The milestones provide the bank with a regulated entry point to offer digital asset custody services across the region from its base in Luxembourg.

The authorisations allow the bank to operate within the European regulatory framework for digital assets.

Standard Chartered intends to introduce these services in phases, using its Luxembourg entity as the central hub for its European operations.

The EMI approval permits the issuance of electronic money and related payment services. This complementary status operates alongside the bank’s digital asset operations to support a broader suite of services for institutional clients.

The regulatory milestones follow the establishment of Standard Chartered’s Luxembourg entity in 2025.

Standard Chartered plans to use passporting rules under the MiCA framework, which allow a firm authorised in one member state to provide services in others without requiring additional national approvals.

“Securing our MiCA and EMI licenses is a key step in progressing our digital asset journey in Europe,”

said Margaret Harwood-Jones, CEO at Standard Chartered Europe and UK.

She noted that the bank is prepared to support clients as institutional interest in the digital asset sector grows.

Laurent Marochini, CEO, Standard Chartered Luxembourg added:

“We are delighted to have obtained our MiCA and EMI licenses, which enables us to progressively expand services to clients across Europe.”

The European authorisations build on Standard Chartered’s previous rollouts of digital asset custody services in Asia and the Middle East.

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The collaboration targets companies in highly regulated sectors that need to retain data within their own environments to meet European regulatory standards.

Under the agreement, Domyn will supply the underlying infrastructure and LLMs for on-premises or private cloud deployment. Cognizant will manage the application layer, integration, and domain-specific execution.

Cognizant plans to train Domyn’s foundational models to create smaller, industry-specific models (SLMs).

The global system integrator will also handle data pipeline construction, data cleansing, and the development of tailored enterprise applications.

The joint go-to-market strategy will initially focus on the UK, Ireland, the DACH region, Northern and Southern Europe, and the Middle East.

The partnership aims to address growing regulatory pressures on financial institutions and other highly regulated entities.

“Regulated organisations across Europe need AI that delivers transformative results without compromising data sovereignty, regulatory compliance, or security,”

said Manoj Mehta, President for the EMEA region at Cognizant.

He added that the partnership gives companies the foundation to adopt AI securely within their national borders.

The initiative aligns with Cognizant’s broader AI strategy, which is supported by over 60 patents and a dedicated AI lab spanning San Francisco and Bengaluru.

For Domyn, the collaboration expands its reach among complex enterprise clients.

“The next AI wave in Europe will be won by those who own and control the intelligence at the heart of their business,”

said Uljan Sharka, CEO of Domy.

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Further escalation of this fragmentation could severely worsen this damage, lowering economic output growth by up to 6.4% points and causing one-year economic output losses of up to US$6.9 trillion worldwide.

The impact of policy shifts will vary substantially by country, reflecting different degrees of exposure. In a scenario where fragmentation escalades, the most affected countries would be the “Neutrals”, which include Brazil, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Taiwan, and Turkey. This model suggests a division of the world into two fully severed floc, with the Neutrals being forced to choose a bloc.

In aggregate, these countries could see a 10.7% points hit to economic growth. In the long run, or approximately five years, firms would adapt to the policy changes by rerouting supply chains, mitigating the damage.

The research also reveal the impact of existing fragmentation and potential escalations on global rates of inflation. The current state is estimated to raise inflation by 0.2-0.3% points. The lower bound reflects estimates made using current effective tariff rates, while the upper bound reflects estimates based on higher signaled statutory tariff rates.

Under a very high fragmentation scenario, inflation would rise across all blocs, reaching as much as 6.1% points in the worst case.

Geopolitical uncertainty

In 2025 and 2026, the global policy environment shifted significantly, with finance, trade and economic policy becoming more intertwined. Countries raised barriers, and did so in unanticipated ways, increasing risks for firms and countries across the globe.

The US introduced a wide range of tariffs and other measures seeking to reduce bilateral deficits and eliminate other countries’ barriers to US exports. China was a major target of these efforts and retaliated, turning away from integration with the US and implementing its own restrictive policies.

At one point, tariffs between the US and China exceeded 100%, which would have effectively cut off trade between the world’s two largest economies. Meanwhile, China temporarily imposed first-of-their-kind export controls on rare earths, with economic ramifications for all countries, and tightened rules for Chinese companies listing in the US.

The WEF and Oliver Wyman report establishes a baseline estimate of the economic cost of these current trade and financial policies, and models the costs the world might face should trends accelerate further. It also introduces several new assumptions.

First, it incorporates restrictions among Western countries to reflect that the US has raised tariffs not only on its geopolitical rivals but also on European countries, Canada, Japan, South Korea and other allies. Retaliation from these countries has been limited, but some restrictions were imposed and more were readied, particularly the EU’s Anti-Coercion Instrument, a regulation that allows the bloc to respond to economic coercion by non-EU countries through measures such as tariffs, trade restrictions, or limits on market access.

Second, the scenarios assume that one of the main driver of fragmentation will be restrictive measures on trade between the US, the EU, other European countries, Japan, and their allies on one side, and China, Russia, and aligned countries on the other.

Furthermore, while the US and China still permit some trade in sensitive sectors such as semiconductors, AI, quantum computing and biotechnology, it is assumed this will cease if tensions escalate.

Recommendations to mitigate fragmentation

Against this backdrop, the report outlines a number of concrete steps policy-makers can take to mitigate these risks and trade disruption. It also shares actions private-sector firms can take to prepare their businesses to thrive despite ongoing volatility.

First, policy-makers should operationalize guardrails to mitigate unintended consequences of economic statecraft. They should align on a common set of guardrails through bilateral and multilateral forums such as the G20, and translate these principles into concrete steps to design national security measures that minimize collateral economic damage, reduce policy uncertainty, and foster a more stable environment for cross-border investment and innovation.

Furthermore, policy-makers should focus on maintaining the interoperability of underlying payment rails. They should encourage the adoption of common standards such as ISO 20022 data requirements to promote consistent data quality, implement the G20 Roadmap for Enhancing Cross-Border Payments, and pursuing a global regulatory framework for digital assets.

The report notes that while the US dollar remains dominant, currencies like the renminbi are gaining ground, driven by China’s active promotion of renminbi-denominated trade, overseas lending, central bank swap lines, and expansion of its Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS). Digital finance adds further complexity, as dollar-pegged stablecoins could simultaneously boost demand for dollar reserves, while eroding US oversight of cross-border payments.

The report also advises business leaders to build dedicated geopolitical risk-management capacity to understand their exposure through clients, counterparties, locations, and contractual relationships. They should also conduct enterprise scenario analysis to stress-test existing risk management frameworks, identify vulnerabilities, and uncover opportunities for optimization.

This comes as the East-West geoeconomic conflict continues to drive fragmentation, with persistent trade and investment restrictions, such as barriers affecting Chinese companies’ US stock listings and Chinese investment in US private equity. This creates elevated volatility that private financial institutions must navigate.

Finally, the report advocates a more granular perspective on the impact of fragmentation. While global-level guardrails on economic statecraft are valuable, this impact varies significantly by region.

In Europe, the fragmented state of capital markets makes the continent’s financial institutions and corporates less competitive amid geopolitical volatility. In Southeast Asia, the East-West competition threatens the economic model of these countries, which are tightly integrated into China-centered supply chains but also have substantial trade ties with the US and the West. In Africa, smaller and more open economies in this region are more vulnerable to shifts in capital and trade flows.

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The transaction, executed in Germany, was designed to test how AI agents can execute purchases within consumer-defined parameters while remaining compliant with existing European regulatory rules like Strong Customer Authentication.

During the pilot, a consumer defined purchase conditions, including the item and timing, and instructed a merchant AI agent to execute the task.

Once the agent identified a suitable product, the user authenticated the purchase intent using Visa Payment Passkeys.

The consumer then confirmed the transaction via biometric authentication before ING, acting as the issuing bank, authorised it. Worldline processed the payment end-to-end across its infrastructure.

Worldline and ING have formally joined Visa’s Agentic Ready Programme. The programme supports real-world testing of AI-enabled commerce using trusted payment credentials and consumer controls.

“As agentic payments emerge, the priority is to build trust into a new way of buying and paying,”

said Madalena Cascais Tomé, Member of the Executive Committee at Worldline.

She noted that orchestrating participants across the payment value chain is necessary to enable these models at scale.

“ING is committed to delivering convenient and secure experiences for our customers and their trusted agents,”

said Hans Overeem, Head of Payments, ING Netherlands.

“This milestone demonstrates that agented payments can be both user-friendly and auditable, with biometrics and delayed capture enabling flexible, safe purchasing.”

The companies said the pilot shows merchants can support agent-initiated commerce without reducing existing fraud protections.

Because transactions use established authentication methods and bank authorisation, AI-driven orders can be processed similarly to conventional online purchases without requiring bespoke payment infrastructure.

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The transactions were unveiled at the Visa Payments Forum in Paris and involved more than 30 European financial institutions, including Swiss issuers Cornèrcard, Swisscard and Viseca.

The system relies on the Visa Intelligent Commerce platform to connect financial institutions, merchants and AI networks.

Operating within strict parameters defined by the user, AI agents can search merchant websites, select items and stage transactions for checkout.

Consumers retain full control over their funds by authorising each payment before completion.

Verifying trusted agents

Merchants participate in the system through the Trusted Agent Protocol and the Agent Directory. These tools allow retailers to identify verified AI agents and distinguish them from unverified traffic or malicious bots.

This framework enables merchants to control how agents access their sites. It also governs how products are displayed and how transactions are prepared, without requiring entirely new infrastructure.

Passkey authentication for compliance

Financial institutions process these AI-initiated payments using Visa Payment Passkeys.

The system uses secure authentication credentials tied to the user to confirm identity. It also ensures compliance with European Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) requirements.

“We are now seeing how AI agents can make purchases directly from real merchants on behalf of people. The next step will be to roll this out on a large scale,”

Santosh Ritter, Country Manager of Visa Switzerland and Liechtenstein, said.

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Kelvin will report to UK CEO Francesca Carlesi and takes over from Carlos Selonke, who has held the position since September 2021.

Selonke is moving to become the Chief Information Officer for Revolut’s new US operations.

The digital bank is currently three months into its application for a de novo national bank charter in the US, an effort headed by Regional CEO Cetin Duransoy.

Kelvin confirmed on LinkedIn that he assumed the role last week, noting he will focus on scaling the technology, payments and operations at Revolut Bank UK.

The entity secured its full banking license in March and serves around 13 million users in the UK, contributing to the group’s 75 million users globally.

Before joining Revolut, Kelvin co-founded Tranch, an invoice-to-payments platform for law firms, with Beau Allison in 2021.

The pair previously worked together at digital mortgage broker Trussle, where Kelvin served as Chief Financial Officer.

Tranch was acquired by Elite Technology, a firm that was itself bought by Francisco Partners from TPG in September last year.

Kelvin briefly served as Vice President of Product and AI Strategy at Elite before taking a career break at the end of the year.

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However, digital wallets are rapidly gaining ground, projected to become the leading payment method for e-commerce by 2030.

The report, based on a survey of 63,441 consumers across 42 markets, indicates that in 2025, payment cards remained the preferred method over all others. They accounted for 48% of e-commerce and 52% of point-of-sale (POS) transaction value in Switzerland, with Mastercard and Visa carries most card network traffic.

In contrast, payment apps, which include digital wallets, account-to-account (A2A) transfers, and buy now, pay later (BNPL) options, collectively represented 47% of e-commerce payment.

The reliance of traditional methods, specially cards and cash, is even more pronounced in physical retail settings. These methods accounted for 72% of POS payment transaction value in 2025, leaving just 28% for payment apps.

This landscape stands in stark contrast to several other European nations, including the Nordic states, Germany, and Poland, which widely recognized for rapid cashless adoption. In 2025, payment apps dominated e-commerce volumes in these nations, accounting for 73% of e-commerce payment transaction value in Sweden in 2025, 85% in Germany, and 86% in Poland. In POS contexts, payment apps captured 43% of transaction value in Poland in 2025.

Digital wallets on the rise

While payment cards dominated e-commerce transaction in 2025, digital wallets are expected to overtake them by 2030. By then, digital wallets are projected to account for 42% of e-commerce transaction value, rising 8 points from 2025. In contrast, credit and debit cards are projected to decline by 8 points, falling to 40% of e-commerce transaction value.

Physical POS transactions are expected to evolve more slowly in Switzerland. Debit and credit cards are set to maintain their dominance, accounting for 48% of POS transaction value by 2030, compared to 32% for digital wallets.

In Switzerland, domestic payment wallet TWINT was cited more frequently than other brands both online and in-store, with PayPal and Apple Pay also featuring highly.

TWINT is the largest digital wallet in Switzerland and the country’s flagship A2A solution launched in 2017 that allows users to send and receive money, pay in stores, and make online purchases using a smartphone app linked to their bank account or a prepaid card.

The system is owned by a consortium of major Swiss financial institutions, and has reached near-ubiquitous adoption, with around 81% of physical stores and 86% of online shops in Switzerland accepting it. In 2025, it processed more than 901 million transactions, up 17% year-over-year (YoY), and claimed more than 6 million active users.

In the payment apps category, BNPL remains relatively new in Switzerland, holding only a limited market share. In 2025, BNPL arrangements accounted for just 8% of e-commerce transaction value, roughly matching the European average.

Like for digital wallets, TWINT and PayPal are the dominant BNPL providers online, followed by global leader Klarna. Domestic brands also exist, including CembraPay and HeyLight.

The Swiss BNPL market was estimated at around US$2.89 billion in 2026, up 20.9% YoY, according to one research firm. This growth trajectory is expected to continue, with forecasts predicting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.4% between 2026 and 2031. By the end of 2031, the BNPL sector is projected to be worth approximately US$6.45 billion.

European trends

Switzerland’s payment landscape broadly mirrors the wider European region, where cards remain the dominant method at both the POS and online. In 2025, cards accounted for 37% of e-commerce value and 58% of POS value across Europe.

This highly functional and entrenched card market has inhibited digital payment growth. In 2025, digital wallets accounted for just 18% of regional POS value, lagging the global average of 33%. However, digital wallets are expected to grow 12% CAGR between 2025 and 2030 to reach 26% This surge will be driven in part by two developments.

First, the European Commission accepted in 2024 legally binding commitments from Apple requiring it to provide free access to NFC payment functionality through APIs for competing wallet providers in the EEA. This ended Apple Pay’s exclusive access to NFC for contactless payments, allowing banks, payment providers, and digital wallet developers to create their own tap-to-pay apps on iPhones without routing payments through Apple Pay.

Second, Wero is expanding its footprint. Launched in 2024 by the European Payments Initiative, Wero is a European mobile payment system that allows users to send money instantly between bank accounts using a phone number or other simple identifiers. It’s being rolled out by European banks as a homegrown alternative to international payment platforms.

Wero started as a real-time payment system, before adding extended online payment functions in late 2025. POS payments, subscription management, and value-added services are scheduled to follow in 2026 and 2027.

European consumers are also the biggest users of BNPL globally, using the payment method at more than twice the global average. BNPL is especially popular in the Nordics, led by Sweden, the home of Klarna, where it accounts for a quarter of 2025 e-commerce value.

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According to a new study by Synpulse, which polled 26 banks and financial services providers in the two countries, there is a clear gap between interest in AI technologies and their actual deployments, with an interest-to-adoption ratio of 15:1 at the use-case level.

In particular, the study found that while 78% of respondents identified AI as relevant, only 5% have actually adopted AI. Even more telling, just 27% have at least one live AI solution in operation, while 35% have yet to launch any AI initiatives.

AI hotspots in banking operations

Nevertheless, the study highlights several operational areas as prime opportunities for AI integration, or what Synpulse deems “AI hotspots”. These are the functions and processes where AI demonstrates high relevance and strong expected benefits.

In retail banking, it names credit origination and documentation as the top AI hotspot. Currently, origination remains largely manual and document-intensive, resulting in slow turnaround times and inefficient allocation of skilled staff. In this context, AI offers significant opportunity through automation across document extraction, credit-file completeness validation, the generation of first-draft credit papers and term sheets, and covenant summarization.

In private banking, corporate action processing is identified as the top AI hotspot. These processes involve a lot of documents, tight deadlines, significant error costs, and voluntary events requiring precise interpretation.

According to the Synpulse report, the use of generative AI in this area could deliver approximately 50% full-time employee (FTE) savings within virtual corporate action (VCA) teams, alongside accuracy rates exceeding 95% in data extraction. Concrete AI implementations here include SWIFT message parsing, the creation of golden copy of announcements, auto-drafted client notifications, and position or entitlements reconciliation.

Beyond these primary sectors, other operations stand out as promising candidates for AI enhancement. In reconciliation, large break volumes continue to be cleared manually, delaying close and adding risk. AI-driven solutions could provide intelligent matching, break classification, and autonomous root-cause investigation.

Similarly, payment processing involves high volumes that generate constant exceptions demanding speed and accuracy. Relevant AI use cases in this area include real-time screening, fraud detection, and exception prioritization.

Finally, asset transfer processing presents its own set of difficulties, including unstructured instructions and multi-party steps that make transfers susceptible to delays and errors. Complex cases frequently require multiple interactions with several intermediaries. Additionally, emails and PDFs are processed manually, consuming valuable specialist time and exposing institutions to reputational damage and regulatory risks.

According to Synpulse, agentic AI could achieve 30% FTE savings in asset transfer team, while enabling over 98% in accuracy in data extraction.

AI adoption in finance surges

AI adoption in the Swiss banking sector stands in stark contrast to worldwide trends. According to a 2026 study by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF), which surveyed more than 600 financial institutions, AI vendors, and regulatory authorities, 81% of industry players have adopted AI at some level, with 40% reporting advanced AI adoption, including “Scaling” or “Transforming”.

Globally, AI applications in finance concentrate primarily on operational and back-office functions, with the most mature and widely adopted use cases being process automation, data visualization, and software development, with adoption rates of 79%, 75%, and 75%, respectively.

AI deployment is already demonstrating measurable improvements. Technology, data, and product departments reported the strongest gains, with 79% of respondents citing positive outcomes. Back office and operations followed closely at 75%, reinforcing the pattern of AI delivering tangible benefits where processes are well-defined and data is readily available.

Despite growing AI adoption, the CCAF study also highlights persistent challenges, especially around data quality, fragmented systems, technology and infrastructure challenges, and limited institutional capabilities.

AI visibility and shifting search behavior

Beyond improving operational efficiency, AI has emerged as a critical factor in how customers discover and evaluate financial services as soaring consumer adoption of conversational AI platforms like ChatGPT transformed these chatbots into key sources of information and, effectively, new channels for marketing outreach.

According to new research by Swiss software company hypt, usage of large language models (LLMs) for search surged dramatically from just 6% in 2025 to 45% 2026. At the same time, classical search engines for local recommendations declined from 83% in 2025 to 71% in 2026.

The shift from search engines to AI chatbots is expected to continue moving forward, with Gartner predicting a 25% decline in search engine volume by 2026 due to AI chatbots and other virtual agents.

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The inaugural Swiss Anti-Fraud Summit brought together representatives from the financial sector, telecommunications, technology, and online retail to address the growing complexity of digital fraud.

Participants at the event noted that digital fraud operations are increasingly professionalised and international.

They concluded that combating these networks requires coordination across the entire fraud chain. This starts from social media platforms and online marketplaces and extends to telecommunications providers and banks.

The summit focused on current fraud patterns and the systemic risks they pose to digital payment channels.

Discussions also covered future threats, including the expected rise in artificial intelligence-driven fraud.

Representatives stressed the need for earlier intervention in the digital ecosystem, particularly on communication platforms, alongside improved real-time data sharing between the private sector and law enforcement.

The groups noted that achieving this requires clearly defined frameworks for data protection and information exchange.

August Benz, Deputy CEO of the SBA, said:

“The banking industry takes its responsibility in the fight against fraud seriously and is working hard to develop effective prevention solutions. Collaboration across industries is vital. This is the only way to stamp out fraud over the long term.”

Christoph Müller, Head Banking Services and Member of the Executive Board, SIX, said:

“Fraud is a network problem and must be solved as such. This is what the Swiss Anti-Fraud Summit 2026 is all about. We are bringing key players in fraud prevention together in terms of communication, technology and operations.”

The SBA and SIX plan to use the summit’s findings to launch joint initiatives aimed at securing digital payment systems.

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The newly unified role consolidates oversight of 11 markets across the region, supporting the bank’s recent expansion efforts that include a new representative office in Switzerland.

Harwood-Jones is currently the Global Head of Financing and Securities Services at Standard Chartered.

During her tenure, she transformed the bank’s Financing and Securities Services business and positioned it as a top three custodian bank across Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

She also led the bank’s digital assets custody initiatives and brings over 30 years of financial services experience, following senior roles at BNP Paribas and HSBC.

“Europe and the UK are core to our global strategy, and there is significant opportunity to accelerate growth,”

said Margaret Harwood-Jones, incoming Chief Executive Officer for Europe and the UK at Standard Chartered.

She added that she looks forward to working with regional teams to draw on the bank’s cross-border capabilities and deliver long-term value.

Standard Chartered also appointed Jörg Hessenmüller as Chief Executive Officer of Standard Chartered Bank AG, replacing Nicolo Salsano. Hessenmüller joined the bank in 2024 as Chief Operating Officer for the continental European entity.

His responsibilities were expanded last year to include Chief Technology and Operations Officer for Europe. Prior to this, he held banking and financial market roles at Commerzbank, mBank, and Dresdner Bank.

“Our strength lies in connecting clients to high-growth markets globally, and I look forward to building on this momentum,”

said Jörg Hessenmüller, incoming Chief Executive Officer of Standard Chartered Bank AG.

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The initiative aims to explore settlement solutions for non-euro transactions on distributed ledger technology (DLT).

The partnership focuses on the settlement of tokenised US dollar-denominated Negotiable European Commercial Paper (NEU CP).

The companies will evaluate the use of USD CoinVertible for these transactions. SG-FORGE, the digital asset subsidiary of the Societe Generale group, issues the stablecoin, which complies with the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation.

European financial institutions are currently working to modernise the commercial paper market.

Project Pythagore, an ongoing regional initiative, aims to transition euro-denominated NEU CP onto DLT using central bank money for settlement.

Because the commercial paper market is inherently multi-currency, Euroclear and SG-FORGE are testing alternative digital cash solutions to support US dollar transactions in parallel with this DLT evolution.

“As we work with Banque de France to help the NEU CP market evolve toward DLT, this collaboration allows us to test how USD settlement can evolve alongside it,”

said Isabelle Delorme, Head of Product and Innovation at Euroclear.

“This collaboration highlights the growing role of digital cash solutions in modernising financial market infrastructure,”

said Jean-Marc Stenger, CEO of Societe Generale-FORGE.

“We are exploring how a robust and secure asset can enhance efficiency and resilience in cross-currency markets, while remaining fully aligned with regulatory and market standards.”

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According to the paper, agentic commerce is moving at an unprecedented pace. While the widespread adoption of the Internet took two decades, and mobile phones eight years, agentic commerce is expected to compress into just 24-26 months. This is because agents leverage existing infrastructure, including APIs, payment systems, and fulfillment networks built in place, preventing the need for businesses to rebuild foundational systems from scratch or wait for new digital rails to be established.

The A.C.E. Framework

To support this shift, the paper introduces the A.C.E Framework, an architectural model for building agent-ready commerce ecosystems across three critical layers.

First, the Agentic Experience Interface focuses on enabling products and services to be discoverable and actionable by AI agents. Second, the Composable Micro-Apps expose core commerce capabilities through modular, interoperable services. Finally, underpinning both is the Enterprise Context Orchestration, which represents the central nervous system of the agentic system. Situated between the micro-apps and legacy enterprise systems, this layer governs data integrity, security, compliance, and contextual intelligence across the entire agent ecosystem.

Beyond the architectural foundation, the paper also identifies three emerging categories of AI agents that organizations must increasingly optimize for.

The first category is the platform agents, such as ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini. These platforms sit between consumers and merchants, effectively functioning as the new “headless browser” for the AI era. As they control an increasingly dominant share of product discovery, becoming agent-addressable on these surfaces has become critical for businesses. ChatGPT, for example, processes 1 billion web searches weekly, with several sources claiming approximately 50 million shopping-intent queries every day.

The second category is brand agents. These systems operate on merchant-owned assets, serving customers directly within the brand’s ecosystem. Unlike platform agents, they offer differentiated experiences, capture first-party data, and strengthen direct relationships.

Notable examples include Sephora Virtual Artist, an augmented reality feature in Sephora’s app that allows users to try on makeup products in real time and which formulates product recommendations; and Zalando Advisor, an AI-powered conversational tool providing personalized fashion advice and product recommendations based on the customer’s questions, context, and shopping history.

Finally, the third category is personal consumer agents. These agents act on behalf of individual shoppers, managing preferences, executing purchases, and coordinating across multiple merchants. They are being enabled by platforms like ChatGPT Projects, and Gemini Personal Agents, alongside automation tools and open-source ecosystems that allow for self-hosted, action-capable agents, and long-running effort.

Though this category is still in its infancy, it is evolving quickly and warrants close monitoring from business leaders.

Agentic commerce market outlook

Agentic commerce refers to a shopping experience powered by intelligent AI agents capable of anticipating, personalizing, and automating every step of the process to create frictionless, proactive experiences. It’s enabled by cutting-edge advancements in AI, and represents a transformative shift in the entire commercial ecosystem.

Consumer behavior is already evolving in response to these capabilities. According to a 2025 survey by McKinsey, 44% of users who had tried AI-powered search said that it had become their “primary and preferred” source for Internet searching, compared with 31% who prefered using traditional search.

In Europe, AI adoption shows up most strongly upstream of the transaction. In particular, European consumers most frequently use AI for comparison brands, models, prices and reviews (63%), learning about a category or product (55%), and discovering new products and getting inspired (46%), according to separate 2025 study by McKinsey.

However, trust drops sharply when it shifts from supporting judgment to taking decisions, particularly when using AI to pre-fill baskets, complete checkout, or automatically reorder items.

Despite current challenges, McKinsey forecasts robust growth for the sector. Given the growing availability and current adoption levels of AI-powered discovery tools, it estimates that by 2030, the global B2C retail market alone could see between US$3 trillion and US$5 trillion in orchestrated revenue from agentic commerce.

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The company is using the BENJI token to gain round-the-clock liquidity for its idle cash reserves, reducing its reliance on traditional settlement cycles.

SCRYPT is using the BENJI token, which represents shares in the Franklin OnChain US Government Money Fund (FOBXX).

The integration allows the Swiss-licensed firm to manage its treasury with continuous on-chain access to a yield-bearing asset.

Conventional money market funds typically settle on a T+1 basis and operate within standard banking hours.

This creates a settlement mismatch for digital asset firms that manage liquidity in markets that operate around the clock.

By deploying its idle capital into a tokenised fund, SCRYPT can achieve more immediate liquidity for its treasury.

The firm executes these transactions on the same institutional infrastructure it uses for trading, settlement, and custody.

“Integrating BENJI into SCRYPT’s treasury gives us 24/7 intraday liquidity in a tokenised money market fund issued by one of the world’s most established asset managers,”

said Sylvan Martin, Founder and Chief Growth Officer at SCRYPT.

The deployment shows how regulated counterparties are placing their internal treasuries on tokenised cash rails before offering similar models to their clients.

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The testing showed that financial institutions can implement robust compliance controls through systems run on top of the network without altering the underlying blockchain protocol.

This allows the network to remain open and neutral while meeting institutional risk management standards.

The collaboration focused on enforcing compliance at two critical stages of Ethereum transaction broadcasting.

First, the teams configured an Ethereum node to apply custom risk rules, including restricting transactions to pre-approved addresses and blocking specific smart contract interactions.

Second, they developed a component to route approved transaction bundles directly to selected builders through relay services. This ensures reliable blockchain inclusion.

The end-to-end process was validated on the Sepolia test network using no live transactions.

“These proofs of concept demonstrate the value of close collaboration between UBS and Nethermind in shaping the next generation of compliant blockchain infrastructure,”

said Andreas Kubli, Group Head of Digital Assets at UBS.

He added that the results demonstrate that institutions can achieve controls and public network interoperability without compromising openness.

Tomasz Kurowski, Head of Enterprise Business at Nethermind, said:

“By implementing compliance controls at the infrastructure layer, we have shown that institutional requirements can be met without compromising Ethereum’s openness or interoperability.”

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The capability is available on Global Collect, the global cross-border payments platform of Worldline.

The service targets digital-first businesses looking to scale subscription models across multiple markets, while seeking to increase conversion rates and protect recurring revenue streams.

According to data from Worldline, checkout friction and payment failures remain significant obstacles to growth in digital commerce.

Click to Pay can increase checkout conversion by up to 6%, while involuntary churn from expired or reissued cards causes up to 40% of total subscription churn.

By extending this feature, the company aims to help merchants improve both customer acquisition and long-term retention.

“With Global Collect, we help international merchants convert more sign-ups into long-term revenue by reducing checkout friction and avoiding payment failures,”

said Gertjan Dewaele, Head of Product and Technology at the Global Commerce division, Worldline.

During the initial transaction, the system securely stores tokenised payment credentials. Tokenisation replaces sensitive card data with secure digital identifiers used for subsequent billing cycles.

The system automatically updates these tokens when payment cards are renewed or replaced, helping avoid interruptions in billing cycles.

The company designed this automation for businesses in software-as-a-service, streaming, gaming, and digital memberships, where acquisition and retention directly drive profitability.

Built on EMVCo Secure Remote Commerce standards and supported by major card schemes, the solution allows consumers to register once.

Shoppers can then check out instantly across participating merchants without manual data entry, passwords, or lengthy forms.

For merchants, the integration promises higher conversion through faster checkouts, reduced involuntary churn via updated tokens, and simplified compliance.

Worldline stated that 89% of consumers rate the payment method equal to or better than other digital checkout options. The new capability will be live on the Global Collect platform starting 30 July 2026.

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To address this gap, Managing Partners Christian Winkler and Michael Wieser have announced the Swiss Champions Fund, a venture capital fund managed by TIE Capital Partners with a target size of approximately CHF 100 million.

The fund will invest exclusively in companies that have participated in Venturelab’s Venture Leaders programme.

It will focus on Series A and Series B rounds. As a lead or co-lead investor, it will typically make initial investments ranging from CHF 3 million to CHF 5 million.

The fund plans to build a concentrated portfolio and focus on this specific pipeline and stage of financing.

The launch comes as Swiss startups continue to see growth in venture capital investment. Total annual investment in Swiss startups has increased from about CHF 940 million in 2016 to nearly CHF 3 billion in recent years.

However, data from SECA and startupticker indicates that roughly 24% of this capital has come from Swiss investors over the past decade. In later-stage rounds, the domestic share falls below 10%.

As a result, Swiss startups often raise growth funding abroad, including in London, Berlin, and the US.

“Switzerland doesn’t have an innovation problem, it has a scaling capital problem,”

said Christian Winkler and Michael Wieser, Managing Partners of the Swiss Champions Fund.

“Switzerland has been producing companies for years. With the Swiss Champions Fund, we aim to act as a growth-stage investor for selected Venture Leaders companies during their expansion phase.”

The fund will become a main sponsor of Venture Leaders and use the programme as its investment pipeline.

Around 60 companies are selected for Venture Leaders each year.

“For over 20 years, Venture Leaders has supported Swiss technology companies as they enter international markets,”

said Jordi Montserrat, Co-Founder of Venturelab.

“The addition of a growth-stage fund provides another financing option for companies moving beyond the programme.”

The launch was announced on the evening of 24 June during Venture Leaders’ 20th anniversary celebration in Zurich.

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The integration allows merchants to accept region-specific payment options, targeting consumers who prefer familiar checkout tools when buying from international retailers.

The new options include Swish in Sweden, MB WAY in Portugal, and BLIK Pay Later in Poland, along with Brazil’s Pix.

With this expansion, PayPal now supports a wider range of locally preferred payment methods worldwide, including bank transfers, digital wallets, and cash-based solutions.

The European international e-commerce market has reached nearly €359 billion, representing a substantial growth area for businesses looking to expand.

“Even when consumers shop globally, they want to pay with the payment methods they know and trust at home,”

said Samba Natarajan, Senior Vice President and General Manager for Europe, PayPal.

Offering localised payment options can help online retailers reduce checkout friction.

This process often leads to higher conversion rates and improved customer satisfaction, which is particularly relevant for merchants seeking to expand their customer base beyond domestic borders.

“By integrating more than 30 new local payment methods into PayPal’s platform, we are connecting global merchants with more shoppers around the world,”

said Motie Bring, CEO, PPRO.

The collaboration brings together PayPal’s global payments network and PPRO’s expertise in local payment infrastructure, helping merchants offer the payment options customers expect in different markets.

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Dubbed “Made in Crypto Valley”, the initiative is open to ventures across multiple sectors including fintech, AI, supply chain, biotechnology, medical technology, and robotics.

The programme targets founders at the pre-seed or seed stage, offering a structured syndicate investment process connecting them with regional investors and established companies.

The programme matches founders directly with a CVA-orchestrated syndicate designed to provide direct capital investment.

To qualify, participating startups must have raised a maximum of CHF 1.5 million to date, with a valuation cap set at CHF 10 million.

The initiative aims to foster talent and support the next generation of builders within the Swiss startup ecosystem. The investment process will culminate in a final presentation day in Zurich on 11 November 2026.

Startups have until 15 September 2026 to submit their applications to the syndicate.

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This infrastructure pose significant challenges as it is often built around fragmented legacy systems that are expensive to maintain, difficult to integrate with modern technologies, and slow to adapt to new regulations or products.

Against this backdrop, blockchain technology represents a viable solution for upgrading this infrastructure, offering shared-ledger settlement in real time at costs and speeds suitable for production volumes, and providing the structural overhaul that banking infrastructure requires, according to a new report by management consulting firm Roland Berger.

The paper notes that while many banks have already begun experimenting with blockchain, most activity remains confined to pilots and token gestures. The strategic challenge is therefore to move beyond experimentation while remaining compliant and managing risk.

It outlines four steps to meet this challenge. First, banks must quantify the greatest sources of financial drain, customer friction or risk of inaction, and isolate one or two high-impact business cases. Then, they can develop a strategy that concentrates resources where there is a clear return on investment, avoiding engaging in initiatives that lack measurable return.

Second, banks need to establish a dedicated digital assets team to bridge technology, finance and compliance. This team will be in charge of developing the strategy and implementation roadmap. It will require top-level sponsorship as digital asset programs are frequently met with skepticism across established banking structures, hence, clear executives backing is key to reduce internal resistance and signal institutional commitment.

The third step involves translating prioritized pain points into a well-defined pilot. This pilot should be contained, for example, within a specific currency corridor or product line, and supported by clearly defined success metrics. A key decision at this stage will be whether to build a proprietary solution or participate in an existing blockchain consortium.

Finally, the fourth and last step involves choosing the right blockchain based on alignment between the technology architecture and the operational and regulatory context in which it will be deployed.

While public networks like Ethereum offer transparency, liquidity, and access to a broad developer ecosystem, banks’ privacy and compliance obligations may make private or permissioned configurations more appropriate. Often, a multi-chain approach proves the most relevant.

Inefficiencies in current banking infrastructure

Despite improvements on mobile apps and digital channels, the core infrastructure of banking still runs on settlement architecture designed in previous decades. This legacy infrastructure is plagued with inefficiencies that are embedded in interbranch settlement, interbank flows, cross-border transfers and operational areas such as lending and trade finance.

Settlement processes still depend on reconciliation cycles and operating-hour limitations. Furthermore, large back-office teams continue to reconcile transactions manually, with one study indicating that 0.8-1.8% of these accounts are subject to error. These manual processes not only introduce delays and capital drag but also create a significant vulnerability to mistakes.

Cross-border transfers show a similar pattern. These payments are routed through intermediary and correspondent banks operating across different time zones and regulatory regimes, with each intermediary performing compliance checks before funds reach their destination, causing settlement times to range from a number of hours to several days. This accumulates fees along the chain, and introduces opacity throughout the journey.

Loan servicing is also plagued with timing gaps. Loan systems frequently rely on asynchronous updates across departments, creating temporary mismatches and limits responsiveness.

Escrow processes likewise rely on legacy infrastructure and time-consuming manual verification, with buyers and financial institutions maintaining separate records across independent systems. Verifying contractual milestones typically requires documentation exchange before funds are released, extending closing processes to as much as 30-45 days.

Similarly, trade finance remains heavily manual and document-driven. Transactions involve exporters, importers and banks that operate distinct record-keeping and compliance systems. These systems are rarely integrated, with verification requiring repeated document checks before capital can move.

The potential of blockchain

Blockchains are decentralized ledgers that allow transactions to be recorded, verified and synchronized across participants without requiring a central intermediary to reconcile accounts after the fact. This presents a fundamentally different operating model to a traditional bank core settlement architecture which uses centralized databases and trusted internal systems to process, reconcile, and finalize transactions.

For interbranch settlements, a bank could deploy a private blockchain network in which each branch operates as a node with read and write access. When a customer at one branch withdraws funds deposited at another, the transaction is recorded on a shared ledger and becomes immediately visible across the network, with balances updating simultaneously.

Major financial institutions are implementing tokenized deposits that enable immediate fund transfers across branches while reducing internal settlement friction. JP Morgan, for example, offers the Kinexys suite of blockchain services for moving money, tokenizing assets and exchanging financial information. JP Morgan is also part of the Canton Network alongside institutions like Goldman Sachs, HSBC, and BNY. The Canton Network is a blockchain network for regulated financial markets launched in 2023.

In interbank settlements, instead of routing transactions through correspondent chains or relying on end-of-day netting, banks participating in a blockchain network can record obligations on a consortium platform accessible to authorized members. This blockchain layer would sit above existing core systems and connect through APIs, allowing synchronization without requiring a wholesale replacement of legacy infrastructure.

This approach has already been tested through initiatives like the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s Project Ubin, which explored distributed ledger technology (DLT) for real-time gross settlement systems for interbank payments and securities settlement.

A shared blockchain ledger can also function as a single source of truth for loan data. When a borrower makes a payment, the update is recorded once and reflected immediately across relevant departments.

Versana illustrates this model in syndicated lending. The platform, which is backed by major banks, provides real-time visibility into loan positions, repayments and accruals for participating lenders.

Cross-border transfers are another area particularly suited to shared ledger settlement. Instead of moving through multiple intermediaries, transactions can be recorded directly on blockchain infrastructure between participating institutions, reducing reliance on correspondent chains, improving speed, and ultimately cutting costs. According to an analysis by cryptocurrency investment group Keyrock, stablecoins can reduce remittances fees by 92%.

Finally, trade finance and escrow arrangements can benefit significantly from blockchain technology. Platforms can digitalize trade documentation and store it on a shared ledger that is accessible to authorized participants. Smart contracts, meanwhile, automate verification by checking whether predefined conditions are met before triggering payment.

Similarly, escrow arrangements can be automated through smart contracts that hold funds on blockchain infrastructure and release payment once predefined conditions are verified. Rather than relying on manual confirmation by an escrow agent, execution is triggered automatically when an authoritative event is recorded.

American startup Propy exemplifies this model, using blockchain to modernize how property is bought, sold, and transferred. The company claims its model reduces closing time from 30-45 days to as little as 24 hours in some cases.

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This bullish scenario assumes that digital asset adoption would move beyond priority use cases and scale across a wider set of wholesale banking products. It also presumes widespread adoption across the broader financial ecosystem, facilitated by integration with customer-facing software that makes it seamless to transact natively on digital rails, in addition to vertical integration with bigtech platforms, especially stablecoins affiliated with Google, Amazon, and Microsoft.

Industry utilities and networks would also contribute to adoption by standardizing blockchain rails,  enabling broader access and greater ease in onboarding participants.

In this scenario, tokenization would gain traction in capital markets and cryptocurrencies would expand as an asset class.

As adoption grows, tokenized money would become widely used as a both a payment and settlement asset, supporting the expansion of delivery-versus-payment and payment-versus-payment models across asset classes.

In this scenario, digital assets are projected to penetrate 11% of wholesale banking revenues, driven by cross-border payments (30%), and tokenized equities trading (15%). This would be driven by strong retail demand, and institutional adoption. Net new revenue pools would expand to US$16 billion, with banks capturing about 50% of this value.

Cross-border payments have long been considered one of the most promising areas for digital assets, given that today’s infrastructure is fragmented, expensive, and slow.

Several major banks have already started deploying digital assets and tokenized money. For example, JP Morgan’s institutional blockchain platform Kinexys processes about US$5 billion daily in tokenized bank deposits transfers, cross-border payment settlements, and tokenized asset management. SG Forge, meanwhile, is deploying EUR and USD stablecoins. Similarly, 37 European banks are participating in the Qivalis EUR stablecoin initiative.

Tokenization also presents a significant opportunity by making equity issuance, trading, settlement, and collateral management faster, more transparent, and more capital-efficient.

Financial institutions are actively building platforms to tokenize traditional and illiquid assets: Citi’s new offering developed with the SIX Digital Exchange tokenizes shares of late-stage private companies; UBS Tokenize is a institutional tokenization platform for bonds, structured notes, and tokenized funds; and Goldman Sachs’ GS Digital Asset Platform (DAP) supports digital issuance, tokenized fund interest, and blockchain settlement.

Citi expects public market equities to achieve one of the highest tokenization penetration rates among key financial asset types. By 2030, approximately US$5.4 trillion worth of public equities assets could exist in tokenized form, representing roughly 66% of the total tokenized asset market.

Although the Oliver Wyman and Morgan Stanley report expects faster settlement and 24/7 trading hours to increase business activity and overall revenues for wholesale banks, these gains could be offset by lower profit margins as banks pass their reduced operating costs on to customers, and decreasing liquidity balances in accounts earning interests.

Furthermore, it notes that the rapid adoption of digital assets could accelerate the entry of non-bank competitors, which could capture up to 10% of the market share and increase competitive pressure on incumbents.

AI in wholesale banking

Besides estimates on the impact of digital assets on wholesale banking, the report also examines the state of the industry, delving into 2025 developments and emerging trends. It highlights that while artificial intelligence (AI) investment in wholesale banking continues to increase, banks are struggling to convert this momentum into meaningful financial outcomes.

The Evident AI Index 2025, which assessed 50 of the world’s largest banks across North America, Europe, and Asia, found that only seven of the banks studied disclosed projected returns from all AI initiatives, and just four reported realized financial benefits.

However, among the banks that reported both projected and realized outcomes, early results are significant. JP Morgan reported annual AI spend of about US$2 billion, with realized benefits already matching this level as of 2025. France’s BNP Paribas stated EUR 635 million (US$723 million) in AI-driven benefits in 2025, with projections rising to EUR 750 million (US$860 million) by 2026. In Singapore, DBS reported SGD 1 billion (US$774 million) in economic value from AI in 2025, up from SGD 750 million (US$581 million) in 2024.

Other research mirror these gaps. A 2025 study by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) of more than 1,250 firms worldwide found that only 5% of the organizations polled have taken significant AI actions and actually achieved AI value at scale. Conversely, 60% reported achieving no material value at all, noting minimal revenue and cost gains despite substantial investment. Another 35%, or 13 points more than in 2024, were scaling up their efforts and seeing some returns, but many of them admitted that they were not moving far enough or fast enough.

Despite this, AI investment continues to surge, with Wall Street analysts estimating US$1 trillion in total spending through 2027, CNBC reports.

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Swiss regtech RegCheck secured the top prize in the vertical, taking home CHF 50,000 and a consulting package from McKinsey and Company.

The competition also recognised reilo. and UAC Labs as finalists for their respective financial solutions.

RegCheck (Winner)

RegCheck uses AI to simulate regulatory audits, helping regulated firms spot compliance gaps before submission and enabling more consistent reviews.

reilo. (Finalist)

reilo. turns smallholder farmers’ natural assets into bankable collateral, unlocking capital and carbon income for 500 million farmers excluded from finance.

UAC Labs (Finalist)

UAC Labs builds coordination infrastructure that guarantees atomic settlement across any financial system, without intermediaries or locked capital.

Launched in 1997, >>venture>> has been fostering winning business ideas for over 25 years.

Competition alumni have gone on to successfully found over 1500 companies and create more than 15,000 jobs in Switzerland.

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The Paris facility is the company’s third European hub, joining its existing data centres in Germany and the UK.

The expansion provides enterprise-grade cloud computing services that comply with European data privacy, cybersecurity, and resilience regulations.

The infrastructure supports elastic computing, storage, containerisation, networking, security, databases, and advanced developer tools.

In the second half of 2026, Alibaba Cloud will introduce a suite of agentic AI services tailored for European markets.

These tools are designed to help enterprises build, deploy, and manage AI agents while maintaining local compliance and security.

The planned lineup includes AgentRun, a development platform for AI agents, and STAROps, an intelligent operations platform.

The suite also features security-focused tools such as ACS Agent Sandbox for hardware-level isolation, Agent Security Center for supply chain transparency, and AI Security Guardrails 2.0 to monitor model interactions and intercept runtime risks.

“The expansion of our cloud infrastructure into France reinforces our ongoing commitment to empowering European businesses with sovereign, secure, and intelligent solutions,”

said Dr. Feifei Li, Chief Technology Officer and President of International Business of Alibaba Cloud.

Alibaba Cloud has operated in Europe since 2016, providing digital solutions for multinational and local enterprises.

The provider recently supported the Paris 2024 Olympic Games with cloud and AI services and announced a multi-year technology partnership with UEFA in May 2026.

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The investment forms part of a €3 million pre-seed funding round.

The funding announcement comes as reltix achieves a milestone of €1 million in annual recurring revenue.

Founded by Léon Alex Bamesreiter and his co-founding team, the company acts as a direct property manager rather than selling software tools to traditional operators.

Reltix intends to turn operational workflows and data points into the structured foundation of an open operating platform.

The company plans to integrate partners across banking, energy, and construction to build an infrastructure layer for the residential property management market.

“Building an AI-native property management business means transforming an industry long overdue for meaningful change,”

said Léon Alex Bamesreiter, Co-Founder of reltix.

He added that collaboration with Tenity provides an ecosystem. It helps the startup scale innovation in a traditionally analog sector.

Tenity chose to invest due to the large size of the underserved property management market. The sector typically suffers from poor service levels and low software penetration.

The investment platform also cited reltix’s early execution, noting that it expanded its geographic reach within less than a year of entering the market.

“Rather than optimising within the existing model, reltix is creating an open ecosystem where service quality improves structurally,”

said Guillermo Forteza, Principal and Investment Lead Europe at Tenity.

He noted that the business model becomes more scalable as technology absorbs more of the workflow.

According to Tenity, the investment reflects its strategy of backing founders who rethink established industries from first principles.

The investment firm believes highly attractive opportunities in services come from companies that own the customer relationship. These companies use AI to deliver consistent outcomes.

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The consortium comprises Basellandschaftliche Kantonalbank, Basler Kantonalbank along with Bank Cler, St. Galler Kantonalbank and Thurgauer Kantonalbank.

These institutions collaborated to evaluate and select a technology vendor to support their digitisation strategies.

Phased Rollout for Digital Banking Tools

The project will transition the banks to the new Avaloq mobile platform in phases. The updated application provides trading and portfolio management tools, customisable dashboards, real-time notifications and credit card management capabilities.

It also integrates Apple Pay and Google Pay, and allows the banks to add features independently over time.

Beyond the software deployment, the project serves as a model for stronger collaboration among cantonal banks.

By pooling their experiences and aligning their innovation strategies, the participating banks plan to improve their digital offerings and the overall client experience.

“We selected Avaloq for this project based on its proven track record in core banking, sustained investment in research and development, and its Swiss roots,”

said Manuel Niederkofler, Head of IT at Thurgauer Kantonalbank.

Christian Haux, Managing Director for Switzerland and Liechtenstein at Avaloq, said:

“With rising expectations for intuitive digital services and self-service, mobile banking has become a clear priority for financial institutions, and we are committed to ensuring that our clients can offer a modern, user-friendly mobile banking experience.”

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The collaboration aims to address the fragmentation of the settlement layer in Europe’s digital capital markets.

It allows issuers to structure and issue tokenised financial instruments through the BlockInvest platform, while Weltix manages their circulation via its DLT register.

Weltix is authorised by Italy’s Consob regulator under the country’s fintech decree.

Seturion will handle the settlement of these transactions, offering the flexibility to settle in central bank money or on-chain cash.

The infrastructure also makes the instruments eligible for trading across multilateral trading facilities and over-the-counter environments, including direct access to Boerse Stuttgart Group venues.

“We offer Italian issuers and investors the entire value chain in one regulated architecture, from issuance to settlement,”

said Sven Wilke, Deputy CEO and CGO, Seturion.

As European banks and issuers increasingly look to tokenise assets under new regulatory frameworks, they are doing so at a growing pace.

However, the lack of an integrated settlement layer remains a bottleneck for institutional scaling.

“By combining BlockInvest’s orchestration platform with a robust, regulated settlement layer, we are building a seamless, end-to-end corridor for banks and corporates to move assets and capital fluidly across European borders,”

said Lorenzo Rigatti, Founder and CEO, BlockInvest.

The partnership is open to additional participants, including banks, trading venues, and other market players.

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The digital wealth manager experienced rapid growth over the past year. While accumulating its initial asset base took several years, the growth trajectory has steepened significantly since 2023.

The company launched in 2013 with a focus on creating a transparent, user-centric investment platform. It reached its first billion francs in August 2023.

Growth continued steadily, with the platform crossing the CHF 1.5 billion mark by August 2024. This acceleration persisted as the company surpassed CHF 2 billion in client assets by July 2025.

Securing the third billion required only 10 months, reflecting expanding investor confidence in technology-driven wealth management.

True Wealth currently manages more than 45,000 client relationships.

“Because I am a customer myself, I am very close to the product and can help improve the solutions,”

said Oliver Herren, Co-founder of True Wealth, in a LinkedIn post.

“We are only at the beginning. Let’s keep going.”

The company originally launched the platform to make professional wealth management accessible to a broad audience by offering wealth accumulation solutions at a low cost.

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Despite all these predictions, the tipping point where banks truly lost customer grip didn’t actually happen until 2025. This turning point was propelled by transformative changes across four key dimensions: the maturation of fintech firms, evolving customer behaviors, breakthroughs in neobanking, and the accelerated adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and stablecoins, according to McKinsey’s 2026 Global Banking Annual Review.

Fintech firms evolve and mature

The report, released in May 2026, analyzes the global banking sector’s 2025 performance, profitability trends, and strategic direction for financial institutions. This edition highlights a tipping point in customer relationship, catalyzed in part by the evolution of the fintech ecosystem.

In 2025, fintech revenues reached US$650 billion. While this remains a small portion of the banking industry’s US$7.3 trillion, the sector has matured significantly, with established firms reaching scale, and using their capital to attack some of banking’s most valuable profit pools, particularly in payments, wealth management, capital markets, and lending.

A comparison of the world’s top 1,000 banks versus the top 1,000 fintech firms further highlights this trend. The “millenniad” of the top banks generated US$3.8 trillion in revenues, while their fintech counterparts generated US$625 billion. These figures represent a 22% increase between 2021 and 2025 for fintech firms, compared to just 5% for banks.

Looking ahead, fintech firms are set for further expansion as several reversed their strategy and are now actively pursuing banking licenses. In 2025, 21 banking license applications were filed in the US, marking a sharp increase from one in 2024 and five in 2023. About 38% of these applications were accepted.

Neobanking booms

Similarly, leading neobanks continued to grow in 2025, achieving scale at unprecedented speeds across major markets. As of December 2025, UK-based Revolut was the 11th-most-valuable bank in Europe, and now boasts 75 million retail customers. Nubank claims 135 million customers, and is the most valuable bank in Latin America. For China’s WeBank, the figures are 430 million customers and 11th place in market value among the nation’s banks.

Financially, these institutions outperform incumbents on several key metrics. While the return on equity (ROE) for the US and European banking industries sits at about 12%, Nubank’s is at about 30%, Robinhood’s exceeds 20%, and Revolut and Wise both clock in at about 35%.

Higher ROE for neobanks means they are generating more profit from every dollar of shareholder investment compared to traditional banks. This advantage largely comes from their lean business models, which avoids expensive physical branches and outdated technology systems.

As established neobanks grow, these players continue to expand their suite of banking products and services. Nubank launched in 2014 its first product, a no-fee credit card, and now offers current and savings accounts, debit cards, money transfer, and services for businesses.

Revolut, which launched in 2015 with prepaid cards, foreign exchange, and spending analytics, today offers about 50 products, including capital markets, commodities, and crypto trading; personal loans; a range of credit cards; and a suite of services for small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs).

Agentic AI and stablecoins are dissolving customer stickiness

AI agents and stablecoins represent two emerging technologies that threaten to erode the relationship between traditional banks and their customers.

AI agents can perform task and solve issues largely on its own. In deposits, they can monitor balances in real time, compare returns across institutions, sweep idle cash into higher-yield accounts, and then sweep cash back to a checking account in time for bills. This not only reduces customers’ reliance on traditional banks, but also allows more of the spreads captured by banks to go to account holders, effectively cutting off some of the revenue banks earn from passive accounts.

Beyond deposits, AI agents can help consumers shift credit card balances, exploit sign-up offers, and cash in loyalty points. They can also make tax planning simple for consumers and might provide an entry point into wealth management and advisory. Consumer lending and other banking businesses could also lose customers to agent-powered fintech solutions.

Stablecoins is another technology that poses a similar threat to the customer relationship. Stablecoins can make it cheaper and faster to send money across borders, which is particularly valuable for uses such as trade finance or remittances involving jurisdictions with less developed payments systems. As adoption of stablecoins grows, fiat deposits may shift toward stablecoin reserves, and businesses may reduce cash buffers required for international operations.

The stablecoins market has grown from less than US$10 billion six years ago to more than US$300 billion today. Citi estimates this figure could reach up to US$4 trillion by 2030.

Shifting customer behaviors

Finally, the fourth and last driver highlighted by McKinsey is the fundamental shift in customer behavior. Traditional banks have historically relied on older customers for an outsize share of revenues and profits. That’s becoming a problem as younger customers are revealing quite different preferences for how they want to bank. These customers are more highly engaged, expect services that put the customer at the center, value innovation, and prize responsiveness.

Incumbents oftentimes struggle to deliver these qualities, prompting younger customers to consider switching to nonbank providers. According to a 2025 Deloitte survey, younger consumers are significantly more willing to switch banks. Specifically, 26.6% of Gen Z and 22.5% of Millennial respondents, born between 1981 and 2012, indicated they are likely to switch within the next two years. This rate is two to five times higher than that of their Gen X or Baby Boomer counterparts, born between 1946 and 1980.

In terms of digital platform usage, Millennials lead across most categories, though Gen Z track closely behind, except for payments, where Gen X, millennial, and Gen Z respondents exhibit a similar level of preference.

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The acquisition follows a recent Series A extension funding round at a US$192 million valuation raised by Blockworks specifically aimed at driving sector consolidation. The funding round was co-led by ParaFi and Reciprocal Ventures.

Messari provides data coverage for over 40,000 assets and operates an API that supplies data across markets, exchanges, protocols, token unlocks, and social sentiment.

This infrastructure is widely used by funds, exchanges, and developers to power algorithmic trading models, compliance workflows, and application development.

The transaction comes at a time when the digital asset market is maturing and undergoing increased institutionalisation and regulation.

As institutional capital moves onchain, market participants require standardised infrastructure for investor relations, compliance monitoring, asset underwriting, and regulatory reporting.

The combined entity aims to bridge the gap between asset issuers and underwriters.

Blockworks has previously focused on the issuer side through its Token Transparency Framework and institutional investor relations platform.

Messari has historically served underwriters, including funds, exchanges, and regulators, through its market intelligence tools and API data layer.

By combining proprietary data, issuer disclosures, onchain activity, and AI, the platform intends to establish a single system of record for onchain businesses.

This integrated infrastructure will provide automated workflows and data access for developers, financial institutions, and autonomous trading agents.

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Developed in partnership with asset servicing leader CACEIS, the bespoke euro and US dollar-denominated share classes mark the first operational milestones under an agreement signed between the companies last November.

The tripartite initiative allows Ant International to use digital fund shares for its intra-group treasury operations. CACEIS supports the mechanism by serving as both the transfer agent and tokenisation agent for the fund.

The implementation aims to improve the efficiency of digital corporate treasury operations by moving traditional fund investments onto the blockchain.

“We are delighted to support Ant International in this pioneering project and to further advance the real-world applications of tokenisation in investment solutions,”

said Fannie Wurtz, Deputy General Manager, Head of Client Group and Chair of Asia at Amundi.

Wurtz added that the collaboration reflects the firm’s goal to meet the evolving needs of sophisticated institutional clients.

Ant International has used blockchain infrastructure for its internal treasury management since 2019. The digital payments provider aims to build an environment for instant, borderless money movement.

“We believe blockchain and AI can unlock real-time solutions for global corporate treasurers,”

said Kelvin Li, General Manager of Platform Tech and Senior Vice President at Ant International.

“We are glad to work with Amundi to co-develop secure, compliant investment products accessible 24/7 globally.”

Following the initial roll-out, the three institutions are exploring the integration of the short-term money market fund with Whale, which is Ant International’s proprietary blockchain-based treasury management platform.

The planned expansion aims to onboard Amundi funds directly onto the Whale network to co-develop new money market solutions tailored for corporate treasurers globally.

Amundi and Ant International are also looking into expanding the digital solution to additional markets and currencies.

The companies stated that the deployment of these upcoming advancements remains subject to all necessary legal and regulatory approvals.

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Developed by Verein Vorsorge Schweiz (VVS) in partnership with the bvg-digital association, the initiative aims to make pension certificate data machine readable and reusable across digital services.

The new QR code standard formats key pension information into a structured layout.

This design enables financial applications to integrate pension data in a structured way, simplifying wealth planning for Swiss consumers.

The technical foundation relies on the Pension API Version 4, created by the SFTI Common API working group.

This framework expands existing open finance protocols to include specific support for handling vested benefits and Pillar 3a certificates.

“The digital pension certificate is a very tangible example of the value that common standards can create,”

said Stephanie Wickihalder, President of SFTI.

“Pension data becomes easier to access and can be used more effectively in further digital services.”

SFTI stated that the next phase of the project involves driving implementation across Swiss financial institutions.

The goal is to make the digital pension certificate widely usable across the wealth ecosystem.

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The rollout marks a strategic shift for the bank towards relationship-based customer offerings.

The new plans, ING Go, ING More, ING Extra, and ING Max, are designed to meet growing consumer demand for simplicity and flexibility.

The model introduces premium options that bundle debit and credit cards, investment benefits, and comprehensive insurance. It also includes partner extras such as streaming services, travel benefits, and cashback features.

With over €600 billion in retail banking customer deposits, ING is scaling the model internationally while tailoring specific features to local markets.

The new plans are currently live in the Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, and Romania, with 3 million customers already migrated to the updated offerings.

“We act when we see an opportunity to create value for customers,”

said Sali Salieski, Global Head of Private Individuals at ING.

“Following extensive customer research, they told us they want everyday banking to be simpler, designed around their lifestyle and with more flexibility.”

The bank plans to continue its phased international rollout to its remaining retail markets, which include Germany, Spain, Italy, Australia, and Turkey.

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The round included participation from both traditional and decentralised finance institutions.

Notable backers include ABN Amro, a subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, BNP Paribas, Broadridge, Citadel Securities, and HSBC.

The company will use the Digital Asset funding to scale the Canton network.

Digital Asset plans to deepen its engagement with developers and financial institutions. The company will focus on bringing more assets and regulated workflows onchain.

“For capital markets to move onchain, institutions need infrastructure that reflects how they actually operate with privacy, compliance, scale, and interoperability built in from the start,”

said Yuval Rooz, Co-Founder and CEO of Digital Asset.

Rooz noted that Digital Asset is working with more than 700 participants to establish Canton as core infrastructure for global finance.

The network is designed to address barriers to blockchain adoption by enabling institutions to use shared infrastructure while maintaining necessary regulatory controls.

“Digital Asset has built one of the clearest examples of blockchain product-market fit in regulated finance,”

said Ali Yahya, General Partner at a16z crypto.

The investment also establishes a broader partnership between Digital Asset and a16z crypto.

The blockchain firm will draw on the investor’s expertise in policy and research to support its growth in tokenisation, collateral mobility, and settlement use cases.

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This projection marks a dramatic shift from the estimated US$17 billion global tokenization market for financial assets recorded as of April 2026, a figure which itself reflects a threefold increase from the previous year.

Public equities lead the charge

This growth will be driven by public market equities, which are expected to achieve the highest penetration rate among key asset types at 2.9%, generating the largest volume in absolute terms. By 2030, approximately US$5.4 trillion worth of public equities assets could exist in tokenized form, constituting roughly 66% of the total tokenized asset market. The US is set to dominate this segment, accounting for US$3.9 trillion of that volume through a 4.5% tokenization penetration rate.

Retail trading activity and participation in US equity markets are projected to migrate towards tokenized distribution models over time, with Citi estimating that about 10% of such activity could eventually move to these platforms.

This trend will be mostly driven by younger, digitally native investors, particularly millennials and Gen Z, born between 1997 and 2012, alongside the continued rise of app-based brokerage and crypto-native financial ecosystems. These investors, both in and outside the US, will continue to expect 24/7 convenience in everything they do, from food delivery to e-commerce, banking and trading.

With approximately 145 million Gen Z and Millennials in the US, these generations have been raised in a digital finance environment and are actively reshaping the sector. According to a 2025 report by Robinhood Markets, Boston Consulting Group (BCG), and the World Economic Forum, these younger investors participate in capital markets at higher rates than previous generations and seek personalized, tech-enabled guidance.

58% of Gen Z individuals start learning about investing before entering the workforce, compared to 21% of Baby Boomers, or those born between 1946 and 1964. 36% of these younger generations use AI chatbots, versus 15% for their older counterparts, and 19% utilize robo-advisors, compared to 11% for Baby Boomers and Gen Xs born between 1946 and 1980.

Outside of the US, public equities are expected to see lower tokenization penetration, estimated at just 1.5% and amounting to US$1.6 trillion worth of tokenized assets. Citi attributes this disparity to fragmented market structures, lower retail participation, and slower-moving regulatory and post-trade modernization efforts.

The US has the world’s largest public equity market, accounting for about half of global stock market capitalization at more than US$75 trillion, according to Bloomberg and Visual Capitalist calculations. East Asia, led by China, stands in second with about US$40 trillion in stock market capitalization, followed by Europe as a whole, with about US$20 trillion.

Tokenization in public fixed income and institutional innovation

After public equities, public fixed income is set to constitute the largest portion of tokenized assets by absolute value. By 2030, up to US$2.2 trillion in fixed-income assets could be tokenized, representing a penetration rate of 1.3%. This implies a 27% share of the total tokenized market for this asset class, which includes instruments like US Treasury Bills and Money Market Funds (MMFs) designed to provide predictable income and principal return.

This projection assumes a tokenization penetration of up to 15% for the US Treasury Bill market, representing the highest among all asset types. According to Citi, treasury bills are operationally well-suited for tokenization given their deep liquidity, broad collateral usage, standardization, and central role in repo and liquidity markets.

Current adoption has been led by crypto-native treasury and stablecoin ecosystems. For example, Ondo Finance is a platform for tokenized real-world assets that has surpassed US$2.5 billion in total value locked (TVL) across its tokenized products, which comprise tokenized US Treasuries and stocks.

Simultaneously, MMFs are poised to emerge as an important area of adoption with tokenization penetration potentially reaching 7% by 2030. This will be driven by MMFs’ growing role as institutional cash-equivalent and collateral instruments.

Large US asset managers have already launched tokenized government liquidity and MMF products. Franklin Templeton, for example, launched in 2021 the Franklin OnChain US Government Money Fund (FOBXX), the first US-registered MMF to use a public blockchain as the official system of record for processing transactions and recording share ownership. The fund accrues yield continuously and reflects it in holder balances throughout the day, and holds at least 99.5% of its assets in short-term US government securities, cash, and repurchase agreements.

BlackRock entered the space in 2024, launching the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL). BUIDL invests 100% of its total assets in cash, US Treasury bills, and repurchase agreements, and allows investors to earn yield while holding the token on the blockchain. Investors can transfer their tokens 24/7/365 to other pre-approved investors, and access flexible custody options.

BlackRock is now working on launching two additional MMFs designed specifically for investors who hold their cash in stablecoins, Bloomberg reported in May.

Transforming capital markets structure

Beyond specific asset classes, Citi expects tokenization to fundamentally change how core market functions in capital markets are delivered, connected, and priced.

In traditional markets, multiple intermediaries perform post-trade functions such as clearing, settlement, reconciliation, and custody, often due to fragmented record-keeping and delayed settlement cycles. Tokenized systems introduce a shared ledger where ownership transfer and settlement can occur in near real-time, reducing reconciliation-heavy processes and compresses post-trade layers.

This will result in significant efficiency gains, with a 2025 report by BCG and Ripple suggesting that an issuer handling US$1 billion in annual bond issuance could save approximately US$2-3 million in costs by moving to on-chain issuance.

Furthermore, traditional markets tend to be structured around asset-for-cash exchanges, where cash acts as the intermediary in most transactions. Tokenization could facilitate a shift towards asset-to-asset transactions, including collateral swaps, securities-for-securities exchanges and multi-asset transactions executed atomically, reducing reliance on cash as an intermediary and supports more efficient collateral utilization.

Tokenization is also expected to introduce new revenue opportunities emerging in areas such as token issuance and structuring, collateral optimization and financing, data and analytics, and smart contract lifecycle services. It could also enable real time collateral mobilization, supporting intraday funding and dynamic pricing, and improving liquidity.

Industry participants recognize these potential advantages. A 2025 survey by Citi involving 537 market participants found rising expectations that market structures based on distributed ledger technology can reduce post-trade processing costs (51%), improve liquidity and asset mobility (43%), and enhance balance sheet efficiency (32%).

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However, success remains largely insular, with inefficiencies emerging when transactions extend beyond the EU.

These findings come from the newly released Thunes Cross-Border Payments Interoperability Index, which uses proprietary survey data and established benchmarks, including the World Bank Global Findex Database 2025 and World Bank remittance cost data, to evaluate 50 markets.

The index ranks these jurisdictions by overall score across five pillars:

• Economic Health, which assesses a country’s macroeconomic environment, as well as the human and social experiences of living within it;
• Digital Infrastructure, which measures how connected citizens are to the Internet and digital payment penetration;
• Financial Inclusion, which tracks wealth inequality, access to bank branches, and account penetration;
• Cross-Border Connectivity, which measures factors such as the cost of sending and receiving remittances, the use of instant payments, and and overall cross-border payment market development; and
• Market Dynamics and Progress, which measures the progress of various regulatory and government mandates to improve the money transfer market.

Eight European countries rank among the world’s top 10 countries in the 2026 Thunes Cross-Border Payments Interoperability Index, powered by the integrated Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) network. SEPA processes cross-border euro transfers within 10 seconds across more than 40 participating countries.

Denmark ranks first globally with a score of 8.8, leading across Financial Inclusion (9.5), Digital Infrastructure (9.5), and Economic Health (8.8).

Denmark boasts an advanced domestic payment infrastructure, strong integration with European payment systems, and regional cooperation across the Nordics. Organizations such as the Nordic Payments Council, and initiatives like Vipps MobilePay exemplify this collaboration.

Vipps MobilePay is a digital payment company owned by a consortium of Norwegian banks and Danske Bank from Denmark that provides a payment platform, enabling consumers and merchants to make seamless, near-instant payments, including cross-border transactions, across Norway, Denmark, Finland, and Sweden.

Norway ranks third globally with an overall score of 8.2, leading in Cross-Border Friction (9.2) and excelling in Economic Health (8.5). Norway is followed by Spain, the Netherlands, and Sweden at 8 each. Switzerland places eighth with a score of 7.7, performing notably well in Cross-Border Friction (8.3) and Financial Inclusion (8.2).

While Europe dominates the top 10 in the 2026 Thunes Cross-Border Payments Interoperability Index this friction-free experience with SEPA remains largely insular to the Eurozone.

When transactions extend beyond the European Union (EU), interoperability often breaks down. According to 2024 research by the World Bank, it costs a business approximately 12 times more to transfer EUR 5,000 and 15 times more to transfer EUR 20,000 from the EU to the Western Balkans than among the EU countries.

This creates a two-tier system where users experience instant, cheap payments domestically and regionally, but face inefficiencies and high costs when moving money internationally.

Emerging markets redefine financial inclusion

Beyond SEPA-driven interoperability, the Thunes report also emphasizes how emerging markets with low bank penetration are leveraging mobile and Internet adoption to introduce innovative solutions like mobile money accounts and regionally tailored digital wallets, allowing users to transact seamlessly without relying on legacy banking systems.

Markets like Brazil and India exemplify this shift. These markets are not constrained by legacy payment infrastructure, allowing them to leapfrog countries with entrenched payment networks by building modern, real-time payment ecosystems from the ground up.

A study conducted by Juniper Research in April 2026 as part of the Thunes report polled more than 6,700 respondents across ten markets across the world. It found that Brazil has one of the highest usages of bank transfers across the surveyed countries, second only to India. Notably, 59% of those in Brazil use bank transfers daily or weekly.

This success in A2A payments in Brazil is attributable to the launch of Pix by Banco Central do Brasil (BCB) in 2020. Pix is a real-time payments system offered by almost every financial institution and fintech in the country, allowing users to transfer money instantly using Pix keys, or QR codes at checkout, eliminating the need for card detail entry and card fees.

According to BCB’s Deputy Governor for Licensing and Resolution, Renato Dias de Brito Gomes, about 170 million people use Pix in Brazil, or nearly every adult. The platform has reached more than 20 million businesses using the service.

Similarly, India operates its own real-time payment system. Launched in 2016, the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) facilitates inter-bank peer-to-peer (P2P) and person-to-merchant (P2M) transactions.

UPI is widely popular across the country, processing more than US$300 billion monthly, and leading retail payments by accounting for 85.5% of all digital transactions. The UPI ecosystem spans nearly 700 banks and serves 491 million individuals and 65 million merchants, making it one of the world’s largest real-time payment systems in terms of volume.

Despite their domestic innovations, both Brazil and India face challenges in cross-border connectivity. In the 2026 Thunes Cross-Border Payments Interoperability Index, Brazil ranks 24th and India ranks 30th.

ASEAN economies are also highlighted for their cross-border payment interoperability efforts. These economies are at the forefront of multiple cross-border fast payment system linkages, with Singapore being a particular forerunner.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore has been involved with multiple bilateral linkages, allowing users in Singapore to transfer funds directly to the bank account or digital wallet of another user in a different jurisdiction, using just a mobile number or QR code.

For example, Singapore’s PayNow system links with India’s UPI, Indonesia’s and the Philippines’ respective QR payments systems, Malaysia’s DuitNow network, and Thailand’s PromptPay system.

This is in addition to its involvement in Project Nexus, an initiative led by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) that aims to develop a standardized and multilateral network to accommodate the different instant payment systems around the world and enable instant cross-border payments.

Globally, Singapore ranks second in the 2026 Thunes Cross-Border Payments Interoperability Index, scoring a perfect 10 score on Market Dynamics and Progress, alongside Brazil. These two jurisdictions are recognized for launching new payment rails, and spearheaded multilateral payment linkage projects.

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Schon seit 2016 stellen wir alle zwei Jahre unsere Schweizer Fintech‑WM‑ und EM‑Nationalteams zusammen.

Wie immer gilt: just for fun — weil wir Fussball und Fintech lieben.

Im Gegensatz zu früheren Jahren haben wir unseren Stammgoalie Twint ersetzt und setzen dieses Jahr schwerpunktmässig auf Neobanken und ETF‑Vermögensverwalter.

Wir freuen uns sehr aber über jeden Kommentar zu unserer 2026 Auswahl und auf die bevorstehenden WM-Spiele.

Schweizer WM-Spiele:

13.06 Schweiz-Qatar, 21.00h (immer Schweizer Zeiten) in San Francisco

18.06 Schweiz-Bosnia-Herzegovina, 21.00h in LA

24.06 Schweiz-Kanada, 21.00h in Vancouver

Im Achtelfinale geht es dann leider aber wahrscheinlich schon wieder gegen Portugal, falls beide Gruppenerste werden und das 1/16 Finale überstehen ;(

Hopp Schwiiz!

Zum Vergleich: Das Fussball WM Team von vor 4 Jahren in 2022 gibts hier nachzulesen, und ja richtig, Payrexx scheint unser Zakaria zu sein;)

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The new tool completely removes the need for a third-party terminal gateway.

The product launch shifts processing away from the traditional host-to-host model, where a third-party gateway acts as an intermediary to translate messages between the terminal and the processing host.

This direct connection strips away legacy software complexity and reduces the number of intermediaries involved in each transaction.

For fintech companies and agile acquirers building modern infrastructure, the setup reduces costs, improves reliability, and increases operational control.

Clients can avoid gateway fees and the annual payment card industry (PCI) compliance audit obligations that usually accompany an additional processing layer.

The shorter transaction chain also minimises points of failure. If an issue occurs, businesses have a single platform and point of contact rather than multiple vendors to manage during an outage.

“The traditional model asks fintechs to take on a gateway relationship they do not need just to get terminals talking to a host,”

said Paul Buying, Co-founder, Silverflow.

“Terminal-to-Cloud changes that. We have built a direct connection using modern technology, so our clients get the reliability and simplicity they expect without carrying the weight of old gateway infrastructure.”

Buying added that payment providers need a clean path from terminal to host without the overhead of a middle layer.

The solution aims to simplify their technical stack and reduce exposure to third-party outages. It also ensures there is only one relationship to manage when troubleshooting.

The product is designed primarily for fintech operations and acquirers that do not own a legacy gateway. It helps them launch services quickly without having to build or license one.

Larger financial institutions can also adopt the solution incrementally to replace existing infrastructure.

The Terminal-to-Cloud API is available immediately, with integration support provided directly by the company.

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Among the 2026 winners, 16 are based in Europe, giving the region a 53% share of the total and cementing its status as a powerhouse in the industry.

Unveiled last week, the 2026 Top 30 Most Influential Fintech Marketers list recognizes the leaders shaping the fintech industry over the past year through standout brand building, major product launches, aggressive growth strategies, and meaningful contributions to the community.

These 30 winners were selected from hundreds of nominations following an evaluation process focused on impact, originality, and industry contribution. A judge panel comprising senior fintech marketing leaders and industry stakeholders then oversaw the final selection.

Of the 2026 winners, 16 are based in Europe and represent leading organizations such as Monzo, Taxfix, and Revolut. Geographically, the UK leads with 11 entries, followed by Germany with two, while Ireland, Austria, and Spain each secured one spot.

AJ Coyne, CMO, Monzo Bank, UK

AJ Coyne serves as the CMO of Monzo Bank in the UK, where he leverages a strategic approach that blends creativity with commercial results. As a proven growth driver with experience spanning fintech, consumer packaged goods (CPG), charity, sustainability, technology, gaming and fashion, Coyne emphasizes purpose-driven business practices and believes that organizational success begins with nurturing talent from within.

Coral Kratenstein, Head of Go-to-Market, OpenPayd, UK

Coral Kratenstein is the Head of Go-to-Market at OpenPayd in the UK, leading strategies for the financial infrastructure platform. With a background that includes roles at PayPal and GoCardless, as well as experience as an entrepreneur in the travel industry and a certified attorney, she connects her expertise in payments and technology to help shape the future of the tech industry.

Fiona Davies, Head of Growth UKIE, US, Nordics, Revolut, UK

Fiona Davies leads growth efforts for the Nordics, US, and UK markets at Revolut, bringing over a decade of experience in product marketing, growth, creative strategy, and copy. Her career ranges from being employee number 15 at a California-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) startup to holding senior leadership positions at one of Europe’s most valuable private tech companies.

Ian Peel, CMO, Taskize, UK

Ian Peel is the CMO of Taskize, a role he assumed in June 2025. At Taskize, Peel is responsible for building a new, data-driven marketing practice that has so far encompassed team building and upskilling; messaging, positioning and strapline; and brand new website and CRM implementation. Results so far include achieving top rankings in sector for earned media, online engagement, and thought leadership. His achievements also include an award nomination for thought leadership and winning the “Marketing Leader of the Year” title at the Fintech Marketing Community Global Awards in 2025.

Ingrid Sierra, Brand and Marketing Director, Zego, UK

Ingrid Sierra is the Brand and Marketing Director of Zego where she leads global teams across product marketing, brand, performance digital, and customer experience, delivering impact across B2B, B2C, and B2B2C. She specializes in integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into marketing operations while leading global teams through complex growth stages, acquisitions, and rebrands.

Sierra has over 20 years of experience scaling brands across FTSE 100 companies, private equity-backed firms, and fintech and insurtech startups in the US and European, Middle Eastern, and African regions. She has been recognized as a Top 50 Woman in Tech, and also serves as a mentor and advisor to rising talent through initiatives like Women in Open Banking and Bloom UK.

Kaynat Choudhury, UK

Kaynat Choudhury is a marketing leader based in the UK with more than 15 years of experience bridging the gap between marketing, design, and product for organizations in the fintech, financial services, and media industries. Having previously served as Head of Marketing at StrideUp and Pfida, she’s built marketing functions from the ground up, led rebrands and repositioning, and brought complex products to market in a way that resonates.

Toni Gregory, Brand and Content Lead, OpenPayd, UK

Toni Gregory leads the Brand and Content function at OpenPayd where she is responsible for driving brand equity and long-term revenue through strategic design, client advocacy programs, and high-impact event management. She also oversees public relations and thought leadership initiatives to amplify executive profiles while optimizing short-term opportunities to secure long-term wins for a fast-scaling fintech company serving over 1,000 global clients.

Jessica Rhodes, Global Marketing Director, Paysecure, UK

Jessica Rhodes is the Global Marketing Director of Paysecure. She is a chartered marketing leader with over 13 years of experience of directing multi-disciplined teams to scale technology, SaaS and consulting organizations from startup, to scale-up and established with ambitious growth plans. She balances strategy, strong commercial acumen, brand storytelling and creative hands-on application to deliver data-driven, multi-channel marketing initiatives that showcase the brand’s story, product value and company culture.

Alongside her professional roles, Rhodes is also an active speaker and mentor in her local community, delivering lecturing at universities and associations, as well as leading public speaking engagements and podcast conversations.

Malkit Kaur, Vice President Marketing, Genesis Global, UK

Malkit Kaur is the Vice President of Marketing of Genesis Global, bringing over 15 years of expertise in campaign planning, stakeholder relationship management, and demand generation. Her extensive skill set covers budget forecasting, trade show planning and coordination, e-commerce strategy and development, and leveraging social media to expand brand visibility and product awareness.

Miranda McLean, CMO, Ecommpay, UK

Miranda McLean is the CMO of Ecommpay, a global payments platform. She has more than 20 years of experience in strategic and operational marketing in financial services and fintech.

Before joining Ecommpay as CMO, McLean led the creation, launch and development of the Banking Circle and Banking Circle Group brands globally. She was also responsible for successful marketing programs for leading professional corporate brands, including Equifax, LexisNexis, Thomson Reuters and Standard and Poor’s.

Paul Afshar, CMO, Paybis, UK

Paul Afshar is the CMO of Paybis. He is an innovative leader with over 15 years of experience, driving GBP 76 million in revenue growth, fivefold annual recurring revenue (ARR) increases, and efficiently scaling global marketing team capabilities using AI. With deep expertise in navigating regulated global markets, he combines digital transformation skills with data-driven go-to-market execution to optimize customer acquisition and retention across emerging fintech ecosystems.

Mary-Kate Collins, Head of International Communications, Coinbase, Ireland

Mary-Kate Collins is the Head of International Communications of Coinbase, leading all Coinbase communications outside the US, with responsibility for ten international markets, namely the UK, Germany, France, UAE, India, Singapore, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, and Canada. Her work spans earned media strategy, executive profiling, regulatory and policy communications, crisis communications, and institutional narrative-building.

Collins also manages the global media profile of Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong across all his international travel and engagements, and lead communications programs for country directors and regional managing directors across all of my markets.

Alexander Beresford, Chief Growth Officer, Taxfix, Germany

Alexander Beresford is the Chief Growth Officer of Taxfix where he is responsible for growing group revenue, managing country operations, and leading all aspects of marketing, public relations (PR), and product growth. He oversees a comprehensive portfolio ranging from performance marketing and customer relationship management (CRM) to partnerships and sales.

Vanessa Schotes, CMO, Enfuce, Germany

Vanessa Schotes is the CMO of Enfuce. She is an accomplished senior marketer with a strong record of achievement across industries, and has a strong track record of implementing results-driven marketing, communications and brand building programs. Her specialties include marketing planning, strategic market penetration, market research, creative development, external and internal communications, full campaign management, comprehensive brand messaging, PR strategy, product development, and project leadership.

Imrich Babics, Managing Director, Chief Growth Officer, Relai, Austria

Imrich Babics is the Managing Director and Chief Growth Officer of Relai, a MiCA-licensed Bitcoin app. At Relai, Babics is responsible for statutory representation and regulatory alignment of the company at the EU level. He also leads growth and market expansion for Relai, which has facilitated US$1 billion in total volume by combining consumer adoption strategies with regulatory compliance.

Prior to Relai, Babics built the marketing function of Austria’s Bitpanda to reach over one million users. Before Bitcoin, he spent a decade in the media and entertainment industry at Universal Pictures, Xbox, PlayStation, Microsoft, and Huawei, specializing in growing companies in complex, regulated markets.

Antoine Le Nel, Global CGO and CMO, Revolut, Spain

Antoine Le Nel is the Global Chief Growth and Marketing Officer and Group Executive Committee Partner of Revolut, where he drives global growth for both B2C and B2B offerings across multiple channels and geographies. He oversees marketing, communications, European and expansion markets, analytics, and growth partnerships, working closely with product, engineering, and design teams to deliver seamless and engaging customer experiences.

Prior to Revolut, Le Nel spent seven years at King, the developer of Candy Crush Saga, where he held various roles, most recently, as VP Growth, overseeing continuous expansion of the world’s most famous mobile game. Before that, he was a strategy consultant at the Boston Consulting Group and Oliver Wyman.

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Amsterdam-based liquidity provider Flow Traders and several strategic investors also participated in the capital raise.

The company will use the capital to build out its core engineering and business development capabilities.

This expansion aims to accelerate the deployment of Chain-Traded Products (CTPs), which are compliant, composable structured derivatives issued, settled, and managed directly on blockchain rails.

TVL Capital was founded by traditional finance veterans, including CEO Andrew Peel, who formerly served as the Head of Digital Asset Markets at Morgan Stanley.

The founding team also includes Chief Operating Officer Penny Tunbridge, the former Global COO of the Group Integration Office at UBS, and Chief Strategy Officer Lars Hoffmann, who previously worked as the Senior Research Director at The Block.

The firm is actively partnering with global systemically important banks, traditional financial institutions, centralised exchanges, and onchain protocols to bring its products to market.

They design CTPs to function as the blockchain equivalent of exchange-traded products, delivering institutional-grade yields and specific payoffs through smart contract infrastructure.

The global retail structured products market represents US$2.5 trillion in outstanding notional value, with new issuances nearly tripling since 2021.

TVL Capital plans to provide infrastructure for this asset class to migrate onchain, opening up digital access to structured payoffs while establishing direct onchain distribution channels for traditional issuers.

“The global financial system is in the early stages of migrating onchain,”

said Andrew Peel, Founder and CEO of TVL Capital.

“Structured products, with their conditional payoffs and programmable mechanics, are a natural fit for smart contract infrastructure, and an upgrade on how they are issued, distributed and managed today. We are building CTPs for a new generation of capital markets, and are grateful to be doing so alongside partners who share that conviction.”

The funding round comes amid regulatory shifts and market changes in the United States, including the passage of the GENIUS Act and the pending CLARITY Act.

Financial infrastructure entities such as the DTCC, Nasdaq, and NYSE have each announced tokenised securities initiatives, with onchain trading of US securities expected to begin in 2026.

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Researchers from the Institute of Financial Services Zug at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts surveyed 42 Swiss retail banks on their technology sourcing challenges.

Costs emerged as the primary concern.

Two-thirds of the institutions described the challenge as very great, while the remaining third called it great.

The survey found that 90% of the banks plan to use process optimisation and automation to reduce their operating expenses.

Cooperation with other banks and service providers is nearly as important, with 86% of institutions looking to shared platforms to ease budget constraints.

“Cost reductions are not only sought through technology, but also through shared infrastructures and economies of scale,”

said Dr. Thomas Fischer, Co-author, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts.

Simplifying and standardising existing technology infrastructure is also a preferred method for 64% of the respondents.

Staff reductions play a minor role in the cost-saving strategies across the sector.

Only 40% of the banks consider cutting personnel to lower technology expenses.

An equal number of institutions are turning to artificial intelligence as a cost-reduction measure.

Fischer noted that the banks prefer to increase efficiency within their current operations rather than implementing radical structural changes.

Cloud services and the expansion of sourcing partnerships are viewed as complementary strategies, cited by 36% and 33% of the respondents respectively.

The institutions are addressing the budget pressures through careful and continuous planning rather than immediate structural downsizing.

Fischer added that the banks are focusing on cooperation, leaner technology stacks, and gradual automation to achieve their financial goals.

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All of the shortlisted companies use automated technology to address fraud prevention, banking workflows, or regulatory governance.

Early stage contenders

ForenSwiss and Porters have reached the final in the Early Stage Startup of the Year category.

ForenSwiss

ForenSwiss uses generative AI to combat online crime and money laundering. The company deploys fully automated chatbots to interact with fraudsters and extract data, helping financial institutions detect fraudulent activity quickly.

Porters

Porters positions itself as an AI native outsourcing partner for banking operations.

The company harnesses agentic systems to automate processes and generate consistent workflows, allowing financial institutions to scale operations cost-effectively while maintaining compliance.

Growth stage finalists

In the Growth Stage Startup of the Year category, BLP and Calvin Risk are the final contenders.

BLP

BLP provides end-to-end enterprise resource planning automation for finance and sales departments. The platform uses digital twins of existing systems alongside pre-trained AI agents to manage exceptions and meet compliance requirements.

Calvin Risk

Calvin Risk offers tools for the validation, testing, and governance of AI models. The company standardises and automates testing processes to simplify risk management and improve compliance with regulatory frameworks.

The jury will announce the winners on 23 June at the Swiss Fintech Awards Night in Zurich.

The event forms part of the international Swiss Fintech Week running from 19 to 25 June, which includes formats such as SwissHacks, a fintech conference organised by Finanz und Wirtschaft, and the Point Zero Forum.

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The product is designed for companies with European customers and cross-border payment flows.

It provides businesses with a named euro international bank account number (IBAN), enabling them to settle funds into their bank accounts, convert them directly into stablecoins, or initiate local currency payouts across more than 70 countries.

Companies collecting euros often face the cost and complexity of establishing European Union entities. They also have to manage separate providers for collection, conversion, and payout.

Triple-A stated that its multicurrency accounts address this by combining borderless euro collection through the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) and SEPA Instant with global payouts in one system.

Because European B2B payments rely heavily on bank transfers, this setup allows companies to collect euros via SEPA without opening a local bank account or entity.

Instead of treating the IBAN as a standalone account, Triple-A links euro collections directly to stablecoin and local currency payouts.

The company said this enables faster settlement, third-party payouts through local transfers, more predictable transaction costs and easier reconciliation.

The system supports B2B firms selling into Europe, exporters collecting from European buyers, and platforms that need to pay out to users, freelancers or suppliers worldwide.

It also allows payment service providers, digital wallets and electronic money institutions to add euro collections and payouts to their own platforms.

“The European launch of multicurrency accounts supports our move toward a more complete payments infrastructure model, where local currency collection connects directly to global payout rails, stablecoins and traditional local currencies,”

said Eric Barbier, Founder and CEO of Triple-A.

Triple-A plans to add USD and SGD collections to its multicurrency accounts in the near future.

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Unveiled at Money 20/20 Europe, the platform aims to address the fragmentation of identity verification across borders.

It is currently available in 10 European markets, including Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Spain, with plans to add more countries in the future.

Instead of negotiating separate contracts and building direct technical integrations for each market, companies can use the platform to route verification requests centrally.

LSEG Risk Intelligence stated that this approach can reduce time to market for cross-border expansion by 80 to 90%.

“Digital identity is reaching an inflection point. As trusted national and private schemes continue to emerge, organisations need a simpler way to access them without rebuilding their identity processes market by market,”

said Daniel Flowe, Head of Digital Identity at LSEG Risk Intelligence.

The launch comes as the European Union prepares to roll out its Digital Identity (EUDI) Wallet framework.

Under the initiative, all 27 member states will introduce their own digital identity implementations.

Identity Gateway standardises the data returned by these schemes. Businesses can then integrate the results directly into their existing risk management and customer onboarding workflows.

Microsoft Azure powers the platform.

LSEG Risk Intelligence offers Identity Gateway as part of its broader identity verification suite, which also includes data- and document-based checks.

The system allows companies to adjust their identity verification friction based on the transaction risk level and local regulatory requirements.

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The invitation-only event brought together more than 40 leaders from public authorities, payment networks, and technology companies at the RAI Amsterdam.

Discussions focused on how greater international cooperation can support resilience and trust across an increasingly interconnected financial system.

Participants evaluated critical themes including cross-border payments, digital identity, stablecoins, and AI.

A core consensus emerged that technology is no longer the primary barrier to progress, as faster and more efficient solutions already exist.

Instead, the immediate challenge lies in ensuring that fintech innovation can scale through interoperable frameworks, supportive regulation, and practical implementation across different jurisdictions.

Bridging the gap between policy and practice

The event opened with a fireside chat featuring Prince Constantijn of the Netherlands, Special Envoy for Techleap, who discussed European Commission policy developments and current support for technology startups.

Michael Harris, Vice Chairman and Global Head of Capital Markets at the New York Stock Exchange, then spoke with Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski, who discussed the thinking behind the company’s AI strategy and its recent workforce reduction.

Industry participants noted that while complete global harmonisation may be unrealistic, better coordination between regulators and the private sector is required to reduce regulatory fragmentation.

“Policy20 was designed to bridge the gap between policy and implementation,”

said Oliver Smith, Head of Content, Money20/20 Europe.

He added that understanding both the regulatory perspective and the realities of implementation helps ensure conversations about the future of financial services remain grounded in operational realities.

Cross-border alignment for digital finance

During the policy roundtable, regulators from more than ten central banks convened to discuss digital finance infrastructure and the secure management of global money movement.

“Despite different mandates and markets, there was broad agreement that issues such as stablecoins, digital identity and AI cannot be addressed in isolation,”

said Ruth Wandhöfer, CEO, Leximar Advisory.

She noted that in an increasingly global financial system, practical alignment between jurisdictions will become just as critical as technological innovation.

The discussions reinforced the need for regulatory coordination and practical alignment to allow cross-border payment and digital asset infrastructure to scale effectively.

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The transaction is subject to customary regulatory approval. It marks one of OpenFX’s largest financial commitments outside the US.

Following the acquisition, OpenFX will open new offices in London and Amsterdam. A 20-member team specialising in product, growth, regulatory affairs, and compliance will staff these locations.

This regional expansion increases the global workforce of OpenFX to 140 employees across the US, the UAE, India, and Singapore.

Expanding regulatory access

Embed brings two regulated financial entities to the transaction. These include a Dutch Payment Institution holding European Union passporting rights and a UK Electronic Money Institution.

OpenFX plans to supplement these existing authorisations by securing a Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation license. This addition aims to create a comprehensive stablecoin payments regulatory stack across both jurisdictions.

Embed originally operated as a crypto-native payments business.

The founding team later shifted focus to traditional embedded finance due to an unfavourable regulatory environment for blockchain-based payments at the time.

During this pivot, the company developed multi-party balance accounts, payment collection infrastructure, payout systems, and an application programming interface for vertical software platforms.

The underlying infrastructure provides virtual international bank account numbers, multi-rail bank connectivity, and operational coverage across the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom.

“We built this stack for a different use case, but the underlying infrastructure is exactly what a cross-border platform needs: virtual IBANs, multi-rail bank connectivity, EEA and UK coverage. Combining it with OpenFX’s distribution is the right home for the technology.”

Alex Schoonkind, Co-Founder of Embed.

Integrating stablecoin settlement

The acquisition aligns with the core operating model of OpenFX. The company uses programmable money rails and stablecoin settlement, reducing reliance on traditional correspondent banking networks.

The platform executes cross-border transactions in less than an hour. It operates active payment corridors connecting the United States, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and South and Southeast Asia.

OpenFX reports an annualised total payment volume of US$60 billion. The network aims to enable faster execution than conventional banking systems.

Schoonkind founded Embed alongside Chief Operating Officer Andrei Valeanu and Chief Technology Officer Konstantin Indjov. The founders bring previous payments industry experience from firms including Form3, Verifone, Ingenico, and Uber Payments.

The European expansion reflects a strategy to operate localised financial infrastructure under direct supervision from regional authorities.

European venture capital firms Northzone and Atomico provide financial backing for the expansion.

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The transaction includes core banking, digital banking, and related software businesses used by banks and credit unions across the US.

Following the acquisition, the division will operate as a focused, standalone company.

The acquisition shifts ownership of several software brands. Among these are the Phoenix Core Banking System, MalauzAi Digital Banking, Analyzer IQ, and Enterprise Content Management solutions.

The cloud-based Phoenix platform helps community financial institutions scale efficiently while managing shifting regulatory demands.

Celent’s 2024 report references the software and Gartner’s 2025 Magic Quadrant for retail core banking systems in North America includes it.

The business intends to maintain its existing product lineup, personnel, and customer relationships.

CORA Group operates under Constellation Software’s model, which focuses on the long-term ownership of vertical market software providers.

“Finastra’s US mid-market business is exactly the kind of company we look for, with strong products, loyal customers, and people who really know their industry,”

said Denis Brosnan, Portfolio CEO of CORA Group.

Brosnan added that the company provides resources to let teams stay close to their clients without changing configurations that already function effectively.

Finastra said the move sharpens its focus on areas where it leads and can deliver greater value.

“CORA Group’s long-term approach is the right fit for this business and its customers,”

said Chris Walters, Chief Executive Officer of Finastra.

Customers were informed that day-to-day operations and support contacts will remain unchanged as the unit transitions to its new corporate home.

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The company recently became the first pure ETF wealth manager in Switzerland to receive approval from the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) to operate as an account-holding securities firm.

Following the regulatory approval, more than 98% of existing customers have migrated to the new securities firm structure.

The updated setup allows users to manage their investments directly within the application.

The company reported that the second quarter of the year marks its 22nd consecutive quarter of net new money inflows, with April and May recording the highest volumes to date.

“Breaking the half-billion mark in entrusted customer assets is a great success for us,”

said Matthias Bryner, Founder and CEO of findependent.

“I am equally pleased with how smoothly our customers transitioned to the securities firm and that findependent is trusted as a depository institution,”

Bryner added.

Building on its recent growth, findependent plans to expand its services by launching a Pillar 3a retirement savings offering in the second half of the year.

To support this expansion, the company is establishing its own pension foundation, aiming to replicate its existing digital investment experience for retirement planning.

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The integration allows finance teams to automate tasks like spend management, data analytics, and monthly reporting without leaving their existing daily workflows.

The collaboration brings Workday’s Sana Self-Service Agent into Gemini Enterprise.

This setup enables employees to query financial policies, check corporate card eligibility, and generate expense requests through conversational prompts.

Operationally, Gemini is now the default AI model for the Sana assistant.

Workday stated that this infrastructure gives users access to advanced reasoning and multilingual support while maintaining existing enterprise security permissions and approval chains.

The system supports multiple integration approaches, allowing AI agents to share information and hand off tasks autonomously in real time.

Zero-copy data integration

The partnership also links Workday Data Cloud with Google Cloud’s BigQuery using zero-copy data-sharing technology.

This method allows both platforms to query data exactly where it resides, removing the need to move or duplicate sensitive financial records for analysis.

This seamless connection is designed to help organisations analyse financial risks and business trends faster without compromising data security.

“Our customers want HR and finance at their fingertips, not scattered across a dozen applications,”

said Gerrit Kazmaier, President of Product and Technology at Workday.

Kazmaier added that the Google Cloud partnership places necessary answers and actions where people already work, supported by Workday’s built-in security and approvals.

“This partnership significantly expands integrations between Google Cloud and Workday in order to make AI agents more useful and accessible across the enterprise,”

said Karthik Narain, Chief Product and Business Officer at Google Cloud.

Deployment with system integrators

Workday and Google Cloud are working with global system integrators, including KPMG, Deloitte, and Accenture, to deploy the technology for enterprise clients.

These partners will help organisations identify high-impact use cases for agentic AI.

The Sana Self-Service Agent in Gemini Enterprise is currently in early access for eligible Workday customers. The Workday Data Cloud connection will reach general availability later this year.

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The Global Fintech Report 2026 indicates that global fintech revenues have passed the half-trillion-dollar mark, growing at 22%.

This growth rate is more than four times faster than that of incumbent financial institutions. Equity funding in the sector reached US$58 billion, a 53% increase year on year.

Average EBITDA margins rose by 400 basis points to 20% in 2025. The sector now accounts for about 4% of total global financial services revenue.

The report attributes this rebound to operating performance rather than cheap capital or speculative optimism.

Exit markets are also recovering.

Fintech initial public offerings (IPOs) increased by 50% year on year to 42 deals in 2025.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) volumes accelerated, reaching US$251 billion in 2025 compared to US$184 billion the previous year.

“Fintech has not simply bounced back from the reset years, it has come out the other side as a fundamentally more mature industry,”

said Inderpreet Batra, Managing Director and Senior Partner at BCG.

“The firms leading today are profitable, disciplined, and expanding into new products and geographies with a seriousness that was not always present in the boom years.”

Regulatory shifts and acquisition trends

Regulatory changes are narrowing the gap between banks and fintech firms. In the European Union, the UK, and the US, charter and licensing pathways are becoming more accessible.

Major fintechs are increasingly applying for banking charters to lower funding costs and gain direct ownership of the customer relationship.

For the first time on record outside of 2023, scaled fintech companies acquired more businesses than banks did. Fintechs completed 659 deals in 2025, compared to 589 by incumbents.

M&A is increasingly being used to build capabilities in AI, digital assets, and compliance, as building these organically is often deemed too slow.

Neobanks expanding into financial platforms

Neobanks are moving beyond basic payments and low-friction onboarding to become broader financial platforms.

Leading players are diversifying into lending, investing, insurance, cross-border transfers, and mass-affluent wealth management.

Consumer credit represents a major growth area.

Unsecured lending allows neobanks to deepen customer relationships using alternative underwriting models.

European neobanks in particular have expanded their wealth and trading offerings and moved into mortgage products.

AI driving productivity

AI continues to reshape sector competition. BCG data shows that fintechs using AI effectively achieve up to five times greater developer productivity.

The strongest near-term gains are seen in engineering, underwriting, compliance, and customer support.

“Large, established companies are pouring capital into AI, but capital alone hasn’t produced breakout capability,”

said Steve McLaughlin, CEO and Managing Partner at FT Partners.

“The difference comes down to management, engineering talent, and the drive to actually rewire the organisation.”

The findings suggest the sector has transitioned into a more mature landscape. The basis of competition has shifted from digital nativity and category creation to profitable scale and regulatory readiness.

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The company plans to assess how well employees use AI tools during its upcoming mid-year reviews in September, according to a report by Bloomberg.

The decision follows an internal campaign that began earlier this year, encouraging OKX’s 5,000-strong workforce to adopt AI in their daily routines.

The company cut hundreds of jobs over the past year, although the performance review changes are not directly tied to immediate job cuts.

OKX recently designated Malta as its regional hub for Europe, part of its broader push to streamline global operations and compliance.

OKX has provided its employees with access to enterprise versions of OpenAI‘s ChatGPT and Anthropic‘s Claude.

Token consumption on these platforms, which indicates how much data an employee processes through the AI, could serve as a metric in the upcoming appraisals.

Managers may also require staff to document the time they save through AI assistance.

“We’re committed to staying at the forefront of AI so we can continue to build the best possible products and compete at the highest level,”

an OKX spokesperson said.

Following an industry trend

The drive to measure AI competency extends beyond OKX. Several competing crypto exchanges have reduced their workforces this year while simultaneously urging remaining staff to increase their use of automation.

Coinbase and Gemini are among the firms that have cut jobs recently as trading activity slowed.

Coinbase Chief Executive Officer Brian Armstrong noted earlier this month that AI is altering work processes across the company, allowing engineers to complete tasks in days rather than weeks.

At OKX, the push for AI integration has strongly affected customer service operations.

The exchange recently launched an AI-powered knowledge base that allows bots to retrieve information and handle client inquiries.

Training and quality assurance teams are currently embedding similar tools into their workflows.

Managers design performance evaluations that include AI usage metrics to compel staff to learn the technology.

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Swiss law firm Kellerhals Carrard, which advised the company on the application, announced the regulatory milestone on Wednesday (May 27).

The firm’s legal team handled the structuring, documentation, and regulatory liaison required to secure the final approval.

The FINMA fintech license, granted under Article 1b of the Banking Act, allows institutions to accept public deposits of up to CHF 100 million or crypto-based assets.

Under the framework, firms cannot invest these funds or pay interest on them, creating a tailored regulatory path for digital and financial innovators outside the traditional banking system.

“Securing the fintech license is a key moment for Sequence and for the Swiss fintech ecosystem,”

said Blas Pegenaute, CEO of Sequence.

He added that the legal advisory team provided a combination of regulatory insight and pragmatic guidance throughout the process.

Sequence joins four other Swiss companies that currently hold the specific fintech authorisation, highlighting the rigorous requirements of the application framework.

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The platform introduced Agentic Trading and the Agentic Credit Card to help users manage their investments and spending.

Instead of allowing unrestricted external control, users can connect their AI agents via Model Context Protocol integration directly into Robinhood systems.

“Our mission has always been to democratise finance for all, and now, that mission extends to AI agents,”

said Vlad Tenev, CEO of Robinhood.

Agentic trading and portfolio management

The Agentic Trading feature allows users to open a dedicated account separate from the rest of their portfolio, limiting agent access only to deposited funds.

The platform sends push notifications for every trade. It also provides a real-time activity feed. In addition, it offers profit-and-loss tracking specifically for the agentic trading account inside the application.

Investors can use these agents to analyse portfolios for concentration risk, build thematic portfolios, or deploy backtested mean reversion strategies.

The trading feature is currently in beta and supports equities only, with plans to add options, cryptocurrency, event contracts, and futures in the future.

Virtual cards and spending controls

For spending, the Agentic Credit Card connects agents to the banking servers to make purchases through a dedicated virtual Gold Card.

Customers maintain control by setting specific spending limits. They can choose whether to require manual approvals for purchases and also have the ability to delete the virtual card instantly.

As illustrative use cases, the company said agents could scan for the best prices. They could also purchase items such as retail drops, restaurant reservations, or business inventory.

The system includes built-in safety controls and fraud detection. These allow the support team to review agent instructions and resolve disputes if a transaction appears unusual.

Existing Gold Card customers can access the feature immediately. Support for the upcoming Platinum Card is planned for later this year.

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The payment orchestration platform connects digital asset rails, including stablecoins, with traditional payment networks.

Through its agreement with the Luxembourg-regulated credit institution, Orbital has launched client-named virtual IBANs in DKK, SEK, and HUF.

The companies stated that capabilities for CHF and AUD will follow soon.

These additions will allow businesses operating in Switzerland, the Nordics, Central Europe, and Australia to hold and settle funds under their own names.

This approach replaces the need for pooled virtual accounts, which can complicate the reconciliation of incoming funds and regulatory reporting.

“Enterprises are increasingly thinking in multi-currency terms,”

said Chris Mason, CEO at Orbital.

“They want to hold and settle in those currencies under their own name, not via pooled wallets or opaque structures.”

Banking Circle will provide the safeguarding of client funds in line with Orbital’s regulatory obligations.

“Working with Orbital brings together client-named multi-currency accounts and access to clearing schemes with a platform designed for both fiat and stablecoin flows,”

said Nischa Us-Moynihan, Chief Sales Officer at Banking Circle.

The new currency corridors build on Orbital’s existing EUR, GBP, and USD banking infrastructure, extending its third-party local payment capabilities.

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The service is live and being used by clients for cross-border payment flows, with USDC to be offered later in the year.

The capability allows regulated institutions, including electronic money institutions, payment institutions, and banks, to use stablecoin-based transfers with fiat payouts via SEPA Instant through established banking rails.

The system functions as a programmable liquidity capability.

It enables clients to convert fiat funds into EURC, a MiCA-compliant euro-denominated stablecoin issued by Circle’s regulated e-money institution in the European Union.

Value moves through the network, returns to fiat, and ClearBank executes real-time payouts via SEPA Instant.

ClearBank provides the underlying regulated banking layer, which includes fiat account infrastructure and access to SEPA Instant.

This model aims to bring improved liquidity efficiency and reductions in the need for prefunding across multiple markets.

MiCA-regulated firms with non-retail use cases will also be able to transfer funds through the digital asset infrastructure.

The initiative builds on the status of ClearBank Europe as the first Dutch credit institution to complete the MiCA notification process to offer digital asset services.

While the service targets European clients initially, the bank has the scope to expand the opportunity internationally over time.

“This launch is a further step forward in how we deliver on our purpose to unlock our clients’ potential,”

said Mark Fairless, Group CEO, ClearBank.

“By combining our cloud-native platform with regulated banking, we are removing friction from cross-border flows and giving clients a more effective way to control and deploy liquidity.”

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The acquisition brings the finanzwissen.de portal into the wider publishing group.

The move is designed to expand the digital reach of Börsenmedien in the retail investing sector, bundle its affiliate activities, and expand its platform for financial product comparisons.

“We are pleased to have found an ideal digital complement to our traditional monthly magazine Euro in Finanzwissen,”

said Bernd Förtsch, Founder and Owner, Börsenmedien.

He added that the deal prepares the company for the growing focus on retirement planning through equity savings plans.

The transaction aims to provide private investors with easier access to high-quality information and suitable financial solutions across the German-speaking market.

“Our goal is to provide investors with an even more comprehensive and high-quality offering around financial education and financial products,”

said Sebastian Rau, Managing Director, Finanzwissen.

Rau will continue to lead the operational business following the merger. As part of the acquisition, Finanzwissen will relocate its headquarters to Kulmbach, Germany.

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Data from Capital One Shopping Research indicates that 80% of digital retailers have integrated AI into their infrastructure, with 69% realising measurable revenue gains and 72% achieving significant operational cost reductions.

As agentic AI evolves from basic automation toward autonomous decision-making, digital retailers are increasingly delegating core workflows, from product discovery to fraud prevention, to autonomous agents.

For these businesses, the primary barrier is no longer adoption, but rather the identification of agent solutions sufficiently reliable to be entrusted with live commercial operations.

Bridging Builders and Businesses

COLIBRIX ONE’s clients are growing ecommerce businesses seeking to expand into global markets.

While demand for AI-driven infrastructure is rising, most businesses face the same practical barrier: there is no safe environment to evaluate how an agent performs under real commercial pressure before deployment.

The Agentic Ecommerce Challenge addresses this directly.

As lead partner, COLIBRIX ONE supports a sandbox environment where developers build and stress-test autonomous agents against scenarios drawn from live payment and retail operations.

Businesses gain access to evaluated agent solutions at no cost, before committing to deployment. Developers gain exposure to real commercial requirements and the opportunity to connect with potential partners.

“AI agents are beginning to take over the workflows at the core of ecommerce: checkout decisions, dispute resolution, authentication recovery, routing optimisation. For COLIBRIX ONE, supporting the infrastructure that enables this transition is not a side initiative. It is directly relevant to what our clients need today,”

said Arturs Kononovs, Deputy Head of Sales.

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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.

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The firm was founded in 2019 as the venture arm of Avaloq. It became fully independent following Avaloq’s acquisition by NEC, initially operating under the FiveT Fintech name.

Groundshift targets companies operating at the intersection of finance and emerging technologies.

The firm’s current investment thesis covers artificial intelligence in financial services, stablecoins, and the tokenisation of real-world assets.

It also focuses on compliance infrastructure driven by accelerating European regulations, including the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) and the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework.

“We started this firm with the conviction that the best fintech investments come from understanding how financial institutions actually work,”

said Alexander Christen, CEO and Partner, Groundshift.

The Zurich-based firm evaluates opportunities using a demand-driven approach, drawing on a network of banks and established financial technology companies to identify off-market investments.

Groundshift participates in primary funding rounds, secondary transactions, and carve-outs.

Its previous investments have resulted in exits including the acquisition of digital asset custodian Metaco by Ripple and the sale of wealth management platform Assetmax to Infront.

The company stated that its investment strategy, portfolio, and team will remain unchanged following the rebrand.

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The initiative aims to finance €15 billion of debt opportunities over an initial five-year term.

It targets borrowers with principal businesses based in Continental Europe and the UK, with plans to eventually include the Middle East.

Under the agreement, Citi will use its investment, corporate, and commercial banking networks to source investment opportunities.

Eligible transactions will include a broad range of sub-investment grade debt instruments.

“To meet the increasing demand from our corporate and sponsor clients for tailored private credit solutions, we are excited to announce this collaboration with HPS,”

said John McAuley, Co-Head of Debt Capital Markets, Citi.

“This programme is designed to directly support our clients’ strategic objectives across the EMEA region by combining Citi’s deep client relationships and origination strength with their significant capital and structuring expertise,”

McAuley added.

“We are pleased to collaborate with Citi to bring expanded direct lending solutions to the EMEA market,”

said Matthieu Boulanger, Partner and Head of Europe, HPS.

“This collaboration will enable us to draw on Citi’s extensive network and origination pipeline, further strengthening our ability to deliver tailored financing options to a broad range of borrowers,”

Boulanger said.

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Addressing this shift, Deutsche Bank has produced a new whitepaper on the digital money landscape. This paper addresses the three main types of digital money that are experiencing increased uptake, namely stablecoins, tokenized deposits, and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), exploring the regulatory and market forces shaping them, and how these changes are impacting the industry.

Stablecoins

Stablecoins are blockchain-based tokens issued by banks, corporates or fintech startups, typically backed one-for-one by a fiat currency. They are designed to maintain price stability by holding collateral reserves to support their value, with transparency achieved through regular disclosure of these reserves.

Driven by the implementation of comprehensive regulatory frameworks for stablecoin issuance and transfers across key global regions, in particular the European Union (EU) and the US, stablecoins have generated significant interest from the payments industry, and now represent one of the most advanced forms of digital private money.

In 2025, overall stablecoin transaction volume was estimated at US$62 trillion, according to the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). While real-economy payments still accounted for only a small share of activity at about 7% in 2025, they grew rapidly at about 55% year-over-year (YoY), with the strongest expansion in business-to-business (B2B) transactions.

Tokenized deposits

Another prominent type of digital money is tokenized deposits. These have emerged as a promising model for enabling programmable bank money across payments, treasury operations and wholesale settlement.

Currently, tokenized deposit platforms are most commonly used to transfer liquidity between accounts held across different branches within the same financial institution. In these setups, banks operate proprietary blockchain networks that enable 24/7 settlement across branches by representing deposits from corporate clients or other banks as tokens on an internal ledger.

Another model involves industry collaborations that provide shared ledger infrastructure across multiple institutions. These platforms aim to enable coordinated movement of tokenized deposits across banks while preserving the governance and controls expected in regulated financial networks.

Notable examples include:

• Partior, which supports real-time cross-border settlement of tokenized deposits, utilizing pre-validation and atomic settlement to reduce breaks and investigations; and
• Project Agora, by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in collaboration with seven central banks and a large group of private sector companies under the Institute of International Finance (IFF), which is designing a unified ledger where tokenized deposits interoperate with wholesale CBDC for policy aware, atomic cross-border settlement.

As a form of private digital money, tokenized deposits are often viewed as a payment instrument competitive against stablecoins, promising many of the purported efficiency gains that stablecoins can provide for payments, including increased speed, transparency, and potentially lower costs.

However, they face challenges surrounding interoperability and integration with existing banking systems. To date, most tokenized deposit implementations have relied on private, permissioned blockchains accessible only to issuing banks or authorized institutions. This means that tokenized deposits can only be held by clients of an issuing bank. In contrast, stablecoins can be held practically by anyone who has a wallet that can hold the stablecoins, including users without a direct relationship with the stablecoin issuer.

CBDCs

Finally, the final pillar highlighted in the whitepaper is CBDCs. CBDCs are digital forms are central bank-issued money that can designed either for use by the general public as a retail CBDC, or for use between financial institutions as a wholesale CBDC.

Retail CBDCs aim to act as a digital complement to cash, providing access to central bank money in electronic form for everyday payments. China offers the most advanced large-scale example of a retail CBDC with the e-CNY ecosystem. In September 2025, e-CNY reached cumulative transaction volumes of CNY 14 trillion (US$2 trillion), an expansion that had been supported by an established network of hardware wallets, enhanced offline payment capabilities, and ongoing cross-border pilot initiatives.

In the EU, the European Central Bank is advancing its initiative to introduce a digital euro, aimed at complementing physical cash and facilitate a broad range of payment activities including point-of-sale (POS), e-commerce and peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions. Subject to legislative approval, pilot testing of the digital euro could begin as early as H2 2027, with a potential launch in 2029.

In contrast to retail CBDCs, wholesale CBDCs are designed for use between institutions, enabling the settlement of interbank payments and securities transactions. These models are gaining traction as central banks focus on modernizing financial market infrastructure and enhancing the efficiency of interbank settlement.

In Asia, Hong Kong and Singapore are actively advancing wholesale CBDC initiatives and cross-border experiments. Hong Kong is focused on developing settlement infrastructure for tokenized deposits, while Singapore is conducting broader distributed ledger technology (DLT)-based settlement trials for capital markets.

Singapore has also established partnerships with multiple central banks, including France and Switzerland, to test the cross-border trading and settlement of wholesale CBDCs between financial institutions.

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Though crypto partnerships remain part of the landscape, institutional banking, payment networks, trading platforms, and digital banks are increasing their footprint and driving the strongest growth, with new entrants that include Revolut, Nu, eToro, and Barclays.

In 2026, finance companies represented 74% of all finance and crypto sponsors across F1 teams, overshadowing crypto’s 26% share. Within this dominant category, institutional banking, and trading and investing held the largest shares at 24% each, followed by payments at 15%, and digital banking at 6%.

This trend indicates a surge in interest from institutional finance, digital banking, and diversified fintech platforms, and underscores how the F1 sponsorship model has evolved to become a strategic arena for reputation, scale and global market expansion.

Among the 11 F1 teams competing in 2026, the following stand out for their deep integration of finance and crypto brands.

McLaren Mastercard F1 Team

McLaren, which secured the 2025 Constructors’ Champion with the highest combined driver points, now carries one of the most visible finance partnerships.

The team’s financial portfolio includes Mastercard as the naming partner, alongside crypto exchange OKX as a principal partner, and business fintech platform Airwallex and trading platform FxPro as official partners.

Mastercard announced its naming partnership with McLaren in 2025, expanding a collaboration that began in 2024 when the brand joined as a primary partner alongside OKX and Google.

This expanded collaboration aims to unlock new opportunities for fans to enjoy exclusive, behind-the-scenes access and one-of-a-kind experiences, the company said. In December 2025, it launched Team Priceless, offering passionate supporters unprecedented insights and curated local experiences through the lens of the McLaren F1 racing team.

Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team

This year, Mercedes maintains a financial portfolio centered on institutional credibility across capital markets and banking infrastructure, with official partners that include UBS, Nasdaq, and Nu.

Nu is a new addition in the F1 grid, having signed in January a multi-year global partnership with Mercedes. The company said the partnership will deliver a range of on-track and off-track branding and audience engagement designed to create memorable experiences for fans, and showcase bold moments.

This move coincides with Nu’s naming rights partnerships with Inter Miami CF and Nu Stadium, also announced this year as the digital bank accelerate its international expansion, particularly in the US. Club International de Fútbol Miami, known as Inter Miami CF, is a professional soccer club rooted in South Florida led by eight-time Ballon d’Or winner Leo Messi.

Visa Cash App Racing Bulls

Racing Bulls remains the clearest example of fintech-led team identity within F1. Visa and digital wallet Cash App continue to anchor the team’s naming structure, with Visa renewing and expanding this year its sponsorship of the two Red Bull F1 teams until 2030.

The multi-year deal will see Visa continue as the title partner of the Visa Cash App Racing Bulls and support the team’s F1 Academy program, an initiative which nurtures young female drivers.

Meanwhile, the expanded partnership with Oracle Red Bull Racing will ensure that Visa brands remain on the front wing of this year’s car and broader placements across suits, halo, and team assets. Visa has also secured exclusive rights within the retail banking category alongside expanded pass-through rights.

The extension also introduces new branding rights, enhanced hospitality assets and experiential opportunities across both teams.

Audi Revolut F1 Team

This year, German car manufacturer Audi will be entering F1 following its takeover of Sauber. The newly rebranded team is launching with Revolut as its title sponsor, a multi-year deal signed in July 2025.

The common goal of this partnership is to establish new ways for fans to interact with the sport during race weekends, with unique experiences for motorsport enthusiasts and exclusive benefits for Revolut customers.

As part of the agreement, Revolut Business will be extensively integrated into the team’s financial operations, enabling seamless checkout solutions for team merchandise, and ensuring a premium and intuitive retail experience.

Another sponsor of the Audi Revolut F1 Team is Nexo, a digital asset platform and the team’s official digital assets partner. Over the course of the partnership, Nexo will activate globally through premium experiences and digital-first engagement, offering exclusive access, co-created content and education, and next-generation immersive brand experiences.

Oracle Red Bull Racing

Red Bull continues to boast one of the most diversified financial portfolios in F1, spanning payments, trading platforms, investment firms and digital assets. The team’s 2026 principal partners include Dubai-based crypto exchange Bybit, and official partners Visa, online brokerage firm AvaTrade, global investment firm Carlyle, and crypto exchange Gate.io.

Technology and finance brands have been among the largest investors in F1, each accounting for around 20% of all new sponsorship deals in 2025, according to research by BitOK, an anti-money laundering (AML) solution provider for the crypto industry. Crypto and fintech sponsorships in particular reached record level in 2025, totaling US$273.6 million across 21 partners.

F1 sponsorship is appealing to finance companies because of the sport’s global reach, elite branding, and a highly desirable audience. But more importantly, the audience skews toward high-income, international, and business-oriented consumers, aligning closely with financial products like investing platforms, credit services, private banking, and cross-border payments.

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These templates aim to allow firms to deploy sophisticated AI tools in an easy and swift manner, bringing automation to some of the most time-consumer work in the space.

These agent templates, which cover tasks like building pitchbooks, screening know-your-customer (KYC) files, and closing the books at month-end, comprise:

• The “Pitch Builder”, which creates target lists, runs comparables, and drafts pitchbooks for client meetings;
• The “Meeting Preparer”, which assembles client and counterparty briefs ahead of calls;
• The “Earnings Reviewer”, which reads transcripts and filings, updates models, and flags thesis-relevant changes;
• The “Model Builder”, which creates and maintains financial models from filings, data feeds, and analyst inputs;
• The “Market Researcher”, which tracks sector and issuer developments, synthesizes news, filings, and broker research, and flags items for credit and risk review;
• The “Valuation Reviewer”, which checks valuations against comparables, methodology, and the firm’s review standards;
• The “General Ledger”, which reconciler reconciles general ledger accounts and runs net asset value calculations against the books of record;
• The “Month-End Closer”, which runs the close checklist, prepares journal entries, and produces close reports;
• The “Statement Auditor”, which reviews financial statements for consistency, completeness, and audit-readiness; and
• The “KYC Screener”, which assembles entity files, reviews source documents, and packages escalations for compliance review.

Each of these templates is a reference architecture that packages three elements: skills (instructions and domain knowledge for the task), connectors (governed access to the data the task runs on), and subagents (additional Claude models that are called upon by the main agent, for specific sub-tasks). Firms can adapt any of these templates to their own modeling conventions, risk policies, and approval flows.

The agent templates ship as a plugin in Claude Cowork and Claude Code, and as a cookbook for Claude Managed Agents. They can be deployed for real financial world in just days rather than months, drastically reducing time-to-market and offering agility.

As a plugin in Claude Cowork or Claude Code, the template runs alongside the analyst, using the software already on the user’s local computer. In this setup, the user provides a specific target and the system generates individual outputs.

As a Claude Managed Agent, the template runs autonomously on the cloud-based Claude Platform rather than on a local desktop. This version is designed for large-scale operations, and comes equipped with enterprise-grade infrastructure, including long-running sessions, per-tool permissions, managed credential vaults, and a full audit log in the Claude Console.

Claude’s integration with Microsoft 365

In addition to these new agent templates, Anthropic also announced that Claude now works across Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, Word, and Outlook through the Claude add-ins for Microsoft 365.

In Outlook, the AI assistant can act as a chief of staff that triages inboxes, arranges meetings, and drafts responses. In Excel, it can build financial models from filings and data feeds, audit formulas, and run sensitivity analyses. In PowerPoint, it can draft decks that update automatically when the underlying numbers change, and in Word, it can edit credit memos against a firm’s own templates.

For financial services professionals, the appeal lies in the ability to execute complex, multi-step workflows across the entire Microsoft Office ecosystem without leaving their native environment. This significantly automates routine administrative tasks, reduces manual data transfer errors, and accelerates turnaround times for time-sensitive market decisions.

Broadening the ecosystem for financial services

Finally, Anthropic said it was working on expanding its partner ecosystem, building connections to many different financial data sources to improve its ability to help with financial analysis and research.

Claude is already connected to dozens of market data providers, research platforms, and financial companies’ internal systems, including established names like FactSet, S&P Capital IQ, MSCI, PitchBook, Morningstar, LSEG, and Daloopa, as well as organizations’ own data warehouses, research repositories, and customer relationship management systems.

The platform is now adding new partners to its network, providing direct, real-time access to market and research data. These partners include:

• Dun & Bradstreet, which provides the global standard for verified business identity and helps enterprises connect systems of record and scale AI-enabled workflows;
• Fiscal AI, which extends real-time fundamentals coverage across public equities for deeper research and benchmarking;
• Financial Modeling Prep, which provides real-time quotes, fundamentals, statements, filings, and transcripts across equities, ETFs, crypto, forex, and commodities;
• Guidepoint, which searches more than 100,000 compliance-reviewed expert interview transcripts and provides verbatim excerpts linked to source;
• IBISWorld, which tracks industry-level revenue, financial ratios, risk scores, cost structures, and forecasts across thousands of sectors;
• SS&C Intralinks, which gives Claude access to DealCenter AI data rooms for document search, diligence Q&A, and deal-activity tracking;
• Third Bridge, which gives Claude access to primary-source expert interviews on companies, sectors, and value chains; and
• Verisk, which provides property, casualty, and specialty insurance data for underwriting, claims, and risk analysis.

How the industry is using Claude

Claude is already used by a number of banks, asset managers, and insurers to support various tasks across front, middle, and back offices.

For example, FIS, a fintech company serving financial institutions, businesses and developers, is using Claude to build an agent that compresses AML investigations from days to minutes.

Carlyle, an investment management firm, uses Claude as part of its AI technology stack, leveraging the system’s strong coding capabilities, and agentic reasoning, in particular.

Finally, Citadel, a major hedge fund and financial services company, uses Claude to build and update coverage models, filter out noise to find key signals, and pressure-test investment professionals’ work, all with a step-change in efficiency.

AI adoption in the financial services industry

The release of Anthropic’s agent templates for the financial services industry comes as professionals in the sector are embracing AI rapidly. A new study by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) at Cambridge Judge Business School, found that AI adoption has evolved into a mainstream standard, with 81% of industry players now adopting AI at some level and 40% reporting advanced AI adoption, including “Scaling” or “Transforming”.

While adoption of agentic AI remains nascent, it is growing rapidly. According to a 2025 study by Wolters Kluwer, only 6% of finance leaders were employing agentic AI. However, 38% intended to adopt agentic AI in the next 12 months. With 44% of finance teams set to be using agentic AI in 2026, this represents an increase of over 600%.

For financial services firms, AI is already generating measurable improvements. The CCAF study found the strongest gains in technology, data, and product functions, where 79% of respondents reported positive outcomes. Back office and operations followed closely at 75% overall.

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Total market volume reached 629 million Swiss francs, marking a return to growth after three consecutive years of decline.

The market previously peaked at 792 million francs in 2021. Real estate crowdlending alone surged 38% to 275 million francs.

This shift coincides with the implementation of the Basel III Final regulations on 1 January 2025. These rules require Swiss banks to hold higher capital reserves for riskier loans.

This applies specifically to real estate development projects.

“This makes corresponding bank financing more expensive and leads to a more cautious lending in the real estate development sector,”

said Professor Dr Andreas Dietrich, study leader at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HSLU).

Dietrich added that platforms are benefiting from this funding gap and positioning themselves as a viable alternative.

The HSLU study projects another 30% growth in this segment for 2026.

Concentration and traditional bank participation

Beyond corporate lending, the crowdsupporting and donation sectors saw their first growth since 2020.

These areas expanded by 30% to 35 million francs across 9,288 projects. Traditional banks are also participating in the market directly.

Raiffeisen Switzerland recently began routing a portion of its sponsorship activities through its Lokalhelden platform.

Members of 21 cooperative banks used the system to vote on sponsorship allocations. They also had the option to contribute additional funds to selected projects.

The broader market remains highly consolidated. More than 80% of the donation and support volume is handled by just three platforms, driven by established network effects and brand trust.

The HSLU Crowdfunding Monitor has tracked these developments annually since 2014 to increase transparency across the sector.

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The expansion allows companies to trade 22 cryptocurrencies and participate in Ethereum staking directly from their standard bank accounts.

The B2B offering is integrated directly into the bank’s e-finance platform and mobile app.

It operates as an execution-only service, mirroring the existing setup for individual retail users but catering to institutional and corporate needs.

As part of this expanded service, corporate users can participate in Ethereum staking.

This mechanism allows businesses to earn rewards on their digital asset holdings by participating in network validation.

PostFinance securely stores all digital assets in Switzerland. This meets the strict regulatory and audit standards required of a systemically important Swiss bank.

An internal survey by PostFinance found that only 14% of Swiss companies have practical experience with digital assets. However, demand is increasing across institutional segments.

“Institutional corporate customers, such as financial institutions, insurance companies, administrations, pension funds and corporations, have a particularly high need,”

said Alexander Thoma, Head of Digital Assets, PostFinance.

“These corporate customers already manage their finances professionally and expect the same standard for digital assets.”

Alongside the corporate rollout, PostFinance has extended its digital asset services to private customers with joint partner accounts.

This allows couples or shared account holders to build a digital asset portfolio together as part of their combined financial planning.

Retail customers using partner accounts can also automate their investments through a savings plan feature. This automated investment option requires a minimum deposit of US$50.

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