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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
A look at the companies demoing at FinovateEurope in London on February 10. Register today using this link and save 20%.
Intuitech
Intuitech solves the financial industry’s reliance on slow, manual, and risk-prone workflows that inhibit scalability and create inefficiencies and high operational costs.
Features
Achieves 5x faster time-to-cash
Drives 15%+ additional credit growth
Automates over 95% of workflows
Who’s it for?
Banks, insurance companies, and financial entities with high document processing.
Outsampler
Outsampler lets finance professionals answer complex quantitative questions by talking to their data and models, with guaranteed numerical accuracy, full auditability, and on-premise privacy.
Features
Unlocks insights from previously untapped numerical data
Cuts manual data analysis time by ~50%
Delivers 100% numerically accurate results with full traceability
Serene’s AI orchestration layer, MySerene, turns behavioral risk insight into real-time, context-aware guidance for frontline teams supporting vulnerable customers.
Features
Provides a real-time snapshot view of risk indicators and vulnerability signals
Generates context-aware conversational guidance for better engagement
Delivers auditable, explainable, consumer duty–aligned support
Who’s it for?
Financial institutions, including retail and challenger banks, credit-card issuers, alternative lenders, and credit unions; secondary markets, including insurance, utilities, and telecoms providers.
Skill Studio AI
Skill Studio AI automates compliance training updates by turning documents into engaging, AI-training instantly, reducing costs and keeping content up to date.
Features
PDF-to-Course Wizard drastically reduces time-to-launch from weeks to hours
AI-Course Tutor creates courses based on company context
Financial institutions are scaling digital products, expanding into new markets, and automating their decision-making more than ever in 2026, which makes managing controls, models, and regulatory obligations just as important as stopping fraud.
At FinovateEurope 2026, two new fintechs are showing how banks can move beyond manual processes and static controls toward more dynamic, data-driven approaches to compliance and risk. Check out how the following companies are helping banks reduce cost, improve transparency, and turn regulatory requirements into tools for smarter decision-making.
FinovateEurope 2026 will take place at London’s InterContinental O2 on February 10 and 11. Tickets are available now. Visit our FinovateEurope hub today and take advantage of big early-bird savings!
UK-based FINTRAC helps financial institutions automate controls and workflows across the model lifecycle, enabling stronger governance with less manual effort. Its platform replaces fragmented, spreadsheet-driven processes with centralized controls, audit-ready documentation, and richer analytics that improve transparency across risk, compliance, and model management teams.
Because its tools are integrated into banks’ existing systems, FINTRAC allows banks to reduce costs while maintaining regulatory compliance in real-time.
Serene helps firms turn compliance and collections data into actionable insights by helping lenders optimize arrears management, reduce defaults, and expand access to credit by combining compliance discipline with frontline intelligence.
Serene positions compliance as a feedback loop that improves decision-making across collections and lending operations. The company offers organizations data and guidance to enable them to balance risk management with customer outcomes while remaining compliant.
Why banks should care
As banks continue to digitize lending, payments, and risk decisioning, compliance and control functions can no longer rely on manual processes. In fact, regulators are increasingly expecting firms to implement continuous governance, which places more pressure on teams to move faster, adopt AI-driven models, and reduce operational cost.
Fintechs like FINTRAC and Serene are good examples of how compliance and risk intelligence are being embedded into everyday operations. By automating controls and leveraging compliance data for actionable insights, banks can improve transparency, strengthen risk management, and scale more confidently.
Airwallex is acquiring Paynuri to enter South Korea, securing payment gateway, prepaid electronic payment instrument, and foreign exchange business registrations to support cross-border payments and FX services.
The move gives Korean businesses access to Airwallex’s global financial platform, enabling multi-currency spending, international payments, and cross-border expansion.
The acquisition signals intensifying competition in APAC payments, as Airwallex uses its fresh Series G capital to accelerate regulatory access, expand headcount locally, and strengthen its position against regional fintechs and global incumbents.
Commercial payments and banking platform Airwallex is expanding its global reach this week. The Singapore-based company is acquiring Paynuri, an entity that holds payment gateway and prepaid electronic payment instrument licenses in South Korea. Financial terms of the deal are undisclosed.
Airwallex plans to use these licenses to empower companies in Korea to expand across borders by offering Korean businesses a comprehensive platform for managing their financial operations across multiple markets and currencies. The acquisition will also give Airwallex the benefit of Paynuri’s South Korea Foreign Exchange Business registration, an accreditation that will further support cross-border payments and FX services in Korea.
“We are excited by this significant investment by Airwallex into the Korean market,” said Invest Seoul President and CEO Lee Jihyung. “We believe Airwallex’s entry will strengthen the financial operating environment for both Korean and global companies in the market.”
Airwallex’s spending capabilities, for example, allow businesses to manage company spending across multicurrency payment cards, expense management, and bill payments. The company’s multi-currency account facilitates the management of global banking, FX conversion, and international transfers, while its payments offerings allow businesses to accept online and in-store payments across the globe in more than 160 payment methods.
“This acquisition marks a pivotal milestone for Airwallex as we expand the global reach of our financial platform,” said Airwallex General Manager of APAC, Arnold Chan. “Korea’s fast-growing ecommerce, creative, and entertainment sectors present immense opportunities for Korean businesses on the global stage. Our goal is to support these businesses with a more efficient solution to expand beyond borders.”
Airwallex, which already operates across Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam, has been growing rapidly in the APAC region. In 2025, the company reported an 85% year-over-year increase in revenue and a 71% year-over-year boost in transaction volume. Globally, during the month of December 2025, Airwallex achieved $1.2 billion in revenue and recorded $266 billion in transaction volume.
To meet this demand, Airwallex will boost its workforce in Korea with plans to add 20 employees across multiple functions by the end of this year.
Founded in 2015, Airwallex holds 80 licenses and permits that enable customers to operate in 200+ countries and regions and support multi-currency checkout at scale. In 2025 alone, the company extended its regulated and local capabilities across 12 new markets, securing licenses and launching products in France, the Netherlands, Israel, Canada, Korea, Japan, New Zealand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Brazil, Mexico, and the UAE.
Today’s investment comes about six weeks after Airwallex’s $330 million Series G fundraise, which valued the company at $8 billion. Airwallex’s expansion into the Korean market is a direct result of that investment.
By securing payment, prepaid, and foreign exchange approvals in South Korea, Airwallex is positioning itself to serve Korean businesses that are scaling internationally while avoiding the delays associated with organic licensing. The move also strengthens Airwallex’s position against both regional fintechs and global incumbents vying to serve global businesses.
Identity orchestration platform company Alloy has launched its first perpetual Know Your Business (pKYB) and Customer Risk Assessment (CRA) orchestration solution in the UK and across Europe.
The new offering will enable banks, fintech, and payments companies to enhance their ability to check and provide risk assessments on companies on a continuous basis.
Headquartered in New York and founded in 2015, Alloy made its Finovate debut at our developers conference, FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2016. Tommy Nicholas is Co-Founder and CEO.
Identity orchestration platform provider Alloyhas introduced its first perpetual Know Your Business (pKYB) and Customer Risk Assessment (CRA) orchestration solution in the UK and across Europe. The launch follows the company’s introduction of its perpetual KYC (pKYC) solution in the fall of 2025.
Financial institutions serving customers in the UK and Europe benefit from the opportunity to develop a variety of solutions for many different markets—from the Baltics to the Mediterranean to the post-Soviet east. Nevertheless, expansion into new territories also comes with significant challenges as business risk becomes more complicated to manage. Corporate entities evolve, beneficial owners change, and regulatory demands shift and expand, especially as they relate to anti-money laundering (AML) and countering the financing of terrorism (CFT) controls.
In response, Alloy’s pKYB solution will empower banks, fintechs, and payments companies in the UK and Europe to automatically re-run checks and re-assign risk when significant business and ownership changes occur. Examples include registry updates, watchlist hits, and event-driven risk signals. Further, the new offering is supported by Alloy’s AI Assistant, which conducts comprehensive online research to corroborate business and ownership changes. The Assistant also runs the Enhanced Due Diligence (EDD) review for businesses that change from low to high risk post-onboarding. This helps compliance and risk teams cut down on hours of manual work while improving straight-through-processing (STP) rates.
“Through deep conversations with our UK and European clients, it became clear that static, point-in-time KYB was no longer sufficient,” Alloy Senior Product Director Grace Liu said. “We took what we learned, evaluated how the pKYB ecosystem was evolving, and built on our pKYC foundation to move quickly toward a proactive, event-driven future—one our clients are genuinely excited about and that Alloy is uniquely positioned to deliver.”
Alloy’s pKYB and CRA solution will enable financial institutions to apply configurable policies by market, product, and entity risk level. This facilitates consistent decision-making while satisfying local regulatory mandates, and leverages smart routing to reduce the amount of manual work involved in the screening process. Alloy’s solution also uses filtered, event-triggered Enhanced Due Diligence (EDD) alerts that route high-risk issues to human analysts while managing lower-risk issues via automated Customer Due Diligence (CDD) processes. Financial institutions will also be able to use AI-assisted workflows to accelerate investigations, create summaries, and recommend next best steps to achieve faster review-to-resolution.
“Periodic checks alone aren’t enough: they need to be complemented by continuous business monitoring,” Liu added. “With pKYB, Alloy helps institutions detect, evaluate, and act on changes to business identity, ownership, and risk by automating risk reassessment and escalating only the most critical alerts to analysts. The result is consistent policies across markets and the ability to scale confidently, with a clear, up-to-date understanding of business risk between reviews.”
Headquartered in New York and founded in 2015, Alloy introduced itself to Finovate audiences at our developers conference, FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2016. Today, more than 700 of the world’s largest financial institutions and fintechs rely on Alloy’s platform to access actionable intelligence and a network of 200+ data sources to keep pace with emerging fraud, credit, and compliance risks.
Alloy’s new product announcement comes a month after the firm announced the latest fruits of its partnership with MANTL, an Alkami solution team and loan and deposit account opening technology provider. The company reported that more than two million deposit applications have been processed since the partnership began, with an average automated application decision rate exceeding 80%.
“Our partnership with MANTL shows that strong fraud prevention can actively fuel business growth,” Alloy CEO and Co-Founder Tommy Nicholas said. “By giving our joint clients a complete view of customer identities, we’re helping them stay ahead of fraud, unlock more opportunities to serve legitimate customers, and deliver a better experience.”
Lithuania-based regtech AMLYZE has forged a partnership with Vinted Pay, the payments division of European online marketplace for second-hand fashion and other goods, Vinted.
Vinted Pay will use AMLYZE’s technology to provide real-time and retrospective transaction monitoring and customer risk assessment during onboarding and payment processes.
Headquartered in Vilnius, Lithuania, AMLYZE made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2024.
Lithuanian regtech AMLYZEannounced a partnership with Vinted Pay, the payments subsidiary of European online marketplace for second-hand items, Vinted. Vinted Pay will leverage AMLYZE’s technology for real-time and retrospective transaction monitoring and customer risk assessment to ensure that Vinted Pay’s onboarding and payment processes meet AML/CFT requirements.
A leading second-hand fashion marketplace in Europe and a self-described “go-to destination for all kinds of pre-loved items,” Lithuania’s Vinted offers an online platform that connects millions of members across more than 20 markets. Founded in 2008, Vinted became the country’s first unicorn in 2019, and reached a valuation of more than €5 billion with a €340 million fundraising round in October 2024. That same year, the company reported a boost in net profits of 330%, exceeding €76 million.
“We are proud to partner with Vinted, a key player in the online marketplace industry,” AMLYZE CEO and Co-Founder Gabrielius Erikas Bilkštys said. “Now that Vinted Pay has successfully joined our platform, our advanced solutions will support Vinted Pay in maintaining strict compliance standards, including during onboarding processes, ensuring it continues to be a safe and trusted platform for its users. This collaboration underlines our commitment to providing world-class AML/CFT services and improving the prevention of financial crime across Europe.”
Launched in 2023, Vinted Pay is the latest initiative from Vinted, and is part of the company’s strategy to provide buyers and sellers across Europe with a secure, reliable payment option. Integrated into the Vinted App, Vinted Pay will ensure that members have access to safe, efficient, and easy online transactions with the platform. Members will be able to use Vinted Pay to shop for second-hand merchandise on the Vinted platform or, as Vinted recently announced, to enable members to transfer funds from sales to a secure digital account. These funds can be used to make purchases on the Vinted platform or withdrawn to a personal bank account outside of Vinted.
“Vinted Pay is dedicated to providing a safe and reliable payment experience for our community,” Vinted VP of Payments Modestas Tursa said. “The expertise and innovative technology of AMLYZE helps ensure we continue to foster trust within our platform as we gradually introduce and scale Vinted Pay across markets.”
Founded in 2019 and headquartered in Lithuania, AMLYZE made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2024. At the conference, the company demonstrated its anti-financial crime information sharing framework that leverages synthetic data to facilitate AI model training, testing of automated monitoring solutions, and more.
Gusto is testing stablecoin payouts for global payroll through a partnership with zerohash.
The beta test is using regulated on-chain settlement infrastructure to enable faster, more transparent cross-border payments.
If successful, the beta could signal stablecoins’ shift into core payroll infrastructure, modeling how HR and payroll platforms can adopt digital assets in a compliant, scalable way.
Payroll, benefits, and HR management solutions company Gusto revealed today that it is testing stablecoin payout capabilities across its global payments. The California-based fintech will leverage a partnership with digital asset infrastructure provider zerohash.
Founded in 2017, zerohash is a crypto, stablecoin, and tokenization platform that brings instant money movement to banks, brokerages, and fintechs. With more than six million end customers, the company has settled $65 billion in transaction volume, is available in more than 200 jurisdictions, and supports over 100 assets.
Gusto said it chose zerohash for its deep regulatory expertise, operational maturity at scale, and the ability to support global expansion securely and seamlessly.
In teaming up with zerohash, Gusto will use zerohash’s regulated on-chain settlement infrastructure to allow its clients to receive their earnings in digital dollars. Gusto will use zerohash’s stablecoin rails to enhance speed and transparency to allow workers to receive payments in the form of stablecoins.
When compared to traditional cross-border payments, which can take three-to-seven days to settle, stablecoins will allow Gusto to move funds from employer to worker across the globe in minutes. In addition to real-time settlement, leveraging digital currencies will also allow for on-chain traceability and compatibility with both custodial and self-custodial wallets.
Pointing to the growing mismatch between global workforces and legacy payment infrastructure, zerohash Founder and CEO Edward Woodford said stablecoins offer a faster and more flexible alternative for moving money across borders. “As the workforce increasingly becomes more global and more digital, traditional payment rails can no longer meet the speed and accessibility that modern businesses require,” said Woodford. “Gusto is one of the most forward-thinking platforms for businesses, and we’re proud to provide the infrastructure that enables them to deliver instant, transparent, and flexible payouts across borders. Stablecoin rails unlock real-world benefits for millions of workers, and this partnership is a major step toward modernizing how money moves.”
Gusto, originally known as ZenPayroll, was founded in 2011 to provide a cloud-based payroll, benefits, and HR management solution. The company’s tools help businesses track time and attendance, onboard new employees, manage existing talent, and more. With more than 400,000 small business clients, Gusto processes tens of billions of dollars of payroll each year and provides employee benefits, including 401(k) accounts, which are powered by the company’s 2025 acquisition of retirement specialist Guideline.
According to Samant Nagpal, Head of Payments and Risk at Gusto, the partnership allows the company to introduce stablecoin payouts while maintaining the compliance and scalability required for global payroll. “At Gusto, our mission is to grow the small business economy. We believe payment choice is integral to helping small businesses and their teams thrive, which is why we’re committed to ensuring they can pay anyone, anywhere, anytime,” said Nagpal. “zerohash’s regulatory posture and global infrastructure allow us to offer stablecoin payouts in a way that is simple, compliant, and scalable. This partnership means that we can deliver a faster, more seamless global payments experience for our customers and their teams.”
This partnership is another example of how stablecoins are shifting from experimental use cases into core financial infrastructure, especially in cross-border payments. Testing stablecoin payouts within a regulated framework gives Gusto the ability to expand payment choice for its small business customers. While Gusto’s trial of stablecoin payouts is still in beta, if successful, the approach could set the standard for other HR and payroll platforms as global workforces continue to grow.
A strategic partnership between Jet Bank and banking platform Backbase will power the launch of Albania’s first digital-only bank. A greenfield digital bank able to leverage modern, enabling technologies, Jet Bank chose Backbase to serve as its digital engagement layer, orchestrating customer interactions across channels while integrating with core banking, card processing, and third-party services.
“Our ambition is to set a new standard for digital banking in Albania by building a bank that feels intuitive, reliable, and relevant in everyday use,” Jet Bank CEO Fatbardha Rino said. “This partnership with Backbase gives us the digital foundation to launch quickly while maintaining the trust and discipline expected from a licensed bank. We’re not just launching an app—we’re building a platform that can continuously evolve with our customers.”
So far, the collaboration between Backbase and Jet Bank has enabled the institution to transition from setup to User Acceptance Testing in three months, and gain full operational capability as a licensed digital bank within six months. The platform also supports monthly product releases, enabling Jet Bank to launch new products and services based on actual customer demand while ensuring uninterrupted customer journeys.
The solution provides end-to-end banking capabilities ranging from customer onboarding and lending to wealth management and intelligent assistance—all orchestrated via a single unified experience. Additionally, Jet Bank noted that Backbase’s marketplace-driven approach was a major reason why the institution sought out the collaboration. Specifically, the bank pointed to the ability to quickly launch new products and third-party services within a consistent digital experience, a critical capability for a digital bank.
“Jet Bank represents the future of digital banking—fast to market, built for continuous innovation, and designed around customer needs from day one,” Backbase Regional Vice President Robert Mihaljek said. “Their strategic choice to partner with a single, unified platform rather than assembling disconnected channels demonstrates the discipline required to build a truly scalable digital bank. We’re proud to support their vision and help them bring world-class digital banking to Albania.”
A Finovate alum since 2009, Backbase is a four-time Finovate Best of Show award winner, most recently securing top honors at FinovateEurope 2018. Founded in 2003 and headquartered in Amsterdam, Backbase offers an AI-powered banking platform that unifies all servicing and sales journeys into an integrated suite. Backbase’s technology enables banks to modernize operations across retail, SME, commercial, and private banking, as well as wealth management. More than 150 financial institutions around the world use Backbase’s solutions and services.
This week’s collaboration is not the first between Backbase and an Albanian bank. Last spring, Backbase announced that Albania’s Tirana Bank would deploy Backbase’s Engagement Banking Platform to power its digital transformation. The five-year strategic partnership will enhance Tirana Bank’s suite of solutions including new capabilities for web and mobile banking, digital lending, and other services.
Founded in 1996 as the first bank in Albania launched entirely with private capital, Tirana Bank surpassed total assets of €1.5 billion ($1.6 billion) in 2024. The institution is located in Tirana, Albania’s capital city with an estimated 542,730 residents—more than 800,000 in the greater metropolitan area.
A look at the companies demoing at FinovateEurope in London on February 10. Register today using this link and save 20%.
Candour Identity
Candour Identity offers identity verification that continuously prevents rapidly evolving fraud attempts and provides a frictionless user experience for everyday use.
Features
Counters rapidly evolving fraud attempts
Delivers continuous fraud prevention
Provides a great user experience for everyday use
Who’s it for?
Banks, financial services, and telecom operators.
Darwinium
Darwinium is an AI fraud prevention platform born in the age of AI, using advanced AI tools to defeat the latest attacks, including scams, mules, and app cloning.
Features
Deploys in minutes at the perimeter edge
Protects touchpoints in the customer journey without an engineering resource
Uses adversarial AI red-teaming and an AI copilot to close the loop between detection and remediation
Who’s it for?
Banks, fintechs, enterprises, and SMBs.
Hagbad
Hagbad is a fintech platform that digitalizes social group savings into secure, transparent financial infrastructure, enabling communities to build financial visibility and long-term economic growth.
Features
Offers digital, invite-only group savings with automated contributions and payouts
Provides transparent, auditable records that strengthen trust and accountability
Delivers intelligent insights that support financial growth
Who’s it for?
Individuals and communities using group savings, particularly cash-based, diaspora, and ethically motivated users seeking secure, transparent, and interest-free financial tools.
Tweezr
Tweezr turns legacy code into system knowledge and business process maps, helping banks deliver safer core changes faster while avoiding risky big-bang programs.
Features
Presents explainable impact analysis and dependencies
Delivers business process maps and feature evolution
Offers incident investigation with end-to-end traceability
We’re more than halfway through the first month of the year, and topics like AI and stablecoins continue to dominate both the headlines and the mindshare in fintech. Below, we’ve aggregated the top news in fintech for the week. We’ll continue to add more announcements as the week progresses.
Feedzai and Matrix USA are launching a Center of Excellence to deliver a standardized, repeatable approach to help financial institutions deploy fraud and AML solutions.
The partnership addresses the growing AI-driven fraud threat, as more than 50% of fraudsters now use AI.
By combining AI-native technology with deep implementation expertise, the companies aim to help banks modernize fraud and AML programs at speed and scale without disrupting day-to-day operations.
Risk management solutions provider Feedzai is teaming up with advisory and technology services company Matrix USA to help financial institutions fight the rising threats of fraud and money laundering.
The two companies are collaborating on a Center of Excellence that will create a standardized approach to deploying fraud and anti-money laundering (AML) solutions.
Highlighting the need for fraud prevention strategies that can keep pace with increasingly sophisticated threats, Feedzai Co-Founder and CEO Nuno Sebastião said AI has permanently reshaped the financial crime landscape. “AI has changed the fraud landscape forever, and financial institutions need solutions that can evolve just as quickly. That requires advanced technology with the right expertise to put it to work effectively. Together, Feedzai and Matrix USA will help financial institutions translate powerful capabilities into real-world impact against sophisticated, AI-enabled financial crime.”
Feedzai was founded in 2011 as a risk operations platform specializing in identity verification, fraud prevention, and financial crime detection. The company’s AI-powered solutions span KYC, AML, watchlist screening, and transaction fraud monitoring to help financial institutions stop fraud in real time without compromising the customer experience. Today, Feedzai protects over one billion consumers in more than 190 countries and safeguards over $8 billion in transactions annually.
Founded in 2006, Matrix USA provides advisory services to help financial institutions prevent financial crime and stay compliant when leveraging agentic AI, AI and LLM, automation, and model validation tools. The New Jersey-based company operates in more than 20 countries and has implemented more than 1,000 projects.
With new advancements in AI becoming more accessible than ever, the partnership comes at a key time. According to research from Feedzai, more than 50% of fraudsters now use AI. When paired with banks’ outdated infrastructure, the enabling technology is widening the gap between increasingly sophisticated financial crime and the tools institutions have used for decades.
Regarding the pressure banks face as they modernize legacy systems, Matrix USA CEO Lior Blik said financial institutions must strengthen fraud and AML defenses without slowing business operations. “Financial institutions are under tremendous pressure to modernize their fraud and AML defenses without slowing down business. By pairing Feedzai’s industry-leading AI capabilities with our deployment and integration expertise, we’re giving customers a faster, more reliable path to advanced prevention and stronger compliance.”
By combining Feedzai’s AI-native financial crime prevention technology with Matrix USA’s implementation and advisory expertise, the two companies aim to deliver a structured, repeatable approach that helps financial institutions fight fraud and money laundering at speed and scale without disrupting day-to-day operations.
Heading into 2026, there are some challenges to banks, fintechs, and financial services companies that are almost universal. How can firms navigate regulatory uncertainty? What is the most sustainable pace for the adoption of enabling technologies like blockchain and AI—much less basic modernization and digital transformation? What do consumers expect from banks and financial services providers in 2026 and how can these institutions do a better job of serving them?
With FinovateEurope coming to London in less than a month, this week’s Finovate Global will examine these issues in the context of fintech in the United Kingdom. Future editions will look at how these trends are playing out in Western and Southern Europe, the Baltics, as well as Central and Eastern Europe.
Navigating Regulatory Complexity: Balancing Innovation and Risk
More than a decade later, the consequences of the UK’s decision to leave the European Union continue to reverberate throughout the region: and its financial sector is no exception. In the years since Brexit, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has created and implemented its own financial regulations, including guidelines for the use of enabling technologies like crypto assets and AI, that diverge from those in the EU.
The UK’s Financial Services and Markets Act (FSMA), for example, regulates stablecoins through use cases related to payments, whereas the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) Regulation, is broader, including asset-based tokens as well as e-money tokens. Policies in both regions have been credited for their emphasis on consumer protections. Nevertheless, some have suggested that the UK’s approach, by comparison, is more focused on balancing innovation with risk management, in alignment with the UK’s efforts to position itself as an international hub for digital finance.
Unsurprisingly, this pattern is also apparent in the differing approaches the UK and the EU have taken toward AI regulation in financial services. Whereas the UK’s approach seeks to grant more space for financial institutions and fintechs to experiment with AI technologies and relies on existing regulators (i.e., the FCA) to ensure compliance, the EU approach, with its AI Act, puts a primary focus on risk management. The Act itself categorizes AI systems by “risk levels” (high, limited, minimal) and mandates risk assessments, transparency disclosures, and compliance with other technical standards.
Accelerating Technological Transformation: Early Embrace Leads Broad Adoption
The UK’s early embrace of open banking has helped the region not only develop a robust open banking and finance ecosystem, but also has fueled its embedded finance industry. The combination of an active regulator in the FCA, innovations such as standardized APIs, and the availability of regulatory sandboxes have helped the UK reach a point where analysts believe its embedded finance market alone could double from 6.5 billion pounds ($8.7 billion) in 2024 to 15.8 billion pounds ($21 billion) by 2029. This far surpasses the EU’s embedded finance growth expectations of $194.6 million by 2030.
While fraud and cybersecurity threats are as much a concern in Europe as they are in the UK, the UK’s status as a major international financial hub also means that it suffers from a disproportionately high rate of cybercrime and fraud. Even innovations like Faster Payments have had the unfortunate consequence of making certain types of fraud—such as Authorized Push Payments (APP) scams—easier for cybercriminals to pull off. It is true that the UK does an exceptional job when it comes to fraud reporting; in the UK tracking and analyzing fraud data is more centralized compared to the EU where this data is predictably more fragmented. However, this alone does not account for the difference in fraud rates.
One area of transformation that still haunts much of the UK banking and financial services sector is the reliance on outdated infrastructure. The persistence of outdated core systems significantly limits the ability of banks and other financial services providers to innovate and scale. Successfully modernizing and digitizing their systems is key to enabling them to take advantage of some of the enabling technologies noted here: from AI and blockchain technology to faster payments and tougher cybersecurity protections.
It is true that both the UK and the EU suffer from more mainframe-based core banking infrastructure and layers of middleware than is beneficial to either region’s financial sector. This is especially true when the less developed areas of both—the UK’s north and the EU’s east—are taken into account. What is interesting is that the demand for modernization is greater in the UK, where there is both strong pressure from regulators and from increasingly digitally savvy consumers. The dominance of a few major banks in the UK also puts significant constraints on modernization, and encourages a tendency to innovate and modernize “around the core” rather than engage in wholesale replacement.
The UK banking and financial services customer is sophisticated, digitally savvy, and is willing to experiment with new banking and fintech innovations across payments, lending, investments, and more. Because of this, the UK enjoys a relatively high trust in banks, creating a virtuous circle that, along with these other factors, incentivizes innovation in financial services and a higher degree of engagement among financial services consumers.
As such, it is no surprise that the chief concern for UK banking consumers is financial crime and fraud. If anything, it is refreshing that a population open to new technologies and methods in an area as delicate as finance is similarly focused on ensuring that these new financial products and services are secure. Moreover, because fraud fears are a consistent, but not necessarily dominant concern, it is worth noting that much of what drives concerns over financial crime involve recent developments such as faster payments and greater personalization. In this light, it is clear that the key to ensuring continued adoption of innovations in fintech and financial services—for individuals as well as businesses—lies in a path to adoption that is accessible, transparent, regulated, and safe.
Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.
WeLab, a Pan-Asian fintech that operates a number of digital banks in the region, raised $220 million in a debt and equity round involving HSBC and Prudential.
Liminal Custody, a digital asset custody firm, joined the Fintech Association of Japan.
Temenos and Myanmar Citizens Bank partnered to fortify core banking operations and facilitate real-time payments.
Sub-Saharan Africa
Capital.com secured a license from Kenya’s Capital Markets Authority (CMA).
Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations de Côte d’Ivoire announced an investment in local fintech GREEN-PAY.
US fintech PayServices filed a lawsuit in US federal court against the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) over a failed banking and payments infrastructure modernization project.
Central and Eastern Europe
German insurtech Enzo raised an additional €4 million in seed extension funding.
CES is known for flashy gadgets and fun consumer technology. For most banks, CES is not a must-attend event because it does not focus on fintech and banking. There is, however, still value in attending the show, as emerging technologies can signal how customer expectations and new operating models are evolving.
U.S. Bank understands this and sent two executives, Don Relyea, Chief Innovation Officer, and Todder Moning, Head of R&D, Innovation, on a “Future Safari” to check out what’s new, what’s next, and what’s possible when it comes to implementing technologies.
After they returned to the office last week, we interviewed Relyea and Moning to unpack what CES 2026 revealed from a banker’s perspective. From embedded AI and robotics to agentic commerce and cross-industry convergence, they highlight new trends, unpack which were overhyped, and explain what bank leaders should be paying attention to over the next 12 to 24 months.
From a banker’s perspective, what signals did CES send this year about where technology investment is actually heading—and which trends felt more operationally real than hype?
Don Relyea and Todder Moning: Well, it’s safe to say the technology investment is increasing across the board. We love taking Future Safaris™ to CES because it is a great way to get ideas and see and follow emerging trends across many spaces that will allow us to improve the customer experience as well as integrate with other new tech innovations.
Trends that stuck out to our team this year include:
Everywhere Intelligence – Embedded in Everything: Artificial intelligence is no longer a standalone category—it’s being woven into devices large and small, at the edge (on-device) and in the cloud, turning ordinary products into smart, context-aware companions. In terms of potential financial implications, personalized financial assistants that understand behavior, spending patterns, and context could dramatically improve user experience and trust in the future. However, increased reliance on AI raises privacy, bias, and regulatory concerns—especially as financial decisions become automated.
Digital Health/Wellness/Longevity Tech: Tech that senses, analyzes, and predicts health was signposted at CES 2025 and carries into 2026 with smarter biofeedback devices. We see healthcare as connected to financial services and even have a saying: “healthcare is wealth care.” Money is emotional and has impacts on people, their families, and businesses, both good and bad, and helping to reach better wealth care outcomes (financial outcomes) positively impacts people’s health and wellness.
The convergence of AI, wearables, brain interfaces, and other age-tech are going to extend life. There is an opportunity for banks to weave that into a more holistic planning process for our clients. We also saw numerous wearables and other AI-based innovations that monitor various metrics and values to inform you about health risks or concerns. This is relevant because there is a strong correlation between physical health and financial health. These innovations could also help catch costly medical problems before they occur, saving people money and stress. For example, transaction metrics could flag early signs of dementia or an eldercare abuse issue.
Robots for industrial and home use: The resurgence of robotics was the most visible trend at CES this year. “Embodied AI” or what some call “Physical AI” are catchier names for intelligent robotics. We’re seeing tons of AI and far more robotics this year than in prior years, and as the two domains merge more deeply, a wave of AI-enabled, more general purpose, and often more human-like robotics solutions are emerging.
Robots, humanoid, non-humanoid, and robotic exoskeletons that you wear are graduating from controlled environments to unstructured, real-world contexts—folding laundry, navigating homes, manufacturing or even autonomous vehicles.
Looking ahead: CES shows a shift from gadget splendor to system-wide integration—everything is connected and intelligent. AI, robotics and immersive interfaces are converging—not just making things “smart” but connecting behaviors, identities and environments.
As CES showcased advances in consumer hardware, AI assistants, and connected devices, what new expectations do you think customers will bring back to their financial institutions?
Relyea and Moning: You’re hitting on two of the five themes about why we like to take Future Safaris and why CES is one of the best—what we call lateral and longitudinal. At CES, we’re able to see many industries and domains in a concentrated amount of time. Taking the lateral view, we see what and how numerous industries use similar technologies to do something. This is a great way to collect and curate direct or indirect ways that you can do metaphorically similar things in your future, industry and domain of interest.
On the longitudinal view, if you’re in a place and time where lots of technologies, developments, or business models are present, it’s a great opportunity to gauge how each technology, development, or business model is changing over time. This was the bank’s 15th year at CES, which allows us to gauge how each technology or development is changing over time. Are robots getting better and more useful, or are they developing slowly (or worse, stalled and in decline)? Is AI advancing and if so, in what places and ways? Is a touted technology delivering against the hype, or is it prancing around with no real innovation use. In Texas, we call the latter “big hat, no cattle.”
The big idea is that technology, design, and experiences are erasing the barriers and boundaries between industries. If one comes to expect what’s possible to do in one industry, business, or product, they will likely come to expect that for other industries and businesses. That’s the kind of meta-trending we try to find and then apply to what that means for banks and financial services going forward.
Customer interactions continue to become increasingly digital and increasingly enabled by AI and sensors, and U.S. Bank is at the leading edge of visioning where tech is headed and what our customers need from us—as we provide the technology and guidance that make their financial lives simpler and more convenient. We’re proud to have one of the longest running dedicated innovation practices in banking today.
AI being embedded in everything is going to raise the bar for consumer expectations of what good is. This year AI was not front and center at CES, it was embedded and improving the automation of consumer devices in subtle and easy to use and easy to access ways. Think rings, pins, and business card form factors that you can talk to (that may or may not connect to other devices or the cloud) and ask them to transcribe, translate, make PowerPoints, fill out forms, manage calendars, and many other things. This is going to raise the expectations of customers that more should be done for them.
Did you notice fintech concepts like embedded finance, identity, or real-time payments showing up inside non-financial technology at CES?
Relyea and Moning: Yes, we saw things like an AI-enabled oven that helps you grocery shop for ingredients.
We saw several biometric payment checkout interfaces. These were easy to use and set up and could be integrated into anything requiring identity and payments pretty easily.
We saw biometric technology using keyboard behavior that could help flag a significant behavior change in an employee (for example), who is either under duress or as a disgruntled employee could make poor decisions impacting the business. Another example we saw is asset-tracking technology that could be used off-grid, to say track trucks, railcars, mining equipment, etc.
For the majority of bank leaders who didn’t attend CES, what is one emerging theme from the show that you think will impact financial services over the next 12 to 24 months, and why?
Relyea and Moning: I’d say the embedding of AI into devices and what has started happening in agentic commerce. Devices of all sorts are showing signs of becoming commerce orchestrators and agents for customers—and it’s a short jump from there to having devices become a type of customer. Many of the things we see at CES come with subscriptions—for instance, the longevity mirror I used came with an annual subscription for you and your family to use its AI data and models. You can imagine that many of these monthly or annual subscriptions we might have in the future. Are you going to manage all of those, or will the device manage it for you with limited spending capabilities you provide it?
Tell us about the coolest non-banking use of technology you saw at CES?
Relyea and Moning: I think the exoskeletons were really cool. Don was able to wear the leg ones that helped him climb stairs much easier and faster. I was able to wear one on my back and hips that helped me to pick up a heavy item with ease. I also liked the sustainable printed battery that was paper thin. It could be embedded into most anything and power airtags in things like your passport carrier, purse, wallet, that kind of thing. And when you throw it away, it is completely compostable.
And we always love the autonomous mobility work that the big agricultural and construction/mining brands show—autonomous combines with autonomous hoppers that keep pace with the combine, and AI-assisted and autonomous Bobcats and construction excavators. It just shows how autonomous mobility is happening, even if its pace is slower than was originally expected at the beginning of the decade.
