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Expert opinions

Ivan Aleksandrov

Ivan Aleksandrov CSO | Fintech Licensing, Core banking & BaaS at Advapay

How to build a successful fintech MVP (and where to go from there)

The MVP, or minimum viable product, is a critical milestone for any ambitious fintech startup. But if you ask 10 founders to define what an MVP is and what it should include, we just about guarantee you'll get 10, wildly different answers — some more accurate than others. At Advapay, we often find that these misconceptions are a key reason MVPs un...

/payments /startups Fintech

Katherine Chan

Katherine Chan CEO at Juice

Beyond the Optics: Why Inclusion in Fintech Needs More Than a Policy

I’ve always believed that strong businesses are built by strong teams. Yet even in 2025, the tech and fintech sectors are losing talent faster than they can replace it; a reality that’s costing the UK billions and holding back long-term growth. According to the UK Government’s latest tech diversity report, women make up just 21 percent of tech ro...

/startups /inclusion Financial Inclusion

Parminder Saini

Parminder Saini CEO at Triple Minds

Advice For Aspiring Entrepreneurs

Looking to start your own business in 2025? If you are a working professional who has goals of becoming an entrepreneur, the idea of starting your own business and being your own boss can be thrilling. There are also many risks and challenges involved in entrepreneurship, particularly in the current economic climate. This is why it is so important...

/startups Fintech innovation and startups

Ivica Djordjevic

Ivica Djordjevic Head of Product at Relio

How I Overcame Pitch Anxiety — And How You Can Too

If you’re building a startup, at some point you’re going to have to pitch — whether to investors, accelerators, or even your first team member. For many of us, especially introverts, this is terrifying. I know, because I’ve been there. In 2024, my startup Colsia was selected for the finals of the BAS Startup Demo Day in Sarajevo. It was a big momen...

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Ankita Bhattacharya

Ankita Bhattacharya Product Manager - Commercial Finance at LoanTube

Embedded Lending Needs More Than Embedded Forms

Embedded finance was meant to transform how small businesses access credit, bringing lending to the point of need, whether that’s within an accounting platform, a business management tool, or a digital marketplace. In theory, it should create seamless, contextual experiences where funding is just a click away. In practice, it often falls flat. For...

/startups /inclusion Innovation in Financial Services

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Research

Future of Report

The Future of Digital Banking in Europe 2024

A Money20/20 Special Edition. In 2023, fintech investment in the EMEA region dropped to $24.5 billion, down from $49.6 billion in 2022 – a seven year low.  Macroeconomic and global political conditions are creating challenges for growth, with upcoming general elections around the world adding to the uncertainties in financial ecosystems. Despite these challenges, the outlook for European digital banking remains positive.  The region continues to lead in innovation within the financial sector. This Finextra report, a Special Edition for Money20/20 Europe, features interviews with key players in the European financial services and fintech industries. It includes insights from Vodeno, EY, J.P. Morgan, Swift, Tink, and TrueLayer, and explores the following topics that will be addressed in Amsterdam: Hyper-personalisation: Moving towards super apps  Embedded payments driving the Banking-as-a-Service revolution  Variable recurring payments: The next step in European open banking  Is Europe ready for MiCA? From Web1 to Web3, or Markets1 to Markets3  How European fintech is facing macro challenges 

995 downloads

Future of Report

The Future of UK Fintech - 2015-2035

An IFGS Special Edition UK Fintech Week 2024 With UK Fintech Week's flagship event - Innovate Finance Global Summit (IFGS) - returning for its 10th anniversary, Finextra and Innovate Finance have partnered to publish this report, which acts as your go-to-guide to everything you need to know about financial services and technology in the UK. ‘The Future of UK Fintech: 2015 – 2035: An IFGS Special Edition’ includes commentary from the brightest and best across the fintech ecosystem, discussing and debating the crucial issues facing the sector now and in years to come. This includes key insights from industry experts from Cogo, EY, Konsentus, Marqeta, Standard Chartered Ventures, and Zopa Bank. Scoping out the next decade to come, this report explores the agenda topics below and more: The Next Decade of FS and Innovation: What Lies Ahead Fintech Beyond FS Borders: How Fintech is Impacting other Industries and Sectors UK and the World: Keeping our Crown while Learning from Others Transformative Technologies: Opportunities and Risks Users of Tomorrow: The Next Generation of Consumers The Shifting Ecosystem: Who Will Lead?

713 downloads

Report

Banking as a Service: Predictions for 2023

Cloud strategies are changing After the financial crisis of 2008, traditional lenders experienced a drop in revenue and new players successfully gained traction after offering products that had been in high demand and long expected from existing banks. This trend advanced after regulators across the world endorsed open banking initiatives, data requirements were standardised and in turn, financial players gradually opened up to technology. With the transparency that open banking provides, banks were encouraged to offer digital services, fair pricing, and increased security. Further, they are forced to utilise application programming interfaces (APIs) for seamless information exchange between partners. This trend has since evolved: with open finance, APIs can facilitate the interchange of data, products and services in an attempt to improve customer experience, offer greater choice, and control over their finances. In 2020, the financial services industry - particularly banks - implemented emerging technologies to accelerate innovation across the infrastructure of core functions in real-time, and underlying trends that were previously being considered were utilised in weeks, rather than months or years. The coronavirus has led to relationships with consumers being reimagined and relationships with ecosystem partners being redefined; this also resulted in products and services being reconsidered. Technology providers are no longer just technology vendors: startups, scaleups and even unicorns are now viable collaborators for financial institutions. In this post-lockdown era, banks are tapping into this partnership model to enhance their digital transformation to keep pace with customer requirements and avoid being disrupted by newer, more technology-savvy, entrants. When banks work with technology companies, APIs can be built with a number of microservices that can communicate and connect with these third parties, building upon open finance solutions on cloud-based platforms. This allows financial institutions to scale on demand, pay for only what is consumed, and expand serverless architectures. Financial institutions are no longer considering the cloud – the cloud is necessary for how finance works today. An emerging yet burgeoning trend that will continue to evolve and grow in 2023 – banking as a service (BaaS) - offers a new route to market for banks and empowers them to attract new, niche customers by leveraging the cloud. BaaS also allows non-financial companies to push out financial products where and when they are needed, direct to their customers with minimal investment and with the benefit of cloud-based, pay-as-you-go pricing. This Finextra impact study, produced in association with i-exceed, explores how financial institutions and technology providers can collaborate to deploy mobile and web-based banking solutions at a faster rate.

1005 downloads

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FinextraTV

Fintech Collaboration in Banking and Reshaping the Industry

Join FinextraTV as Martin Bailey, Director of Innovation at Temenos, and Pritesh Ruparel, CEO at ALT21, discuss how partner ecosystems and accelerators have helped to deploy fintech solutions within banks. The pair also explore the importance of fast deployment and how it can help banks keep pace with their competitors.

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Long reads

Sehrish Alikhan

Sehrish Alikhan Reporter at Finextra

How collaborative efforts will advance regtech and AI use in financial regulation

The Innovate Finance Global Summit (IFGS) 2025 held in the historic Guildhall in London, kicked off with opening remarks from Tim Levene, Alderman, City of London Corporation and CEO, Augentum Fintech and Janine Hirt, CEO of Innovate Finance. Levene and Hirt both highlighted the UK’s leadership in fintech, and how amid global political and economic...

Madhvi Sonia

Madhvi Sonia Head of Content at Finextra

Top 25 fintech investments of 2024

A Silicon Valley Bank report released at the end of 2024 revealed that venture capital investment in US fintech remains muted, hovering near a six-year low for the sector. Deal flow has shifted toward the early stage, with more than three seed investments for every one Series A. In 2021, fintech deals over $100 million accounted for 65% of activi...

Sehrish Alikhan

Sehrish Alikhan Reporter at Finextra

How can fintechs ensure further profitability amid macro-economic challenges?

Funding for startups and fintech has fallen to a low point since its peak in 2021. Yet, many companies with a more solid base are looking at how they can expand further and create more profitability in a challenging macroeconomic environment. Q1 2024 saw only 904 deals and $7.3 billion in fintech funding, which was the worst performing quarter sinc...