If you missed out on FinovateEurope earlier this month, you don’t have to feel left out any longer. The 22 demo videos are now live (and free to watch!) on the Finovate website and on Finovate’s YouTube channel.

Each seven-minute video offers a fast and efficient way to catch up on the latest new launches in fintech. We’ve highlighted the three Best of Show-winning demos below to get you started.

R34DY’s ABLEMENTS platform

Serene

Tweezr.io

For more coverage of on-stage content at FinovateEurope, check out our post-show analysis. And if you don’t want to miss out on the live action next time around, be sure to register for FinovateSpring, taking place on May 5 through 7 in San Diego, California. We’ll see you there!

Great conferences are defined largely by what does happen: what themes are discussed, what trends generate the most passionate conversations. But great conferences are also defined by what doesn’t happen: by those topics and trends that have become exhausted, failed to live up to the hype in the first place, or simply aren’t ready for prime time.

Having just looked at some of the main topics of discussion at FinovateEurope, today we’re taking a quick tour through the pound to learn more about the dogs that did not bark at FinovateEurope 2026 last week.

Sustaining Sustainability in the Age of AI

Sustainability has been a stronger theme among fintech innovators in the UK and the EU compared to the US—and arguably all the more so given the fusillade of disincentives from the Trump Administration. Past Finovate conferences have showcased fintechs such as Connect Earth (UK), ecolytiq (Germany), and Little Blocks (India) that are helping institutions and individuals calculate their environmental impact; reduce carbon emissions via online marketplaces, and align their investing and banking preferences with their attitudes toward the environment.

While never a large fraction of the demoing companies at any given show, it was notable that no companies focused on sustainability on the demo stage. This likely reflects at least in part the shift in emphasis toward AI and blockchain-related innovations, especially as these innovations are increasingly moving from the experimental to real-world use cases. Even as these enabling technologies appear to be in their earliest stages, the fact that they already are responding to real problems in financial services makes them an especially attractive field for innovation compared to sustainability.

It is important to note that this does not necessarily mean that there has been a decline in interest in sustainability and climate-related fintech innovation. In fact, investment in climate-related fintech—and climatetech in general—increased from 2024 to 2025. Europe represented a significant amount of the $103 billion raised globally at 56%, with US-based funds contributing 16% toward the international total. But sustainability is increasingly being seen less as a standalone solution, and more as a cost-cutting feature to be integrated as in embedded finance or as part of a broader risk and data analytics package. Those looking for sustainability to return to the center stage will likely need to see the rise of stronger regulatory mandates such as those for stricter environmental financial disclosure or other incentives. Technological innovation alone may not do it.

Quantum Computing: Waiting for the Great Leap Forward?

While there was a sole presentation on quantum computing at FinovateEurope, the discussion of this technology still remains limited in most fintech forums. This is despite the conviction by analysts that quantum computing will make a significant impact on all technology—including financial technology—in the years to come. It is also interesting insofar as we are seeing emerging, enabling technologies in AI and the blockchain that continue to surprise detractors and outperform expectations when it comes to practical use cases. Why not quantum computing?

First, credit where credit is due: Day One of FinovateEurope featured Amal Nazar, Head of GTM at Wultra, a firm that provides post-quantum authentication solutions to financial institutions around the world. Nazar’s Special Address emphasized that it was important for banks and other financial institutions to transition to post-quantum cryptography in order to secure long-term digital operations. With regulators urging firms to complete this shift by 2030, it is clear that whatever conversations we are not yet having with regard to quantum computing will likely begin sooner than we think.

But not quite yet. Unlike AI and blockchain-based technologies like stablecoins, quantum computing is still significantly “pre-commercial,” meaning that while there is considerable investment interest, practical commercial applications in financial services have yet to materialize. There are a number of reasons for this, but essentially the issue is developmental (read: hardware) rather than software or regulation-related in the cases of AI and stablecoins, respectively. Arguably, when it comes to quantum computing, this technology as it applies to financial services is about where AI and stablecoins were seven to ten years ago: long on hype and promise, but short on use cases. Those use cases are developing; as Nazar’s presentation suggests, cryptography is one of the primary areas where we should anticipate quantum computing use cases emerging. But compared to AI and stablecoins, quantum computing may experience the “always a bridesmaid, never a bride” syndrome for a few more seasons, at least.

“Nobody Here But Us Cloud Companies …”

If you suspected that the inclusion of “cloud” as a theme that was underrepresented at FinovateEurope was little more than a ruse to talk about AI, then I confess to being guilty as charged. But the comparison between the “cloud revolution” and the “AI revolution” was one I heard from Finovate delegates and on-stage experts alike, and an interesting notion to add to this conversation on fintech trends.

No company demoing declared themselves a cloud company this year. That’s because, in a sense, they are all “cloud companies.” The ubiquity of cloud technology in fintech has rendered the descriptor almost obsolete. And increasingly something similar is happening with AI. While we did go through the obligatory period when companies felt the need to append “ai” to their names, we are nevertheless seeing an impressive urgency with which companies are seeking to leverage AI to improve efficiency for both their own workers as well as for their customers. Perhaps not since the early days of digital banking has as much attention been paid and innovation devoted to both sides of the customer experience at the same time.

What this means, as Senior Finovate analyst Julie Muhn remarked to me in the run-up to FinovateEurope this year, is that there is less and less a conversation about “AI,” and more and more a conversation about generative AI, or explainable AI, or agentic AI, or ethical AI … You get the point. The evolution in our way of talking about AI reflects nothing more than our growing understanding of the diverse ways AI technology can be deployed, as well as the myriad responsibilities involved in deploying it. So while we won’t stop hearing about “AI” anytime soon, we should be prepared for a new way of talking about the technology as our relationship to it evolves.

Photo by Anoir Chafik on Unsplash

One of the biggest challenges for financial institutions, large and small, is core modernization and digital transformation. Whether to facilitate automation to streamline workflows or to deploy new products and services faster, modernization and transformation are key to ensuring that banks and financial institutions can grow revenues, expand into new markets, and meet regulatory obligations with regard to security and privacy for customers.

At FinovateEurope 2026 next month, five fintechs will demonstrate how their innovations are helping banks and financial institutions transform their systems and operations to boost productivity and lower costs. From AI-driven automation that delivers seamless deployment of new solutions to AI-powered learning technologies that keep employee skills up to date, these companies are leveraging enabling technologies to make banks better.

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!

R34DY

R34DY empowers banks and other financial institutions with AI-driven automation for seamless integration and rapid deployment of solutions. The company’s ABLEMENTS solution enables rapid AI transformation, allowing banks to deliver new offerings faster, lower IT costs, and achieve competitive differentiation via context-aware modernization. Headquartered in Budapest, Hungary, R34DY was founded in 2019.

Tweezr

Tweezr helps businesses grow and transform by accelerating time-to-market (TTM) and boosting developer productivity for both legacy-system maintenance and modernization. The company’s technology serves as an AI-powered surgical code assistant that identifies exactly where changes are needed across tens of millions of lines of code without breaking critical functionality. Founded in 2024, Tweezr is headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Outsampler

Outsampler helps asset managers better interact with their data and models. With its AI conversational agents that turn complex time-series and tabular data into natural language dialogue, Outsampler’s technology boosts research productivity by 40%, enabling portfolio managers to focus on high-value client engagement. Headquartered in Berkeley, California, the company was founded in 2025.

mAI Edge

mAI Edge transforms the challenges of external creative production into internal marketing infrastructure. The company’s BrandOS is a brand operating system for banks and financial services companies that enables them to create streamlined branded content at scale with consistency across every channel. mAI Edge was founded in 2025.

Skill Studio AI

Skill Studio AI offers AI-driven training that accelerates compliance readiness from weeks to minutes, reduces trading costs by 95%, and scales internationally with support for 180 languages. The company’s technology transforms training documents into engaging, AI-powered learning experiences that boost learner engagement and help keep workforce skills up to date. Headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, Skill Studio AI was founded in 2025.

Why Banks Should Care

For banks and financial institutions that are still on the path toward modernization and digital transformation, the rise of technologies such as AI offers a major opportunity to streamline operations, reduce costs, and offer a much wider range of products and services. Partnering with innovative companies that specialize in working with banks and financial services companies will enable FIs to integrate new technologies at their own pace and for the preferred use cases that matter most to themselves and their customers.

At the same time, the solutions offered by these fintechs remind us that transformation is not just about legacy cores and systems. True modernization in financial services also involves using enabling technologies to make it easier for front- and back-office workforces, including developers and technical talent, to meet increasingly complex responsibilities. From ever-changing regulations to ever-evolving customer expectations, these fintechs are putting new technologies to work in support of people as well as processes.

Photo by Pixabay

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!

FINTRAC

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

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.

As we enter the next era of digitization 2.0, identity verification and fraud prevention have moved from supporting roles to critical infrastructure. At the same time, advances in AI are making it easier for bad actors to circumvent legacy controls, increasing both the complexity and the stakes of managing digital risk.

From onboarding new customers to authenticating transactions and preventing losses in real time, banks and fintechs are under pressure to strike the right balance between security and user experience. Fortunately, fintechs are tackling this challenge head-on, building identity and fraud controls that reduce friction, strengthen trust, and make digital finance scalable. The four companies below are building some of the most cutting-edge tools in this segment and will showcase their solutions on the demo stage at FinovateEurope, which takes place February 10 and 11 in London.

Candour Identity

Candour Identity aims to improve digital onboarding by combining identity verification, biometrics, and fraud prevention into a single workflow. The platform is designed to help financial institutions increase conversion rates while maintaining regulatory compliance, enabling ongoing biometric authentication beyond initial onboarding. By supporting daily identity checks for login and payment use cases, Candour reduces fraud losses without introducing additional friction for legitimate users.

Darwinium

Darwinium helps organizations detect and prevent fraud while minimizing friction for trusted customers. Its platform distinguishes between high-risk and low-risk users in real time, allowing banks and fintechs to provide a “VIP” experience to good customers while applying stronger controls where needed. The approach is designed to reduce fraud losses without sacrificing the overall customer experience.

Elephant

Elephant targets false declines and chargebacks, two persistent challenges in digital payments. By improving transaction decisioning, the company helps businesses approve more legitimate transactions while reducing downstream fraud and disputes. The result is higher authorization rates, fewer customer complaints, and lower operational costs tied to chargeback management.

Keyless

With Keyless, users are the key. The company’s technology replaces traditional multi-factor authentication methods, such as one-time passwords, with biometric authentication. Keyless’s technology enables passwordless and tokenless login experiences while maintaining strong security controls. By removing reliance on call centers and manual recovery flows, Keyless aims to improve user experience and significantly reduce authentication-related costs for banks. Keyless was acquired by Ping Identity in November 2025.

Why banks should care

Digital channels are increasingly becoming the primary point of interaction with customers, shifting the importance of verification technologies. The companies highlighted above show how banks, payments firms, and marketplaces can reduce fraud and operational costs while improving customer experience by applying smarter, more adaptive controls. Rather than relying on rigid rules or legacy authentication methods that can easily be spoofed using AI, modern identity and fraud platforms allow banks to approve more good customers, intervene only when risk is real, and scale digital growth without sacrificing trust.

To watch these companies demo their newest tools in person, register for FinovateEurope, see what’s new, and shake hands with the innovators.

Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko