across Latin America,” SumUp North America CEO Andrew Helms said. “We see remarkable potential in the region and recognize a strong demand for accessible, user-friendly payment solutions that streamline business operations. At SumUp, our mission is to simplify business for our merchants and we’re delighted to bring this commitment to Mexico.”
Founded in 2012, SumUp counts more than four million merchants in 37 markets as users of its payment processing solutions and business management tools. These include mobile card readers and point-of-sale (POS) systems, as well as solutions for sales tracking and inventory management, customer loyalty programs, and financial reporting and analytics.
Revolut has been a Finovate alum since its debut at FinovateEurope 2015. SumUp won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2013. Both companies are headquartered in London.
Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.
Middle East and Northern Africa
Oman’s BankDhofar launched its new braille debit card.
The Cooperative Bank of Oromia, a regional bank based in Ethiopia, partnered with digital transformation company JMR Infotech to go live with Oracle Financial Services Crime and Compliance Studio.
Saudi National Bank subsidiary Samba Bank unveiled its new fraud detection system powered by BPC’s SmartVista Fraud Management.
Central and Southern Asia
Mongolian fintech AND Global raised $21.4 million in Series B funding in a round led by the International Finance Corporation and AEON Financial Service.
Karandaaz Pakistan and Walee Financial Services forged a strategic partnership to launch Pakistan’s first Shariah-compliant, digital asset financing solution for female entrepreneurs.
Three of Japan’s largest banks—MUFG Bank, Sumitomo Mitsuio Banking Corp, and Mizuho Bank—announced plans to collaborate on the launch of a unified stablemcoin.
Tracxn’s recently released Southeast Asia FinTech Reportnoted that fintech startups in the region raised $839 million in the first nine months of 2025, a decline from previous years.
African all-in-one financial platform Moniepoint secured more than $200 million in Series C funding.
Sanlam teamed up with TymeBank to build a co-branded fintech super app for consumers in South Africa.
Capitec Bank partnered with accounting software company Stub to provide South African small and micro-sized businesses with direct access to their transactional data.
Central and Eastern Europe
German fintech Aifinyo AG announced that it was converting its balance sheet to bitcoin, becoming the first German firm to adopt a full bitcoin treasury model.
SoftPOS solutions company MineSec inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU with Turkish digital payments company Paymore.
Latvian fintech Eleving Group raised €275 million ($319.5 million) via a public bond issue.
Deepfake detection company Neural Defend and India’s Zee News have teamed up to launch the country’s first AI-powered, deepfake verification system for news media.
The partnership will enable Zee News consumers to upload suspicious videos, audio clips, or images and have Neural Defend’s technology determine within seconds whether or not the material has been artificially manipulated.
Founded in 2024 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, Neural Defend made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2025 in London. Piyush Verma is CEO.
Deepfake detection specialist Neural Defend has teamed up with Mumbai-based Zee News to launch India’s first deepfake verification system for news media—powered by AI. The new solution empowers individuals with direct access to advanced verification technology, enabling them to authenticate videos, images, and audio files in real time.
“Our goal was to ensure deepfake detection is fast, accurate, and simple for every citizen,” ZMCL Chief Technology Officer Vijayant Kumar said. “By integrating Neural Defend’s advanced AI with Zee News’ platforms, we’ve created a solution that can detect even the most sophisticated manipulations within seconds. This is not only an innovation for today, but a future-proof safeguard for tomorrow’s information ecosystem.”
The partnership will enable individuals to upload suspicious videos, images, or audio clips and have Neural Defend’s technology analyze the files and confirm their authenticity—or identify the files as artificially manipulated—within seconds. At a time when the average viewer is struggling to differentiate increasingly sophisticated manipulated content, including video, from non-manipulated content, the collaboration between Neural Defend and Zee News gives media consumers new tools to help them “separate fact from fiction in an age where misinformation spreads fast,” said ZMCL Marketing Head Anindya Khare.
“While Gen Z and younger viewers are particularly vulnerable to being misled by fake videos and audio, this initiative ensures a safe and credible space for everyone,” Khare added. “For advertisers and partners, it creates the most reliable environment to engage with audiences—where advanced technology and authenticity come together. This is the future of brand-safe and responsible media.”
Mumbai-based Zee News is one of the leading Hindi news channels in India with more than 52 million viewers. The company is owned by Indian media conglomerate Essel Group and is the flagship channel of Zee Media Corporation. Zee News is publicly traded on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and the National Stock Exchange (NSE), and has a market capitalization of $75 million.
Founded in 2024 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, Neural Defend made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2025 in London. At the conference, the company demonstrated its agentic AI-powered deepfake detection solution that can be integrated into any video, audio, or image verification platform to offer real-time identity verification to EKYC firms, verification companies, banks, payments service providers, fintechs, and more. Neural Defend’s technology leverages proprietary, multi-layered AI to spot even subtle alterations and manipulations with precision. The solution also boosts security for video and audio calls by instantly detecting and mitigating deepfakes in real time.
What is supplier enablement and why does it offer businesses a way to optimize vendor payments to maximize cash flow or another business outcome? How does the revolution in data management help businesses deal with the challenge of important data that is sequestered in accounting systems? And, finally, what role do automation and AI have in opening up access to that data?
Last month at FinovateFall, I interviewed Peter Zhou, Co-Founder and CEO of Rutter. Founded in 2021 and headquartered in New York City, the company offers a unified API to help companies add accounting, commerce, and payment integrations into their B2B product workflows. A trusted integration partner for companies such as Airwallex, Mercury, and Ramp, Rutter empowers businesses to build and launch products in lending, expense management, AP/AR automation, and more.
“In the same way that companies like Plaid offer a unified API for banking data, Rutter aims to be the unified API for small business financial data. Our core systems of record that we are unifying for companies are commerce, payments, accounting, and ads data … We basically help them provide customer-facing integrations into those systems of record that their customers use.”
Rutter introduced its Supplier Enablement solution earlier this year. The new offering leverages unified ERP and payment intelligence to help businesses unlock card revenue. Supplier Enablement allows Rutter to provide support for fetching vendor data from 30+ additional mid-market and enterprise ERPs, a new intelligent file import workflow, advanced OCR enrichment that uses bill attachments to improve vendor match, and integration of Visa card acceptance data to enhance vendor scoring.
Peter Zhou is a graduate of Yale University, with both Bachelor’s and Master of Science degrees in Computer Science. Before co-founding Rutter, Zhou was a software engineer with San Francisco, California-based professional services company Atrium.
Netherlands-based digital banking experience platform Plumery introduced its Cashback Management capability this week.
The solution will help financial institutions build and launch their own cashback programs in weeks, providing real-time, personalized rewards that boost customer engagement and loyalty.
Founded in 2016, Plumery made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2025 in London. Ben Goldin is Founder and CEO.
Digital banking experience platform Plumerylaunched its Cashback Management capability this week. The new offering will empower institutions to build and run personalized, real-time rewards in weeks. The cashback management capability helps firms boost engagement, NPS, and revenue.
Many financial institutions would like to offer cashback—insofar as cashback is one of the most universally recognized and appreciated loyalty schemes. Yet many legacy core systems are unable to provide it, leaving some institutions stuck with outdated rewards programs that lack both personalization and real-time responsiveness. To help institutions manage this challenge, Plumery’s Cashback Management enables them to launch modern cashback programs—from instant or scheduled credits to AI-driven reward groups—while maintaining control of compliance, costs, and the customer experience.
The new Cashback Management offering features ready-to-use cashback journeys for transaction processing, rules engine, settlement, customer user experience, and analytics. The technology’s AI module reviews purchase history and category preferences to create monthly cashback groups based on spending habits—all fully configurable to ensure regulatory compliance. And as a SaaS-first, API-driven solution, Plumery’s Cashback Management integrates with core infrastructures, card processors, and KYC/AML providers to ensure that institutions can modernize and enhance their rewards offerings over time.
“Financial institutions tell us they want to increase engagement with cashback and rewards but are blocked by legacy infrastructure,” Plumery Founder and CEO Ben Goldin said. “Our Cashback Management capability changes this. With pre-built APIs, configurable rules, and an AI personalization module all designed to be transparent, compliant, and under the institution’s full control, banks and other financial institutions can move from design to live cashback in weeks. That means stronger retention, higher spend per customer, and new revenue opportunities from merchant-funded offers—and without the vendor lock-in.”
Plumery’s Cashback Management news comes days after the company reported that it had been included as a Sample Vendor in the 2025 Gartner Market Guide for Digital Banking Platforms. Plumery also announced earlier this month that it was expanding its digital banking platform to support credit unions in Canada. The company partnered with Aequilibrium, a digital transformation consultancy and implementation services firm based in Vancouver, British Columbia, to help ensure that its platform meets the specific needs of Canadian credit union members.
“Canadian institutions have a rare opportunity to modernize on their own terms, rather than being tied to outdated systems,” Goldin said. “Our platform provides an immediate, future-ready option that puts control back in the hands of credit unions.”
Founded in 2016 and headquartered in the Netherlands, Plumery made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2025 in London. At the conference, the company demonstrated its Super App Accelerator, which enables financial institutions to build and launch their own comprehensive Super App in weeks rather than years.
To learn more about Plumery, check out my interview with Ben Goldin from earlier this year.
SaaS cloud banking platform Mambu announced the launch of its composable banking approach for credit unions in North America.
The initiative will help credit unions move beyond monolithic, legacy systems and embrace a modern composable banking infrastructure that supports innovation.
Mambu also announced that it has extended its partnership with Indonesian digital bank Krom for five years.
SaaS cloud banking platform Mambu finds itself in the fintech headlines twice in a week’s time. The Europe-based fintech announced today the launch of its composable banking approach for North American-based credit unions. The initiative is designed to enable credit unions to evolve beyond legacy core systems, modernize their infrastructures, and provide their members with a more compelling digital experience. The launch news comes just days after Mambu announced that it was extending its partnership with Indonesian digital bank Krom (PT Krom Bank Indonesia).
An innovator in the field of composable banking—which relies on modular, interchangeable components rather than singular, monolithic systems—Mambu is looking to help credit unions transition from legacy systems and embrace a more modern infrastructure that promotes speed, offers flexibility, and supports innovation. In a statement, the company noted that its composable banking approach also facilitates new options when it comes to deployment, including speedboat deployment, dual core, and staged migrations. These deployment strategies enable credit unions to continue to innovate while maintaining control over the pace of the institution’s transformation.
“Credit unions are under immense pressure to keep pace with member expectations, all while operating on legacy systems that many feel hold them back,” Mambu VP of Credit Unions Amber Harsin said. “Composability is not a strategy of patching or layering complexity onto legacy systems to force integration; it’s about forging a clean, digital-first foundation that allows credit unions to scale, innovate, and serve their communities better.”
Mambu also recently announced that it has extended its partnership with Indonesian digital bank Krom (PT Krom Bank Indonesia) for five years. The collaboration between Mambu and Krom enabled the latter to launch its digital banking app in 2024.
“Mambu has proven to be a powerful partner from day one,” Krom Bank President Director Anton Hermawan said. “Our renewed partnership is a key step in Krom’s long-term strategy to build a scalable, innovative, and inclusive digital bank for Indonesians. With Mambu’s cloud-native core and the flexibility it provides, we’ve been able to launch high-impact products faster, stay compliant, and deliver a seamless experience to our customers.”
Krom’s relationship with Mambu goes back to the spring of 2022, when the digital bank selected the company as its core banking partner. Today, Krom Bank is one of the fastest-growing digital banks in Indonesia and has targeted both profitability and more than 20 million accounts on its books by 2030.
“Krom Bank is a standout example of what’s possible when bold vision meets modern technology,” Mambu Managing Director, Head of APAC Sales, David Becker said. “Its rapid growth and strong financial performance are a testament to how a cloud-native, composable core like Mambu can support scale and agility in even the most complex markets.”
Founded in 2011, Mambu most recently demoed its technology at FinovateEurope 2022 (in partnership with Persistent Systems). The European fintech has more than 260 customers around the world, 114 million end users, and its technology handles 200 million API calls per day. Fernando Zandona is CEO.
Fintech solutions provider Tavant unveiled its TOUCHLESS AI Mortgage Origination Suite this week. The technology enables the end-to-end, AI transformation of the mortgage origination process from initial lead to funded loan. TOUCHLESS offers a full suite of modules to upgrade existing LOS and POS via Agentic AI assistants, AI-powered document analysis, AI-assisted underwriting, and an Agentic AI architecture that dynamically personalizes workflows, loan products, and programs. The result is a solution that enhances the borrower experience, boosts lead conversion, reduces origination costs, and compresses cycle times.
“TOUCHLESS now allows any lender to rapidly transition into the era of AI,” Tavant Head of TOUCHLESS Mohammad Rashid said. “The industry’s promise of seamless borrower experience and lower origination cost has often fallen short. The TOUCHLESS AI suite allows lenders to rapidly wrap their LOS and POS to unlock higher borrower satisfaction, increased loan volumes, and dramatically lower origination costs. It’s time for the industry to truly move forward and bring the full power of AI to borrowers and employees.”
TOUCHLESS leverages Tavant’s MAYA, an intelligent AI assistant that provides borrowers, loan officers, and underwriters with personalized, real-time support and feedback through the entire application process. MAYA helps guide borrowers through complicated questions, and notes when applicants hesitate in the process in order to step in and assist. MAYA explains the differences between mortgage products and programs and responds around the clock to leads from digital sources.
Combined with TOUCHLESS AI-powered document analysis, data consistency checks, automated conditions clearing, and Policy-as-Code underwriting, MAYA also helps boost underwriter productivity. Mortgage originators that have piloted the product have reported 12x gains in underwriter productivity, and reductions in overall operational costs of 60%.
“With the introduction of our Intelligent AI Assistant, MAYA is redefining the mortgage origination experience,” Rashid added. “MAYA is human-like and can address any questions and concerns borrowers have and deliver real-time personalized guidance throughout the application process, helping them navigate each step with clarity and confidence. This reduces application errors and abandonment rates, accelerates loan processing, and empowers borrowers and lenders alike with seamless, hyper-personalized support—ultimately saving time and lowering costs for everyone involved.”
Founded in 2000 and headquartered in Santa Clara, California, Tavant demoed its AI-powered loan origination technology at FinovateSpring 2025 in San Diego. At the conference, the company showed how generative AI, voice-enabled conversational AI, and advanced data security enable Tavant’s LO.ai to lower sales costs, increase lead conversion, and ensure regulatory compliance.
Tavant’s new product news comes just days after the company announced that it had earned a place in the top 100 of the 2025 IDC FinTech Rankings. This year marked the seventh consecutive time that Tavant has been highlighted by the IDC.
“Being recognized for the 7th consecutive year is humbling and reaffirms our relentless drive to push AI boundaries and deliver measurable outcomes for our clients,” Tavant President Hassan Rashid said.
Tavant’s technology powers one in three US mortgage loans, and enables 3.5 million lending applications and 33 million lending transactions. More broadly, the company offers technology solutions in a wide variety of industries beyond fintech, including manufacturing, agtech, and media. With customers in North America, Europe, and Asia, Tavant has users of its technology in more than 150 countries. Sarvesh Mahesh is CEO.
The business of helping small businesses secure the capital they need in order to grow is one of the areas in finance where fintech innovation has been most constructive.
In this Women in Fintech interview, conducted in partnership with William Mills Agency, we hear from Adlon Adams, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Revenue Officer at business lending innovator Casca. Adams talks about the importance of making financing easier to access for small businesses, and why developing real relationships with customers is key to understanding how to best help them solve their problems and overcome pain points.
Adams also talks about being a woman in leadership in a male-dominated industry and shares her advice for women who are building their careers in similar spaces.
Founded in 2023 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, Casca won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2024 in San Francisco, and returned to the Finovate stage the following year for FinovateSpring 2025 in San Diego. The company’s loan origination platform is used by leading SBA lenders and FDIC-insured banks across the US, including institutions like Live Oak Bank and Huntington Bank.
In August, Casca secured $29 million in Series A funding in a round led by Canapi Ventures. The investment raised the company’s total capital to $33 million.
Tell us about your role at Casca. What drew you to the fintech space, and what excites you about this industry?
Adlon Adams: I serve as both COO and CRO at Casca, which means I support operations, sales, and strategy. It’s the vision of the founders and potential of this company that drew me into fintech.
The U.S. has seen a 45% jump in small business formation over the last decade, but capital access hasn’t kept pace. Casca’s mission is to help fix a broken system—to make business lending faster, fairer, and more accessible. Thanks to the work we’ve done with some of the nation’s leading SBA lenders, small businesses can access capital in a matter of days instead of months. This means businesses can go to their local bank and get what they need from a trusted source and avoid predatory rates and daily payments. I’m motivated by work that makes a tangible difference.
On a personal note, I’m also proud to work alongside a team of fellow alumni and Stanford graduates. Our AI engineers and banking technology experts have built the first AI-native loan origination system that automates more than 100 manual steps out of old, dated processes. We get to reimagine financial services in ways that change lives and build dreams.
What has it been like joining a startup in a new industry as one of the first executive hires, especially as a female now holding two leadership roles? What advice would you give to others stepping into executive roles at early-stage startups or in unfamiliar industries?
Adams: As one of Casca’s founding executive members, I’ve worn many hats, and have been stretched in ways I never expected. I’ve felt the weight of being one of the few female voices in leadership conversations. That can be daunting, but it’s also an opportunity to set an example for others and contribute fresh perspectives.
I constantly prioritize and reprioritize business needs, and must be comfortable making decisions with incomplete information. My advice: focus on what truly moves the needle each day, lean into curiosity, and trust that you deserve to be in the room—even if you’re new to an industry. Ask the right questions, surround yourself with people who help you learn, and stay focused on making an impact.
It’s both a challenging and incredibly rewarding experience. Pushing myself outside of my comfort zone is exhilarating; it ensures growth both for me personally and the company.
I understand you’ve spent a lot of time working on-site with banks, seeing their processes and challenges up close. As someone new to fintech, has that hands-on experience helped you learn the space more quickly? Would you recommend that approach to others entering the space?
Adams: That’s a resounding “yes!” I recommend anyone entering fintech get as close as possible to their end users on all levels, including those in the weeds of the day-to-day processes. Immerse yourself in their world, listen, and ask questions. Understanding their processes will enhance your technical knowledge and instill empathy for the people who use your product. The best solutions are built with close partnerships and collaborations like this.
For me, that means working alongside bankers, underwriters, credit analysts, and small business owners. It is invaluable to sit alongside loan officers, watching their workflows, and hearing their frustrations. Working hand-in-hand with banks like Live Oak Bank, the nation’s #1 SBA lender, gave me a front-row seat to how SBA lending works in practice. The experience also shaped Casca’s approach. By sharing in the frustrations of bankers, we designed a system that directly addresses their challenges. When you see how legacy systems force long timelines and delays to capital access, you understand the urgency of enabling same-week approvals and faster closings.
Why did Casca choose to focus on SBA lending? What gaps are you aiming to fill, and where do you see the greatest opportunities and challenges for financial institutions in this space?
Adams: SBA lending is a lifeline for small businesses, but it’s also one of the most complex and underserved segments of financial services. Traditional loan origination systems weren’t designed for SBA programs, leaving banks with slow, manual processes that limit their ability to serve this market. Alternative lenders saw this and built faster options, but often at the cost of predatory interest rates, burdening entrepreneurs with unsustainable debt. It is time to disrupt this market. Our AI-driven platform automates the hundreds of manual steps in SBA workflows and enables banks to serve entrepreneurs with fair, community-based rates at fintech-level speed.
The opportunity for financial institutions is enormous—commercial lending demand has grown 65% in the past decade. By streamlining SBA lending for traditional institutions, entrepreneurs can rely on their trusted financial partners for long-term success. Strengthening these local businesses helps the banks and their local communities in the process.
In your conversations with small business owners and entrepreneurs, what pain points or unmet needs are coming up most often?
Adams: The themes I hear most often are speed and simplicity. Business owners frequently feel forced into high-interest loans because they can’t wait months for a traditional bank process to finish. Start-ups often win new business because of their agility and grit, and they need access to capital to execute at the speed with which they do business. Others describe the SBA application process as overwhelming, with documentation and compliance requirements that take focus away from running their business. They simply don’t have the capacity to tackle such a challenging process.
Thankfully, we can alleviate these pain points, providing small business owners a sustainable path to growth. The impact is evident—banks using Casca are closing loans in days, which simply wasn’t possible with legacy systems.
How do you see small business lending evolving over the next few years, especially as AI continues to advance and gain traction?
Adams: We’re at a pivotal moment. AI is shifting small business lending from being manual and reactive to intelligent and proactive. In the coming years, I expect banks to use AI not just for faster loan processing, but also to better assess risk, personalize offerings, and expand access to credit for underserved groups.
Casca is already showing what’s possible: analyzing thousands of pages of financials in minutes and enabling banks to launch new products in weeks instead of years. With a pace of change this fast, we’ll soon begin to see a growing divide between institutions that embrace modern, AI-driven infrastructure and those still tied to legacy systems.
The winners will be the ones who use AI thoughtfully—enhancing transparency and fairness rather than replacing human judgment. My hope is that this evolution will give small business owners the fast, reliable access to capital they need to focus on building their businesses, rather than financing them. This has the potential to bring a new wave of innovation to the world.
Looking ahead, what’s next for Casca? Are there plans to expand beyond SBA lending? How do verticals like nonprofits and other underserved markets factor into the broader vision?
Adams: Looking ahead, Casca is focused on significant expansion across multiple dimensions. On the product side, the company plans to extend well beyond small business and commercial lending into additional loan categories and products. This expansion will be supported by continued platform enhancements, particularly around automation capabilities with deeper integrations into banking core systems. To support this growth, Casca is scaling its engineering, product, and customer success teams to accelerate product development and improve onboarding capabilities for financial institutions.
Any final advice for women entering fintech or stepping into leadership roles in male-dominated industries?
Adams: Trust your expertise and speak up confidently. You earned your seat at the table—own it. Don’t diminish your contributions or wait for permission to share your insights. Your perspective is valuable precisely because it may differ from the majority voice in the room.
Build genuine relationships, not just networks. Focus on creating authentic connections. The best advocates for change are often those who actively use their influence to amplify others.
Don’t do it alone. Seek out other women in fintech and adjacent industries. These relationships provide not just support, but strategic insight into navigating challenges that may be unique to your experience.
Lead with your values, but be strategic. You can push for change while being pragmatic about how you do it. Pick your battles, but don’t compromise on what matters most to you and your team.
Celebrate your wins—and help others celebrate theirs. In male-dominated spaces, women’s achievements are often overlooked. Make it a point to recognize your own successes and spotlight other women rising in the industry.
Finally, bring others up with you. As you advance, actively mentor, sponsor, and advocate for the next generation of women in fintech. Real change happens when we create pathways for those who follow.
The week begins as platforms, websites, and applications around the world are reeling from a major Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage. The impact, which affected more than 500 companies and generated millions of outage reports according to Downdetector, is among the most significant Internet disruptions since the Crowdstrike incident in 2024.
Meanwhile, here on Finovate’s Fintech Rundown, we’re looking at a handful of newly announced partnerships in payments and a pair of announcements in the crypto commerce space. Be sure to check back all week long for the latest in fintech headlines!
Insurtech boltlaunchesboltAI for Agencies, a conversational and workflow AI agent that brings automation to property and casualty (P&C) insurance firms.
Lithuanian cybersecurity platform Copla has teamed up with Baltic-based bug bounty platform Buck4Bug.
The partnership will enable Copla clients to leverage Buck4Bug’s team of ethical hackers to identify cybersecurity vulnerabilities before attackers have the chance to exploit them.
Rebranding from CyberUpgrade earlier this year, Copla made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2025 in London.
ICT security and compliance automation platform Coplaannounced a partnership with Baltic-based bug bounty platform Buck4Bug. The partnership will enable Copla customers to request and manage offensive testing directly inside the platform, launching scoped engagements for web, mobile, API, and cloud, or running continuous bounty programs.
“Real security isn’t just about controls, it’s about continuous proof,” Copla noted on its LinkedIn page announcing the partnership. “That’s why we’re partnering with Buck4Bug to bring together two powerful forces: automated compliance and monitoring from Copla and crowdsourced testing from a trusted network of ethical hackers. Together, we’re making it easier for companies to move beyond checklists and into real resilience.”
Buck4Bug combines deep manual expertise with focused tooling to discover security vulnerabilities that scanners often miss. The company connects organizations with ethical, “white hat” hackers to find and fix cybersecurity vulnerabilities before attackers do, validating and documenting each issue to ensure reproducible remediation. Courtesy of the newly announced partnership, Copla will convert Buck4Bug’s findings into action: prioritizing tasks, tracking fixes, scheduling retests, and providing evidence that enables teams to seamlessly move from discovery to demonstrable risk reduction.
“Modern security isn’t about snapshots, it’s about feedback loops,” Buck4Bug founder Paulius Šliavas said. “Together with Copla, we’re turning every pentest into actionable risk reduction and measurable compliance outcomes. Our hackers surface the hard-to-find issues; Copla makes sure fixes stick, risks trend down, and auditors see the story.”
Based in Vilnius, Lithuania, and founded in 2024, Buck4Bug offers bug bounty programs, penetration testing, and auction-based IT audits—all via a single platform. The company’s partnership news with Copla comes in the wake of Buck4Bug’s announcement that it has joined the Startup Lithuania Accelerator, powered by Plug and Play Tech Center, and launched its first public bug bounty program in collaboration with Fjord Bank.
Founded in 2023 and headquartered in Vilnius, Lithuania, Copla made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2025. At the conference, the company demonstrated its ICT security and compliance automation platform that provides a full cybersecurity and compliance department at a subscription cost. The platform combines CoreGuardian, which ensures compliance with frameworks such as DORA; an AI-powered co-pilot to provide real-time education, assessments, and alerts to boost accountability; and VendorGuard, which simplifies vendor management by handling risk assessments, incident planning, and prioritization.
Formerly known as CyberUpgrade, the company rebranded earlier this year in a move designed to reflect its evolution beyond cybersecurity.
“After years of growing, evolving, and helping organizations secure their digital environment, we’re stepping into an exciting new phase,” the company noted on its LinkedIn page. “We are now Copla—our new name, our new vision, and our next stage of evolution. Why Copla? Because we’re no longer just about cybersecurity. COmpliance PLAtform reflects everything we do today: empowering organizations to manage compliance, risk, and security with one intelligent platform. Same team. Bigger vision. A name that matches our mission.”
