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.

Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Switzerland, based on image by freepik via Magnific

The post Deutsche Bank Study: Stablecoins, Tokenized Deposits, CBDCs: The New Forms of Money appeared first on Fintech Schweiz Digital Finance News - FintechNewsCH.

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.

Featured image by jamesteoh1976 on Magnific

The post Digital Banks Increase Presence in F1 Sponsorship appeared first on Fintech Schweiz Digital Finance News - FintechNewsCH.

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.

Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Switzerland, based on image by vector_corp via Magnific

The post Anthropic Targets Financial Services with New Claude AI Agent Templates and Integrations appeared first on Fintech Schweiz Digital Finance News - FintechNewsCH.

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.

Featured image credit: Edited by Fintech News Switzerland, based on image by lifeforstock via Magnific

The post Swiss Crowdfunding Up 14% in 2025 on Surge in Real Estate Lending appeared first on Fintech Schweiz Digital Finance News - FintechNewsCH.

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.

Featured image credit: Edited by Fintech News Switzerland, based on image by rawpixel.com via Magnific

The post PostFinance Expands Crypto Services to Swiss Businesses and Joint Accounts appeared first on Fintech Schweiz Digital Finance News - FintechNewsCH.