Finovate Europe is where confidence meets reality for financial services - where the year’s loudest narratives get quietly stress-tested. It brings together fintechs, banks, investors, and operators for a tight mix of product showcases, keynotes, panels, and closed-door conversations that reveal what’s genuinely gaining traction - and what’s being left behind.

This year’s conference featured keynotes and panel discussions from leaders at organisations like HSBC, Raiffeisen, Lloyds Banking Group, Invesco, Citi and Natwest (to name but a few) and, of course, 11:FS.

Here’s a roundup of what I took away from those talks, and what they say about financial services outlook for 2026 and beyond.

1. The time for talking is over

This year’s Finovate felt different. Last year’s focus on harnessing isolated technologies made way for discussions about the emergence of an entirely new hyper-personalised stack, powered by AI sitting alongside concepts like embedded finance and SME lending, that breaks down institutional silos. 

The sentiment is that fintech is no longer a collection of separate apps or services (saving, borrowing, investing - the list goes on). Instead, it's becoming a unified ecosystem where AI serves as the connective tissue, as was explained during the Analyst Insights presentations.

Onboarding was a common use-case leveraging this new stack. For example, AI is capable of embedding directly into the business workflow, utilising contextual data to offer insights, signals and recommended actions. To achieve this vision however, banks must first overcome legacy challenges with fragmented data infrastructure, technology stacks and siloed teams, as was discussed in the power panel: 'The CX Revolution - How Can Banks Compete In A Hyper Personalised World.' A key takeaway from that was that by doing nothing, customer acquisition costs can be up to 10x higher than necessary (200 USD for current accounts and >1000 USD for investments accounts).

2. Innovation at the core - the "maker" revolution

The most compelling evidence of this transformation was found in the radical modernisation of the most traditional, legacy-heavy pillars of banking, illustrated by the first day's demos.

‍Elephant (the identity trust platform that helps global businesses reduce false declines, simplify reviews, and confidently approve more real users) and Syntex (the digital onboarding portal for account opening and lending) each served 7 minute masterclasses in applying innovation to the existing high-friction "invisible layers" of financial services.

  • Elephant: The Science of Identity Trust - Elephant demonstrated its global platform that moves beyond defensive fraud walls to a model of "Journey Intelligence." By leveraging 5 billion digital identities to calculate a real-time trust score, they enable banks to confidently approve "thin-file" customers who would otherwise be lost to false declines.
  • Syntex: Orchestrating Frictionless Data Entry - Syntex showcased how to solve the operational nightmare of onboarding. Its portal reduces timelines from weeks to less than 48 hours by acting as a digital "maker" (as part of the maker/ checker relationship) automatically validating IDs and company formation documents.

The shared DNA of these demos is the emergence of the AI "maker" - whether processing a complex trade finance document or verifying an individuals or legal entity identity, AI now synthesises the work of specialist teams i.e. corporate finance, fraud, and legal, into a comprehensive summaries in minutes, not days. This allows humans to move exclusively to "checker" and "authoriser" roles, dramatically increasing velocity while maintaining strict governance - a wider trend seen by other demos. 

"Instead of asking 'How do we sell more mortgages?', leaders must ask 'How do we facilitate the home ownership journey?'"

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3. Moving from products to life stages

Perhaps the most significant soundbite from the Analyst Insights was a warning against "fragmented offerings." The industry is pivoting from selling individual FS products - mortgages, savings accounts, or loans - to organising around life-stage journeys.

"Financial Services will move from fragmented offerings to frictionless journeys, organising around life stages (accumulation, retirement, savings) rather than individual products." Tiffani Montez, Principal Analyst at EMARKETER.

This is a fundamental shift in business architecture. Instead of asking "How do we sell more mortgages?", leaders must ask "How do we facilitate the 'Home Ownership' journey?" This is something we at 11:FS have been practicing for some time through our JTBD methodology and can be seen in practice in our homebuying report.

Organisationally, achieving this requires a collapse of internal silos where the mortgages, investments, and savings teams operate as one cohesive engine tailored to the customer's current life stage.

Bring on 2026

Finovate Europe 2026 was an interesting paradox between broad ranging coverage of the financial services ecosystem combined with repeated mention of cross-cutting themes challenging banks and Fintechs alike. 

AI was at the heart of almost every conversation with the industry moving beyond the "experimental" phase and into a high-velocity era of AI applied specific use-cases. 

The clear consensus among analysts and innovators emerged that the future of competitive advantage lies in collapsing fragmented product silos - mortgages, savings, and loans - into frictionless journeys organised around fundamental life stages targeting hyperpersonalisation.

Want to learn more about the 11:FS perspective? 

If you enjoyed this, you might also like two of our most popular reports of all time; 'Banking as a Service: Reimagining financial services with modular banking' and 'Rebuilding financial services from the inside'.

And if you want to talk about embracing a truly digital future for financial services, 11:FS Ventures is here to help through every phase from research and strategy, through to design and build.