Glia and Alloy Labs Unveil Banking AI Strategic Annual Planning Kit

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alloy, Alumni News, Glia

Banking AI platform Glia and financial services consortium Alloy Labs have jointly released their 2026-2027 Banking AI Strategic Annual Planning Kit.

The planning kit is a cross-functional blueprint that gives leaders at banks and credit unions guidance on deploying banking-specific AI solutions.

Glia is a multiple-time Finovate Best of Show winner. Alloy Labs most recently demoed its technology on the Finovate stage at FinovateFall 2022.

Banking AI platform Glia and financial services consortium Alloy Labs have teamed up to jointly release their 2026-2027 Banking AI Strategic Annual Planning Kit. The new resource is a cross-functional blueprint that provides leadership teams with clear governance templates, an enterprise-wide roadmap, and strategies to deploy banking-specific AI. The goal is to help organizations avoid the kind of security and compliance risks that many institutions face when using industry-agnostic AI solutions.

"This is the first planning cycle where AI strategy and bank strategy are in…

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BIL Suisse Renews Strategic Partnership with Avaloq

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Avaloq

Wealthtech platform Avaloq and Banque Internationale à Luxembourg (BIL Suisse) renewed their strategic partnership this week. The two entities have worked together for more than ten years.

Avaloq and BIL Suisse noted that the next phase of the collaboration will emphasize joint innovation and enhanced client-based services for customers in the Swiss market.

Founded in 1985, Avaloq won Best of Show at FinovateAsia 2018 in Hong Kong.

Wealth management technology platform Avaloq and Banque Internationale à Luxembourg (BIL Suisse) renewed their strategic partnership this week. BIL Suisse has leveraged Avaloq's platform and banking operations service for more than ten years and noted in a statement that the "next phase of collaboration" with the Zurich-based fintech will focus on joint innovation and enhanced client-focused services for the Swiss market.

Going forward, BIL Suisse will continue to rely on Avaloq for its core banking system, which is delivered in a SaaS…

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CSI Acquires Qolo for Undisclosed Amount

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Mergers & Acquisitions, Qolo

Fintech solutions provider CSI has acquired payments infrastructure and treasury solutions provider Qolo for an undisclosed amount.

CSI anticipates that the acquisition will strengthen its commercial banking solutions by offering its community financial institution clients more flexible deposit structures and expanded commercial card programs. Adding Qolo's existing clients to its own roster will also extend CSI’s geographical reach.

More specifically, CSI will use Qolo’s technology to serve as the orchestration layer across payments, accounts, and workflows. The Kentucky-based company will integrate with CSI’s core banking platform, digital banking solution, and broader API capabilities to bring community financial institutions prepackaged, pre-integrated commercial banking solutions, including:

A real-time account ledger that gives banks and businesses instant visibility into balances, transactions, and authorizations.

Multi-rail payment orchestration that offers a unified payment engine to orchestrate domestic and international money movement across multiple payment rails and business workflows.

Enhanced card capabilities that expand integrated issuing…

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Entrust Launches Agentic AI Trust Accelerator

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Entrust Datacard

Entrust launched its Agentic AI Trust Accelerator to help enterprises build the identity, authorization, and governance infrastructure needed to deploy autonomous AI agents in production.

The program focuses on identity, authorization, cryptographic assurance, and accountability to ensure AI agents can be authenticated, governed, and audited.

As banks increasingly explore agentic AI for sensitive tasks and transactions, trust infrastructure is becoming a critical requirement for enterprise adoption.

Identity solutions company Entrust unveiled its Agentic AI Trust Accelerator, a program that will help firms build the identity and trust infrastructure needed to move autonomous AI projects from pilot to production.

Entrust's new tool helps bridge the gap between the utility of AI agents and the lack of formal governance around them. AI agents notoriously lack the necessary infrastructure to ensure AI agents are who they say they are, to verify that the person behind the agent is who they say they…

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Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Entrust Datacard, Expensify, Fintech Rundown, Qolo

Today is Bastille Day in France, which is also celebrating a World Cup semi-finals match against neighbor and rival Spain. We've got one eye on the pitch and the other on the latest fintech headlines. Be sure to check back here at Finovate's Fintech Rundown all week long for updates!

Digital banking

Flex, a private banking platform for high-net-worth business owners, raises $70 million in funding.

ConnectOne Bank is building on nCino’s Agentic Operating System.

Corning Credit Union replaces weeks-long data requests with self-service search using Tursio.

Shoreline Hometown Credit Union launches Mahalo Banking’s Thoughtful Banking platform.

Stablecoins

Velocity, a stablecoin treasury and settlement platform, secures $38 million in Series A funding.

Stablecoin payment infrastructure company Confirmo unveils Subscribe, recuring payments solution for enterprise billing.

Business financial management

Business spend management innovator Expensify launches consolidated travel billing.

Digital identity

Identity-centric security specialist Entrust launches agentic AI…

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TAPP Engine and Envestnet Team Up for Goals-Based Investing

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Envestnet, TAPP Engine

Wealthech solutions provider TAPP Engine has teamed up with wealth management and financial planning platform Envestnet.

Courtesy of the partnership, TAPP Engine will integrate Envestnet's ActivePassive ETF model portfolios into its digital investing platform.

TAPP Engine made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2025. Envestnet most recently demoed its technology at FinovateFall 2021 in New York.

Embedded wealthtech solutions provider TAPP Engine will offer Envestnet's ActivePassive ETF model portfolios as part of a new partnership announced late last week. TAPP Engine will integrate these portfolios into its digital investing platform to enable credit unions and banks to offer a more customized, goals-based investing experience to their members and customers.

TAPP Engine currently offers self-directed brokerage accounts, goals-based automated investing, fractional share investing, commission-free equity trading, digital account opening and onboarding, single sign-on (SSO) integration with digital banking platforms, integrated custody and clearing services, as well as investor education and financial wellness…

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How Profitability, Customer Relationships, and AI are Driving Investor Preferences in Fintech

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: David's column

CB Insights recently unveiled its 2026 State of Venture Tracker. Among the top takeaways from the data is that "bigger, fewer" continues to define VC investing with deal counts at multi-decade lows and so-called mega-rounds taking up more than 80% of invested capital.

Specifically within fintech, the firm noted that while funding was up over the last 12 months compared to the previous 12 months (and by a significant 20.7%), the second quarter of this year saw a pullback of 8% in funding relative to the first quarter. The number of deals in the last three months was also significantly lower than the previous three months, by a factor of more than 27%.

What's going on? There are at least three main trends driving investment decisions in fintech as we move into the second half of 2026. Here's a look at what they are and what they mean for fintechs…

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Citi Sees First Bank Goes Live with its Clearing and Token Services Solution

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Citi, Daily news

Siam Commercial Bank is the first financial institution to go live with Citi’s integrated 24/7 USD Clearing and Citi Token Services offering.

The solution uses tokenized deposits on a private permissioned blockchain to support near real-time cross-border USD payments around the clock.

The launch shows how banks are combining distributed ledger technology with traditional banking infrastructure to reduce payment delays without relying on public blockchains or stablecoins.

Citi announced that Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) has become the first financial institution to go live with Citi's 24/7 USD Clearing and Citi Token Services. The integration enables near real-time, 24/7 cross-border US dollar payments for SCB's corporate and institutional clients.

Adopting Citi's 24/7 USD Clearing with Citi Token Services will help SCB reduce the friction that has historically limited clients' global payment operations. Traditionally, cross-border USD payments have been constrained by banking hours, weekends, and holidays, creating delays for companies operating across…

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Nu Receives Full Banking License in Mexico

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Nubank

Nu Mexico received authorization from the CNBV to begin operating as a bank, moving from its previous SOFIPO status into Mexico’s formal banking sector.

The approval makes Nu Mexico the country’s largest digital bank, with more than 15 million customers and a presence in 98% of Mexico’s municipalities.

The bank license gives Nu a stronger platform for growth, allowing it to expand its product suite, deepen deposit relationships, and compete more directly with incumbent banks.

Nu, the parent company of Brazil-based Nubank, is making Nu Mexico more official this week. The bank has received authorization from the National Banking and Securities Commission (CNBV) to begin operations as a bank.

The new authorization will make Nu Mexico the largest digital bank in the country, counting more than 15 million customers, a figure that represents more than 15% of the nation's population.

"We are building a new way of delivering financial…

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Finovate Global Israel: Autonomous AI and Cross-Border Payments

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Equifax, Finovate Global, MasterCard

This week's edition of Finovate Global features recent fintech headlines from companies headquartered in Israel.

Tangos AI raises $20 million in seed funding

Tangos AI, an Israeli fintech that specializes in providing autonomous AI solutions for financial crime, fraud, and compliance investigations, has raised $20 million in seed funding. The round was led by Red Dot Capital Partners, and featured participation from Leaders Fund, Clarim, Venture Israel, Signal Fire, Clutch Capital, Selah Ventures, and Bright Data.

Founded in 2025 by Eyal Azoulay, Tangos offers an advanced AI-powered investigation platform that enables financial institutions, fintechs, government agencies, and other organizations to conduct complex investigations into suspicious activity faster, more accurately, and at greater scale. Tangos is unique relative to other compliance solutions insofar as it is built to perform investigative operations automatically. The platform uses domain-specific AI models, structured investigative workflows, and expert-trained reasoning systems to evaluate evidence, test…

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Swift Goes Live with New Blockchain-Based Ledger

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news

Swift launched a blockchain-based ledger that lets banks move tokenized deposits across borders 24/7 before completing final settlement through existing banking systems.

The ledger is designed to make blockchain interoperable with bank infrastructure, giving financial institutions a shared layer for digital money without requiring them to abandon current rails or compliance processes.

Seventeen global banks will participate in the initial pilot, moving Swift’s blockchain work from prototype to live testing with major transaction banks across six continents.

Swift has officially launched its new blockchain-based ledger that will support 24/7 cross-border payments with tokenized deposits, enabling funds to move in any regulated form, anywhere, with a high level of security.

The shared, blockchain-based ledger offers banks an orchestration layer for bank-issued tokenized deposits on their own ledgers. The blockchain ledger enables banks to move funds for customers 24 hours a day, seven days a week, before completing final settlement through the…

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nCino’s Mortgage Point of Sale Solution Gets a New Capability and a New Customer

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, nCino

Agentic AI banking platform nCino announced a new partnership with Cornerstone First Mortgage, a full-service mortgage bank based in San Diego, California; as well as new capabilities for its Mortgage Point of Sale solution.

Cornerstone First Mortgage highlighted nCino's Mortgage Point of Sale solution in its partnership announcement, praising the technology's flexibility and mobile capabilities.

nCino also unveiled LeadGen PreQual, a new capability for its Mortgage Point of Sale solution that gives borrowers key eligibility information before opening an account or filling out a loan application.

This week marks both a new customer and a new capability for nCino's Mortgage Point of Sale.

Agentic AI banking platform nCino announced this week that Cornerstone First Mortgage (Cornerstone) has selected nCino's Mortgage Point of Sale to enhance the customer experience and to support the firm's continued expansion across the US. The San Diego, California-based full-service mortgage bank chose nCino's solution for its…

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