FinovateEurope took place in London again this week, and I was lucky enough to attend. This year marked my 12th Finovate anniversary, making me something of a veteran (or a diehard fan!). Over the years, I’ve witnessed the hype, the growing up, and the reckoning in the sector. While fintech won’t result in full market upheaval, it was exciting to see more energy return to the event this year. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this was mostly thanks to AI. Sure, the event also featured the more usual set of presenters showcasing new digital banking capabilities, personal financial management, or identity authentication (presenter Keyless took home one of the “best of show” awards). But generative AI (genAI) and AI agents stole the show.
As my colleague Aurélie L’Hostis (who presented on genAI in financial services) and I compared notes, here’s what stood out:
- AI promises new breakthroughs in automation. AI is nothing new in financial services and has featured at Finovate before,but this year’s focus on AI agents is new — promising to reshape operating models and value propositions like never before. AI agents can augment humans to support increasing workloads, reduce costs, and improve employee experience. They gather data, initiate inquiries, conduct research, and tackle a range of low- to medium-level cognitive tasks. Despite boasts of agentic AI, most demos focused either on automating specific tasks (e.g., AQ22 with generating an investment or credit memo) or processes but didn’t really show complex multiagent systems capable of adapting to dynamic conditions. Process transformation requires incorporating different AI components — such as chatbots, text analytics for document extraction, and predictive analytics and ML solutions for decision management — and linking them to data and internal apps and systems. For example, Arva AI, Intrepid Fox, and Intuitech speed up new business customer onboarding or loan decisions by using AI to extract and verify information from uploaded documents, validate online presence, search government databases for missing information, and map ownership structures. Many currently augment rather than replace the work of loan or compliance officers by providing reasoning behind alerts or drafting emails for follow-ups.
- GenAI holds the keys to unlocking legacy system constraints. As we have written previously, TuringBots, AI, and genAI software development assistants are transforming software development by generating code, documentation, and helping with planning, testing, and deployment. Many banking tech leaders are hopeful that TuringBots will help them modernize and migrate legacy applications. However, the most common off-the-shelf TuringBots aren’t well suited to producing new code in very old languages such as Assembler or COBOL or for industry-specific applications such as core banking systems and require additional efforts and skills. For now, Tweezr (another “best of show” winner this year) aims to support developers in navigating legacy code. The company demoed a scenario where a developer tries to create joint account functionality in COBOL. The AI assistant identifies required features, creates technical guidelines, and identifies constraints. Most importantly, the solution guides the developer on what changes to make, where, and how. If successful, this workaround might temporarily lower the pressure that banks face to modernize their legacy.
- But genAI also drives deepfake fraud. Deepfakes are easier to generate than ever, more convincing than ever, and permeate across all channels (including call center, mobile app, and online web). Protection against deepfakes takes many forms, from protecting the channel to understanding user behavior to looking at artifacts in data that deepfakes present. Lots of vendors are working on developing, testing, and perfecting deepfake defences. At FinovateEurope, Neural Defend demoed one such detection tool for deepfake images, audio, and video.
I was excited to see so many great demos and look forward to more! As genAI empowers a new generation of builders with easy software development tools, I expect to see another wave of innovation. Please schedule an inquiry or guidance session with us to discuss trends in this space.