Card issuer Episode Six has forged a strategic partnership with dispute automation platform Decisionly. The partnership will give card issuers an end-to-end dispute management solution that will enable them to boost efficiency via AI-powered automation. Founded in 2024 by the team that launched Chargehound, Decisionly made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2025. Enterprise-grade card issuer Episode Six has teamed up with AI-powered dispute automation platform Decisionly in a strategic partnership designed to give card issuers an end-to-end dispute management solution. The alliance will help issuers burdened with traditional dispute and chargeback tools deal with the complexity of modern card program management. Decisionly’s technology automates the entire dispute lifecycle, including regulatory requirements, network rules, and custom program configuration. The platform delivers automation rates of greater than 95% from day one and reduces manual dispute resolution work by more than 80%. Both Decisionly’s and Episode Six’s platforms are based on an API-first architecture and serve overlapping markets. This will allow customers to access best-in-class capabilities across card infrastructure and dispute operations, and help transform disputes from a cost to be dreaded into an opportunity for creating superior experiences for cardholders. “We built Episode Six to give issuers the infrastructure they need to run modern card programs, and that means addressing every layer of the stack,” Episode Six CEO and Co-Founder John Mitchell said. “The shift towards purpose-built solutions is accelerating across payments, and disputes is one of the clearest examples of an operational function ready for transformation. By partnering with Decisionly, we can now offer those clients the solutions they need.” Operating in more than 50 countries, Episode Six is an international, API-first, cloud-native card infrastructure provider. The company’s technology can be run as a sidecar to existing systems or as the foundation for a new stack. Episode Six enables creation of a wide range of products including credit, prepaid, and commercial cards; virtual accounts; embedded wallets; BNPL and lending features; and more. Founded in 2015, Episode Six is based in Austin, Texas. “Partnering with Episode Six was a natural fit,” Decisionly CEO and Co-Founder Pallavi Kuppa-Apte said. “We share the same fundamental belief that modern card programs deserve modern technology at every layer, including disputes. Episode Six gives us a direct path to a strong and growing base of banks and fintechs already running on modern infrastructure, exactly the kind of issuers who are ready to unlock the full value of purpose-built dispute automation.” Founded in 2024 by the team that launched Chargehound (which was acquired by PayPal in 2021), Decisionly made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2025. At the conference, the company demonstrated its AI-powered dispute resolution and first-party fraud detection technology for card issuers. Decisionly automates disputes from intelligent intake to custom investigation,to rapid resolution, combining deep domain expertise with advanced technology to allow card issuers to make faster, smarter decisions while lowering operational risk. Photo by Mike Kononov on Unsplash The post Decisionly Partners with Episode Six on AI-Powered Dispute Automation appeared first on Finovate.       

Digital identity innovator Signicat has teamed up with identity verification specialist TrustTech to bring reusable compliance checks to regulated businesses through private digital wallet ecosystems. The partnership combines Signicat’s digital identity platform capabilities with TrustTech’s trust infrastructure to enable verified identity data to be established once and then reused across systems, entities, and borders. Based in Norway, Signicat made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2017 in London. Digital identity and trust services provider Signicat has partnered with digital trust infrastructure company and identity verification specialist TrustTech to bring reusable compliance checks and trusted signatures to regulated businesses via private wallet ecosystems. The partnership combines Signicat’s digital identity platform capabilities with TrustTech’s trust infrastructure to help businesses transition away from fragmented identity checks, password-based authentication, and repetitive signing processes in favor of a single, private wallet-driven flow. This enables verified identity and trusted information to be established once and reused across multiple systems, organizations, and borders. The partnership will initially focus on financial services, government, and healthcare, industries where EU-compliant private wallets are already being deployed for employees and customers. These private wallets are front-running eIDAS 2.0, a digital identity framework in the EU that mandates that member states provide citizens with a secure European Digital Identity (EUDI) wallet, and that these wallets be accepted for standardized, cross-border authentication. “Customers, employees, and partners should not have to prove who they are again and again, and institutions cannot afford to rebuild trust from scratch every time,” TrustTech Chief Commercial Officer Rens Pennings said. “By combining TrustTech’s proven reusable trust infrastructure with Signicat’s European scale, we can help regulated enterprises move from one-off verification to reusable identity. The result is faster onboarding, less manual work, and trusted digital journeys that work across private wallet, sector wallets, and the wider European identity ecosystem.” TrustTech helps organizations and businesses navigate increasingly complex regulatory regimes, security risks, and fragmented identity systems. The Netherlands-based company’s digital identity solutions and supporting infrastructure enable organizations to securely identify users and customers, protecting sensitive data and conforming with regulations such as eIDAS 2.0, GDPR, and NIS2. Founded in 2025, TrustTech allows organizations to replace repeated checks and paperwork with reusable KYC and compliance checks that feature secure information sharing and cross-organization interoperability. “Regulated organizations are dealing with identity across more touchpoints than ever, from customer onboarding to employee access, partner checks, and digital signing,” Signicat Chief of Enterprise for Central & Southern Europe Thijs Vink said. “Private wallets give them a practical way to bring those journeys together today, rather than waiting for the wider public wallet ecosystem to mature. By partnering with TrustTech, we can help enterprises create trusted identity experiences that are easier to manage, safer to use, and ready to scale across Europe.” Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Trondheim, Norway, Signicat made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2017. Today, more than 21,000 organizations around the world use its digital identity solutions for identity proofing, authentication, electronic signatures, trust orchestration, and more. Signicat’s digital identity platform features more than 35 electronic identity methods, as well as access to 500+ digital identity experts across Europe. Asger Hattel is CEO. Photo by Simon Williams on Unsplash The post Signicat and TrustTech Bring Reusable Identity to Digital Wallets appeared first on Finovate.       

Robinhood announced a handful of features last week, including the rollout of Robinhood Earn, a decentralized lending product that allows people to lend their dollar-backed USDG through a self-custody wallet at an estimated 7% APY. This estimated 7% APY on USDG stablecoin deposits is high enough to raise eyebrows, especially at a time when banks are paying closer to 3% to 4% on their highest-yield savings accounts. So how can Robinhood sustainably offer 7%? Robinhood Earn First, let’s take a look at the details of the launch. Robinhood Earn applies to USDG, a stablecoin issued by Paxos Digital Singapore and Paxos Issuance Europe. Robinhood is not paying 7% APY on bank deposits. Instead, the yield is generated by lending activity for Robinhood users who lend stablecoins using Morpho, a decentralized lending protocol that powers onchain lending. Just as with fiat lending, there is risk in lending stablecoins. Users still assume the risk on the deposits. However, Robinhood has partnered with Lloyd’s of London and RELM to protect covered losses in the event of cyber or smart contract exploits. Essentially, the company is bringing decentralized finance (DeFi) into a familiar customer experience. The 7% interest strategy appears no different from a fintech offering a new high-yield savings account that pays an above-average yield of over 4% APY in order to incentivize consumers to open new accounts. It is a marketing tool. Robinhood’s new DeFi lending product is already integrated into its mainstream brokerage experience, so the 7% is the additional incentive for users to convert cash to USDG, begin using Robinhood Chain, and eventually use tokenized assets and on-chain services. Should banks offer 7% yield? It is important for firms to recognize that yield has become a feature, not the product. If stablecoins become everyday money, what role does the deposit account play? If consumers can earn yield without a traditional bank account, how should banks compete? And what happens when customers don’t even realize they’re using decentralized finance? The answer isn’t necessarily to match Robinhood’s 7% yield, which is good, because banks already know that offering a 7% yield is off the table. Instead, banks should focus on the advantages DeFi can’t easily replicate: Trust FDIC insurance, consumer protections, fraud resolution, and regulatory oversight still matter—especially during periods of market volatility. Financial relationships Consumers don’t just need a place to store money. They need mortgages, auto loans, credit cards, financial advice, and payment services. Banks have an opportunity to integrate yield-generating products into a broader relationship. Simplicity Robinhood’s announcement demonstrates that consumers don’t want to navigate wallets, bridges, or smart contracts. Banks that can abstract blockchain complexity while maintaining a familiar customer experience will be well positioned. Hybrid models Rather than viewing DeFi as competition, banks may eventually incorporate tokenized deposits, stablecoins, or on-chain lending into their own offerings, allowing customers to benefit from blockchain infrastructure without leaving the regulated banking system. In the new era of finance, the winners will be those that make DeFi invisible. Just as most consumers don’t think about ACH, RTP, or card networks when they use a credit card, in the future they may not care whether their yield comes from a bank balance sheet or an on-chain lending protocol. Instead, they’ll choose the institution that offers the best combination of return, trust, and convenience. Photo by Andrew Neel The post What’s Really Behind Robinhood’s 7% Yield? appeared first on Finovate.       

AI-powered investment solutions provider for asset and wealth managers MDOTM has raised $27 million in funding. The round was led by Expedition Growth Capital and takes MDOTM’s total funding to $36.5 million. MDOTM made its Finovate debut earlier this year at FinovateEurope 2026, introducing its proprietary AI investment platform Sphere. In a round led by Expedition Growth Capital, AI-driven investment solutions provider MDOTM has secured $27 million in growth equity funding. The investment takes the company’s total funding to $36.5 million, and will be used to accelerate international expansion and hiring across AI research, engineering, product, sales, and client solutions. With clients including Morgan Stanley, Amundi, and Zurich Bank, MDOTM serves more than 60 financial institutions throughout Europe, the UK, and the US, enabling a growing number of firms to use AI-powered solutions to manage complex investment portfolios at scale. The company’s flagship offering, Sphere, analyzes market and macroeconomic data to identify market regimes and provide forward-looking insights across asset classes. Investment teams can leverage this analysis to construct their own market views, which are then translated into portfolio construction and rebalancing tools. This empowers users to create, customize, and manage investment portfolios at scale, leveraging Sphere’s generative AI capabilities to automatically create personalized portfolio commentary and client reporting. “Asset and wealth managers are no longer asking whether to use AI in investment decisions, but how to deploy it at scale across thousands of portfolios while maintaining control,” MDOTM CEO Tommaso Migliore said. “That is exactly what Sphere was built to enable, which is why leading financial institutions are already running the platform in production. This investment will help us expand our team and meet the accelerating demand in the US and European market.” MDOTM’s funding comes as asset and wealth managers are dealing with the twin challenges of fee compression and a demand for personalization. Further, the rising number of investment opportunities is making portfolio orchestration increasingly complex. This requires asset and wealth managers to manage a greater number of inputs, constraints, and decisions across thousands of portfolios. In response, MDOTM’s Sphere delivers an end-to-end AI workflow for investment teams, providing them with AI-driven insights, automated portfolio construction, customization, and rebalancing, personalized portfolio commentary, and more. With over $100 billion in assets under management, MDOTM’s Sphere is backed by a team of 60+ data scientists, engineers, and finance experts, as well as the MDOTM LAB, an academic network of 20+ professors and PhDs engaged in research on machine learning, portfolio management, behavioral finance, and AI ethics. “Financial institutions have spent the last decade buying back-office and front-end software, but the work in the middle still happens in spreadsheets: rebalancing, keeping portfolios aligned with house views, and generating client commentary,” Expedition Growth Capital Partner Steve Twomey said. “MDOTM has built the AI infrastructure that finally scales that work, with the explainability and governance institutional buyers demand.” Founded in 2015 in London, MDOTM made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2026. At the conference, the company demonstrated its proprietary AI platform, Sphere, which enhances investment processes and decision-making for banks, insurers, asset managers, and wealth management firms. Photo by Lucas Davies on Unsplash The post AI-Driven Investment Platform MDOTM Raises $27 Million appeared first on Finovate.       

Klarna has applied to establish Klarna Bank USA, a Utah-chartered industrial bank, marking its latest step toward becoming a full-service bank in the US. Owning a bank charter would allow Klarna to bring banking operations in-house, reducing its reliance on partner banks while expanding its payments, savings, credit, and merchant offerings. Klarna joins a growing wave of fintechs pursuing US bank charters in 2026, reflecting an industry shift toward owning banking infrastructure instead of relying on sponsor banks. Digital bank and BNPL provider Klarna is the latest fintech to apply for a US banking license. The company announced today that it has submitted applications to the Utah Department of Financial Institutions and the FDIC to establish Klarna Bank USA. The newly proposed bank will be a Utah-chartered industrial bank. Klarna’s role as a bank is not new. The Sweden-based fintech has had a bank license in Europe since 2017, and while it has been providing bank services in the US since 2019, it does so through partner banks. Originally founded in 2005 as a buy now, pay later technology provider, Klarna now counts 30 million users in the US and over 119 million active global users. Klarna said that obtaining its own bank charter will enable it to offer a broader suite of financial services directly to consumers while reducing its reliance on partner banks. The company also framed the move as a way to foster greater competition in the US banking market. “Banking is built on trust,” said Klarna Co-founder and CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski. “We’ve seen firsthand the appetite for a fairer, more transparent approach in the US, and our own banking license is the natural next step, giving customers tools to borrow responsibly and build financial confidence, while bringing greater competition, innovation, and choice to consumers and merchants alike.” Klarna Bank USA will operate as a subsidiary of Klarna and will have its own independent board, governance, and internal controls. Klarna has appointed Gary Harding, who served as CEO of both Milestone Bank and Prime Alliance Bank, to serve as President and CEO of Klarna Bank USA. Having its own bank charter would allow Klarna Bank to bring its existing banking operations in-house. Klarna anticipates that removing its reliance on WebBank, its partner bank, will increase reliability across payments, savings, credit, and merchant services. Obtaining its own bank license will offer consumers more transparency and safety by bringing digital tools and traditional banking products in one place. Klarna’s move to apply for a bank charter follows a flurry of applications in the first half of 2026. According to American Banker, two dozen neobanks, digital asset companies, lenders, investment firms, and payments providers have applied for or conditionally received bank charters so far this year. Klarna’s application is another sign that fintechs are increasingly viewing bank charters as a strategic advantage instead of a regulatory burden. After years of relying on sponsor banks to offer deposit accounts and lending products, many fintechs have realized that owning the charter can provide greater control over product development, funding, compliance, and the customer experience. Even though the process to obtain a charter is costly and brings heightened regulatory oversight, it also gives companies like Klarna more flexibility to build long-term banking relationships with customers instead of depending on third-party partners. Photo by Julio Lopez The post Klarna Applies for US Banking License appeared first on Finovate.       

After a thrilling weekend of World Cup matches, fans in the US are readying for this evening’s big contest against Belgium. To help you while away the hours until then, here’s a look at some of the top fintech headlines that are coming across our radar today. Be sure to check back with Finovate’s Fintech Rundown all week long for the latest updates. Digital banking Cloud-native core banking and payments platform Thought Machine surpasses $100 million total revenue milestone. Digital banking platform for small businesses Bluevine expands its services to selected foreign-resident owners of US businesses. Agentic AI BBVA completes its first AI agent-initiated transaction on behalf of a cardholder. Caixabank initiates its first agentic shopping transaction. Stablecoins Standard Chartered launches new capability enabling institutional clients to access USDC minting and redemption. Payments PayPal joins the European Payments Council (EPC). Investing and wealth management SoFi acquires AI-based investing startup Composer. Nigerian-founded financial services fintech LemFi secured regulatory approval to acquire investment platform Wealth8. Identity and authentication Signicat and TrustTech team up to introduce reusable identity to European digital wallets. Visa unveils threat intelligence platform to bolster cyber and fraud defense. Photo by Fauzan Saari on Unsplash The post Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News appeared first on Finovate.       

How are financial institutions like US Bank helping small businesses take advantage of new, innovative tools and technologies that will enable them to better serve their customers and scale their operations? At FinovateSpring 2026 earlier this year, I spoke with Queanne Smith, Senior Vice President at US Bank, on how integrated digital solutions and strategic partnerships can bring greater efficiency and new revenue opportunities to small and medium-sized enterprises. In our conversation, Smith talks about the challenges that small businesses face when confronted with fragmented banking services, and explains how embedded banking and platform integration can build trust and efficiency. Smith also discusses the importance of delivering end-to-end solutions like billpay and payroll and shares her thoughts on the best practices for bank-fintech partnerships. “We did a survey in 2025 with about a thousand of our small business owners and identified that 63% of those small business owners were really struggling and overwhelmed by the number of platforms they were utilizing for their cash management services … The integration that we’re looking to build enables our small business owners and midsize businesses to have a one-stop shop experience. The opportunity for us to think about how clients interface with us and experience us is a real thing. The objective is to minimize the points of friction and improve the client experience overall.” Queanne Smith is a Senior Vice President at US Bank, where she leads business strategy and partnerships designed to expand access to capital and growth tools for small business owners. Smith works at the intersection of banking, technology, and community impact, leveraging partnerships, data, and emerging tools to deliver scalable, measurable outcomes. In 2025, Smith was recognized as part of American Banker’s Most Powerful Women in Banking Top Teams. The fifth-largest commercial bank in the United States, US Bank serves millions of clients via a diversified range of business lines. These operations include commercial and institutional banking, business banking, payments, wealth management, and consumer banking. Headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and a member of the Fortune 500, US Bank was named one of the World’s Most Ethical Companies by the Ethisphere Institute. Photo by Giant Asparagus from Pexels The post US Bank’s Queanne Smith on Streamlining Small Business Banking appeared first on Finovate.       

Finovate Podcast host Greg Palmer showcases the winners of Best of Show from FinovateSpring 2026 in his latest series of podcast conversations. The five companies that won Best of Show represent many of the top trends in fintech today, from embedded finance and stablecoin-powered payments to mainframe modernization and AI-enabled personalization. In these interviews, we learn about the inspiration behind the founding of these innovative companies and the problems they are solving for banks, credit unions, other financial institutions, and their customers. Finovate podcast host Greg Palmer talks with Caitlyn Truong, CEO and Co-Founder of Zengines. Palmer and Truong discuss how Zengines addresses the challenge of managing legacy core banking applications written in older programming languages like COBOL, RPG, and PL1. Truong explains how her company is modernizing legacy mainframe applications without losing critical logic, satisfying auditors faster, and making legacy systems searchable so transformation and compliance do not stall. EP 299: Caitlyn Truong, Zengines Juan Jurado-Blanco and Armando Quintana, CEO and Chief Revenue Officer of Clockout, respectively, sit down with Greg Palmer in this Finovate podcast conversation. The trio discuss the benefits of earned wage access as an offering for community banks and credit unions. Clockout’s technology enables users to access their earned wages the same day they work, rather than waiting for traditional biweekly or even monthly pay cycles. The solution embeds seamlessly into existing bank experiences. EP 298: Juan Jurado-Blanco and Armando Quintana, Clockout Oren Buskila, CEO and Co-Founder of Cobalt, talks with Finovate podcast host Greg Palmer about the challenge of financial institution system dependencies. Cobalt offers a technology that automatically maps real system dependencies across complex banking environments, enabling agentic AI, real-time visibility, safer changes, reduced risk, and confident operations. Cobalt enables technical teams to anticipate the consequences of modifications before implementation, preventing failures and ensuring safer deployments. EP 297: Oren Buskila, Cobalt Podcast host Greg Palmer catches up with Craig McLaughlin (CEO) and Baron Conway (Chief Strategy Officer) of Finalytics.AI in the wake of the company’s second consecutive Best of Show win at FinovateSpring (2025 and 2026). Palmer, McLaughlin, and Conway discuss how Finalytics.AI enables community financial institutions to deliver personalized, high-touch experiences through digital channels while leveraging the wealth of customer data these banks and credit unions possess. EP 296: Craig McLaughlin and Baron Conway, Finalytics.AI Host Greg Palmer interviews Crebit co-founders Jensen Coonradt (CEO) and Simmi Sen (Chief Product Officer). In this podcast conversation, Coonradt and Sen explain how their company is modernizing international money transfers by leveraging stablecoin technology to send money across borders as easily as sending a text message. Crebit’s “stablecoin sandwich” approach enables users to on-ramp funds using local payment methods before settling into virtually any currency worldwide in minutes. EP 295: Jensen Coonradt and Simmi Sen, Crebit The post Finovate Podcast Features the Five Best of Show Winners from FinovateSpring 2026 appeared first on Finovate.       

MX launched a white-labeled conversational AI assistant that banks can embed into their digital banking platforms. Unlike many consumer AI tools, MX’s assistant can both answer questions about a customer’s finances and initiate banking actions, such as opening new accounts. The launch reflects a broader industry shift toward keeping AI-powered financial guidance inside banks’ own digital channels, helping institutions strengthen customer relationships. Financial data platform MX is bringing conversational AI directly into digital banking. The company unveiled a white-labeled financial AI assistant that banks can deploy within their existing banking platforms, enabling customers to ask questions about their finances and take action without leaving the bank’s app. The new assistant allows bank customers to engage with their finances by asking natural language questions in a conversational environment. The assistant maintains an active relationship with the customer by surfacing meaningful opportunities for financial wellness. Unlike many consumer AI assistants, MX’s tool leverages the financial institution’s existing transactional infrastructure to help customers complete tasks such as opening new accounts. MX financial institution clients also stand to benefit from the new conversational AI tool. It leverages consumer-permissioned data to contextually recommend immediate financial opportunities and relevant products and services at the exact moment they are needed. Additionally, the increased engagement can help improve consumer trust and reduce strain on traditional customer service channels. Most importantly, it ensures that the bank maintains control over the customer relationship. “Financial institutions are sitting on incredibly powerful data. They just haven’t had the right tools to act on it at the moment that matters,” said MX CEO and Founder Ryan Caldwell. “This assistant will change that. It’s designed to take complex back-end data and turn it into a clear signal: this customer needs something right now. Instead of a third party stepping in to capture that moment, the relationship stays with the financial institution that earned it, and the customer gets help from someone they already trust.” From a compliance standpoint, MX’s AI assistant routes user interactions through a secure architecture that helps mitigate risk by validating conversations against the bank’s pre-configured policy rules. These guardrails ensure that consumers receive insights that are derived from their actual data while ensuring administrative visibility for internal risk and compliance teams. And because data stays within the financial institution’s and MX’s platform, it is not made available for third parties to train or retain the data used by the AI assistant.  Interestingly, MX’s launch comes the same week that ChatGPT made its financial aggregation tool more broadly available to its subscribers. The Plaid integration now works for both ChatGPT Pro users as well as ChatGPT Plus users. However, MX’s AI assistant differentiates itself from the LLM’s capabilities in that it is not limited to read-only. The company’s new tool leverages the financial institution’s existing transactional processes to allow users to take actions on their accounts. MX is currently recruiting early launch partners and expects to roll the assistant out to a broader group of financial institutions following the initial pilot phase. Photo by kuu akura on Unsplash The post MX Unveils Conversational Financial AI Assistant appeared first on Finovate.       

LexisNexis Risk Solutions and Promon announced a strategic alliance to enhance fraud prevention in mobile apps around the world. The partnership will combine access to LexisNexis’ ThreatMetrix digital identity, device, and behavioral intelligence with Promon’s in -app protection and trusted telemetry technology. Headquartered in Alpharetta, Georgia, LexisNexis Risk Solutions made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2025 in New York. LexisNexis Risk Solutions has forged a strategic alliance with mobile application security firm Promon to bolster fraud prevention in mobile apps. The partnership will combine LexisNexis’ ThreatMetrix digital identity, device, and behavioral intelligence with in-app protection and telemetry from Promon’s Promon Shield and Promon Insight, respectively. “Fraud prevention is increasingly dependent on understanding the full context of a digital interaction,” LexisNexis Risk Solutions Chief Commercial Officer Grayson Clarke explained. “Promon’s app protection capabilities complement the insights delivered through our LexisNexis Risk Intelligence Network, helping customers strengthen the signals they rely on to better detect fraud across the mobile environment.” Defending mobile apps from fraud comes with a range of challenges. Using techniques such as malware, overlay manipulation, device tampering, reverse engineering, and automated abuse to bypass controls, fraud attacks are increasingly targeting the mobile app itself. This means that fighting fraud requires not just knowing who a user is, but also whether the environment the user is operating in can be trusted. In response, combining access to in-app protection and telemetry provided by Promon Shield and Promon Insight with identity, device, and transactional risk intelligence from LexisNexis enhances the integrity of the app and strengthens fraud detection quality. These capabilities are orchestrated by the LexisNexis Dynamic Decision Platform, which enables companies to combine app-level protection and identity intelligence to provide better, real-time decisions throughout the mobile customer’s journey. “Promon has always believed that strong mobile security is a critical foundation for digital trust,” Promon Chief Executive Officer Daniel Kollberg said. “As fraud increasingly targets the mobile app and device environment, organizations need clearer insight into whether each session can be trusted. We are bringing Promon Shield, mobile risk detection, behavioral insights, and tamper-resistant telemetry into one of the world’s leading fraud intelligence platforms, helping organizations protect customers, reduce fraud losses, and deliver safer mobile experiences.” Together, Promon and LexisNexis Risk Solutions assess risk and protect applications across billions of installations and digital identities around the world. By providing a more comprehensive view of mobile fraud risk, bolstering both the application layer and the signals used for fraud detection, Promon and LexisNexis Risk Solutions are enabling organizations to reduce the number of blind spots in app environments. Founded in 2006 and headquartered in Oslo, Norway, Promon provides runtime intelligence for apps, embedding protection into compiled apps in seconds with no source code changes and no SDK. Promon’s technology sits inside running apps, detecting threats, transforming trusted telemetry into informed decisions, and executing responses before attacks reach users. Promon has 500+ enterprise clients around the world and protects more than 13 billion transactions a month. Headquartered in Alpharetta, Georgia, and founded in 2000, LexisNexis Risk Solutions made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2025. At the conference, the company demonstrated its AI-powered identity verification and fraud detection solution, IDVerse. The technology authenticates documents and provides biometric verification to defend customers against deepfakes and forged documents. LexisNexis Risk Solutions acquired IDVerse in February 2025. Photo by Einar Storsul on Unsplash The post LexisNexis Risk Solutions Teams Up with Promon to Fight Fraud appeared first on Finovate.       

At FinovateFall this year, we’re selecting 68 innovations that will reshape how financial services operate, and we’re ready to name names. We know many of you prefer to see the demo lineup before securing your delegate pass, so without further ado, here’s 80% of the lineup featuring breakthrough technologies you haven’t seen before and innovation trends you need to know. The initial wave of selected companies represents many dynamic areas of fintech development—here are just four to give you a sneak peek: Payments and Cross-Border Solutions: Payments, cross-border solutions, and payment infrastructure modernization feature prominently, with companies developing unified payment hubs that integrate multiple payment rails, blockchain-based remittance systems, and embedded international payment capabilities. These innovative solutions target the growing demand for seamless cross-border transactions and represent exciting new revenue diversification opportunities. Digital Experience and Security: Privacy-focused customer analytics platforms, streamlined onboarding processes, and voice-based security authentication represent the industry’s cutting-edge response to evolving customer expectations and regulatory requirements around data protection. Risk and Compliance: Real-time fraud prevention systems, automated reconciliation tools, and AI-powered dispute resolution platforms address the persistent challenge of managing operational risk while maintaining processing speed—and we’re eager to see these solutions in action. AI-Powered Operations: The largest category, AI-Powered Operations, focuses on autonomous compliance processes, including AML investigations that require minimal human intervention, AI-driven lending workflows that accelerate decision-making, and intelligent back-office automation systems. These groundbreaking solutions address the industry’s ongoing challenge of balancing regulatory compliance with operational efficiency in ways we haven’t seen before. What excites us most is seeing how these companies are turning industry pain points into competitive advantages, delivering solutions that attendees can evaluate and potentially deploy before they hit the broader market. Now that you know who you’ll see on stage, it’s time to register. Register by this Friday, July 3 and save with early-bird rates. Additional demo company announcements are expected in the coming weeks, so stay tuned for more exciting reveals. The post The Wait Is Over: First Wave Of Demos Announced For FinovateFall 2026 appeared first on Finovate.       

The first half of 2026 has made it clear that fintech and banking are entering a new phase. AI is changing how consumers interact with financial institutions, infrastructure is becoming a competitive advantage, and embedded finance continues to blur the lines between banks, fintechs, and technology companies. What do these shifts mean for the rest of the year? Join Finovate on Wednesday, July 1, at 12:00 p.m. Pacific for a live webinar featuring leading voices from banking, fintech, and market research as they discuss the trends reshaping the industry and what financial institutions should be preparing for next. Our panelists Jody Bhagat, President of North America, Engine by Starling Tiffani Montez, Principal Analyst, EMARKETER Jeremy Almond, CEO, Paystand During this interactive discussion, we’ll explore questions such as: Will AI assistants become the primary interface for banking? Is owning financial infrastructure becoming more valuable than owning the customer relationship? How are customer expectations around banking relationships changing? What does the rise of invisible payments and embedded experiences mean for banks and fintechs? Which trends are likely to define the second half of 2026? Whether you work at a bank, credit union, fintech, or technology provider, you’ll leave with practical insights into where the industry is headed and what strategies are likely to matter most over the coming months. Date: Wednesday, July 1, 2026 Time: 12:00 p.m. PDT Reserve your spot today and join the conversation as we examine the forces shaping the future of financial services. Photo by Pixabay The post The Trends Defining the Next Chapter of Banking appeared first on Finovate.       

Due to the changing nature of both fintech funding and Finovate alums—a growing number of which are younger, smaller firms—we are presenting our latest alum funding report based on the entirety of the first half of 2026, rather than a single quarter. This year, we are proud to announce that a baker’s dozen of Finovate alums have raised more than $208 million in funding for H1 2026. We should note that there were companies that secured funding shortly before becoming alums. For example, AAZZUR raised more than $2 million less than a month before making its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2026 in London. Zocks raised $45 million ahead of its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2026 in San Diego. And while these sums cannot be considered as part of the total presented here, they still reflect the level of interest that investors have when it comes to the kind of companies that demo their innovations on the Finovate stage. Top equity investments from the first half Jump: $80 million Saris AI: $28.8 million Paysend: $25 million Eisen: $18.5 million Lyzr AI: $14.5 million While there were three investments of undisclosed amounts in the first half of 2026, the $80 million raised by Jump, the AI-powered meeting assistant for financial advisors that made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2025, represents the top equity investment from any Finovate alum so far this year. Used by more than 16,000 advisors and leading enterprise IBDs, RIAs, and FIs, Jump saves advisors up to 15 hours per week by putting meeting administration and other tasks on “AI autopilot.” After Jump, the next largest investments were secured by Saris AI ($28.8 million) and Paysend ($25 million). Saris AI, which made its Finovate debut this year at FinovateSpring 2026, offers an agentic AI solution with AI agents that automate back-office workflows. The San Francisco-based fintech was founded in 2023. Paysend, by contrast, has been a Finovate alum since its debut at FinovateEurope 2016. Supporting more than 25 billion digital endpoints across 170+ countries, Paysend operates a payment infrastructure that features a full stack of proprietary systems, from processing and FX to orchestration and settlement. London-based Paysend was founded in 2015. Here is our detailed alum funding report for the first half of 2026. January 2026 Kore.ai: undisclosed—news February 2026 Copla: $6.4 million—post Jump: $80 million—post Plaid: undisclosed—news March 2026 Kani Payments: undisclosed—news Lyzr AI: $14.5 million—post April 2026 Paysend: $25 million—post Qover: $12 million—post May 2026 Eisen: $18.5 million—news Harmoney: $13.2 million—news InstaSwitch: $4.7 million—news June 2026 Reset: $6 million—news Saris AI: $28.8 million—news If you are a Finovate alum that raised funding in the first half of 2026 and do not see your company listed, please drop us a note at research@finovate.com. We would love to share the good news! Funding received prior to becoming an alum is not included. Photo by Pepi Stojanovski on Unsplash The post 13 Finovate Alums Raised More than $208 Million in H1 2026 appeared first on Finovate.       

Fiserv has embedded Personetics’ AI platform into Experience Digital (XD). The integration will help banks deliver real-time, personalized financial guidance to consumers and small businesses. The move reflects the shift of AI from a standalone fintech tool to core digital banking infrastructure. Banking and commerce technology provider Fiserv and cognitive banking platform Personetics are joining forces today. Fiserv has embedded Personetics’ platform within its Experience Digital (XD), a tool that gives banks and credit unions a new way to offer more personalized experiences to end users. Embedding Personetics’ AI platform directly into Fiserv’s digital banking experience will allow Fiserv’s bank clients to act on data in real time, offering them the ability to deliver timely prompts, contextual guidance, and relevant offers within XD. The new capabilities will help end consumers manage their cash flow, build their savings, and make more informed financial decisions. It will offer small business users the ability to better manage working capital, anticipate needs, and respond more quickly to changes in their business. “Financial institutions have no shortage of data, but many still struggle to translate that information into timely, relevant action,” said Personetics CEO Udi Ziv. “By embedding Personetics within Experience Digital, Fiserv is helping banks and credit unions deliver more human, personalized digital experiences that can improve money management for consumers and help small businesses operate with greater confidence.” Personetics was founded in 2010 to bring cognitive banking tools to banks. The company sets itself apart with its AI-driven insights that help banks become a trusted advisor to their customers by bringing them personalized financial guidance. Personetics, a long-standing pioneer in AI-powered financial wellness, serves 150 million bank customers across 24 global markets each month. Fiserv launched its XD platform in 2023 as the evolution of its digital banking offerings, bringing together account opening, money management, payments, small business banking, and fintech integrations in a unified digital experience. Natively embedding Personetics’ tools into XD will enable banks to create a more intuitive and relevant digital banking experience. The move comes at a time when consumers are increasingly turning to AI-powered tools for financial guidance. Increasingly, fintechs and banks are adding AI-powered financial guidance as a built-in capability rather than an optional add-on. Embedding Personetics directly into XD will allow Fiserv to lower implementation barriers for clients, enabling banks to bring AI-driven money management tools to market more quickly. “Consumers and small businesses increasingly expect digital banking experiences that are intuitive and responsive,” said Fiserv Chief Product Officer Vishal Dalal. “With this collaboration, our clients can use the data they already have to deliver timely guidance and personalized engagement that creates meaningful value for the consumers and businesses they serve.” The announcement illustrates how AI is shifting from a standalone feature to core digital banking infrastructure. Rather than asking banks to select and integrate their own AI tools, platform providers like Fiserv are increasingly embedding those capabilities directly into their products, making advanced financial guidance accessible to a broader range of institutions. Photo by Marek Piwnicki The post Fiserv Embeds Personetics’ AI Platform into its Digital Banking Suite appeared first on Finovate.       

It’s a holiday shortened week in the US, with Independence Day (also known as the Fourth of July) just days away. With that in mind, we’ll keep you posted with all the fireworks in the fintech headlines this week here on the Fintech Rundown! Payments Philippines-based fintech Mynt readies for a $1.5 billion IPO for its mobile payments platform and mobile wallet GCash. Maldives Premier Bank (MPB) partners with Finastra for its Financial Messaging API, enabling resilient, secure, always-on payment connectivity. Paysafe joins Primer platform to streamline card payments for online merchants. Investing Education Community Alliance partners with InvestiFi for in-platform investing. Financial wellness Family technology company Greenlight launches its smart home display—Family Hub—to help families manage finances, chores, and more. Lending Financial services app Tabby secures a consumer finance license and a SME finance license from the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA.) Identity and authentication AI-native risk intelligence solution provider for financial crime and national security operations Quantifind secures $200 million in funding in a round led by Summit Partners. Post-quantum authentication and digital identity solutions provider Wultra raises $7.75 million in Series A funding. Agentic AI Communication risk management platform for financial services Shield added new AI agents to AmplifAI, its agentic suite for digital communications surveillance and investigations. AI transformation specialist Tavant launches its next-generation platform for agentic software engineering, data modernization, and enterprise AI automation. Business finance Canadian business finance platform Float Financial raises $60 million in Series C funding in a round led by Inovia Capital. Xero introduces industry benchmarking intelligence for small businesses. Fraud and risk Shield introduces the a governed AI agent designed to close compliance alerts autonomously. Photo by Ray Hennessy on Unsplash The post Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News appeared first on Finovate.       

This week’s edition of Finovate Global looks at recent fintech headlines from India. CRED raises $900 million in round led by Meta CRED, a membership-based, credit rewards platform that offers solutions across payments, lending, insurance, wealth, and lifestyle, has secured $900 million in Series H funding. The round was led by Meta, and will be structured through a combination of primary and secondary share purchases. Meta will join the CRED cap table as a minority investor; CRED will earn a post-money valuation of $4.5 billion. With 1.7 million members engaging with its platform every month, CRED processes more than 40% of credit card bill payments in India, and has seen its lending business grow to more than $2.5 billion in managed assets. The investment will enable the company to accelerate growth, build “institutional muscle,” and extend its leadership across verticals. The company announced that its founder, Kunal Shah, will transition from his operating role as CEO to head WhatsApp internationally. India is WhatsApp’s largest market, with more than 500 million users. Miten Sampat, who has led strategy and finance for CRED since 2020, will take the helm as interim CEO. “I started CRED in 2018 with a belief that creditworthiness deserves to be rewarded,” Shah said. “In under eight years, that belief has turned into a new category: millions of members, $325 million in revenue, profitability, a full stack of licenses, and a strong brand. On this foundation, with additional capital and an extraordinarily talented team, CRED is poised to become an enduring institution for decades to come.” CRED is headquartered in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India. The company’s investment announcement comes as the firm launches a new AI-powered credit coaching solution for CRED members. The AI credit coach provides personalized, real-time guidance based on the user’s credit profile to help them better understand their credit status and improve their credit health. Navi UPI enhances fraud protection capabilities Navi UPI, a popular UPI app, has unveiled Navi Secure, a new unified framework that combines the platform’s existing fraud prevention, risk monitoring, and user protection capabilities. The offering is designed to help merchants and users deal with the proliferation of increasingly sophisticated fraud attacks that leverage social engineering, compromised devices, false merchants, and more. With intelligent risk signals, contextual alerts, and preventive safeguards embedded in the customer journey, Navi Secure helps firms reduce risk across a range of fraud scenarios, including scam-driven payments and manipulation-based fraud; compromised devices and apps; unsafe networks and environments; and high-risk entities and transaction behavior. “Given digital payments have become central to everyday life, fraud prevention needs to be real time and contextual. Navi Secure reflects our commitment to building trust-first financial infrastructure, where safety is embedded into every transaction, not added as an afterthought,” Navi Limited MD and CEO Rajiv Naresh said. “By combining advanced risk intelligence with user-friendly safeguards, we are ensuring that customers can use UPI with confidence, knowing that Navi is actively working in the background to protect their money.” Navi UPI is among the fastest growing financial services companies in India. The company’s UPI transaction volumes grew from more than 709 million to more than 824 million between January and May 2026. The company currently has 3.6% of India’s UPI market share; a market dominated by PhonePe (46.2%) and Google Pay (32.7%). Bengaluru-based Navi is a financial services company that provides personal and home loans, insurance, mutual funds, and gold investing, as well as UPI, India’s flagship instant real-time payments system (Unified Payments Interface). Navi UPI is the company’s money transfer solution, which leverages UPI to deliver money transfers anytime, anywhere. Navi was founded in 2018. Indian paytech Skydo expands to Canada Payments platform Skydo has won its first regulatory approval outside of its native India. The Bengaluru-based company has secured an international payment license in Canada that will enable the company to offer two-way payment flows, including local collections and payouts, between India and Canada. “Securing our first international license marks Skydo’s evolution from an India-focused cross-border payments platform to a multi-country payments operator,” Skydo CEO and Co-Founder Srivatsan Sridhar said. “With Canada, we are expanding beyond collections to enable seamless two-way payment flows and support growing India-Canada commerce.” Founded in 2022, Skydo is a cross-border B2B payments specialist, reducing foreign exchange charges for businesses by more than 50%. The company partners with leading banks around the world, providing businesses with their own foreign virtual accounts to enable them to receive payments without tax or compliance complications. Supporting more than 150 countries, Skydo’s platform processes more than 200,000 payments a year and is used by 40,000+ Indian exporters. Skydo has referred to Canada as a strategic market, given the scale of trade activity between India and Canada. In 2025, India and Canada reached $10.9 billion in bilateral merchandise trade. Both countries have indicated that they would like to more than double two-way trade, currently at just over $30 billion annually, to $70 billion by 2030. “Our ambition is to build for the world, from India,” Skydo Co-Founder Movin Jain said. “Canada strengthens our global footprint, enables local collections and payouts, and creates a strong foundation for future expansion across North America.” Skydo’s regulatory win in Canada comes just a month after the company received in-principle approval to operate as a Payment Service Provider (PSP) in the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) at Gujarat International Finance Tec-City. Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world. Asia-Pacific Japanese financial giant SBI Holdings agreed to acquire crypto exchange Bitbank for $298 million. Singapore-based fintech platform Airwallex earned a valuation of $11 billion after securing $320 million in Series H funding. Mynt, the parent company Philippine mobile payments and finance superapp GCash, has filed for an $1.5 billion IPO on the Philippine Stock Exchange. Sub-Saharan Africa Nigerian fintech Daya secured $2.4 million in pre-seed funding to expand its stablecoin payments technology for African businesses. Kenya-based fintech WapiPay received a Money Services Business license from Canada’s Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Center (FINTRAC). Pan-African fintech DigiPay and French fintech Belmoney launched DigiTransfer, a mobile app that enables money transfers between France, Belgium, the Republic of the Congo, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Central and Eastern Europe Albania launched its first fully digital bank, Jet Bank. Mastercard and PrivatBank announced completion of Ukraine’s first payment executed by AI agent. Austrian-Swiss global payout infrastructure startup Talentir raised €4 million in seed funding in a round led by Redstone. Middle East and Northern Africa Egyptian fintech MNT-Halan announced plans for an IPO that could give the company a valuation of $1 billion. Lean Technologies and Ziina teamed up to launch the UAE’s first One-Tap Pay by Bank experience. Israeli fintech Payoneer agreed to be sold to Canadian firm Nuvei for $2.7 billion. Central and Southern Asia Indian fintech Cred secured $900 million in Series H funding in a round led by Meta. Karachi-based easypaisa digital bank inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Binance to “explore innovative opportunities” in fintech, digital savings, and investment solutions. Indian UPI app Navi UPI, unveiled a new unified safety framework, Navi Secure. Latin American and the Caribbean CSU Digital, the largest independent card processor in Latin America, has embarked upon its US expansion. Iupana looked at how new governments in Colombia and Peru are seeking to bolster the fintech sectors of their respective countries. Payward, financial infrastructure platform and parent company of Kraken, secured a Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) registrations from the British Virgin Islands Financial Services Commission (BVI FSC). Photo by Shiv Prasad on Unsplash The post Finovate Global India: Raising Capital, Fighting Fraud, and Innovating in Payments appeared first on Finovate.       

How is innovation in blockchain technology, specifically the growing interest in stablecoins and tokenized deposits, creating ways for banks and financial services companies to offer new services, engage current customers better, and introduce new potential revenue sources? Steven Ramirez, CEO of Beyond the Ark, caught up with Chris Nichols, President of Institutional Banking at SouthState Bank, earlier this year at FinovateSpring 2026 in San Diego. At the conference, Nichols gave a keynote address on the emergence of agentic AI as a new frontier in financial services and discussed ways that agentic commerce will reshape the retail landscape. More specifically, Nichols explained how the combination of tokenization and agentic AI could create major opportunities for banks and financial institutions, enabling 24/7 settlement, smart contracts, programmable money, and more. In this conversation, Ramirez and Nichols discuss SouthState Bank’s dual token strategy that embraces both deposit tokens and stablecoins, payment orchestration and the future of treasury management, as well as how AI and tokenization are shortening development times from months to days. What’s really interesting to us, and our number one use case, is the store of value internationally. The customers—specifically the non-US customers of our customers—have subsidiaries in places like Australia or Mexico. These subsidiaries have expenses in dollars that must be converted into local currency, such as Mexican pesos. They then generate revenue and have to convert it back to dollars to repatriate that money. It’s much more efficient to hold some of that capital in a US dollar stablecoin. As President of Institutional Banking for SouthState Bank, Nichols supports innovation, artificial intelligence, digital assets, loan pricing, asset-liability management, open banking, payments, and fintech investing for the bank, in addition to capital market activities. He produces the Banker-to-Banker blog and is a frequent host of The Community Bank Podcast. Headquartered in Winter Haven, Florida, SouthState Bank is a $67 billion, publicly traded regional bank with a network of more than 379 branches throughout the southeastern and south-central US. The institution has grown significantly via merger and acquisition in the past few years, most recently acquiring Texas-based Independent Bank Group in 2025. Photo by Freddy G on Unsplash The post Chris Nichols on Transforming Payments with Stablecoins and Tokenized Deposits appeared first on Finovate.       

TransUnion UK announced the availability of its Modelled Income Assessment solution this week. The new offering sits inside the company’s Affordability Report and helps lenders make income estimates to guide affordability decisions. TransUnion’s new solution comes at a time of greater volatility in consumer incomes, making it more challenging for lenders who require accurate income data. A new solution from TransUnion UK will help lenders make affordability decisions with greater confidence. Sitting inside the company’s Affordability Report, TransUnion’s Modelled Income Assessment solution estimates monthly income at configurable confidence thresholds. This enables proportional affordability checks and an income estimate consistent with client-agreed custom thresholds, allowing lenders to tailor outputs to their own risk appetites. “The way people earn and manage money has fundamentally shifted,” TransUnion UK Chief Product Officer Kelli Fielding said. “Incomes are more volatile, data gaps are more common, and lenders are under growing pressure to evidence affordability decisions. Modelled Income provides lenders with a dependable, data-driven proxy that fills critical gaps in affordability strategies, without adding friction for consumers or compliance risk for lenders.” TransUnion’s new offering comes as research indicates that more than a third of adults in the UK saw income changes over the previous three months. TransUnion’s Consumer Pulse Q1 2026 Survey reflects consumer income patterns and household finances that are increasingly volatile and under pressure. This has created challenges for lenders who require reliable income data and insights, especially when access to traditional salary information is inconsistent or difficult to access. With Modelled Income Assessment, lenders no longer have to try to generate a precise pound-value prediction. The new offering from TransUnion UK provides an estimate of an individual’s net monthly income and leverages advanced machine learning technology to deliver proportional affordability assessments in real time. The solution also addresses client demand for frictionless alternatives to manual verification such as open banking. “Expectations around affordability assessments continue to rise as regulation, such as Consumer Duty, demands richer affordability data, clear evidence of fair outcomes, earlier identification of vulnerability, and support for customers showing signs of financial stress,” TransUnion UK Director of Credit Clare Hollis said. “Modelled Income is designed to sit within strong model risk management frameworks and address regulatory pressure for fairness and appropriate consumer outcomes, while helping lenders streamline onboarding and reduce unnecessary friction in the customer journey.” An international information and insights company with more than 12,000 associates operating in 30+ countries, TransUnion most recently demonstrated its technology at FinovateSpring 2024 in San Diego. At the conference, the company demonstrated its Enhanced BreachIQ solution, which replaces one-size-fits-all resources with modern, gamified consumer identity protection. The offering generates an Identity Safety Score based on a user’s individual data breach history, Breach Risk Scores that measure the severity of an incident in which their data was exposed, and a Personalized Action Plan to provide practical, effective mitigation steps to reduce risk. TransUnion UK’s launch announcement comes at the same time that the company inked a multi-year partnership agreement involving Marshmallow Insurance and data specialist Percayso Inform. The partnership is an extension of Marshmallow’s and Percayso’s relationship, but marks the first time Percayso will deliver TransUnion data across the insurance and auto finance sectors for Marshmallow via Percayso’s platform. Photo by Aron Van de Pol on Unsplash The post TransUnion UK Launches Modelled Income Assessment appeared first on Finovate.       

Entrust has unveiled its Entrust Biometric Authentication solution to help organizations defend, high-risk, “moments of truth” in the customer lifecycle, such as account onboarding and device transfer, from fraud and financial crime. These high-risk moments are increasingly the targets of choice by AI-powered fraud threats including presentation, injection, and deepfake attacks. Headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Entrust is an alum of Finovate’s developer conference, FinDEVr Silicon Valley. Tony Ball is CEO. As high-risk security moments like account recovery, device changes, and large transactions are increasingly targeted by fraudsters, developing strategies to defend consumers against these threats has grown in demand. This makes the latest announcement from Entrust, the launch of the company’s Entrust Biometric Authentication solution, all the more noteworthy. “Too many organizations are treating authentication as a login problem, but attackers have already moved beyond access,” Entrust Chief Technology & Product Officer Mike Baxter said. “Preventing account takeover in the age of AI requires confirming the person behind every interaction. Entrust helps organizations apply the right level of assurance at the right moments while delivering secure, low-friction experiences.” The Entrust Biometric Authentication solution introduces identity-centric assurance to high-risk processes by combining biometric identity verification with adaptive risk-based authentication. This approach helps defend against presentation, injection, and deepfake attacks by requiring identity assurance checks during key, high-risk moments. Entrust’s new offering leverages the verified identity that was established at enrollment and extends it across every access point and interaction. This anchors a biometric check to that trusted identity, making it easier for companies to consistently make authentication decisions with a high degree of confidence. Entrust’s new solution uses three different authentication strategies, based on varying risk levels. These include a biometric passkey that provides biometric authentication at high-risk moments by linking authentication to a verified human identity; face authentication that accelerates everyday verification and step-up authentication, and motion authentication that leverages advanced liveness detection to combat deepfake, replay, and injection attacks in high-assurance use cases. The new technology from Entrust comes at a time when AI-powered fraud attacks are resulting in significant increases in fraud and financial crime. According to research from TransUnion in its H2 2025 Update to the Top Fraud Trends Report, global businesses lost an average of 7.7% of annual revenue to fraud, with account takeover representing nearly one-third of those losses. Entrust’s own 2026 Identity Fraud Report noted that one in five biometric fraud attacks use AI-generated deepfakes. The statistics on fraud attacks during what Entrust called “moments of truth” in the customer lifecycle—the high-risk moments mentioned above—are stark. According to Entrust, 55% of fraud in digital banks is related to account takeover (ATO), 67% of fraud in cryptocurrency operations occurs during the onboarding process, and 81% of fraud targeting payments takes place at authentication. In response, Entrust Biometric Authentication enables companies to deploy identity assurance to fight account takeover, reduce unnecessary account lockouts from password and passcode failures, minimize manual review and support calls, and improve the user experience with intuitive biometric experiences that save time and avoid friction. Headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Entrust was formed when Datacard Corporation acquired digital security company Entrust in 2013. The combined entity operated as Entrust Datacard when it made its Finovate debut at our developers conferences FinDEVrSiliconValley 2015 and 2016, and rebranded to Entrust in 2020. The company’s new product announcement follows the appointment of Adam Dimopoulos as Chief Information Security Officer (CISO). Dimopoulos previously led enterprise-wide identity security and Zero Trust transformations as VP of Information Security at Synchrony. Earlier this year, Entrust announced that it was collaborating with IBM Consulting, combining the firm’s quantum-safe transformation experience with Entrust’s expertise in cryptographic security and PKI. Photo by weston m on Unsplash The post Entrust Solution Stops Fraud Attacks Against “Moments of Truth” in Customer Lifecycle appeared first on Finovate.       

For our latest installment of Finovate First-Timers, a new series profiling companies that recently made their debuts on the Finovate stage, we catch up with Marco Ma, Co-Founder and CEO of Ventus AI. Ventus AI helps banks personalize every touchpoint across the customer journey, boosting engagement, lifetime value, and assets under management. The company’s technology transforms raw transaction data into a cross-categorized behavioral intelligence layer that spans more than 3,000 spending subcategories to surface life events, dynamic personas, and real-time intent signals. Founded in 2025 and headquartered in New York, Ventus AI demoed its technology at FinovateSpring 2026 in San Diego, California. In this week’s conversation, Ma talks about the challenges banks and credit unions face when it comes to leveraging data to create better, more personalized experiences for customers and members. He explains how Ventus AI plugs into existing stacks to provide a new analytics layer that delivers answers to questions about customer preferences and pain points without building anything new. What problem does Ventus AI solve and who does it solve it for? Marco Ma: Banks sit on enormous volumes of transaction data, but most of it stays trapped as raw, messy records their teams can’t actually read. The result is a lose-lose: customers get served demoralizing generic experiences which leads to lost relationships and deteriorated customer economics. We solve this for banks and credit unions that want to understand and serve their customers more deeply. How does Ventus AI solve this problem better than other companies? Ma: We built a proprietary customer intelligence and personalization engine. It works across every account and payment rail and detects the full picture: lifestyle patterns, life-event triggers, financial vulnerability signals, and semantic budgeting. Where most tools stop at cleaning up a merchant name, we surface what’s actually happening in a customer’s life, and we deliver it into the tools banks already use rather than asking them to rip anything out. Who are Ventus AI’s primary customers, and how do you reach them? Ma: US financial institutions, with our initial focus on banks and credit unions in the $1 billion to $50 billion asset range, alongside an active enterprise pipeline. We reach them through industry programs and conferences like Finovate and the Fintech Sandbox network, direct relationships built by the founding team, and warm introductions through our advisors and ecosystem partners. Can you tell us about a favorite implementation or partnership experience? Ma: Our favorite work is on rewards and deals. The insight that makes it special is that the same offer can mean completely different things to different people. People don’t wake up one day and say “I want to shop at Crate & Barrel.” Some people want a new coffee machine, some people want a new side table. Because we understand the behavior behind the spend, the bank can present the same deal in the way that actually resonates with each person, turning a generic coupon book experience into something that feels personal. What in your background gave you the confidence to respond to this challenge? Ma: We have a strong founding team with backgrounds spanning Visa, McKinsey, AWS, and Credit Suisse, along with prominent advisors from the banking world. That mix of payments, data, and institutional banking experience meant we understood both the technical problem and the way banks actually buy and adopt technology. You demoed at FinovateSpring in May. How was the experience? Ma: It was a great moment for us. Banking is deeply personal. It touches the most important moments in people’s lives, and our hero demo follows an expecting-parent spending pattern across rails to show we can extract major life event signals and orchestrate the existing tech stack—rewards, product, relationship—to be personalized to help this customer through this journey. Demoing that live on the main stage reminded us why this matters: done right, this technology lets a bank show up for someone at exactly the moment it counts. We’re returning for the Fall show. You were accepted into the Fintech Sandbox Data Access Residency. What is it, and why does it matter? Ma: Fintech Sandbox gives early-stage fintech companies access to high-quality financial data and infrastructure to build and refine their products. For us, it’s meaningful because behavioral intelligence is only as good as the data it learns from. The residency accelerates our ability to develop and validate our engine against real, rich datasets, which directly strengthens what we deliver to banks. What are your goals for the rest of 2026 and into next year? Ma: Grow our pipeline through business development, move active conversations into live deployments, return to the Finovate main stage in the Fall, and close our current funding round. Beyond that, we’re heads-down building, deepening the behavioral signal we deliver and expanding what banks can do with it. Photo by Suzanne D. Williams on Unsplash The post Marco Ma of Ventus AI on Transforming Data into Behavioral Intelligence appeared first on Finovate.