Making an IMPACT: Finovate’s Funders and Founders Event Launches This Fall

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: IMPACT, Speaker series

A decade ago, Finovate launched its developer conference series FinDEVr. The goal was simple: to provide a place for software developers, programmers, and technologists to showcase APIs, open banking solutions, developer tools, and more during a truly revolutionary time in the history of fintech innovation.

Today, one of the biggest challenges to fintech innovation is ensuring that fintech founders get the support and funding they need to grow and succeed in an even more complex and competitive financial services landscape.

Meet IMPACT

The first-ever event bridging capital and innovation in the financial services space, IMPACT Funders & Founders comes to New York for a full day of curated investor meetings, dynamic discussions, and breakthrough pitches from innovative startups ready to scale. Running concurrently with FinovateFall, IMPACT Funders & Founders takes place on Friday, September 11, at the New York Marriott Marquis in Times Square.

Heather Stowell, Finovate VP and Informa…

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3 Ways Fiserv’s Payments Network Sale Could Reshape Payments

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: List series

According to the Wall Street Journal, JPMorgan, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and PNC are in conversation with Fiserv about acquiring its two debit payment networks, STAR and Accel. While there is not an official deal on the table, the initial discussions surrounding the sale raise important questions about the future of the payments infrastructure in the US. If a sale of the payment networks does take place, the impact would extend far beyond Fiserv. Here are three ways it could reshape payments.

Large banks could gain more control over payment economics

Right now, banks, card networks, and merchants each play a unique role. Banks issue cards, card networks route the transactions, and merchants pay the interchange fees. Much of the value of STAR and Accel is that they route debit transactions. If all of a sudden, banks own the network, the dynamics change. The large banks that end up…

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Thought Machine Secures $41 Million in Funding; Tops $100 Million Revenue Milestone

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Funding, Thought Machine

Core banking technology firm Thought Machine has raised £30 million ($41 million) in funding from an unnamed Tier 1 bank. The bank, which is both a client and an investor, made its investment in May of this year.

The funding will help support Thought Machine's R&D expansion, including a pledge to hire more than 100 new engineers in 2026.

The funding announcement comes as the company reported surpassing the $100 million revenue milestone for the year ending December 2025.

According to multiple reports, core banking technology firm Thought Machine has secured £30 million ($41 million) in funding from an unnamed Tier 1 bank that is also a Thought Machine client. The reports indicate that the investment was made in May of this year; Fintech Futures noted that the funding consisted of £9 million in primary funding and a £21 million secondary market transaction.

The investment will help power the company's R&D expansion,…

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Narmi Unveils AI Decision Assist to Facilitate Account Opening Review Process

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

Narmi has unveiled AI Decision Assist, an agentic AI tool that automates account opening reviews by analyzing identity, risk, and compliance data and generating explainable recommendations for bank employees.

The configurable platform helps banks tailor AI-driven decisioning to their own risk policies, reducing manual review times from hours to minutes and increasing approval rates by up to 6%.

The launch is an example of how banks are increasingly deploying AI to support operational decision-making in areas like account opening, fraud detection, underwriting, and compliance rather than limiting AI to customer-facing assistants.

Digital banking platform Narmi announced the planned launch of AI Decision Assist today. The new agentic AI tool aims to help banks automate the account opening review process.

AI Decision Assist takes on the heavy lifting when it comes to reviewing customer applications. In addition to analyzing identity, risk, and compliance information, the tool also generates recommendations that help…

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Meniga Launches New Conversational LLM Product

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Meniga

Personal finance solutions fintech Meniga launched a new product called Fini, an MCP server that enables banks to bring agentic AI into their existing platforms.

Fini, which was built with the input of five large banks, serves as the bridge between a bank's preferred large language model (LLM) and Meniga's personal finance, enrichment, and insights capabilities. Rather than building its own AI model, Meniga enables banks to pair Claude, GPT, Gemini, or another LLM with the company's financial intelligence platform, allowing customers to ask questions about their finances in natural language within the bank's website or mobile app.

Founded in 2009, Meniga serves over 100 million banking customers across 30 countries. The UK-based company's clients include UniCredit, Groupe BPCE, UOB, Swedbank, SAB, Tangerine, and Riyad Bank. Meniga's intelligence and personalization layer helps banks turn financial data into insights and proactively anticipate customer needs, promoting engagement.

Meniga anticipates that this…

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Decisionly Partners with Episode Six on AI-Powered Dispute Automation

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Decisionly

Card issuer Episode Six has forged a strategic partnership with dispute automation platform Decisionly.

The partnership will give card issuers an end-to-end dispute management solution that will enable them to boost efficiency via AI-powered automation.

Founded in 2024 by the team that launched Chargehound, Decisionly made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2025.

Enterprise-grade card issuer Episode Six has teamed up with AI-powered dispute automation platform Decisionly in a strategic partnership designed to give card issuers an end-to-end dispute management solution. The alliance will help issuers burdened with traditional dispute and chargeback tools deal with the complexity of modern card program management.

Decisionly's technology automates the entire dispute lifecycle, including regulatory requirements, network rules, and custom program configuration. The platform delivers automation rates of greater than 95% from day one and reduces manual dispute resolution work by more than 80%. Both Decisionly's and Episode Six's platforms are based on an API-first…

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Signicat and TrustTech Bring Reusable Identity to Digital Wallets

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Signicat

Digital identity innovator Signicat has teamed up with identity verification specialist TrustTech to bring reusable compliance checks to regulated businesses through private digital wallet ecosystems.

The partnership combines Signicat's digital identity platform capabilities with TrustTech's trust infrastructure to enable verified identity data to be established once and then reused across systems, entities, and borders.

Based in Norway, Signicat made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2017 in London.

Digital identity and trust services provider Signicat has partnered with digital trust infrastructure company and identity verification specialist TrustTech to bring reusable compliance checks and trusted signatures to regulated businesses via private wallet ecosystems.

The partnership combines Signicat's digital identity platform capabilities with TrustTech's trust infrastructure to help businesses transition away from fragmented identity checks, password-based authentication, and repetitive signing processes in favor of a single, private wallet-driven flow. This enables verified identity and trusted information to be established once and reused across…

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What’s Really Behind Robinhood’s 7% Yield?

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Julie's Column, Thought Leadership

Robinhood announced a handful of features last week, including the rollout of Robinhood Earn, a decentralized lending product that allows people to lend their dollar-backed USDG through a self-custody wallet at an estimated 7% APY. This estimated 7% APY on USDG stablecoin deposits is high enough to raise eyebrows, especially at a time when banks are paying closer to 3% to 4% on their highest-yield savings accounts. So how can Robinhood sustainably offer 7%?

Robinhood Earn

First, let's take a look at the details of the launch. Robinhood Earn applies to USDG, a stablecoin issued by Paxos Digital Singapore and Paxos Issuance Europe. Robinhood is not paying 7% APY on bank deposits. Instead, the yield is generated by lending activity for Robinhood users who lend stablecoins using Morpho, a decentralized lending protocol that powers onchain lending. Just as with fiat lending, there is risk in lending stablecoins. Users…

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AI-Driven Investment Platform MDOTM Raises $27 Million

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Funding, MDOTM Ltd

AI-powered investment solutions provider for asset and wealth managers MDOTM has raised $27 million in funding.

The round was led by Expedition Growth Capital and takes MDOTM's total funding to $36.5 million.

MDOTM made its Finovate debut earlier this year at FinovateEurope 2026, introducing its proprietary AI investment platform Sphere.

In a round led by Expedition Growth Capital, AI-driven investment solutions provider MDOTM has secured $27 million in growth equity funding. The investment takes the company's total funding to $36.5 million, and will be used to accelerate international expansion and hiring across AI research, engineering, product, sales, and client solutions.

With clients including Morgan Stanley, Amundi, and Zurich Bank, MDOTM serves more than 60 financial institutions throughout Europe, the UK, and the US, enabling a growing number of firms to use AI-powered solutions to manage complex investment portfolios at scale. The company's flagship offering, Sphere, analyzes market and…

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Klarna Applies for US Banking License

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

Klarna has applied to establish Klarna Bank USA, a Utah-chartered industrial bank, marking its latest step toward becoming a full-service bank in the US.

Owning a bank charter would allow Klarna to bring banking operations in-house, reducing its reliance on partner banks while expanding its payments, savings, credit, and merchant offerings.

Klarna joins a growing wave of fintechs pursuing US bank charters in 2026, reflecting an industry shift toward owning banking infrastructure instead of relying on sponsor banks.

Digital bank and BNPL provider Klarna is the latest fintech to apply for a US banking license. The company announced today that it has submitted applications to the Utah Department of Financial Institutions and the FDIC to establish Klarna Bank USA. The newly proposed bank will be a Utah-chartered industrial bank.

Klarna's role as a bank is not new. The Sweden-based fintech has had a bank license in Europe since 2017, and…

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Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: BlueVine, Fintech Rundown, PayPal, Signicat, SoFi, Thought Machine, VISA

After a thrilling weekend of World Cup matches, fans in the US are readying for this evening's big contest against Belgium. To help you while away the hours until then, here's a look at some of the top fintech headlines that are coming across our radar today. Be sure to check back with Finovate's Fintech Rundown all week long for the latest updates.

Digital banking

Cloud-native core banking and payments platform Thought Machine surpasses $100 million total revenue milestone.

Digital banking platform for small businesses Bluevine expands its services to selected foreign-resident owners of US businesses.

Back office

VyStar Credit Union expands partnership with FMSI to advance branch performance strategy.

Agentic AI

BBVA completes its first AI agent-initiated transaction on behalf of a cardholder.

Caixabank initiates its first agentic shopping transaction.

Stablecoins

Standard Chartered launches new capability enabling institutional clients to access USDC minting and redemption.

Payments

PayPal joins the…

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Finovate Podcast Features the Five Best of Show Winners from FinovateSpring 2026

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Best of Show, Clockout, Cobalt, Crebit Pay, Finalytics.ai, List series, Podcasting, Zengines

Finovate Podcast host Greg Palmer showcases the winners of Best of Show from FinovateSpring 2026 in his latest series of podcast conversations.

The five companies that won Best of Show represent many of the top trends in fintech today, from embedded finance and stablecoin-powered payments to mainframe modernization and AI-enabled personalization. In these interviews, we learn about the inspiration behind the founding of these innovative companies and the problems they are solving for banks, credit unions, other financial institutions, and their customers.

Finovate podcast host Greg Palmer talks with Caitlyn Truong, CEO and Co-Founder of Zengines.

Palmer and Truong discuss how Zengines addresses the challenge of managing legacy core banking applications written in older programming languages like COBOL, RPG, and PL1. Truong explains how her company is modernizing legacy mainframe applications without losing critical logic, satisfying auditors faster, and making legacy systems searchable so transformation and compliance do not…

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