What traits are driving fintech innovation within the UK and Europe as 2026 begins?
With FinovateEurope 2026 kicking off in simply two weeks, we’re showcasing among the main themes in banking and monetary companies that can be addressed—on the demo stage in addition to by our keynote addresses, fireplace chats, and panel discussions—when the convention begins on Tuesday, 10 February.
From agentic AI to post-quantum cryptography, the enabling applied sciences of immediately are reworking banking and monetary companies. Profiting from these improvements to higher serve clients, create new income streams, and efficiently compete in an ever-more advanced market is the objective of each banker and monetary companies skilled. Come see the options for your self this 12 months at FinovateEurope 2026.
Improvements in Verification, Fraud Prevention, and Workflow Automation
From the demo stage, count on to see a spread of improvements in id verification and fraud prevention. With the proliferation of applied sciences starting from sooner funds to agentic AI to digital belongings, guaranteeing that buyers and companies are in a position to have interaction in these companies safely has grow to be more and more essential. Moreover, with applied sciences like AI empowering a brand new technology of fraudsters and monetary criminals, a variety of innovators are growing options that concentrate on particular vulnerabilities and assault vectors with steady surveillance and protection.
Additionally among the many high traits mirrored within the demoing corporations at this 12 months’s FinovateEurope are improvements in embedded finance and open finance. As paths towards unlocking new income streams and deepening buyer engagement, each embedded finance and open finance provide monetary establishments distinctive alternatives and are more and more supported by regulatory steerage in each the UK and throughout Europe.
One other space the place we’ll see a substantial amount of innovation this 12 months at FinovateEurope is in workflow automation and system modernization. Various corporations can be demoing options that do every little thing from enhancing developer productiveness to accelerating compliance readiness to managing advanced fashions and calculations for banks and different monetary establishments. The sheer number of startups on this house—a lot of them hailing from Jap and Central European nations—is a testomony to the vary of challenges that fintech is able to fixing. It additionally speaks nicely of the variety of technologists from outdoors of fintech which are turning their skills towards issues in banking and monetary companies.
Modernization and Transformation within the Age of AI
Most of the similar themes from the dwell demos will even be manifest on the plenary stage. With regard to modernization, for instance, FinovateEurope will look at the ways in which fintech, AI, and the cloud may assist rework legacy banking. The convention will even have a look at the problem of modernizing legacy authentication, particularly by shifting to applied sciences like post-quantum cryptography (PQC) which are designed to safe techniques in opposition to threats from quantum computer systems. To the issue of fraud and monetary crime, audio system will talk about the usage of community APIs to battle scams and the way banks and fintechs can work collectively to fulfill the distinctive cybersecurity challenges of the AI age. Conducting all of this whereas avoiding further friction for the person is a high theme and chief concern for banks and monetary companies corporations alike.
Different key themes reminiscent of personalization, open banking, and open finance will even be matters of debate at this 12 months’s convention. Each within the context of wealth administration and retail banking, open information guarantees not solely extra partaking, customized experiences for patrons, but in addition gives monetary establishments with higher, extra data-driven decision-making; extra environment friendly operations; and higher danger administration.
Unsurprisingly, AI continues to be a fundamental theme in any dialog on know-how, banking, and monetary companies. FinovateEurope’s keynotes and particular addresses will examine points reminiscent of how generative AI is shaping the way forward for cell banking in addition to the rise of agentic AI and the problem of “nonhuman clients” reminiscent of AI-powered bots and brokers. Different shows will talk about the EU’s AI Act and its implications for banks and monetary companies suppliers, in addition to “classes discovered” from tech giants like Google, Meta, and Microsoft and their AI innovation journeys.
It’s truthful to say that improvements in AI proceed to drive what’s doable in fintech, and the variety of mainstage particular addresses at FinovateEurope protecting totally different use circumstances and purposes of AI replicate this reality. Certainly, for one more 12 months, FinovateEurope is that includes an business stage devoted particularly to purposes of AI for banking and monetary companies. However whereas AI is a clearly main power in technological innovation, it is only one of a variety of applied sciences—together with open finance/banking/information, embedded finance, and DeFi—that continues to rework fintech.
FinovateEurope 2026 involves London’s Intercontinental O2, 10 February by 11 February. Tickets to the convention are on sale now. Register immediately to save lots of your spot on the first massive fintech occasion of the 12 months!
Picture by Samuel Candy
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