Fintech Shows Resilience As SaaS Plummets Amid AI Turmoil

Since the beginning of 2026, the artificial intelligence (AI) frenzy has sent the software industry into turmoil, causing public markets to plunge. Yet, fintech has emerged as a resilient outlier, facing considerably less disruption from AI compared to its peers in the wider software and technology sectors, according to new research by European buyout and growth investor Finch Capital.

Since January 2026, Finch Capital’s Fintech Index has been down 19%. In contrast, a comparable basket of software-as-a-service (SaaS) firms has fallen 32%, representing a sell-off three times more severe than the index’s previous worst point.

The State of AI in Fintech

Finch Capital’s Fintech Index comprises 66 publicly-traded companies across insurance, payments, banking and cryptocurrency, wealth and capital markets, lending and mortgages, the CFO office, and regulatory and compliance. Key constituents include PolicyBazaar, Adyen, Visa, Coinbase, and Thomson Reuters.

Conversely, the SaaS Index comprises 62 firms snapping enterprise SaaS and business software, cybersecurity, data and AI and analytics, marketing and customer experience, and developer tools and IT infrastructure. These companies include Adobe, CrowdStrike, Oracle, Palo Alto Networks, and Shopify.

While the Fintech Index has already bounced back 11% from its March 2026 low, the SaaS Index continues to hit new lows, down as much as 33% from its December 2025 peak.

Claude Cowork as the catalyst

According to the report, the 2026 sell-off was triggered by remarkable changes in frontier model capabilities, notably visible with the release from Anthropic.

Anthropic debuted at the end of January Claude Cowork in a research preview. Claude Cowork is a general-purpose AI agent designed to automate file management and document processing tasks. The tool extends Claude’s capabilities beyond conversational interfaces to enable autonomous execution of multi-step workflows within designated local directories.

In February, Anthropic launched a wider release of Claude Cowork, introducing a suite of connectors and plugins targeting enterprises and sparking what some have termed the “SaaS-pocalypse”. Companies can now connect Claude Cowork to Google Drive, Gmail, DocuSign, and FactSet, allowing to model to autonomously navigate Google Drive, synthesize project data, draft emails based on that data, and even flag contradictory clauses in DocuSign agreements.

Early enterprise deployments of Claude Cowork have yielded significant results. At audio streaming firm Spotify, engineers reported up to a 90% reduction in engineering time for complex code migrations, with over 650 AI-generated code changes shipped monthly. At Novo Nordisk, a Danish pharmaceutical firm, Claude reduces the time required to produce clinical study documentation from more than ten weeks to just ten minutes, while cutting the resources needed for device verification protocols by 95%.

Reasons behind the resilience of fintech

Finch Capital attributes the fintech sector’s resilience to three primary factors: legal and reputational advantages, proprietary data and approved networks, and the fact that human judgment and oversight remain critical in high-stakes finance.

First, fintech companies operate within a heavily regulated environment where years of licensing, constant supervision, and massive investments in compliance are mandatory. While AI can speed up specific compliance tasks like updating customer records, monitoring transactions, or drafting regulatory reports, an AI model cannot fabricate a years-long audit trail, or replicate the trusted relationships a firm has built with regulators over time.

Second, fintech companies own unique, high-quality datasets, including real-world transaction histories, fraud patterns, and credit performance metrics, and have access to approved payment networks and banking infrastructure. These assets are the result of decades of actual business operations and show how deeply some of these firms are embedded in the financial ecosystem.

Finally, although AI models are becoming increasingly capable at complex tasks, there is still a significant gap between their ability to handle coding versus the nuanced, regulated decision-making required in finance. These critical, judgment-heavy decisions are at the core of financial services, leaving the most valuable part of the fintech business model secure.

Efficiency gains and future outlook

In the fintech sector, AI is bringing between 30% to 60% efficiency gains across support, fraud, onboarding, and collections, according to Finch Capital. Klarna, for example, reports that AI is handling around two-thirds of its customer support queries, allowing customers to resolve their issues in less than two minutes compared to 11 minutes previously.

Online trading platform Robinhood, meanwhile, launched in December 2025 Robinhood Cortex, an AI-powered investing assistant embedded directly into the app. This assistant can analyze market news in real time, explain why stocks or portfolios are moving, summarize analyst reports and financial data, and personalize insights based on a user’s holdings.

By 2030, Finch Capital estimates that AI will cut 15% to 50% of operating costs across fintech verticals. Those savings will largely be captured in company margins for companies in insurance and regtech.

Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Switzerland, based on image by thanyakij-12 via Magnific

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