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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
If financial crashes are inevitable, then is there any way to anticipate them and mitigate their negative impacts—to say nothing of preventing them from happening in the first place?
Answering this question is Linda Yueh, Fellow in Economics at Oxford University and author of The Great Crashes: Lessons from Global Meltdowns and How to Prevent Them. In this interview, conducted earlier this year at FinovateEurope, Yueh provides a three-step framework for identifying and mitigating financial crises. She also discusses the relationship between Big Tech, decentralized finance, and traditional finance, and how competition between these forces will foster innovation and economic growth.
Every crisis starts with a bubble, and bubbles repeat themselves mostly because of FOMO, “fear of missing out” … (T)he real danger is if you pile in because of FOMO, and you do it with debt. Because then, when the bubble bursts, that’s the second phase, the resolution. And that’s really challenging because it depends on having credible policies and credible policymakers.
A fellow in Economics at the University of Oxford and an Adjunct Professor of Economics at the London Business School, Linda Yueh is an economist, writer, and broadcaster. Her latest book, The Great Crashes: Lessons from Global Meltdowns and How to Prevent Them, was named to the Financial Times’ “The Best New Books in Economics” roster. Her previous book, The Great Economists: How Their Ideas Can Help Us Today, was named one of The Times’s Best Business Books of the Year.
AI is reshaping not just products but the very way product teams operate. To explore how the rise of AI is changing the role of the product manager, we sat down with Senior Tech Product Lead Bhoomika Ghosh. to get a better idea of the necessary balance between data and human intuition, and what ethical leadership looks like in the AI era.
A passionate technologist with a background spanning engineering, consulting, and product management, Ghosh has led product innovation at the intersection of AI/ML and customer experience. Her fascination with technology’s ability to solve human challenges began early in her career, wherein as an undergraduate, she developed an application that transformed 2D MRI slices into 3D models, helping doctors accurately identify tumor locations and volumes. This early venture sparked Ghosh’s passion for building technology that creates meaningful impact efficiently, and at scale.
We’re thrilled to feature her insights ahead of her appearance at FinovateSpring, where she will speak on the panel exploring gender diversity and responsible AI leadership.
AI is changing how products are built, but how is it changing how product managers operate?
Bhoomika Ghosh: The evolution of product management in this AI era has been nothing short of transformative. While our north star as a product manager (PM) remains unchanged—i.e., solving customer problems and delivering utmost value to customers—what has shifted is how we navigate towards that vision with AI. I see two dimensions of AI transformation within the product management space: first, we see a rise in product managers who leverage AI as a productivity accelerator. Tools like Bolt and Cursor are revolutionizing our prototyping capabilities, reducing prototype development cycles from weeks to mere hours, and initial design times by 35%. This efficiency gain allows PMs to invest more time in understanding deeper emotional user needs and ensuring our products create genuine value. Second, we see AI-enhanced PMs, who are using AI to fundamentally transform customer experiences in ways we never imagined. For example, Microsoft’s 365 Copilot leverages AI to revolutionize customer service interactions, which resulted in a 40% reduction in resolution time through AI-powered insights and recommendations. Looking ahead, I see AI enhancing our ability to make better quality and higher quantity decisions faster and evolve with customers in real time to deliver what matters the most to them.
What role does human intuition play in AI product management?
Ghosh: In today’s rapidly evolving tech landscape, AI adoption has surged from 33% to 65% in just the past year—making the role of human intuition in product management more crucial than ever. While AI excels at processing vast amounts of data and automating routine tasks, our uniquely human capabilities of judgment, critical thinking, and empathy remain irreplaceable. Take the evolution of customer service chatbots, for instance. While AI can handle >50% of routine inquiries, it’s the human product managers who recognize that customers need occasional human intervention for complex emotional situations, leading to hybrid human and AI solutions. This exemplifies what I call the “PM’s AI Trilogy of Responsibility,” where product managers in the AI world are now responsible to safeguard customer trust, ensure scalable efficiency, and measure genuine success beyond just automation metrics. The irony isn’t lost on me that in pursuing “artificial” intelligence, we’ve heightened the importance of “human” intelligence.
Let’s talk leadership. How do you think the rise of AI is reshaping what good leadership looks like in product and technology teams?
Ghosh: In the AI era, product and technical leadership demand a fundamental reimagining of how we guide teams and build products. What’s fascinating is that while 92% of global business leaders report positive ROI from their AI investments, success isn’t purely about technological implementation—it’s about creating an environment where both innovation and ethical considerations flourish. We see that the most successful AI products emerge from teams where leaders have mastered the delicate balance between data-driven decision-making and human empathy. Take Netflix’s AI-powered recommendation system, which generates $1 billion in annual value not just through algorithmic excellence, but through leaders who understood the critical intersection of technical capability and user psychology. This exemplifies how modern tech leadership requires a dual focus: pushing technological boundaries while staying deeply anchored in customer impact and responsible AI practices. As we navigate this transformation, I also see good leadership exuded in a way where teams are taught to watch over their shoulders and think beyond the happy path scenarios. For instance, what happens if AI was to fail? What would be your contingency plans? These tenets will help leaders foster an environment where teams feel empowered to innovate responsibly, ensuring our products genuinely enhance human experiences.
Many industries beyond big tech are leveraging AI. What advice would you give to product teams in a traditional industry like finance who are building their first AI-driven solutions?
Ghosh: The financial sector’s AI transformation offers powerful lessons for product teams embarking on their AI journey. While our brains might be the most sophisticated decision-making system, AI serves as a powerful amplifier of human capabilities, particularly in areas like fraud detection, personalized banking experiences, and risk assessment. In my experience, the key to approaching AI implementation is to solve specific customer pain points, and not solely use it as a technological showcase or a competitive advantage. I suggest AI implementation using a three-pronged approach. First, start with well-defined, high-impact use cases where AI can demonstrably improve customer experience rather than implementing AI for its own sake. Second, build cross-functional teams that blend domain expertise with AI capabilities. For instance, when developing AI-powered fraud detection systems, its combination with financial security expertise and machine learning capabilities enables real-time transaction monitoring and anomaly detection, protecting both customers and institutional integrity. Finally, and most crucially, establish robust feedback loops with your customers early in the development process. I often challenge teams to consider, “How would this feature feel to a user having their worst day?” This perspective is particularly vital in finance, where AI decisions can significantly impact people’s lives. I’ve seen the most successful AI adoption use cases aren’t simply using the technology, but rather building trust through it using transparent, ethical, and user-centric solutions.
Finally, what aspect of FinovateSpring are you most looking forward to?
Ghosh: I’m particularly excited about participating in the gender diversity panel at FinovateSpring, where we’ll explore the crucial intersection of diverse leadership and responsible AI development across industries. As a woman leader in tech, I advocate that diverse voices in product development aren’t just about equity or quotas, but rather about building better, more comprehensive solutions that serve entire customer bases. Beyond the panel, I’m looking forward to engaging with fellow industry leaders about responsible AI implementation in fintech. As we see AI adoption in financial services growing at an unprecedented rate, the conversations around ethical AI development and secure deployment become increasingly critical. I’m eager to both share insights from successful AI implementations I’ve seen and learn from other organizations’ experiences in navigating this complex landscape.
Don’t miss your chance to hear Bhoomika Ghosh, along with a wide range of other thought leaders and experts, on the FinovateSpring stage next month on May 7 through 9. Tickets are now available!
The challenge of third-party risk in financial services was one of the biggest stories in 2024. From the fallout from the Synapse bankruptcy to the data breaches at firms such as Fidelity and Finastra, banks, fintechs, and financial services alike have been put on notice to put greater scrutiny on whom and how they forge partnerships.
These challenges have only become more intense this year. While regulations are tightening in Europe and the UK, a more permissive regulatory environment is developing in the US. How can banks, fintechs, and financial services companies navigate this emerging landscape to bring new products and services to customers while ensuring that their data and finances are safe?
We interviewed Jenna Wells, Chief Operating Officer with Supply Wisdom, to talk about the issue of third-party risk management in financial services in 2025. Wells talks about how third-party risk in financial services is evolving, and what companies need to do in order to better manage it.
Headquartered in New York and founded in 2017, Supply Wisdom made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2022. The company helps businesses better manage risk and build operational resilience. Supply Wisdom provide continuous full-spectrum third-party and location risk intelligence and risk actions in real-time to prevent disruptions, enhance risk management efficiency, and lower costs. Tom Thimot is CEO.
Our conversation with Jenna Wells is also the final installment of Finovate’s commemoration of Women’s History Month for 2025. Previous interviews include our Q&As with Tracy Moore of Fenergo and with Stav Levi-Neumark of Alta.
What are the current challenges your customers are facing?
Jenna Wells: The biggest challenge our customers face today is the sheer complexity and speed at which third-party risks are evolving. As a whole, companies are under immense pressure to monitor their vendors, suppliers, and other third parties more effectively across financial, cyber, ESG, geopolitical, and operational risk domains without adding significant costs or delays to their business processes. Traditional risk assessment methods, which rely on periodic reviews and self-reported questionnaires, are no longer sufficient in an era where threats emerge in real time and rarely any warning.
Additionally, companies are struggling with regulatory compliance, particularly with new frameworks like DORA in the EU, new AI risks and regulations, and emerging cyber risk mandates. Many organizations simply lack the tools, resources, or expertise to stay ahead of these challenges.
Lastly, the evolving geopolitical landscape and regulatory environment require companies to keep an eye out for location-specific risks on top of the traditional domains. Monitoring third parties alone is no longer sufficient—you must monitor the locations that they are operating from!
Can you talk about the challenge of third-party risk specifically, which became a major concern in 2024?
Wells: Third-party risk became a critical concern in 2024, exposing just how fragile global supply chains can be. This was starkly evident in global events like the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore and earthquakes in Taiwan, which disrupted key transportation routes and severely impacted businesses dependent on the affected port. Companies with suppliers, logistics partners, and critical infrastructure tied to these regions faced massive operational slowdowns, financial losses, and regulatory challenges. These disruptions reinforced a key lesson: risks stemming from a single geographic point of failure can have widespread consequences across all industries.
Static, periodic risk assessments are no longer enough. The new standard is continuous, real-time risk monitoring that provides visibility into financial stability, cybersecurity, compliance, and operational resilience—not just for direct suppliers, but across the entire supply network.
This shift is particularly crucial in industries reliant on complex, geographically dispersed supply chains, where a localized disaster—whether infrastructure failure, geopolitical instability, or extreme weather—can ripple outward, affecting entire markets. The challenge is no longer just about assessing third parties. It’s about identifying vulnerabilities deep in the supply chain.
How does Supply Wisdom help companies manage these risks?
Wells: Supply Wisdom provides real-time, AI-driven continuous monitoring across seven critical risk domains: financial, operational, compliance, cyber, sustainability, Nth party, and location-based risks. Instead of relying on outdated, self-reported assessments, or the need to use multiple tools to monitor single domains, we aggregate and analyze data from hundreds of thousands of open sources, giving our customers a live, always-on view of their third-party supplier and critical ecosystem.
By leveraging AI to turn massive amounts of data into actionable intelligence, we enable organizations to identify emerging risks early, mitigate issues proactively, and avoid costly disruptions. Our platform reduces the manual burden of risk management, allowing teams to focus on strategic decision-making rather than chasing data.
Supply Wisdom recently published its top 10 predictions for third-party risk management in 2025. Of those predictions, which do you think is the least conventional?
Wells: One of the more unconventional predictions is the rise of “Nth-party accountability” as a regulatory and business priority. Until now, companies have focused primarily on direct third-party risks, but regulators and stakeholders are increasingly scrutinizing deeper layers of the supply chain. This includes fourth, fifth, and even sixth-party risks.
As supply chains become more interconnected and reliant on subcontractors, understanding who your third parties depend on and where they are located has become just as critical as assessing the vendors themselves. Geographical risks like political instability, natural disasters, regulatory changes, and ESG concerns can have cascading impacts throughout the supply chain, even if they originate at the Nth-party level.
We anticipate that in 2025, organizations will be expected to not only monitor but also take responsibility for the risk posture of their vendors’ vendors. This requires real-time visibility into where these extended third parties operate and the regional risks that may affect them. This shift demands an entirely new approach to risk visibility, and Supply Wisdom is already helping companies address this challenge with location-based monitoring, real-time risk intelligence, and deep Nth-party insights.
What role do technologies like AI and strategies like predictive risk modeling play in Supply Wisdom’s approach to risk management and intelligence?
Wells: AI and predictive risk modeling are foundational to how we help companies stay ahead of emerging threats. Our AI-powered platform continuously scans and analyzes millions of risk signals across financial, cyber, ESG, geopolitical, and operational domains, detecting anomalies and trends that may indicate potential threats before they materialize into full-blown crises.
Predictive risk modeling and trend analysis takes this further by using historical data, machine learning algorithms, and real-time signals to forecast risks before they impact business operations. For example, we can predict financial distress in a vendor before it becomes public knowledge or identify early signs of operational instability in a supplier’s key locations.
In short, Supply Wisdom stands for proactive risk management and innovation. We’re known in the industry as the only full-stack risk intelligence platform that provides real-time, continuous monitoring with actionable insights.
A wave of new regulatory policies is coming, particularly in the EU. Are you optimistic about the new policies? Do you feel as if organizations are ready to comply?
Wells: I am optimistic about these policies because they are pushing organizations towards a higher standard of operational resilience and risk management. Regulations like DORA in the EU are reinforcing the idea that businesses cannot afford to be passive when it comes to third-party risk—they need real-time, continuous oversight. However, I don’t think most organizations are fully prepared for these changes.
A majority of organizations do not have a complete inventory of their third parties or outsourced services and, without this, they cannot ensure compliance with these regulations. Unfortunately, it’s most likely that these companies still rely on outdated, static assessment models that won’t meet compliance requirements.
The good news is that regulatory clarity is driving investment in solutions like Supply Wisdom, which help organizations not only meet compliance mandates but also improve their overall risk posture in the process.
In the US, there is more uncertainty about which direction regulations are likely to go. What do you see happening with financial services and fintech regulation in the US this year?
Wells: If US firms want to compete and do business in Europe; they need to comply with those specific mandates. But unlike the EU—which has taken a structured approach with DORA—the US regulatory landscape is evolving in a more fragmented manner. However, we expect to see increased scrutiny from agencies like the SEC, OCC, and CFPB on third-party risk, particularly in areas like cyber resilience and AI disclosures.
The financial services and fintech sectors will likely see more pressure around vendor risk management, with a greater emphasis on continuous monitoring, and incident reporting requirements. As regulatory guidance increases, companies will need to be proactive in adopting best practices that align with global compliance trends, rather than waiting for enforcement actions to dictate their next steps.
What are your near-term goals for Supply Wisdom?
Wells: My immediate focus is on accelerating customer adoption of continuous risk monitoring. We want to ensure that organizations not only understand the importance of real-time risk intelligence through continuous monitoring, but also have the tools to integrate it seamlessly into their existing workflows.
Additionally, I’m prioritizing scaling our operations to meet the growing demand for proactive risk management solutions. That means enhancing our AI capabilities, monitoring for AI as an emerging risk, expanding our risk intelligence coverage, and strengthening our partnerships with other industry leaders.
What can we expect from Supply Wisdom in 2025?
Wells: 2025 will be a transformational year for Supply Wisdom and the third-party risk management industry as a whole. We are investing heavily in AI-driven risk prediction, enhanced regulatory compliance automation, and planning ways to go deeper and wider into Nth-party risk visibility.
You can also expect to see more partnerships with technology and service providers to create a more integrated risk management ecosystem. Our goal is to make continuous risk monitoring the new standard, so that businesses can operate with greater confidence, resilience, and agility in an increasingly complex world.
The rage over regtech is real. In response to growing customer demands, emerging financial crime threats, and attempts by regulatory bodies to manage both of these developments, the field of regulatory compliance has never been more topical in financial services.
To this end, we interviewed banking and financial services compliance veteran Tracy Moore. Director of Thought Leadership & Regulatory Affairs at Fenergo, Moore joins the Finovate blog to provide her perspective on the regulatory environment for banks, fintechs, and financial services companies in 2025.
As part of Finovate’s commemoration of Women’s History Month, we also discuss issues of gender diversity in banking and financial services, and the role of mentorship in helping foster future leaders in the industry.
Can you tell us a little about yourself and the work you do at Fenergo?
Tracy Moore: I began my career in corporate legal training, specializing in finance and treasury transactions. My journey took me to Europe, where I transitioned into banking, spending much of my career in legal and compliance roles at global financial institutions. Upon returning to the U.S., I continued this path at a super-regional bank, gaining extensive experience in regulatory compliance and financial crime risk management.
Today, I serve as the Director of Thought Leadership & Regulatory Affairs at Fenergo, the global leader in Client Lifecycle Management (CLM) technology for financial institutions. In this role, I focus on financial crime risk management, regulatory change, and digital transformation, helping institutions solve for complex regulatory environments while enhancing operational efficiency.
I am deeply passionate about influencing industry change and driving technological advancements that make the financial sector safer and more resilient. My work involves collaborating with global regulators, financial institutions, and technology providers to develop innovative solutions that protect the industry against financial crime. I help connect regulation and technology to shape the future of compliance and risk management in today’s financial landscape.
What is it about the field of banking compliance that you find most interesting professionally?
Moore: I find it fascinating how geopolitical events shape the global financial industry, influencing not just regulatory frameworks but also presenting new challenges, such as financial crime and evolving risk landscapes. Today’s economy is so interconnected, and this means that financial institutions must constantly shift to address challenges such as sanctions, emerging threats, and evolving compliance requirements.
What truly interests me is the delicate balance financial institutions must strike meeting regulatory expectations, staying ahead of increasingly sophisticated bad actors, driving revenue growth, and ensuring safe financial services for their clients. Achieving this balance requires a combination of strategic foresight, innovation, and collaboration across the industry. Everyday has a new perspective and new challenges.
How has banking compliance changed over the course of your career in the industry?
Moore: Looking back over the past 25 years, the evolution of banking compliance has been nothing short of dramatic. When I started my career, compliance was often seen as a back-office function, more about checking boxes than driving change. Fast forward to today, and compliance has become a core pillar of financial institutions, shaping everything from risk management to customer experience.
One of the biggest shifts of course has been technology advancements. Alongside this, the sheer pace and complexity of regulatory change. Events like 9/11, the 2008 financial crisis, and major geopolitical shifts have completely reshaped the regulatory landscape. We’ve moved from more localized, paper-based processes to a hyper-digital, data-driven, and globally interconnected approach to compliance.
As a woman in this industry, I’ve also witnessed the growing role of diverse leadership in compliance and risk management. The field has evolved beyond traditional legal and audit backgrounds to welcome technologists, data analysts, and strategic thinkers, many of whom are women bringing fresh perspectives to a historically male-dominated space.
Issues (and innovation) in banking compliance have never been more top of mind. How have we arrived at this point, and is it a good thing for banks and their customers?
Moore: We’re here because the stakes have never been higher. Over the past two decades, a mix of financial crises, evolving threats, digital disruption, and geopolitical shifts has pushed compliance to the forefront. Regulators have responded with increasingly complex expectations, bringing the role of compliance into strategic planning for financial institutions.
This pressure has fuelled innovation.
AI, automation, and data analytics are transforming compliance, reducing manual processes, improving risk detection, and enhancing the customer experiences. Banks are now able to onboard clients faster, monitor activity in real time, and anticipate threats before they escalate.
For banks, it’s both a challenge and an opportunity. Compliance is tougher than ever, but those who embrace technology can gain a competitive edge. And for customers stronger compliance means better security, smoother transactions, and more trust in the system.
Seeing this shift firsthand is what lead me to make the decision to leave the traditional compliance role in banking and join Fenergo because I knew technology would be the driving force behind the future of compliance, and I wanted to be part of this transformation.
How do AI and automation create new compliance challenges for banks? In what ways can firms use these technologies to address compliance issues?
Moore: AI and automation can streamline compliance, but they also raise concerns both from regulators and banks themselves. Many institutions are skeptical, worrying about black-box decision-making, regulatory scrutiny, and potential biases.
The key challenge is explainability. Regulators need to understand how AI-driven decisions are made, so firms must prioritize transparency, clear documentation, and strong oversight.
That said, when used responsibly, AI can enhance risk detection, automate manual tasks, and improve compliance efficiency. The solution lies in communication by working with regulators to ensure AI models are interpretable, auditable, and aligned with compliance standards.
What areas of banking compliance do you think deserve more attention than they are getting?
Moore: Emerging digital assets and global regulatory alignment are two areas that need far more attention in banking compliance. The rapid rise of crypto, tokenization, and digital payments has outpaced regulatory frameworks, leaving financial institutions in a tough spot. How do you innovate while staying compliant in an environment where the rules are still being written? Without clear, consistent guidelines, banks are hesitant to fully engage, creating uncertainty for the entire industry.
At the same time, jurisdictional differences make compliance incredibly burdensome in today’s global economy. Financial crime doesn’t stop at borders, but regulations do, forcing banks to navigate a patchwork of requirements that slow down operations and increase costs. More global alignment and collaboration between regulators could ease this burden, ensuring that compliance is both effective and practical in a world where money moves faster than ever.
And lastly, the evolving nature of financial crime. Criminals are getting more sophisticated, using everything from deepfake identities to crypto mixing services to evade detection. Compliance programs need to move beyond traditional rule-based approaches and embrace real-time, predictive intelligence to stay ahead.
What are your thoughts on the progress made—or not made—toward greater gender diversity in banking in recent years? Are you optimistic about the future of women in banking, particularly in areas like compliance?
Moore: Women in banking, especially in compliance, have made progress, but not nearly enough. Too often, diversity is overlooked as a business advantage instead of recognized for the value it brings. In today’s geopolitical and financial environment, organizations need diverse perspectives to navigate risk and drive innovation, yet those perspectives are still dismissed.
Despite this, I am optimistic. Women are smart, resilient, and persistent. We continue to prove our expertise in ways that cannot be ignored. Compliance is an area where women thrive because it demands strategic thinking, problem-solving, and leadership under pressure.
Real change will happen when companies move beyond surface-level efforts and embrace diversity as a competitive advantage. Women will keep breaking barriers, whether the industry is ready or not.
Mentorship can play a key role in helping women entering financial services or launching fintechs. Did mentorship play a significant role in your early career? What message would you give to banking and financial services professionals when it comes to sharing their insights and experience as mentors?
Moore: Mentorship has been invaluable in my career. I have always sought out mentors and sponsors—both men and women—who could guide my development and challenge me to grow. Beyond that, I have chosen a personal board of directors: female professional leaders across various industries who have provided insight, support, and perspective at every stage of my journey.
For those in banking and financial services, mentorship is more than just giving advice or sharing a coffee. It is about opening doors, advocating for talent, and sharing real, honest experiences. The next generation of female leaders is watching and learning. It is up to us to make sure they feel supported, empowered, and ready to step forward.
What happens when an ongoing revolution in payment innovation meets a regulatory regime determined to ensure secure and safe transactions for individual consumers, business entities, and even governments? This is the payments landscape in the UK and EU in 2025. As a proliferation of payment options promises to streamline banking and commerce, regulators, fintechs, and financial services companies are looking for ways to make sure that the challenges to these new payment options—from technical complexity to new forms of fraud and financial crime—are met.
To discuss these and other issues involving payments and the emerging regulatory environment, we caught up with Stuart Neal, Chief Executive Officer of Boku. Appointed CEO in January of 2024, Neal previously served as the company’s Chief Financial Officer and Chief Business Officer of Boku’s Identity Division. A champion of payment choice, Boku supports a global network of localized payment solutions, including Direct Carrier Billing (DCB), digital wallets, and account-to-account connections. Founded in 2008, Boku is headquartered in London.
Local Payment Methods (LPMs) have proliferated around the world over the past decade. Socially and technologically, what has powered this growth?
Stuart Neal: Local Payment Methods (LPMs) have had a meteoric rise over the past decade. It’s hard to overstate what a significant and rapid change we’ve seen, and behind it are two main driving forces: changing consumer preferences and rapid technological innovation.
Payments as an industry is finally beginning to reflect the diversity of people’s preferences around the world. And that’s a really positive development. It’s fair to say that traditional financial systems left many people and communities underserved, but LPMs—from mobile wallets in Africa to RTP schemes like UPI in India—bridge this gap, and they’re empowering billions of consumers to participate in the digital economy. This financial inclusion is great for society, for merchants and for the payments industry as a whole.
At Boku, we want to be at the heart of this transformation. People just want convenience, and we’re here to help them buy what they want, the way they want. With one of the biggest LPM networks in the world, we’re making it easier than ever for global merchants to meet consumers where they are.
Looking at Europe specifically, what role has the European Payments Initiative (EPI) played in driving this trend?
Neal: While still in its early stages, the European Payments Initiative (EPI) is playing a crucial role in reshaping the EU payment landscape. Its focus on creating a unified, pan-European payment solution, fostering instant payments, acquiring established players like iDEAL and Payconiq, and advocating for regulatory changes positions it as a future leader in European payments. By competing with global giants, EPI is pushing Europe toward a more integrated, efficient, and competitive payment system. However, full market transformation will likely take a few more years, with real change expected in 2025.
So far the EPI has excelled in laying the groundwork for this payments evolution by clearly articulating its vision and aligning strategically with the key pillars of ecommerce. By fostering strong relationships with merchants, PSPs, and issuing banks, EPI is now in a great position to effect significant change and shape the future of digital payments across Europe.
Part of this was the launch of the real-time payment system Wero last summer. Can you tell us a little about the significance of the Wero launch and how adoption has been so far?
Neal: The Wero Wallet, launched by the European Payments Initiative (EPI), serves as a strong entry into the EU market with the goal of unifying Europe’s fragmented payment landscape. Initially focusing on person-to-person (P2P) payments, Wero will expand to e-commerce in 2025 and in-store payments by 2026, offering various options such as instant payments, installment plans, and subscriptions. With the acquisitions of Dutch payment solution iDEAL and Luxembourg-based Payconiq International or the transition of the former Paylib P2P user base in France to Wero, EPI / Wero is well-positioned for success. However, EPI has opted for a phased market rollout, like what we have seen by other payment schemes in the past, starting with smaller-scale P2P launches in countries like Germany and France, while the true transformation is expected to unfold in 2025. Notably, these acquisitions continue to operate under their original brands, allowing for organic user growth before transitioning fully to Wero.
Has adoption of Wero been uniform across Europe or have some markets remained more reluctant? What distinguishes the eager adopters from the more cautious?
Neal: This is an interesting question, and one that will be clearer by the end of 2025, when we can fully assess the impact of Wero’s initial e-commerce launches. However, what we can say so far is that Wero’s adoption has been strongly shaped by key market dynamics. Starting in July 2024, users of participating German banks were able to sign up for Wero, with Belgium following suit by the end of 2024, also seeing gradual, organic growth. Around the same time, Wero benefited from a significant boost in France, where the transition from Paylib to Wero provided a built-in user base of approximately 35 million registered Paylib users. Looking ahead, the exit of local payment schemes like Giropay in Germany is expected to reshape the competitive landscape, presenting new opportunities for Wero to establish itself as a leading player in the market.
What can be done to encourage broader acceptance of solutions like Wero and less reliance on cards?
Neal: Accessibility is key to the adoption of anything. And if solutions like Wero are to be more broadly adopted, they must become more accessible for consumers and merchants. So to start with we need to integrate these solutions seamlessly into merchant payment ecosystems and do so in a way that matches–or ideally betters–the convenience of cards. You need a frictionless experience for people on both sides of the counter, as it were, if you want to drive adoption.
And then trust. When it comes to sending and receiving money, trust is non-negotiable. Wero and other solutions like it must be really secure, have robust fraud prevention, and partner with regulators to ensure compliance. When consumers and businesses feel confident, they’ll naturally shift to these modern, local payment methods.
The final piece is education and awareness. A lot of consumers, especially in places like the UK and the US, stick to cards out of habit. If it’s familiar and it works, why change right? That being said, in the last year we’ve seen a huge shift in payment habits and greater awareness and adoption of alternatives. Research by Juniper reveals that 60% of all ecommerce transactions will happen via local payment methods by 2028. To put that into context, it’s equivalent to $7 billion a year flowing through hundreds of different payment methods and away from the legacy card networks. Merchants and payment providers need to highlight the benefits of solutions like Wero—whether it’s lower fees, faster transactions, or better alignment with local preferences.
You have just concluded your first year as CEO of Boku. What are your biggest takeaways from the first year and what are you hoping for in 2025?
Neal: It’s been a whirlwind year for sure. I’m very proud of the progress we’ve made, which has been underpinned by the demand for more convenient payment solutions from consumers. From where we were at the start of 2024, we’ve positioned ourselves as one of the world’s largest and most innovative global networks for Local Payment Methods with significant expansion in key global markets and more significant launches planned for this year.
I think my biggest takeaways would be the size of the opportunity for LPMs and the interwoven nature of the industry. Collaboration is so important, between merchants, PSPs, local payment providers, and indeed consumers. All of these need to be on the same page for digital commerce to flow smoothly, which is why the breadth and depth of our network is so important.
Looking ahead to 2025, ecommerce is going to continue to grow as you’d expect. Research that we’ve commissioned actually estimates that the industry will reach an astonishing $10.6 trillion in value by 2028 (from $5.75 trillion today). Local payment methods are no longer an alternative, they are mainstream. For my part, and for Boku, our focus will be on continuing to innovate and scale our offering across Europe, APAC, Africa and Middle East, as well as some exciting planned launches for Latin America, all as part of our push and our mission to give people the freedom to buy what they want, the way they want.
Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.
Central and Southern Asia
Indian B2B Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) company Perfios acquired financial crime detection and risk management platform Claris5.
Pakistan fintech ABHI launched its microfinance bank.
Indian insurtech InsuranceDekho raised $70 million in a funding round co-led by existing investors including Beams Fintech Fund and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG).
International enablement and payments platform Nayax announced its strategic acquisition of Brazilian digital payments firm UPPay for $5.3 million.
Chilean fintech Banca.me locked in $3 million in new funding.
Asia-Pacific
CTBC Bank Philippines turned to Hitachi Asia to upgrade its digital corporate banking platform.
inDrive partnered with Fingular to launch its inDrive.Money solutions for customers in Indonesia.
Malaysia’s central bank and finance ministry granted licenses to a pair of new digital banks: KAF Digital Berhad and YTL Digital Bank Berhad.
Sub-Saharan Africa
Flutterwave secured a payment system license from the Bank of Zambia.
The Bank of Ghana and the National Bank of Rwanda inked an MoU to provide companies with a license passporting framework and cross-border payment interoperability.
Nigerian fintech ProsperaVest EGG introduced eNsc, a stablecoin pegged 1:1 to the Nigerian Naira.
Central and Eastern Europe
Lithuanian identity verification service iDenfy announced a partnership with Highvibes to help protect artists from fraud.
Online payment and checkout solutions provider Montonio expanded its partnership with Inbank to bring BNPL and Hire Purchase options to customers in Latvia and Lithuania.
Austrian Reporting Services (AuRep) teamed up with the Nasdaq to provide regulatory reporting technology and support to companies in Austria’s financial services industry.
Middle East and Northern Africa
UAE fintech Flow48 raised $69 million in combined debt and equity funding.
Egyptian fintech Khazna secured $16 million to power its expansion into Saudi Arabia.
Sadad teamed up with Mastercard to enhance digital payments in Qatar.
The regulatory landscape for financial promotions has become increasingly complex as regulators focus on ensuring that promotional materials are fair, transparent, and compliant. Today, both banks and fintechs are having to take a new approach tohow they create, approve, and distribute promotional content to avoid regulatory breaches and potential penalties, while still conveying their messaging.
In this exclusive interview recorded at FinovateEurope last week, Sage Franch, CEO of PromoComply, shares her insights into how firms can navigate this increased scrutiny, the importance of real-time compliance monitoring, and how technology is transforming the way financial promotions are managed.
“Regulators are really cracking down on non-compliant financial promotions,” said Franch. “And every financial organization that markets a financial product here in the UK has to comply with these. If they don’t, illegal financial promotion is a criminal offense and so the potential consequences are huge.”
PromoComply offers a comprehensive compliance automation platform designed specifically for the financial services sector, helping firms streamline the review and approval process for financial promotions. The platform uses AI-driven content analysis to automatically flag potential compliance risks, reducing the manual burden on compliance teams while enabling faster marketing campaign approvals. By integrating with existing content management systems, PromoComply ensures that compliance is embedded into every step of the promotional lifecycle.
As CEO and Co-Founder of PromoComply, Sage Franch brings a unique blend of technological expertise and regulatory insight to the world of financial services marketing compliance. With a background in software development and product management, Franch helps banks and fintechs leverage technology to simplify complex regulatory processes.
How can banks and financial services providers ensure that their loyalty programs are in sync with consumer behaviors and preferences? What is a loyalty ecosystem and how can financial institutions benefit from being a part of one?
We caught up with Becky Hill, President of Vanson Technology Services and former Senior Vice President of Loyalty at U.S. Bank. In our extended conversation – in partnership with William Mills – we discuss the power of loyalty in fostering long-term relationships and better customer engagement in financial services.
We also discuss loyalty when it comes to relationships between companies and their employees, and how engagement and sales incentive programs can help them retain top talent and develop greater organizational resilience.
Founded in 1997, Vanson Technology Services specializes in technology and software solutions for loyalty, channel incentive, and employee engagement programs. The Minneapolis, Minnesota-based company offers capabilities in points earning technology, fulfillment catalog management, email communications, site and data management, customer service and support, reporting, and more.
Tell us more about your professional experience. What were some of your major accomplishments and career highlights while working at U.S. Bank?
Becky Hill: Before joining Vanson Technology Services last summer, I spent most of my career in U.S. Bank’s payments division. Initially, I supported the credit card acquisition strategy for the bank’s consumer and small business programs. This gave me a solid understanding of the credit card profit and loss (P&L), which helped me gain insights into what drives consumer behavior and how to capture their interest. I learned that people expect banks to simplify complexities for them and that offers need to clearly show their value and benefits.
Later, my responsibilities included managing all aspects of the bank’s Rewards platform for internal and co-branded credit card programs that included a variety of cards like Cash+, FlexPerks, Fidelity and Harley-Davidson. I would partner with program managers to support acquisition, attrition, benefit, and redemption strategies to keep the bank’s cards top-of-wallet.
Why is it important to shape your loyalty programs around consumer behaviors and preferences?
Hill: Understanding consumer behavior is key to designing effective loyalty programs because people value convenience and consistency. Loyalty programs work best when they’re simple and easy to navigate, especially when it comes to redeeming rewards. Over the years, these programs have become more sophisticated but keeping them clear and straightforward is still the key to success.
How would you define a loyalty ecosystem?
Hill: A loyalty ecosystem brings together programs, technology, and partnerships to engage and reward customers and employees. It’s about simplifying the process while delivering meaningful value. For Vanson, this means offering an easily configurable rewards platform that helps companies transform their incentive programs into formal campaigns that drive employee motivation, enhance performance and longevity, and build brand loyalty. We believe a successful loyalty ecosystem is built on understanding behavior and providing clear, flexible incentives. It’s not just about rewards — it’s about fostering long-term relationships through transparency, simplicity, and thoughtful execution.
How can financial institutions be part of the loyalty ecosystem?
Hill: Financial institutions can play a key role in the loyalty ecosystem by partnering with loyalty platform providers to offer their clients Prepaid Rewards cards. These cards give consumers the flexibility to spend as they choose, while financial institutions can capitalize on revenue opportunities, such as interchange fees.
How is this ecosystem evolving in the near future?
Hill: Technology is always evolving, and loyalty programs will continue to focus on streamlining the end user experience for ease and convenience. Loyalty platforms will need to be flexible and have the capabilities to provide a variety of offerings from redemptions selection, gamification, educational lessons, experiences, and personalized communication strategy. Customer-centricity will continue to be a big part of the loyalty program technology evolution, especially as the industry starts to utilize AI-driven analytics to engage members.
Let’s talk about within companies. What does an effective employee and sales incentive program entail?
Hill: An effective employee engagement and sales incentive program requires the right technology. The technology should be straightforward, flexible, and tailored to support the specific needs of the program. It should be easy to implement, quick to deploy, and designed to drive engagement and performance without unnecessary complexity. Vanson offers a technology platform with configurable tools that provides self-administer options to drive results.
Equally important is having the right partner. A good partner provides valuable support throughout the journey, helping companies configure rewards to fit their unique needs and assisting with add-ons like developing email campaigns and enhancing engagement strategies. Together, the right technology and partnership can create a successful program.
Why should a company consider offering employee engagement and sales incentive programs?
Hill: Offering employee engagement and sales incentive programs is critical for retaining top talent and ensuring the resilience of your organization. People are motivated by more than just salary — they value recognition, work-life balance, and meaningful benefits. Incentive programs don’t have to be complex; even simple, day-to-day recognition can go a long way. It’s about creating a program that works for all employees, not just a select few. However, implementing these programs requires a cultural shift within the organization, combining both a change in mindset and the right technology to support it. Focusing on your employees’ needs and making them feel valued is key to long-term success.
You joined Vanson Technology Services less than a year ago. What tips and guidance can you provide other professionals who are transitioning industries?
Hill: I’ve had the unique opportunity to work on both the client side and now the vendor side of Loyalty programs across multiple industries. Being on this side — with firsthand knowledge of client expectations — has pushed me to think differently about what we deliver and how we meet client expectations. It’s also opened the door to more strategic conversations, like helping other loyalty companies within CORA Group’s portfolio expand into new verticals. At the end of the day, it’s about maintaining strong networks and staying open-minded to new opportunities.
What is your biggest piece of professional advice?
Hill: Always stay true to yourself and uphold your integrity. Take the time to identify the key decision-makers and those who truly understand what’s happening within your organization. Knowing who can make decisions and offer support is crucial — otherwise, you risk getting caught in unnecessary red tape. Building strong relationships and trust with your peers is essential, as effective leadership relies on the two-way flow of information. Above all, remain focused on what will move the business forward.
The regulatory landscape for fintechs and financial services companies operating in the European Union is expected to undergo significant changes this year, with new standards, guidelines, and rules governing payments, data privacy, digital assets, and more.
In this week’s edition of Finovate Global, we caught up with Maya Shabi, Senior Risk Strategist with EverC, a firm that provides tech-driven risk management solutions for ecommerce companies. In our extended conversation, Shabi discusses the policy and regulatory changes that are expected in the EU in 2025, what these changes are designed to achieve, and how they will impact fintechs, financial services companies, and their customers.
Founded in 2015, EverC offers a fully-automated, AI-driven, cross-channel risk management platform that helps drive growth for innovators in the online seller ecosystem. With domain expertise in risk intelligence, data science, and payments, EverC scans 30 million items a day — more than 10 billion products since inception — helping businesses detect and remove high-risk merchants, products, and services so they can safely grow and expand into new verticals and new markets.
In your opinion, did the regulatory environment of 2024 help or hinder innovation in fintech and financial services in the EU?
Maya Shabi: The EU’s regulatory push has been a double-edged sword for innovation in fintech and financial services. On the one hand, clear and consistent rules across member states have lowered barriers to entry, making it easier for fintech companies to collaborate, innovate, and scale across the EU. On the other hand, tighter regulations come with higher compliance costs and can limit the flexibility that’s often critical for driving rapid innovation. Given how quickly crime risks evolve in the financial sector, especially with the advent of AI, I see the overall impact of EU regulations as balanced — supporting innovation in some areas while slowing it down in others.
One early issue will be compliance with the Instant Payments Regulation (IPR). What is this policy about? What are the implementation challenges and what are the opportunities for those that get it right?
Shabi: The Instant Payment Regulation (IPR) is designed to make instant euro payments secure and accessible across the EU. Its goal is to modernize the region’s payments landscape by improving the speed and efficiency of transactions within the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA). SEPA is a broad payment integration initiative that allows consumers and businesses to make cross-border euro payments under the same conditions as domestic transactions, simplifying and unifying payments across EU member states and a few neighboring countries.
With the IPR in place, PSPs must offer instant payment services that process transactions within 10 seconds and are available 24/7 for all euro payments. For European consumers, this means faster, more reliable payments without delays —even during weekends or holidays. It enhances convenience, supports smoother online shopping experiences, and improves cash flow for businesses by eliminating waiting times for fund transfers.
Implementing the IPR presents several challenges for PSPs and other financial institutions. Many FIs need to significantly upgrade their payment processing systems to handle real-time transactions, which also need to uphold fraud detection and AML/CTF rules in real time. The cost of upgrading systems alone is huge, not to mention the added technical challenge of ensuring interoperability between different PSPs and banks across borders. I think it’s pretty safe to assume that not all FIs have the same level of digital maturity, leaving many to play catch-up.
That said, there are several opportunities for those who comply with the IPR sooner rather than later. Early adopters of IPR-compliant systems can position themselves as leaders in innovation and customer service. Offering seamless, instant payments can attract more customers and build trust. Additionally, faster cross-border payments lower barriers for businesses to expand across the EU.
Another policy that will kick in early in 2025 is DORA, the EU’s Digital Operational Resilience Act. What does this policy call for and why is it important?
Shabi: The Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) is a pivotal regulation aimed at strengthening the financial sector’s ability to withstand digital disruptions and cyber threats. It sets clear IT security standards, focusing on managing information and communication technology (ICT) risks, improving incident reporting, and overseeing third-party ICT service providers. Financial institutions will be required to assess “concentration risk” when outsourcing critical or significant operations to external vendors.
For some added context, the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) emphasizes protecting personally identifiable information (PIII) through consent and data security, whereas DORA shifts the focus to the digital supply chains of financial institutions. This introduces a new and potentially more challenging regulatory environment that pushes firms to strengthen their defenses against IT disruptions. It is designed to prevent major outages, like the devastating CrowdStrike software update last summer, from crippling banking, payment, and investment services. Under DORA, similar service interruptions will be met with stricter oversight and accountability, driving firms to prioritize digital resilience. Otherwise, non-compliance could lead to fines of up to 2% of a firm’s annual global revenue, and individual managers could face personal penalties of up to €1 million for breaches.
In terms of new open banking regulations, what are your expectations?
Shabi: Open banking regulations opened the door for greater innovation and competition, but they also brought meaningful friction as FIs worked to keep up with rising fraud risks. Under the EU’s Second Payment Services Directive (PSD2), banks are required to share customer data with third-party providers through APIs — a move that, while promoting transparency and choice, also widens the attack surface for cybercriminals. It increases the risk of data breaches, identity theft, and payment fraud.
To counter these threats, PSD2 and its upcoming successor, the Third Payment Services Directive (PSD3), mandate stronger security measures like enhanced customer authentication and tighter oversight of third-party access. While these safeguards are critical, they can slow down user experiences and complicate partnerships. Still, this added friction is necessary to strike a balance between the advantages of open banking and the growing need to protect consumers and the broader financial system. Given that the PSD3 is expected to take hold in late 2025 or early 2026, FIs must prepare to ensure they remain compliant.
The EU AI Act passed in 2024. What kind of impact will this regulation have in 2025 and what should companies in financial services be doing now?
Shabi: Governments worldwide are racing to regulate the perceived risks of artificial intelligence. The US issued an AI Executive Order, the UK released a non-binding Declaration of Principles, and China introduced what appears to be a business-friendly AI framework. The EU’s AI Act marks the most significant step yet toward bringing structure to an industry that has largely operated like the Wild West, at least for now.
What makes the EU AI Act stand out is its risk-based approach. Instead of applying blanket regulations to all AI technologies, it scales oversight based on the potential for societal harm — the greater the risk, the stricter the rules. This method strikes a crucial balance between fostering innovation and protecting fundamental rights. In the payments industry, we’re no strangers to how effective a risk-based framework can be when navigating the fine line between managing risk and driving innovation.
Notably, over 100 companies – from global corporations to smaller financial institutions – have already pledged to comply with the AI Act ahead of its full enforcement. This early buy-in signals broad industry support or, at the very least, an interest in collaboration. Even critics who argue the law is either too sweeping or too narrow recognize that engaging with regulators and key stakeholders is often the smarter path. By collaborating early, companies can help shape the conversation surrounding AI instead of being sidelined and forced to comply without having a voice.
Other areas that are likely to receive regulatory scrutiny in 2025 in the EU are crypto and Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL). What developments are most likely for businesses in these spaces?
Shabi: Complying with the MiCA framework is the first thing that comes to mind when cryptocurrency and the EU are mentioned in the same sentence. MiCA is the EU’s first comprehensive legal framework for crypto assets that introduces clear and consistent rules across member states. Although it’s been in development for several years, key compliance deadlines took effect in 2024 and will continue through 2025. We’re already seeing major crypto firms like Coinbase adjusting their operations to meet MiCA’s requirements, while others are reassessing their market strategies — some even shifting focus to countries with more relaxed crypto regulations. For any crypto business operating in the EU, heavy compliance standards are becoming the norm, much like other industries that come with significant AML/CTF risks.
BNPL, however, presents a different regulatory challenge. In many ways, BNPL is just a modern spin on subprime lending — a long-standing issue in financial services when it comes to consumer protection. The explosive growth of BNPL services has raised concerns about rising consumer debt, as the lack of transparency about fees, terms, and penalties leaves consumers exposed to hidden costs. Additionally, weak credit checks and poor due diligence practices heighten the risk of users falling into financial overextension. These issues harm individual financial stability and pose systemic risks, especially since BNPL providers often operate across borders with inconsistent oversight.
To address these concerns, regulators across the globe are scrambling to regulate BNPL providers similarly to traditional credit frameworks. EU regulators updated the Consumer Credit Directive to strengthen consumer protections in the credit market, explicitly covering BNPL services. For businesses operating in this space, this means significant regulatory changes are on the horizon. EU member states must implement the directive into national law by November 20, 2025, with full enforcement beginning on November 20, 2026.
By this time next year, what areas of fintech/financial services do you think will have benefitted the most from greater regulatory clarity? Where do you anticipate that more work will be needed?
Shabi: By this time next year, crypto-assets, payments, and RegTech will likely be the biggest winners from greater regulatory clarity in the EU. The full rollout of the MiCA will finally bring consistency across member states, giving crypto firms the green light to develop secure, consumer-friendly products without second-guessing compliance. Likewise, updates to the Payment Services Directives are set to streamline open banking, tightening data security while making it easier for fintechs to access and use consumer data — fueling innovation in payments.
Simultaneously, the growing complexity of EU compliance is driving up demand for RegTech solutions. Fintech companies offering tools to automate compliance, manage risk, and strengthen cybersecurity will be well-positioned for growth as firms scramble to meet evolving requirements under regulations like DORA as well as AML/CTF directives. Ideally, this regulatory progress will create a more stable, trustworthy environment that supports responsible innovation across the financial sector.
However, several areas still need more attention. The EU AI Act doesn’t fully address how AI is used in financial services — especially in critical areas like credit scoring and fraud detection — leaving gaps around transparency, data use, and risk management. Cross-border payments and digital identity systems also remain fragmented, making it harder to streamline transactions and verify users across the EU.
Emerging asset classes like NFTs and tokenized assets are another blind spot, lacking comprehensive oversight and leaving both consumers and markets exposed to risk. Smaller fintechs, too, may struggle to keep up with strict cybersecurity and operational resilience requirements under DORA, highlighting the need for more scalable compliance pathways. Closing these gaps will be key to ensuring the EU can balance innovation with long-term financial stability and consumer protection.
How will this evolving regulatory landscape impact your customers and the work EverC does for them?
Shabi: As platforms and payments continue to evolve, bringing more of our finances (and our lives) online, fraudsters will continue to exploit these opportunities, and regulators will continue to create structures to protect consumers. The evolving regulatory landscape is a challenge that marketplaces and payment providers must meet to continue doing business successfully.
The cost of noncompliance — in terms of enforcement actions and fines, lawsuits, decreased revenue, and loss of reputation and consumer trust — will always outweigh the cost of creating and maintaining a solid risk and compliance strategy. With technology, we can fight fraud and make ecommerce and digital finance safer while allowing our customers to benefit from operational efficiencies and more effective resource allocation.
EverC enables payment providers, ecommerce players, and financial institutions to meet these challenges with customer-centric innovation. That innovation is accelerated with the power of GenAI for scalable, tech-forward solutions. Our experts stay current with regulatory trends so we can anticipate and meet our customers’ needs as they navigate this rapidly evolving landscape.
Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.
German fintech 21X partnered with AllUnity, a joint venture between DWS, Flow Traders, and Galaxy Digital.
Lithuania-based Urbo Bank (formerly Medicinos Bankas) announced a collaboration with certified payment technology company DECTA to go live with Visa card issuing services.
Dubai-based cybersecurity firm CyberHive inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with business planning and operations smart solutions provider Meerana.
Israel-based conversational AI innovator and Finovate Best of Show winner eSelf.ai raised $4.5 in seed funding.
Egyptian financial services company Paymob secured a Retail Payment Services (RPS) license from the Central Bank of the UAE.
Brazilian fintech Nubank partnered with Mexican convenience store chain Oxxo to expand its cash deposit and withdrawal network.
El Salvador bought twelve Bitcoin this week despite an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to reduce its activity in the cryptocurrency market.
Philippines-based Netbank partnered with Discovery Credit Solutions Corporation (DCSC) to launch a new solution to optimize loan management.
South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) fined KakaoPay and ApplePay $5.8 million for violations of the country’s Personal Information Protection Act.
Revolutlaunched its robo-advisor service in Singapore.
The annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) took place last week, and U.S. Bank sent its Chief Innovation Officer Don Relyea and Head of Applied Foresights Todder Moning to take a look at the future of innovation across industries. The pair went to explore how emerging trends like AI, automation, and extended reality can enhance the customer experience.
In our interview with Relyea and Moning, the two shared their key takeaways from the event, including insights into the newest AI advancements, the evolution of immersive technologies, and the practical applications they plan to bring back to U.S. Bank.
Did you see any innovations at CES that inspired ideas for how U.S. Bank might improve its customer experience?
Don Relyea: Yes, inspirations for new innovations were everywhere. A few examples across industries: This year, we saw more foreign banks demoing their innovations than we ever have before. Several Asian banks were showcasing AI-powered venture portfolio tools, as well as AI-powered banking applications that are more along the lines of “Do It for Me” opposed to the current digital standard of “Do It Yourself.” This is a trend we follow closely. Samsung’s SmartThings Pro, which extends its smart home technology to business environments, is very interesting for optimizing and personalizing consumers’ retail experiences. When you think about the branch of the future and how branches will evolve, there are interesting things that could be done with a space that is environmentally aware of who and how many people are in it, etc.
Todder Moning: At CES 2025, it was apparent how technology is advancing convenience, safety, and new forms of value across all areas of consumers’ lives. For companies exhibiting in recent years, it’s been about adding sensors to products and connecting them to the cloud via consumers’ WiFi connections. We have also seen how new channels of human computer interaction are making it into the mainstream – from voice interaction to the emergence of new audio/visual interaction with glasses and AR/VR headsets. This year, it was all about taking that data and using AI to make products and services smarter and more capable. And we’re in the very early innings of this trend to help people traverse their worlds with smarter, more ambient, and more ‘auto-magical’ products and services. U.S. Bank has been doing the same thing in connecting customers and their money, payments, and transaction capabilities, embedding them in more areas across their lives and businesses. I think the work we’ve been doing in both embedding and machine learning/AI will be a vector that will expand further based on what we saw at this year’s CES.
How do you think the advancements in AI and automation showcased at CES could influence the future of banking in general?
Relyea: We saw a lot of AI at the show, but many of the things were just companies branding things with AI in the name versus harnessing AI’s full potential. However, we did begin to see clever use cases where companies are leveraging AI for consumer automation with good customer-centered design – once again, “Do It for Me” type use cases. This trend will eventually raise the bar for consumer expectations as consumers become more comfortable ceding control to agentic AI. These are market signals we are keeping an eye on as we prepare for this shift in consumer expectations.
Moning: While AI is not new and has always been at CES, it was overwhelmingly the primary focus this year. It reminded me of a few years back when Alexa voice interaction was put into everything from eyeglasses to grills to pet bowls. However, there were some big announcements and creative uses of AI too. We’re currently seeing AI move from simpler use cases of language and content creation using Large Language Models to the next phase of AI agents using Large Action Models, where chatbots and GPTs will be able to reason more and take permissioned action on your behalf. Instead of just reviewing a PDF for you and helping to craft an email, AI agents will enable digital actions such as making reservations or paying your monthly bills.
What was exciting to me, after years of following IoT and autonomous driving for U.S. Bank, was finally seeing the emergence of tools that will enable what some call physical AI, moving us closer to fully realized autonomous driving, more automated factories and warehouses, and more functional general robotics. Digital twins and Large World Models (mapping physical environments and learning the physics and rules of how to function in those environments) will enable consumers and enterprises to improve their lives and their businesses, respectively. It’s a big opportunity and should create many new kinds of jobs. We believe that banks will need to enable customers and their AI agents with transaction services, payments, lending and investing. This will be a large and exciting trend to explore over the next few years.
Were there any discussions at the conference about the metaverse, AR/VR, and immersive experiences? Do you see a role for these technologies in banking or financial services?
Relyea: The metaverse was somewhat more subdued at CES this year with companies perhaps realizing more fully they are not sure how it will play out. We didn’t see anything groundbreaking in the metaverse space. In fact, we saw several of the same things from last year’s show. That said, the smart glasses space is evolving and miniaturizing at a nice pace. AR glasses are getting more visibly appealing, as well as getting more functionality packed into the smaller form factors, including holographic displays on the lenses. The technology is not ideal yet, but it is getting closer. We believe the metaverse/immersive AR/VR experiences will hit their tipping point when these wearable devices are ubiquitous and always with us – like our phones are today. When this happens, we will be ready with embedded financial services.
Moning: Extended reality, including AR and VR, continues to simmer on the stove, so to speak. CES lets us see how different technologies are developing laterally across dozens of industry sectors and longitudinally over multiple years. It’s clear that AR/VR is improving but still has a way to go before it moves from simple heads-up displays (which can be highly useful for certain use cases, like closed captioning for the hearing impaired) to being a more immersive interaction layer over the world. Some vendors have started creating capabilities for 3D commerce, anticipating those markets as they evolve. We did see a few “metaverse companies,” although they’re not well-known names and will depend on more advancements and partnerships to break through. However, self-driving cars and semi-trucks, autonomous agricultural vehicles, and autonomous construction/mining vehicles are using 4D sensors (the fourth D is velocity) and digital twins in their own metaphorical version of a metaverse to bring us closer to the fully realized self-driving future we’ve all been waiting for.
NVIDIA’s announcements were of particular note, with its Blueprint agentic AI platform, AI-embedded computer, and Omniverse and physical AI platform that enable AI training for vehicles, factories, robotics, and more for the real world. So, the metaverse, which many think of as only a “virtual world,” is likely to be more of a merging between the virtual and real world. As you can imagine, the way U.S. Bank currently enables both physical and digital economies will be prevalent in such a future as it emerges.
What insights or lessons from CES do you plan to bring back to U.S. Bank’s innovation strategy?
Relyea: Companies that are more mature in their customer experience practices displayed solutions that are ambient, predictive, adaptive, and accessible. Much of this is powered by AI, either traditional or agentic. This was the year of agentic AI, and we think it will begin to usher in the age of “Do It with Me” and “Do It for Me” style experiences. From a customer experience perspective, the team will be focused on defining the art of possible in these spaces.
Moning: Seeing the AI announcements and AI-embedded products and services in so many was impactful to me. The same way that we’ve been testing to safely use traditional and generative AI in the enterprise, consumers will be using AI bots and soon more functional AI agents in their own lives. I believe the way people now manage a constellation of connected devices in their life, they’ll soon have a constellation of AI agents helping them manage the many things they do – from getting dressed in the morning to managing their active busy families to getting life-enhancing medical care to being fully-engaged employers and employees, and, of course, managing their financial lives.
We already have a multi-language capable virtual assistant in our mobile app, so how do we safely plug the value and service U.S. Bank provides to help our customers in other ways? How do we provide it when interacting with their AI agents? If there are eight billion people, of which let’s say one billion or so are active working professionals, that means that there will be many billions of AI agents those folks will be using and with which companies will be interacting. That feels like a pretty big opportunity.
What was the coolest non-fintech technology or tool that you saw there?
Relyea: Small personal aircrafts are getting really cool – think big drones with cockpits. We also saw many autonomous robots for vacuuming, mowing, cleaning pools, and a ton of other uses. I was able to shake hands with a robot for the first time at this CES, which was pretty cool but also a little terrifying when you think about it.
Moning: After petting and high-fiving a robotic dog last year, I shook hands with my first humanoid robot this year. It was a kind of “first contact” with the robotic future. But what I found most thrilling was being able to dig in Arizona using a large Cat Excavator I was operating remotely from the CES floor in Las Vegas. It was like being a drone pilot but for construction/mining equipment. This kind of remote control is the important “human-in-the-middle” stage between no autonomy and fully autonomous vehicles.
2025 is here in earnest and we’re looking forward to another year of exciting and insightful interviews from Finovate VP Greg Palmer and the Finovate Podcast!
Before we get this year’s conversations under way, here are a handful of podcast discussions from the final weeks of 2024 that you might have missed during the holiday rush.
Shannon Saccocia (LinkedIn), Chief Investment Officer with Neuberger Berman Private Wealth (NBPW), talks with Finovate VP and podcast host Greg Palmer about the opportunities and challenges for fintechs in the private wealth market. EP 241.
As Chief Investment Officer with NB Private Wealth, Saccocia works with investment leadership across Neuberger Berman to establish market views, asset allocation, and portfolio recommendations for NBPW clients. Saccocia also leads the NBPW investment platform to enable comprehensive delivery of the firm’s investment capabilities.
Greg Palmer sits down with Lark Davis (LinkedIn), cryptocurrency enthusiast and founder of The Crypto Lark, to explore where cryptocurrencies stand in 2025 and what’s coming next. EP 240.
Davis’s YouTube videos explore the satirical side of the news along with fact-filled reviews and interviews. His channel, The Crypto Lark, provides continuous updates on the cryptocurrency markets, bitcoin, blockchain, and the future of technology. Davis is also author of Wealth Mastery, a crypto newsletter featuring market analysis and insights.
Long-time investor and operator Kamran Ansari (LinkedIn) of Kapital Ventures joins the Finovate Podcast for a high-level examination of the fintech ecosystem heading into 2025 and shares his insights on where the industry is going from here. EP 239.
Ansari is venture capitalist and operator involved with a sizable number of innovative technology and fintech companies including Venmo, Azimo, and Braintree. As a private investor, Ansari has participated in funding for firms ranging from Facebook to Coinbase. In addition to his work with Kapital Ventures, Ansari is a venture partner with VC firm Headline.
How are banks managing the challenges of digital transformation? What do financial institutions need to do in order to ensure that new digital initiatives are aligned with customer preferences and needs?
In this Streamly interview, Finovate Senior Research Analyst Julie Muhn sits down with Milton Santiago, Global Head of Digital Solutions at Silicon Valley Bank. The two discuss the bank’s current digital transformation and the role of enabling technologies like AI in enhancing the customer experience, among other topics.
“What excites me the most about what’s going on in our bank is the fact that we continue to invest, we continue to focus really on what our customers need to grow their businesses and to be successful at a variety of life stages: be it at small inception where maybe it’s just you and me as a startup to where we have gone through multiple rounds of funding, or we’re a large company that is also publicly traded. Our needs are being met by the same financial organization, regardless of our size.”
Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) serves many of the most innovative companies and investors in the world. A division of First Citizens Bank, SVB provides commercial and private banking services to individuals and companies in industries ranging from technology and healthcare to private equity and venture capital. With 70% of the 2024 Forbes Cloud 100 among its customers, SVB is headquartered in Santa Clara, California.
Milton Santiago has worked for Silicon Valley Bank for more than six years and is currently Global Head of Digital Services. In this role, he is responsible for creating end-to-end omni-channel and API experiences and solutions for startup (Pre-Series A) and mature companies, alike. Santiago is also a veteran industry speaker on topics including security and fraud, mobile and emerging payments, big data, and innovation.
As 2025 approaches, where will new opportunities arise for financial institutions, financial services providers, and fintechs looking to expand into new markets?
In this week’s Finovate Global interview, I talk with Lewis Ide, Vice President for 10x Banking, about the opportunities in high-growth markets in APAC and Africa.
Part of the company’s senior leadership team, Ide is responsible for the strategy, growth, and execution of the business objectives at 10x Banking. He has a 13-year career in financial services technology with leadership roles in payments, financial infrastructure, and AML platforms.
10x Banking first introduced itself to Finovate audiences with its debut at FinovateEurope 2023 in London. The company won Best of Show for a demonstration of its 10x SuperCore Cards which enable banks to build a card proposition in minutes with 10x’s Bank Manager interface. Founded in 2016, 10x Banking is headquartered in London, U.K.
There is a lot of interest in high growth markets around the world, especially in the APAC region and in Africa. What is driving growth opportunities in these markets – starting with APAC?
Lewis Ide: I think it comes down to demographics first of all: APAC in particular has a young, growing, digitally-native population. Economies in this region are growing rapidly and with that come opportunities for growth in the financial services industry. And typically the countries across APAC are very innovation-friendly.
Regulation also really supports innovation. One example is in Thailand, where the regulator is releasing new digital banking licenses to support the growth of the industry from a digital-first point of view.
This all feeds into banks being able to benefit from core transformation, moving away from batch transactions to real-time transactions. They are also able to scale in user numbers and transaction volumes as the population grows and becomes even more digital-first. And the thing that makes that growth even more sustainable is the hyper-personalization that modern cores allow for, so banks in APAC can create unique offerings that consumers need.
What do small businesses in APAC need that they have not been getting from traditional financial services?
Ide: I think the first thing to say here is that traditionally, SME offerings have been bucketed into either the retail or the corporate bank offerings. Neither of these is really built around what small businesses need, so there is a demand in the market for tailored solutions.
The next thing is cost: these services are typically costly for SMEs because they aren’t tailored. I think what we’re now starting to see is a shift away from that bucketing towards banks being able to launch services that are specific and personalized to the needs of small businesses. That includes broadening access to credit, making it cheaper, and designing the products that the business needs at the time that they need them.
And again it’s innovation that is enabling this. The availability of agile, cloud-native infrastructures allows for a much more effective cost-to-income ratio control. And that in turn means that they can pass the cost benefits on to their customers in the form of new products at compelling price points. So the shift here is from high-cost services to tailored, personalized ones. And that’s been made achievable by agile, cloud-native core platforms.
What has prevented or limited the ability of financial institutions to respond to these pain points?
Ide: I would say the biggest thing is the legacy technology in place. In the last decade or so, neo cores emerged as a way to address the problems of legacy infrastructures, but they now come with almost a “neo legacy” of their own with limited ability to scale or personalize. Those that are able to be personalized can be very challenging to maintain or upgrade once the code has been written.
But in the last five to six years we’ve started to see a huge positive shift within the neobanks that has highlighted where the legacy and neo core platforms are now coming under pressure with those changing customer expectations.
That pressure comes from the way those legacy architectures were constructed. They were monolithic in nature and didn’t necessarily allow for hyper-personalization. They were also batch-based systems, very expensive to run on the mainframe. All of this requires specific and costly resources and makes it difficult for banks to respond to all of these pain points.
What changes have taken place or are taking place that are giving innovative companies the opportunity to step in with new solutions?
Ide: The adoption of cloud-native platforms that are microservice and API-based has been transformational in terms of the industry opportunity. This is why we launched the world’s first meta core at 10x Banking — to give customers access to a cloud-native core banking platform that overcomes the compromises of both legacy and neo cores.
This then allows customers to launch products at speed, gives them the hyper-personalization that they need, as well as doing so at a very low cost and with the ability to scale to hundreds of thousands of transactions per second, overcoming a number of the challenges that the industry has faced with great success.
What specific roles do you see for AI in helping institutions improve their operations and expand their services?
Ide: I think from our perspective, before we get to AI, it’s about data. The data structures that we use in this industry are the foundations of AI capability. You need to have access to high-quality, unsiloed data so there is a single source of truth across the business from which AI models can be launched.
From a core banking perspective, there are many things AI can enable, but three that spring to mind. First, at the customer layer, AI can personalize recommendations, power chatbots and make credit lending more efficient. Next is integration and transformation, enabling banks to connect all their systems together in a more efficient, composable architecture. Banks have a real opportunity to leverage AI to build better migration capability here. Finally – and this is something we are looking to support at 10x – is the ability to use AI to help code and create hyper-personalized products and services.
What the meta core allows our customers to do, for example, is get their data ready for AI, so they can unlock its full potential. So I always go back to that: making sure the data is clean and the structures are unsiloed so it’s all ready to go when you do start using AI.
Looking at Africa, particularly sub-Saharan Africa, what is driving growth there?
Ide: Africa is similar in some ways to APAC, so what I mentioned before in terms of the young demographic holds true here too. It’s a massive region, of course, so it’s hard to generalize. But there are some notable nuances in the way innovation is deployed in Africa. The mobile telecommunications networks like Safaricom and M-Pesa have been at the center of that, offering money transfer services alongside the telecommunications services.
Much of the growth here is driven by the desire to bring more people into the banked economy. Financial inclusion is big on the agenda. If you can reduce the percentage of unbanked people from, for example, 20% to 10%, that’s a big growth in customer numbers for banking and financial services. That’s a lot more people to provide services to, which again links back to the importance of scalability and personalization.
Some have suggested that Africa is the ideal example of a region unencumbered by complex legacy financial systems. Can you elaborate on how this impacts the environment for innovation and new ideas?
Ide: I would say that’s not the full story. The mobile telephone networks and operators have driven a lot of innovation as I touched on before, and there is a broad appetite for innovation across Africa in general. But there are challenges around the continued use of mainframe infrastructure, which is slowing banks down. As that has become more obvious, banks have been looking to core modernization, as well as partnerships with the mobile networks. This will enable them to extend their capability and services, which is a benefit for both the banks and the mobile networks.
Are there any trends in banking and financial services in the APAC or Africa that you think are underappreciated or even unrecognized? Are there opportunities there that 10x Banking is pursuing?
Ide: The major trend that goes underappreciated at the moment is in corporate banking. We have been working and investing heavily in this area, so I can speak from first-hand experience, with active projects in Vietnam, Thailand, Australia, South Africa, and Kenya to name a few. At the moment, there is a massive shift underway in corporate banking, moving from batch to real-time transactions, modernizing their cores. This will enable them to radically increase transaction processing volumes to better serve the demands of new and existing customers in the market.
Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.
Middle East and Northern Africa
Israeli fintech startup and chargeback management specialist Justt raised $30 million in Series C funding.
Merchants in Paymob’s network in Egypt can now accept Apple Pay.
Middle East-based payment solutions provider Magnati partnered with Arabian Automobiles Company (AAC).
Central and Southern Asia
India’s Karnataka Bank partnered with hybrid multicloud computing company Nutanix.
TBC Uzbekistan launchedOsmon Card, its first credit card product.
India-based high-yield savings account Curie Money raised $1.2 million in seed funding.
Latin America and the Caribbean
El Salvador announced its intention to continue accumulating Bitcoin, but will discontinue its Bitcoin wallet Chivo as part of a financing deal with the IMF.
Uruguay-based cross-border payments company Bamboo teamed up with monetization platform Coda to enhance the gaming payment experience in Colombia.
Latin American payment platform AstroPay launched its multi-currency wallet.
Nigeria’s Bamboo became the first Nigerian fintech to acquire a U.S. broker-dealer license.
Central and Eastern Europe
Bulgaria joined the European Central Bank’s TARGET Instant Payment Settlement (TIPS) service.
Episode Six partnered with Secupay to provide asylum seekers in Germany with payment cards to access financial assistance from the government.
Bank of Georgia turned to Cloudera to better leverage data analytics to enhance the customer experience.
Interested in demoing at FinovateEurope 2025 in London? Applications are still being accepted from innovative companies with new solutions that are ready to show. Visit our FinovateEurope hub today to learn more.
