fintech
Fintech is remaking how consumers interact with financial institutions. Learn more about the rise of fintech and what it means for disruptors and incumbents.
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Why Total Experience Is The New Battleground For Indian Banks
For years, Indian banks competed on reach. Then they competed on products. Today, they compete on experience. Nearly every major bank now offers digital onboarding, mobile banking, and self-service capabilities. As these experiences improve across the industry, differentiation becomes harder to achieve. That is one of the clearest messages emerging from Forrester’s India Banking Total […]
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B2B Will Be The Proving Ground For Agentic Payments
The discussion about agentic payments often starts with consumer shopping. But agentic payments may create value sooner in B2B, where transactions already operate within defined workflows, approval rules, and commercial relationships. Forrester defines B2B agentic payments as: Programmable, policy-governed payment flows in which AI agents act on behalf of businesses to initiate, authorize, execute, and […]
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Stripe Is Acquiring OpenRouter To Control The AI Consumption Layer
On August 19, Stripe agreed to acquire OpenRouter in a deal valued at more than $7 billion. OpenRouter gives enterprise buyers access to more than 400 AI models through a single interface so they can compare, select, and switch models without building separate integrations for each provider. This is one of Stripe’s most ambitious moves […]
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Basware’s Trustpair Acquisition Extends B2B Fraud Management Coverage
Generative AI (genAI) is changing the economics of B2B fraud. It enables criminals to create convincing supplier communications, impersonate executives, fabricate documents, and personalize business email compromise attacks faster and at lower cost. Agentic AI can push this further by automating multistep activities, such as researching targets, generating messages, and adapting outreach at scale. The […]
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Stripe’s New Stablecoin Bet: Open USD
On June 30, 2026, Stripe, Visa, Mastercard, Coinbase, BlackRock, BNY, DBS, OCBC, Standard Chartered, Google, Shopify, and more than 140 other companies have signed on to Open USD, a new US dollar-backed stablecoin initiative operated by Open Standard. The project is designed for powering global money movement and is expected to go live later in […]
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Nuvei Makes Its B2B Cross-Border Payment Move: The Payoneer Acquisition
Nuvei’s planned $2.75 billion acquisition of Payoneer signals a broader shift in B2B cross-border payments. The market is moving from fragmented point solutions toward integrated finance operating platforms that combine collections, payouts, multicurrency accounts, foreign exchange (FX), settlement, compliance, and embedded financial services. The deal combines Nuvei’s strengths in merchant payment acceptance, local acquiring, card […]
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The Consolidation Wars: M&A Is Rewriting Finance Automation
Coupa’s May 2026 acquisition of Rossum strengthens its accounts payable (AP) automation core and signals a deliberate move to anchor finance automation — built for the office of the CFO — in AI-powered platforms. By pairing Rossum’s large language model- and optical character recognition-driven invoice capture with its own strengths in payments, cash management, AP […]
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Stripe Sessions 2026: Stripe Is Rearchitecting Payments For An Agentic AI Economy
Stripe announced 288 products at Sessions 2026. Impressive on its own — but what struck me more was the thesis holding them together: Payments are evolving from transaction infrastructure for humans into programmable, continuous infrastructure for machines. Stripe is aligning its platform to support this shift. Three moves — stablecoins, streaming payments, and Stripe Radar […]
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Anthropic Raises The Stakes For Digital Wealth Management Platform Vendors
Anthropic’s latest move — agent templates for various finance and client coverage functions — is part of a broader trend toward more intelligent, largely autonomous, and context-aware multiagent systems that are redefining the financial services industry’s digital operating models. By right, Anthropic is just following its growth playbook by creating industry-grade applications it can “sell” […]
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How Google Pay Is Using UPI Circle To Reach Young Banking Customers In India
If you’re a retail banking leader in India, your future customer may already be learning how digital money works — and it may not be through your bank. This isn’t a future scenario; it’s happening now. While bank digital teams debate how much control is “too much,” customers have been clear about what they want: […]
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In The AI Era, Banks Need Dynamic Platforms — Results From The Forrester Wave™: Digital Banking Engagement Platforms, Q2 2026
To compete for customers and grow profitably, banks need the ability to adjust as much and as fast as required at any given moment. Leading digital banking engagement platforms (DBEPs) make that possible. My new report, The Forrester Wave™: Digital Banking Engagement Platforms, Q2 2026, reveals insights about the current AI and technology landscape in […]
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Beyond Chatbots: Designing Conversational Banking Experiences That Scale
Learn how banks can scale conversational experiences at CX Summit EMEA 2026.
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The State Of Stablecoin In Japan
In a recent conversation with Makoto Shibata (Head of FINOLAB and former managing director and head of the global innovation team at MUFG), I explored how stablecoins are evolving from crypto experiments into real financial infrastructure in Japan. The takeaway? Japan’s stablecoin ecosystem is no longer just living in paper and pilot. It’s real, regulated, […]
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Banks Are Losing Their Place In Small Business Decisions — Here’s How To Reclaim It
Small businesses face more volatility than ever, yet banks are becoming less present at the moments when owners make critical financial choices. This growing gap is why relationship sovereignty in small business banking has become the defining challenge for 2026. Small business owners now rely on the platforms they use every day — accounting, payroll, […]
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Intelligent Finance: From Digital Experiences To AI‑Orchestrated Financial Outcomes
Explore Forrester’s intelligent finance research and learn how financial services leaders can deliver AI‑orchestrated financial outcomes.
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Unified Financial Crime Management Is Not Just For Small And Regional Banks
Fraud management and anti-money laundering (AML) solutions share common traits and requirements: Both are about risk scoring of entities (names, phone numbers, email addresses, accounts) and routing and investigating alerts and cases to AI agents and human investigators. While smaller, regional financial institutions (FIs) and insurers have always been motivated to consolidate tools and resources […]
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Ant International’s Playbook On AI, Blockchain, And Wallet Network
During Ant International’s recent analyst and media briefings in Bangkok, I had the opportunity to engage with senior executives on their innovation agenda. Three key themes emerged that highlight how the company is competing to shape the future of the global payments and commerce space. Building A Global Payment Network Through Wallet Interoperability Ant International […]
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FinovateEurope 2026: From AI Hype To Bank‑Ready Execution
FinovateEurope 2026 marks the shift from AI hype to bank‑ready execution, with agentic AI, fraud intelligence, and governed innovation.
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Thriving Amid Disruption: Key Banking Insights To Kick-Start 2026
Discover key banking trends from 2025 and predictions for 2026. Stay ahead with insights on digital banking, customer experience, and AI.
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Key Takeaways From The Singapore FinTech Festival’s 10th Anniversary
Last week at the Singapore FinTech Festival’s 10th anniversary, I sat down with senior leaders across payments companies, fintechs, and banks. What they told me — and what I witnessed on the show floor — revealed five forces reshaping the industry: Agentic payments are moving from experiment to competitive weapon; payments-specific foundation models are emerging […]
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