Fintech is growing up. The conversation is shifting from “what’s possible?” to “what’s safe, reliable and ready to scale?”
That matters whether you are a bank, a lender, a marketplace, a SaaS platform, or any UK business where payments and customer data are central to growth. The next wave is not about shiny new features. It is about getting the foundations right, because small decisions now can have a big impact later.
The backdrop: this is already happening
A few signals show how far fintech has moved from “emerging” to “everyday”:
- UK fintech revenue is forecast to reach £34.7bn by 2025 to 26
- Open banking is already used by more than 16 million people
- By 2026, a large share of transactions is expected to happen inside non-financial platforms, not on a bank’s own site or app
If that feels a bit uncomfortable, it should. It means the customer experience and the responsibility that comes with it is spreading across more systems and more partners.
Four shifts worth planning for now
1) AI goes from “support” to “action”
A lot of teams are using AI to help with admin tasks: drafting, summarising, searching, speeding up internal work. The next step is AI that can take actions inside business processes, like approvals and checks, with people stepping in when something looks wrong.
What changes in practice
- Clear rules become part of the product, not just a document stored somewhere
- Your data setup matters more, because AI is only as good as the information it can access
A simple test: if you cannot explain how an automated decision is made, checked, and undone when needed, it should not be making decisions that affect payments or regulated processes.
2) Finance shows up inside other products, not just “finance apps”
Payments and financial services are increasingly delivered inside other platforms: marketplaces, booking tools, business software, apps. That can be a powerful growth driver, because it meets customers where they already are.
The catch is that it often relies on third parties. If a key provider has an issue, you still carry the customer impact.
What to take from this
Choosing partners and monitoring them properly is now part of doing fintech well. It is not just procurement.
3) Faster payments change what happens behind the scenes
When money moves in seconds, it changes more than the checkout screen. It affects reporting, reconciliation, and how finance teams manage cash flow.
What good looks like
- Faster matching and clearer handling when something does not line up
- Journeys designed for speed, not “we’ll sort it later”
- Finance teams involved early, not brought in at the end
4) Reliability and regulation become front-and-centre
The direction of travel is straightforward: regulators want stronger oversight of critical suppliers, better operational resilience, and clear accountability. Security and reliability are not just “nice to have”. You are expected to be able to prove them.
For digital teams, that usually means:
- Knowing which suppliers you rely on and what happens if one fails
- Having a real plan for incidents, including who does what and when
- Reporting that leadership can trust when it matters
The gap most teams underestimate
A common pattern in fintech and fintech-adjacent businesses is that the strategy is clear, but delivery is inconsistent.
The companies that pull ahead often do three things:
- Pick fewer priorities and do them properly
- Measure what customers actually do, not what you hope they do
- Improve based on evidence, not internal opinion
It is not glamorous, but it is how you build trust at scale.
A simple way to stress-test your 2026 plans
If you are planning work around AI, embedded finance, open banking, or payments, ask:
- Automation: what can be automated safely today, and what happens when it makes a mistake?
- Partners: if a key provider changed terms, went down, or failed an audit, what breaks first?
- Data: can you connect product, customer, risk and marketing data without manual workarounds?
- Reliability: could you explain your incident readiness clearly, using evidence not reassurance?
- Performance: are you testing changes and proving results, or shipping and hoping?
If any of these raise questions, that is useful. It highlights where strengthening the basics will pay back fastest.
Where to go next
If you want a clearer view of the trends shaping fintech right now, plus a practical framework for what to prioritise, we’ve pulled it together in our fintech resource and whitepaper.
