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How can banks and other financial institutions offer their customers dynamic, AI-powered experiences that provide better, faster, more personalized solutions and services compared to the generic, static interactions of the past?

In this extended conversation, Finovate Global talks with Jac Dunne, Founder and CEO of Dimply, about what her company is doing to help financial services companies design, deploy, and optimize embedded journeys for their customers.

Dimply offers a no-code solution that enables non-technical teams to transform data into hyper-personalized, embedded journeys in apps, websites, portals, and more. Dimply’s technology combines data orchestration, personalization, and seamless integration to help firms boost engagement, enhance trust, and deliver customer value.

Headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, Dimply was founded in 2020. The company made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2024 and subsequently demonstrated its technology before Finovate audiences at FinovateEurope 2025 and FinovateFall 2025.

What problem does Dimply solve and who does it solve it for?

Jac Dunne: Financial institutions hold vast amounts of customer data, but struggle to translate this into experiences people find helpful. The gap is widening. Customers now expect the personalization they experience with consumer apps, but financial services organizations move too slowly to meet these expectations.

The problem sits at the intersection of strategy and execution. Product managers understand what customers need. Designers know how experiences should work. But both depend on engineering teams to make anything real. Simple changes take quarters. Testing ideas means filing tickets. By the time something launches, priorities have shifted.

Dimply gives product practitioners the ability to build and deploy customer experiences without engineering dependencies. Product managers, designers, marketing specialists, and business analysts work directly on the platform to create journeys across web and mobile.  We empower them to launch in weeks instead of quarters. Changes go live in hours, not development cycles.

We solve this for banks, insurers, wealth managers, and pension providers. These are organizations where engineering bottlenecks prevent product teams from acting on what they learn about customers. Where the backlog of journey improvements grows faster than IT resources to address them.

Tell us more about Dimply’s primary customers? How do you reach them?

Dunne: Dimply’s primary customers are financial institutions such as global banks and leading insurers, whose key stakeholders are Product Managers and Digital Transformation teams. These customers are primarily located in the B2B enterprise space and are seeking to solve the pain point of slow, costly digital CX development due to complex legacy IT systems and onerous development cycles. Dimply enables speed to market by letting teams build, manage, personalize, and embed experiences directly into their own infrastructure, or as a stand-alone solution, if required.

Dimply reaches these customers through a direct, B2B enterprise sales model involving direct engagement with C-suite and product leadership, heavy participation in fintech industry events, and building strategic partnerships with core technology providers, consulting and system integration firms who can work with Dimply as a solution during large-scale digital transformation projects.

What in your background gave you the confidence to tackle this challenge?

Dunne: Financial services used to move faster before the weight of legacy systems, compliance layers, and endless IT queues—teams turned customer insights into action quickly. Product people built experiences. That speed has been lost.

We spent many years both working inside and collaborating with these organizations: major insurers, pension providers, and banks. Our founding team observed brilliant product managers drafting requirement documents rather than building journeys. Designers handed off static mock-ups only after understanding the complete flow. Business analysts documented processes they should have managed end-to-end.

This pattern repeated everywhere. Teams had data showing where customers struggled. They knew which experiences would succeed. They understood what needed to change. Then they filed tickets, waited for sprints, and competed with other priorities. By the time anything launched, the market had already moved.

This gap between knowing and doing frustrated everyone. Not because people lacked skill or the ideas were wrong, but because the tools forced the wrong workflow. Technical teams became bottlenecks for non-technical problems. Simple changes took quarters, and testing ideas required development resources.

Frustrated with this reality, we decided to build something better. Something that would give product practitioners the same level of autonomy that software engineers have. What started as a journey flow builder has evolved into a complete financial experience platform (FXP). Teams describe what they want, and the system builds it. AI handles the technical complexity. Product managers own outcomes without engineering dependencies.

We don’t think of Dimply as a better tool. We think of it as a better way to build financial service experiences. One where the people closest to customers have the power to act on what they learn.

We care deeply about the quality of our work. Every feature ships purpose-built for financial services. Our background gave us conviction about the problem. Our experience gave us clarity about the solution. Financial services deserve tools built for modern customers’ expectations.

What role do enabling technologies like AI play in helping you empower teams to build compelling, dynamic experiences for customers?

Dunne: AI accelerates two parts of the experience creation process:

First, building journeys. Teams describe what they want in natural language, and the AI generates working experiences. A product manager explains the flow of a pension calculator in plain English. The AI produces the complete journey with conditional logic, branching paths, and data integrations. No templates, no technical knowledge required.  AI has reduced the amount of technical expertise and training needed for Dimply Hub for product owners and designers to use it. Teams test ideas in minutes instead of weeks.

The AI learns from every journey built in the system. Results improve as more experiences are created. Complex workflows with conditions, loops, and parallel paths emerge from conversational descriptions. This means product practitioners spend time refining customer outcomes rather than wrestling with tools.

Second, personalizing experiences. AI nodes can sit inside customer journeys and adapt what people see based on their circumstances. These nodes generate facts in real time, which can be used to tailor the experience.

The combination removes friction; business teams build faster, and customers receive experiences tailored to their financial situation and behavior. AI handles the technical complexity while product practitioners focus on outcomes.

Can you talk more about the connection between of AI and delivering greater personalization?

The demand for personalization and customer engagement solutions is paramount, and Dimply is perfectly positioned to cater to that. Our personalization extends far beyond basic demographic segmentation or transaction categorization. We are developing what we call intelligent, behavioral personalization that takes into account not just what customers have, but how they behave, their financial goals, and their emotional connection with money, all in real-time.

Our AI continuously learns and adapts in real-time. If someone’s financial situation changes, our AI detects these shifts and modifies the experience to suit their new circumstances.

The outcome is that we can iterate and deliver new insights, content, and tools specifically tailored to each customer’s situation and goals. This transforms generic financial services into personally relevant experiences that encourage genuine engagement and promote financial well-being.

At Finovate Fall, Dimply demoed its Dimply Hub. Can you tell us a little about the solution and how the demo was received at the conference?

Dunne: What we demoed was our AI Builder in planning mode.  This allowed us to describe a journey in conversational language and watch the platform construct the experience. The demo showed someone requesting a protection journey for high-net-worth clients, with all the logic and recommendations. The AI generates the complete flow with all the business logic intact. 

After the demo, we got great engagement with high-ambition banks, particularly around how they can change their current workflows using Dimply.

Can you tell us about a particularly interesting deployment or feature of your technology?

Dunne: AIB Life reaches 3.2 million customers through embedded journeys in their AIB retail mobile banking app. The deployment demonstrates how the platform works at scale within existing digital channels.

The fact engine sits on top of AIB Life’s core systems, stitching together data from policy administration, CRM, and transaction history. This creates real-time customer profiles without moving sensitive data. When someone logs into the app, the platform knows their complete financial picture and serves a personalized experience accordingly. Journeys adapt dynamically. Life events trigger recalibration.

Dimply has racked up number of awards and recognitions from impressive forums, including Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50. What are these organizations seeing and liking about Dimply?

Dunne: They appreciate how we embody innovation, efficiency, and customer-centricity through our award-winning platform, particularly our speed-to-market and our ability to support any type of financial data and deliver truly personalized customer experiences, enabling us to support all areas of financial services.

Our platform is proven, live, and deployed within major financial institutions, driving measurable strategic impact in the real world. Our journey illustrates not just where we’ve been but where we’re headed; towards a future where financial services are more accessible, engaging, and secure for everyone, everywhere.

Ireland is one of those countries that seems to produce a disproportionately high amount of fintech innovation for its small population. Do you agree?  

Dunne: Yes, the talent, technical agility, regulatory maturity, and global reach from its open borders are why, in my opinion, Ireland is considered a world leader in producing scalable, enterprise-grade fintech.

Ireland’s fintech sector punches above its weight because it combines a large, mature financial services sector with a world-class founder, technology, and talent ecosystem, together with the unique geopolitical advantage of being the EU’s English-speaking gateway. This, coupled with a landscape of strong investment partners to support innovation and growth, significantly contributes to the vast fintech innovation here in Ireland.

What accounts for that success?

Dunne: Ireland’s strategic geography and EU membership, combined with an English-speaking, common law legal system, simplify international scaling and business operations.

We offer an attractive tax and business environment alongside a mature financial services industry that supports new fintechs to build on existing infrastructure. Bolstering this foundation is the availability of a skilled workforce, the co-location of major technology players, and proactive investment and support for innovation and R&D from state agencies

The ecosystem benefits from a strong mix of experienced startups and multinationals, access to global capital, and regulatory openness to innovation, fostering a culture where firms are built to focus globally rather than just domestically.

What is the fintech scene like in Ireland right now?

Dunne: The fintech sector in Ireland is currently dynamic, resilient, and expanding, establishing the country as a key international fintech hub. Over the past five years, the sector has attracted significant investment, and despite the global slowdown in fintech investment, Ireland—in 2024, according to KPMG Ireland—experienced over 290% growth in investment compared to the previous year, continuing to demonstrate growth and resilience.

What can we look forward to seeing from Dimply in the months to come?

Dunne: Our near-term strategic focus is twofold: Product-Led Growth (PLG) and the rapid advancement of our AI capabilities. We are implementing the PLG model to ensure our technology is easily accessible and immediately beneficial, effectively putting the platform into the hands of as many people as possible. Importantly, we are also intensifying our investment in AI, using cutting-edge machine learning to deepen personalization, improve predictive insights, and automate complex financial journeys.

This combined approach—maximizing distribution through PLG and delivering unparalleled intelligence through AI—is central to our mission: to enable demonstrably better, more confident financial decisions for every user.

Photo by Gregory DALLEAU on Unsplash

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With hundreds of unique fintech solutions available to help diversify your offerings, identity protection may not be at the top of the list. However, as identity fraud becomes increasingly common, differentiating your firm with an identity protection solution may be beneficial for both your firm and your customer.

In this video interview, recorded at FinovateFall 2025 in New York, we explore how PrivacyGuard is turning validation into a competitive edge. I spoke with Christopher D’Aprile, Director of PrivacyGuard, who joined us in a conversation where he explored the latest trends in identity protection, its relevance for banks and credit unions, and actionable strategies for implementation.

“You want to find new products and services to bring to your customers,” said D’Aprile, “but let me be honest with you. Your customer does not want to buy a magazine subscription from a bank. They want something relevant. Identity theft protection is exactly that. If you can adopt that solution, we already have the recipe to turn it into a non-interest revenue-generating machine.”

Connecticut-based PrivacyGuard was founded in 1991 and offers a comprehensive suite of credit reporting, credit monitoring, and identity theft protection services. The company offers alerts from all three credit bureaus and scans the dark web for users’ personal details. PrivacyGuard offers three plans: Identity Protection, Credit Protection, and Total Protection.

D’Aprile serves as Director of PrivacyGuard. He is well-seasoned in the importance of digital identity, having previously held an executive position at Allstate Identity Protection. With more than 30 years of experience driving growth across financial services, insurance, and technology sectors, he specializes in building partnerships with banks and credit unions to deliver identity theft protection solutions that both safeguard consumers and open new non-interest revenue streams.

Photo by Pixabay

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• Block’s Cash App rolled out its largest update ever, adding 151 new features spanning banking, bitcoin, payments, and AI-driven automation.
• The app will soon let Cash App’s 58 million users send and receive stablecoins, automatically converting between fiat and crypto to bypass legacy payment rails.
• A new Moneybot feature delivers personalized financial insights, while Cash App Green expands banking perks like 3.5% APY savings and fee-free overdrafts.

Block-owned Cash App unveiled its Fall Release this week. The move marks the brand’s most significant product expansion since it was founded in 2013. The new release brings 151 new features across banking, bitcoin, commerce, peer-to-peer payments, and AI and automation on the platform. 

Among the releases, one of the most relevant is the new stablecoin capability. When it goes live early next year, Cash App’s 58 million customers will receive a blockchain address that will allow them to send and receive stablecoins directly on the platform. When users receive stablecoins, they are automatically converted to fiat currency within the app. Conversely, fiat dollars sent out convert back to stablecoins on-chain. Leveraging the blockchain to transfer funds will help Cash App bypass ACH, card networks, and correspondent banking.

Other notable releases among the 151 announced are:

Cash App Green

Arguably the second most significant piece of the new launch is Cash App Green, a flexible banking program that expands banking tools to more than eight million qualifying customers. Cash App is positioning the banking program as a benefits program, and will pay 3.5% APY on savings, offer free overdraft coverage of up to $200, facilitate no-fee cash withdrawals from in-network ATMs, extend higher borrowing limits, offer free overdraft protection, and lend up to $500 without a credit check. Users can unlock these benefits by spending $500 or more with their card or depositing $300 or more in paychecks each month.

Moneybot

This AI-powered feature offers users real-time insight and personalized suggestions within the app. The feedback, which is based on in-app activity, helps customers budget smarter, identify trends, and build financial confidence. 

Expanded access to credit

Cash App’s lending product, Borrow, is now available to eligible customers in 48 states. This expansion targets underserved populations with low credit scores. Cash App disclosed that 70% of Borrow users have credit scores below 580, while repayment rates remain above 97%.

Expanded teen savings and safety features

Cash App’s teen accounts for users 13 to 17 year of age now earn 3.5% APY on their savings balances. Additionally, the company is releasing new parental controls to allow the primary accountholder to set spending caps, limit features, and approve contacts.

Making bitcoin everyday money

In addition to the stablecoin capabilities mentioned above, Cash App customers will be able to spend, send, and hold bitcoin. When users select USD as a currency for Lightning QR Code payments, they can make the payment without spending or holding bitcoin. Additionally, customers can access a new map to find and pay nearby merchants who accept bitcoin. 

Cash App was founded in 2013. At the time, Cash App most directly competed with Braintree’s Venmo. Twelve years on, Cash App still has its roots in peer-to-peer payments, but has since diversified into a more robust digital banking platform that enables users to hold funds, deposit their paychecks, spend their money, invest, manage their bitcoin, and file their taxes.

Today’s announcement, which comes four months after Cash App launched a group payment feature called Pools, is a clear statement that the company is seeking to compete in the challenger banking arena.

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The International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) is out with a new report that highlights both the promise and the potential hazards of the tokenization of financial assets.

In a world in which stablecoins have increasingly defined innovation in the cryptocurrency/blockchain space, tokenization of financial assets is seen by some as the Next Big Thing in decentralized finance. Tokenization of financial assets refers to the process of representing ownership of a traditional financial asset, such as a share of stock or a bond, as a digital token on a distributed ledger or blockchain. Importantly, although tokenized assets can be transferred, traded, or exchanged between parties electronically, these assets are not cryptocurrencies—they are digital representations of regulated financial assets.

Valued for their ability to bring greater efficiency to the payments process—as well as their transparency, programmability, and potential to support financial inclusion via fractionalization—tokenized financial assets remain a new feature on the financial services scene. As such, there are myriad questions about how they can and should be used, as well as how they should be regulated. In their recent report, IOSCO, via its Fintech Task Force (FTF) and Financial Asset Tokenization Working Group (TWG) raised a number of these questions.

“The analysis shows that the majority of risks arising from the current commercial application of tokenization fall into existing risk taxonomies,” the report reads in its Executive Summary. “Market participants are not unfamiliar with managing such risk types. However, the manifestation of vulnerabilities and risks that are unique to the technology itself may require the introduction of new or additional controls to manage them.”

Here are three top takeaways from the IOSCO report on the tokenization of financial assets.

Legal Uncertainty and Ownership Rights

The biggest concern expressed in the report is the idea that there remains significant legal ambiguity about the tokenization of financial assets. This includes questions about the rights of ownership, transferability, and enforceability of claims.

“While there are currently well-established legal frameworks and structures for the treatment of financial assets created in paper certificate or book-entry form,” the report observes. “It can be unclear whether the existing legal treatment … applies to those created or represented in the form of tokens.”

In the absence of greater clarity on these legal framework issues, investors may find themselves unable to price or trade tokenized financial assets with confidence. This, at a minimum, can create asymmetry between investor expectations and outcomes and, at a maximum, contribute to more systemic uncertainty and challenges.

Infrastructure Risks and Operational Vulnerabilities

The second major risk discussed in the IOSCO report has to do with infrastructure risk, and the concerns range from the operational to the malicious. In either case, however, a major event that exposes these technical vulnerabilities could result in assets becoming permanently lost or cause an even wider market disruption.

Much of this concern is related to the relative newness of distributed ledger technology, as well as to some unique aspects of the technology compared to what is found in traditional financial markets. One example is the potential loss of a private key in a token structure, a phenomenon that does not exist in the world of traditional finance. The loss of a private key, which represents a sort of digital signature or ownership credential, would effectively result in the loss of access to the asset. To that end, a stolen private key would enable a criminal to steal the victim’s tokens.

“These assets face operational vulnerabilities and risks unique to this infrastructure, including cyber-attacks on blockchain nodes, congestion in transaction processing, data leakage, market fragmentation, smart contract bugs, and loss of private keys,” the report explains. “As tokenization scales up, regulators should also be cognizant of possible changes in market activities and market structure.”

Market Interconnectedness and Systemic Risk

A third concern is the creation of new dependencies and greater interconnectedness between market participants that is likely to happen as tokenization of financial assets scales. There are two versions of this. As an example of the first version, the report notes that a critical failure of a shared infrastructure, with multiple financial institutions tokenizing assets on the same blockchain network, could impact all tokenized assets on the network, rendering them temporarily or even permanently inaccessible.

Another example of the potential interconnectedness challenge arises as tokenized financial assets are increasingly used as collateral in cryptocurrency markets or as part of a stablecoin reserve. Here, the concern is that a crisis in the cryptocurrency markets such as a major or sustained stablecoin depeg could affect tokenized money market funds or government bonds being used as backing assets. The impact could readily spread to institutional investors with tokenized holdings, who would become involuntarily exposed to the heightened volatility of the crypto market.

Innovating for Known Unknowns

The quote from the report’s executive summary helps keep these and other concerns raised in the report in the proper context. While some challenges are more daunting, others more likely represent the kind of technological gauntlet that any product, service, or network must overcome as it scales. “Such risks and controls have been acknowledged by issuers and operators,” the report itself notes. That said, clear legal frameworks will be essential for addressing the broader challenges facing tokenized financial assets and unlocking their potential benefits.

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• FintechOS and Finastra have forged a strategic partnership designed to modernize the account origination process for small businesses and consumers.
• The partnership will integrate the Finastra Phoenix core system and MalauzAI Digital Banking into the FintechOS platform.
• Finastra was formed via a merger between D+H Corporation and Finovate alum Misys in 2017. FintechOS has been a Finovate alum since FinovateFall 2021.

A newly announced strategic partnership between FintechOS and Finastra will help modernize the account origination process for small businesses and consumers. The pact will integrate both the Finastra Phoenix core system and MalauzAI Digital Banking into the FintechOS platform to make the account opening process faster, easier, and more secure for both in-person and online applicants.

“Our collaboration with Finastra is a direct response to the market’s demand for faster innovation,” FintechOS SVP of Growth Ash Govindia said. “By integrating our low-code digital onboarding and origination platform with Finastra’s core system, we are empowering financial institutions to launch sophisticated, customer-centric products in weeks, not months.”

The combination of a reliable core and digital banking system with a low-code origination platform and AI-powered product engine will help institutions avoid issues common to both traditional and online account opening processes. The integration will enable Finastra customers to configure pricing, tiers, bundles, and eligibility rules, and publish them to mobile, web, and banker-assisted journeys. This will reduce time to market and make operations less complex. The combined capabilities will be available to joint customers of both companies.

“Our goal is to help community and regional financial institutions deliver compelling experiences wherever customers engage,” Finastra General Manager, US Core and Digital Banking, Joe Gomez, said. “FintechOS complements Phoenix and MalauzAI by adding a flexible product and pricing layer that simplifies account opening while supporting personalized offers across channels. Together we make it easier to innovate while maximizing existing investments.”

Headquartered in London, Finastra leverages its expertise in lending, payments, universal banking, treasury, and capital markets to provide software solutions to more than 8,000 customers in more than 130 countries. This includes 45 of the world’s top 50 banks. Formed in a merger between Misys and D+H Corporation in 2017, the company recently announced a partnership with Belize Bank Group, which has deployed the company’s cloud-native core banking solution, Essence.

FintechOS made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2021 and returned to the stage earlier this year for FinovateFall 2025. Based in London and founded in 2017, the company offers an AI-driven product engine that integrates seamlessly into banks’ existing systems. The technology features low-code capabilities and composable architecture that facilitate rapid digital transformation and innovation without replacing current core infrastructure. Last month, the company announced that it has forged a strategic partnership with HCLTech to accelerate digital transformation and core modernization for banks and insurers.

Photo by Lukas

Views: 54

This week’s edition of Finovate Global features the latest fintech news from Egypt.

Fawry and Wadi Degla Partner to Offer Integrated Digital Payments

A strategic partnership between leading Egyptian fintech Fawry and real estate development company Wadi Degla Developments will bring integrated digital payment solutions to Wadi Degla customers. Wadi Degla will leverage Fawry’s online payment gateway and POS network, simplifying and accelerating payment processes, to enhance the customer experience and help drive digitization in the real estate sector.

The alliance fortifies Fawry’s status as a trusted technology partner for the country’s real estate developers and underscores Wadi Degla’s determination to increase operational efficiency and boost customer satisfaction. The partnership will also feature new value-added solutions including the Fawry Business Corporate Card and digital loyalty programs.

“This partnership marks a key milestone in our mission to drive digital transformation across Egypt’s vital real estate sector,” Fawry Chief Business Officer Heba El Awady said. “At Fawry, we aim to empower developers to provide modern, integrated payment services that cater to the growing demand for digitization. We continuously strive to develop innovative solutions tailored to the evolving needs of various sectors, and our collaboration with Wadi Degla Developments is a prime example of constructive partnerships between technology and real estate, enhancing operational efficiency and creating tangible value for customers.”

Headquartered in Cairo, Egypt, and founded in 2008, Fawry offers a digital transformation and fintech platform that delivers more than 1,186 financial services to consumers and businesses. With more than 29 million customers across Egypt, Fawry is the country’s largest payment network, processing more than three million operations a day. Ashraf Sabry is founder and CEO.

Egypt’s DisrupTech Ventures Makes Second Non-Egyptian Investment

Our last look at fintech in Egypt highlighted the launch of a new $31.5 million fund from HSBC Egypt that is dedicated to supporting small and medium-sized businesses in the fintech sector. Today, there’s another Egypt-based fund making fintech headlines: Egypt’s DisrupTech Ventures, which just made its second investment outside of Egypt and its first for a Moroccan fintech with its funding of Chari.

Founded by Ismael Belkhayat and Sophia Alj and backed by Y Combinator, Chari offers a fintech platform that transforms thousands of small neighborhood shops into access points for digital payments and other financial services. Chari’s payment institution license enables the company to empower small businesses to serve as financial hubs for their communities. Chari brings digitization to Morocco’s informal economy, helping businesses quickly access working capital, and embedding financial services including insurance and payment options into merchants’ daily operations. Launched in 2020, the company has onboarded more than 20,000 retailers to its platform.

“Our investment in Chari is a milestone for DisrupTech,” Managing Partner at DisrupTech Ventures Mohamed Okasha said. “Chari is redefining how financial services are delivered at the grassroots level. By empowering small shops to act as financial gateways, Chari is creating the foundation for a new, inclusive fintech infrastructure in Morocco. This is exactly the kind of transformative model we seek to support across Africa.”

The amount of the investment was not disclosed. The funding is part of Chari’s Series A extension round, which included raising $12 million and featured leadership from SPE Capital and Orange Ventures. Along with its investment, DisrupTech Ventures will also join Chari’s board of directors.

DisrupTech Ventures is headquartered in Cairo, Egypt. Founded in 2021, the company is the country’s leading fintech venture capital firm with an emphasis on early stage fintech and fintech-enabled startups.

Egypt’s Students Top Arab Fintech Talent Competition

The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE)’s FinYology initiative introduced the third edition of its FinTech Got Talent 2025 competition this year. In partnership with the Federation of Egyptian Banks (FEB) and the Egyptian Banking Institute (EBI), the fintech talent competition seeks to identify and support fintech innovation among university students.

This year’s competition was won by ESLSCA University for its mobile app, Tapay, that transforms an ordinary smartphone into a contactless payment terminal. Taking second place was the team from the British University in Egypt (BUE), which offered a financial literacy app called Money Adventure, that leverages gamification to help children learn about the importance of learning how to manage their money. Coming in third was the team from Cairo University, which presented AgriDawar, a digital platform that uses e-payment technology and e-wallets to connect farmers to buyers of agricultural surplus residues.

All three teams represented Egypt at the Arab FinTech Challenge 2025 last month, with the ESLSCA University and BUE teams again taking first and second, respectively, topping teams from universities from the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Morocco.

FinTech Got Talent was initially launched in 2024 as part of the FinYology initiative. This effort is designed to integrate academic learning with hands-on fintech applications. FinYology includes more than 30 Egyptian universities, has supported more than 900 student-led projects, and featured the participation of 19,000 students. Eighteen partner banks have also provided continuing backing to the FinYology initiative.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Latin America and the Caribbean

• Brazilian fintech Kanastra secured $30 million in Series B funding for its capital markets infrastructure and services offering.
• Binance launched QR code payments in Argentina.
• Brazil’s central bank announced new capital and compliance rules for fintechs.

Asia-Pacific

• Japan’s JCB International partnered with Agoda to enhance digital travel payments throughout Asia.
• Hong Kong’s ZA Bank launched its StockBack x ZA Card, the first Visa card in Hong Kong to offer shares of stock as a purchase reward.
• ISH acquired Sydney, Australia-based spend management software company ProSpend.

Sub-Saharan Africa

• Financial services platform Mukuru teamed up with AI-powered banking technology provider JUMO to launch new fast loan solution.
• UAE-based fintech Optasia raised $345 million in its IPO on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) in South Africa.
• Kenya’s mobile money market reached 91% penetration this year according to the Communications Authority of Kenya, a jump from 77% penetration last year.

Central and Eastern Europe

• Hamburg, Germany-based fintech Atrya locked in €1.5 million in funding for its stablecoin payment network.
• Estonian fintech Creem raised €1.8 million in pre-seed funding for its “programmable finance layer” the helps startups manage payments, taxes, compliance, and more.
• Embedded financing platform YouLend and business management platform Tide take their partnership to the German market.

Middle East and Northern Africa

Central and Southern Asia

Photo by David McEachan

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For financial institutions deciding on their modernization strategy, what are the options? Does legacy technology need to be abandoned immediately or entirely? Or are there ways that financial institutions can leverage the infrastructure they have while embracing areas where digital and other modern solutions can bring real efficiency gains?

In this interview, I talk with Casey Ferguson, VP of Marketing at Zoot Enterprises, about the company’s phased approach to modernizing financial systems, integrating legacy technology, and enhancing fraud prevention strategies. Ferguson explains why incremental progress, cross-functional collaboration, and layered fraud defenses are key to effective digital transformation.

“At Zoot we look at modernization this way: It’s not about tearing everything down. When you look at this kind of rip and replace mentality you’ve got to remember that it can be pretty risky, it can be very expensive, and it can be kind of slow, as well. When you think about the pace of change, architecting the perfect environment, the world may have changed by the time you have a perfect picture of all this. So working on things incrementally and in phases can really make a difference.”

Headquartered in Bozeman, Montana, and founded in 1990, Zoot Enterprises provides acquisition, origination, and decision management solutions that help financial institutions streamline processes, increase flexibility, and accelerate growth. Zoot offers comprehensive and flexible platforms for numerous specific business operations—from loan origination and data acquisition to fraud detection and prevention.

Photo by Charles Moll on Unsplash

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• Financial infrastructure and blockchain technology company Ripple has secured $500 million in new funding at a valuation of $40 billion.
• The funding comes at time of great activity for the San Francisco, California-based fintech, which has announced six acquisitions in the past two years and whose stablecoin, RLUSD, topped the $1 billion market capitalization mark this month.
• As OpenCoin, Ripple made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2013.

We shared this news in yesterday’s Finovate weekly LinkedIn newsletter (subscribe if you haven’t). But we’re happy to share it with Finovate blog readers today. Financial infrastructure and blockchain technology company Ripple has raised $500 million in new funding, boosting the firm’s valuation to $40 billion. The funding follows the company’s recent $1 billion tender offer at the same valuation, and comes at a time of renewed interest in digital assets such as stablecoins and the growing importance of crypto services such as custody and trading.

“This investment reflects both Ripple’s incredible momentum and further validation of the market opportunity we’re aggressively pursuing by some of the most trusted financial institutions in the world,” Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said. “We started in 2012 with one use case—payments—and have expanded that success into custody, stablecoins, prime brokerage, and corporate treasury, leveraging digital assets like XRP. Today, Ripple stands as the partner for institutions looking to access crypto and blockchain.”

The investment was led by funds managed by affiliates of Fortress Investment Group, affiliates of Citadel Securities, Pantera Capital, Galaxy Digital, Brevan Howard, and Marshall Wace. The fundraising comes as Ripple celebrates completing six acquisitions, including two valued at over $1 billion, in the past two years. The company, which first introduced itself to Finovate audiences at FinovateSpring 2013 as OpenCoin, has also expanded into new markets in prime brokerage and treasury management, adding to its existing footprint across payment, custody, and stablecoins.

This year, Ripple acquired stablecoin infrastructure company Rail to enhance its Ripple Payments offering as a full-service cross-border platform that leverages Ripple’s stablecoin RLUSD and XRP to make international fund transfers faster and more efficient for businesses. The acquisition of multi-asset prime brokerage firm Hidden Road in October—now integrated into Ripple’s Ripple Prime platform—enables Ripple to offer its institutional clients a range of financial services including trading, custody, and derivatives for both traditional and digital assets. The company’s purchase of Palisade, a digital asset wallet and custody firm, will bolster Ripple’s Ripple Custody offering. Ripple Custody provides banks and other financial institutions with safe and secure ways to store digital assets, stablecoins, and Real World Assets (RWA).

Just this month, RLUSD surpassed $1 billion in market capitalization. Reaching this milestone in less than a year after it was launched, RLUSD is now the 10th largest, US dollar-backed stablecoin. RLUSD is the primary stablecoin used by Ripple for payment flows, Ripple President Monica Long noted in an interview with CoinDesk, adding that Ripple has processed “nearly $100 billion in payments volume to date.” Also this month, Ripple announced that its digital asset spot prime brokerage capabilities were now available to customers in the US.

“The launch of OTC spot execution capabilities complements our existing suite of OTC and cleared derivatives services in digital assets and positions us to provide US institutions with a comprehensive offering to suit their trading strategies and needs,” Ripple Prime International CEO Michael Higgins said.

Founded in 2012, Ripple is based in San Francisco, California.

Photo by Mackenzie Marco on Unsplash

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Just days after we featured Canada in our weekly Finovate Global column, we can now add to our understanding of what is driving fintech innovation in Canada with a look at the country’s recently unveiled federal budget.

“Don’t tell me what you value. Show me your budget—and I’ll tell you what you value,” former US President Joe Biden liked to say. In this regard, Canada’s budget—with CAD $141 billion in new spending and CAD $51 billion in cuts and other savings—reflects a commitment to investing in the most transformative technologies of our time for the benefit of Canadian businesses and citizens, as well as for the wellbeing, defense, and even sovereignty of the country itself.

“The world is undergoing a series of fundamental shifts at a speed, scale, and scope not seen since the fall of the Berlin Wall,” the budget document begins. “The rules-based international order and the trading system that powered Canada’s prosperity for decades are being reshaped—threatening our sovereignty, our prosperity, and our values.”

“This is not a transition. It is a rupture—a generational shift taking place over a short period of time.”

Against this backdrop, here are four takeaways for fintech and financial services from Canada’s newly released budget.

Open Banking on Track for 2027 Implementation

The Canadian government will commit to introducing the last remaining pieces of legislation needed to complete the Consumer-Driven Banking Framework, advancing the country’s open banking system. The budget indicates that process will take place in two phases: data sharing (“read access”) followed by transaction initiation (“write access”), with full implementation set for the middle of 2027.

Oversight of open banking will remain with the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC), which will ensure strong consumer protection and compliance. The country’s Department of Finance will continue coordinating the framework’s policy and legislative rollout. Meanwhile, the Bank of Canada, the country’s central bank, will oversee the broader payments ecosystem as new participants—from fintechs to non-bank Payment Service Providers (PSPs)—and new instruments such as stablecoins become a part of the country’s real-time payment infrastructure.

Stablecoin Regulation Framework Unveiled

Canada will introduce federal legislation to regulate fiat-backed stablecoins. Stablecoin issuers will be required to maintain asset reserves and meet consumer protection standards. These entities will also be mandated to establish and implement redemption policies and risk-management frameworks. The government also will amend its Retail Payment Activities Act, first passed in 2021, to enable payment service providers to use approved stablecoins for transactions.

Per the new budget, the Bank of Canada will receive CAD$10 million over two years (2026-2027) to administer the new framework and receive funding of approximately CAD$5 million a year afterwards. This sum will be offset by fees collected from regulated stablecoin issuers.

The move to embrace stablecoins is a major part of the country’s effort to modernize its payment systems and create new efficiencies. But, as with efforts in Europe and elsewhere, the initiative is also designed to avoid what some Canadian observers worry could be excessive and undue use of foreign-issued stablecoins, including those from the country’s larger neighbor to the south.

Real-Time Payment Rail Infrastructure on Track

The new budget also confirms that Canada’s Real-Time Rail (RTR) system will be operational in 2026. RTR will provide instant, cheaper payments for a broad range of transactions including payroll, expense reimbursements, and other business-related fund transfers. There will also be further updates to the Retail Payment Activities Act to enable new entities, such as non-bank PSPs, to apply for membership in Payments Canada and participate directly in national payment systems including RTR. Payments Canada is the public, non-profit entity that owns and operates Canada’s national payment clearing and settlement infrastructure.

Canada’s RTR project is very much intertwined with other fintech-based initiatives in the budget, such as open banking and stablecoins. For example, the budget notes that the combination of write access and RTR by mid-2027 will help usher in the “next phase of consumer-driven banking” characterized by safer, faster payments and greater choice for Canadian businesses and consumers.

A Billion-Plus Investment in AI and Quantum Computing

The budget allocates CAD $1.26 billion for AI and quantum computing technologies. The inclusion of quantum computing technology is especially interesting, affirming Canada’s determination that investment in quantum computing is key to ensuring the country remains on the cutting edge in terms of innovation-enabling technologies.

The allocation for AI represents the lion’s share of the sum at just over CAD $925 million. The funding will support the construction of a large-scale, publicly-accessible AI infrastructure. It also provides for investments in data center infrastructure and domestic compute capacity. The budget endorses a “Sovereign Canadian Cloud” to help ensure sufficient compute capacity as well as data sovereignty. Notably, there is also funding specifically focused on tracking AI technology adoption, a major concern for many decision-makers when it comes to investing in AI. Over six years, CAD $25 million will be allocated for a Statistics Canada program to implement the Artificial Intelligence and Technology Measurement Program, also known as TechStat.

With regard to quantum computing, the budget earmarks more than CAD $334 million over the next five years to bolster the country’s quantum ecosystem via the Defense Industrial Strategy introduced in the budget. The budget places quantum computing technology alongside AI in Canada’s broader innovation plan, describing it as “similarly transformative,” with promising use cases in finance and cybersecurity.

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• HSBC has partnered with bank account and payment intelligence specialist ValidiFi.
• ValidiFi will help ensure the integrity of bank accounts used to pay credit card balances.
• Headquartered in Florida, ValidiFi made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2019.

Banking and financial services company HSBC has selected ValidiFi to power its bank account validation and fraud monitoring operations. A leader in predictive bank account and payment intelligence, ValidiFi will help bolster the integrity of bank accounts used to pay credit card balances. The company’s technology will validate account ownership, spot fraudulent payment attempts, and detect suspicious behavioral patterns across all bank accounts. HSBC will also benefit from real-time validation of newly enrolled accounts, as well as ongoing monitoring to defend against emerging fraud threats.

“Providing customers with efficient and secure ways of making credit card payments is essential,” HSBC US Head of Retail Product and Lending John Phelan said. “Our innovation and transformation efforts in personal banking require advanced fraud services, such as those offered by ValidiFi, that protect our clients.”

ValidiFi’s technology was sought out in large part to help deal with threats like synthetic identities, mule accounts, and payment scams. The company’s comprehensive data network and advanced data intelligence analyze a wide range of behavioral and transaction data to detect anomalies before they affect customers. HSBC will leverage a number of key capabilities via the partnership with ValidiFi. These include account ownership verification, pre-transaction risk detection to spot high-risk activity before funds begin moving, behavioral analytics to spot patterns associated with scams and fraud, and ongoing monitoring to keep pace with evolving fraud tactics and security threats.

“HSBC is setting a new standard in payment security by proactively adopting technologies that go beyond traditional fraud prevention,” ValidiFi CEO John Gordon said. “Its decision to implement our intelligence platform demonstrates a clear commitment to safeguarding customer transactions and staying ahead of increasingly complex payment schemes.”

Headquartered in Sunrise, Florida, and founded in 2015, ValidiFi made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2019. At the conference, the company demonstrated its Payment Risk Optimizer (PRO), a platform-as-a-service (PaaS) solution that scrubs payment files for ACH and card payments to assess the likelihood of a successful payment.

Photo by Kelly

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