Whats Next in Finance: Top 6 Fintech Trends for 2026

The world of finance is changing fast. What started as digital wallets, payment apps, and neobanks has grown into a full-scale transformation of how money moves, how people access it, and how institutions operate.  

In 2026, fintech is no longer just about offering new products — it’s about rethinking infrastructure, workflows, and customer experiences from the ground up. 

This article dives into six key fintech trends shaping 2026.  

• AI agents transforming banking operations 

• Embedded finance  

• Tokenized assets & real-world-asset tokenization 

• Real-time settlement infrastructure 

• Regulatory-driven innovation 

• Personalization & inclusive finance 

For each trend, we look at market realities, practical use cases, and real examples from leading institutions — to build a grounded view of where the industry is heading and what it means for businesses. 

Let’s overview what drives these fintech trends and explore each one in detail. 

Market Context: What Shapes the Key Fintech Trends

To understand more about the way and pace at which the fintech market is growing, let’s take a closer look at the market. In 2025, it was valued at around $416.85 billion, and it’s expected to climb to $1,620 billion by 2034, expanding at an average rate of 16.28% per year. 

This surge reflects the broader transformation of financial services. Demand for digital payments, AI-powered tools, blockchain solutions, and inclusive finance is rising rapidly, especially in emerging markets. While North America continues to generate the largest share of revenue — over 35% of the global market — the fastest growth is happening in Asia-Pacific, driven by widespread adoption of mobile finance and e-commerce. 

According to KPMG’s Pulse of Fintech, total fintech investment reached over $150 billionglobally in H1 2025. 

Along with that, SQ magazine reports that in the U.S. 72% adults used mobile banking apps in 2025, up from 65% in 2022 and 52% in 2019. 

What this means is clear: fintech in 2026 is no longer about individual apps or niche services. It’s a fundamental reshaping of the financial landscape, where cloud-native systems, modular architectures, AI agents, tokenized assets, and real-time payment rails are becoming the backbone of the major fintech market trends. 

Trend 1. AI agents transforming banking operations

AI adoption in financial institutions has moved past experimentation and into operational use. What’s changing is where AI is being applied. 

• Most banks already use AI internally. 

SP Global reports that by late 2025, 43% of banks were deploying AI in internal functions like risk, compliance, and fraud prevention — while only 9% used it directly in customer-facing channels. This shows AI is becoming foundational infrastructure, not a cosmetic add-on. 

• Investment in AI continues to rise. 

KPMG’s Pulse of Fintech notes that AI-related investment remains one of the strongest segments of fintech funding in 2024–2025, even when overall VC investment fluctuated. Banks increasingly prioritize operational AI over consumer-facing fintech. 

• AI use cases are shifting from analytics to “agentic” execution. 

Capgemini found that large banks and insurers now deploy AI agents not just to analyze data, but to complete tasks such as processing applications, supporting investigations, and flagging compliance risks. 

These developments highlight one of the most prominent fintech trends: AI is moving from isolated use cases to a distributed network of operational agents embedded throughout banking workflows. 

Practical outlook 

In 2025, Goldman Sachs launched an AI assistant accessible to thousands of employees across the firm. The system helps staff summarize research, draft internal content, extract insights, and run analysis on complex datasets. 

This is the pattern emerging across financial institutions: 
AI agents handle structured tasks; humans oversee high-judgment decisions. 

Additional practical shifts the industry is seeing: 

• In fraud and AML, models can now evaluate transaction patterns in real time rather than relying solely on rule-based systems. 

• In credit and risk, AI agents pre-screen documents, flag discrepancies, and surface missing data before analysts intervene. 

• In operations, AI systems extract information from customer submissions, check regulatory documentation, or compile reports. 

Banks are realizing that AI agents don’t have to run everything on their own. Even automating parts of a workflow can make the process faster and more accurate. 

Trend 2. Embedded finance

Embedded finance — that is, offering financial services directly inside non-financial platforms (marketplaces, apps, software tools, etc.) — is gradually becoming a structural feature of many digital platforms.  

Instead of sending users to a bank or a separate provider, platforms now integrate payments, lending, or insurance directly into the experience, so the financial step feels like a natural part of the workflow. 

• According to a report by Juniper Research, the global embedded-finance market is forecast to surpass $138 billion in 2026. 

• Other forecasts push the trend even further: some embedded-finance analyses expect substantial growth beyond 2026 as more sectors adopt banking-as-a-service (BaaS), payments, credit, insurance, and investment modules inside their core platforms. 

• In Europe, embedded finance is viewed as a convergence between banks and customer-platforms, with McKinsey estimating that embedded-finance revenues could exceed €100 billion by 2030. 

The shift is not just on the demand side — the supply infrastructure is also improving dramatically: APIs, modular banking-as-a-service platforms, regulatory clarity in many regions, and standardization efforts are making it easier for non-financial businesses to embed finance seamlessly. 

Practical outlook 

One of the clearest real-world examples is J.P. Morgan. Through its payments and embedded finance efforts, it offers solutions that let marketplaces, platforms, and non-financial companies embed payments, banking, or cash-flow tools directly into their ecosystem. 

In general, by embedding financial services directly into platforms, companies can simplify complex transactions, give users faster access to payments or credit, and turn existing interactions into measurable business value. 

Trend 3. Tokenized assets & real-world-asset tokenization

Tokenizing real-world assets — like bonds, funds, or real estate — is moving from hype to real use. Among the fintech trends shaping 2026, this one is driving operational efficiency, liquidity, and broader access to investments. 

• In 2025, the total value of tokenized real‑world assets reached roughly $24 billion. And according to a recent report by Yahoo Finance, the RWA tokenization market could reach $16 trillionby 2030.  

• Among tokenized assets, debt instruments (corporate or government bonds, short-term securities) account for a large share of early tokenization initiatives — reflecting institutional comfort with familiar asset classes adapting to digital formats. 

• Big banks and asset managers are now getting involved in tokenization. At the same time, the platforms and blockchain-based infrastructures that support it (like custody, compliance, and settlement) are becoming more reliable and easier to use, addressing earlier concerns around trust, regulation, and reconciliation. 

Taken together, these signals show tokenization evolving from niche pilots into a scalable and institutionally accepted option — especially for assets where liquidity, transparency, and operational efficiency matter. 

Practical outlook 

Some of the world’s largest money‑market funds and institutional investors are now offering tokenized versions of traditional instruments. For instance, tokenized bond funds and money‑market funds are being issued — turning conventional fixed‑income or cash instruments into digital securities that can trade, settle, or be transferred on ledger-based systems.

In short, tokenization is bringing traditional finance to a “digital-native” infrastructure model without necessarily sacrificing regulatory compliance or legitimacy. 

Trend 4. Real-time settlement infrastructure

Payments are getting faster, defining one of the evolving fintech trends. By 2026, banks and fintechs are moving to systems that settle transactions instantly instead of waiting in batches. 

The global market for real-time payments (RTP) infrastructure is booming, driven by demand for 24/7 settlement, cross-border transfers, and liquidity on demand. 

• In the U.S., network adoption is accelerating: the private‑sector real-time payments network and the public FedNow Service are both expanding. 2025 saw a surge in banks and credit unions onboarding. 

• Usage volumes are rising quickly. The RTP network processed hundreds of millions of real-time transactions annually, with daily transactions reaching well over a million by mid-2025. 

• According to Citi, more than 80 jurisdictions — representing around 95% of global GDP — already operate instant‑payment schemes; globally, nearly 266 billion real‑time transactions were processed in 2023, with volume expected to more than double to 575 billion by 2028. 

What is more, global adoption of this trend is spreading beyond the U.S. Many markets and central banks now support real-time or instant payment systems — showing that real-time settlement is becoming standard rather than exceptional. 

Practical outlook 

Real-time settlement rails are being used for a variety of use cases — from everyday consumer transfers to corporate treasury, B2B, and marketplace payouts. 

• In the U.S., the RTP network recently handled a $10 million corporate liquidity-transfer between two institutions — showing that real-time rails are no longer limited to small‑value payments but are capable of large, institutional-scale transfers.  

• Some banks and fintechs are upgrading legacy payment platforms or replacing batch-based processing altogether — moving to cloud-native or API‑first payment hubs that support real-time processing, settlement, and data-rich messaging (such as ISO 20022) for compliance and interoperability. 

Real-time settlement is also becoming standard in business-to-business (B2B), payroll, marketplace payouts, and treasury operations, where immediate liquidity and cash‑flow certainty matter. 

As a result, payment speed, settlement finality, and availability around the clock are increasingly viewed not as luxuries — but as core requirements. 

Trend 5. Regulatory‑driven innovation reshaping fintech and banking

Among the other fintech trends for 2026, is the fact that increasingly, regulation is not just a constraint — it’s a driver. As new rules come into force, financial institutions and fintechs are reworking how they build, operate, and deliver services.

This trend isn’t about compliance just for compliance’s sake; it’s about building infrastructure and trust that enable new business models, better security, and broader reach.

• In the European Union, a wave of new financial‑service regulations is being rolled out: the upcoming Payment Services Directive 3 (PSD3) and the Payment Services Regulation (PSR) aim to update and strengthen rules around payments, transparency, data sharing, and customer protections. 

• At the same time, the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) — effective since January 2025 — enforces strict requirements on ICT‑risk management, vendor oversight, incident reporting and cyber resilience for banks, fintechs, payment firms, and even third‑party cloud or infrastructure providers in the EU financial market. 

The regulatory environment is also evolving globally: across jurisdictions, regulators are pushing for stronger fraud prevention, real-time transaction monitoring, improved KYC/AML standards, data‑sharing frameworks, and secure identity verification.  

As a result, demand for compliance infrastructure — including RegTech, identity verification, real-time monitoring, and secure APIs — is surging. Several studies show a significant uptick in fintechs and banks investing in regulatory‑compliance tech stacks, not as a cost centre but as a foundation for sustainable, scalable growth. 

Practical outlook

A concrete example is the way many European banks and fintechs are adapting to DORA and PSD3/PSR requirements. Institutions are overhauling their infrastructure to comply with stricter ICT‑risk, incident‑reporting, and vendor‑management rules. Some are replacing legacy systems with modular, auditable, cloud-native platforms that offer better traceability, recovery planning, and resilience. 

Identity verification and fraud prevention are being upgraded across the board. According to a 2025 survey by a leading digital verification firm, rising impersonation fraud is pushing banks and fintechs to adopt more robust identity verification — including biometric checks, liveness detection, and AI-driven anomaly detection — to meet compliance and security demands. 

In effect, regulatory requirements are pushing fintechs and banks to treat compliance as architecture — not as boilerplate.

Trend 6. Personalization & inclusive finance

By 2026, banks and fintech companies are using data, AI, and digital tools to deliver personalized experiences and reach underserved populations. And today it’s about tailoring products to individual needs and opening access to people who previously faced barriers to financial services. 

• A recent survey covering 2,000 banking customers across North America, EMEA and APAC found that 84% of respondents would consider switching banks to access timely and relevant financial advice. 

• The same study reports that 70% of customers want their bank to proactively understand their financial situation (based on habits, income, expenses) and offer personalized insights — evidence that users value proactive, data‑driven support. 

• Another survey reveals that 74% of respondents across generations want more personalized banking experiences. What is more, 66% say they are comfortable with their financial institution using their data to tailor services. 

• What’s insightful is also that banks respond to this growing demand. As of the end of 2025, 35% of banks and credit unions listed data‑driven personalized engagement (as a top strategic priority). 

Together, these findings show that both customers and banks — globally — increasingly view personalization as central to modern banking. 

Practical outlook 

Banks and fintech institutions are using AI and analytics to monitor spending and saving patterns, then providing tailored advice or nudges: for example, savings recommendations, alerts for overspending, or personalized loan/credit offers — based on each user’s behavior and financial situation. Some early adopters report higher customer engagement and retention metrics. 

Financial‑wellness tools are getting even more popularity. And in 2026, such solutions for budgeting, spending insights, and forecast tools are embedded directly into apps — not as add-ons, but as core features, especially to appeal to younger generations and users underserved by traditional banking.  

On the supply side, banks and credit unions are increasingly making personalization via data and analytics a strategic priority (35% in 2025, up from 27% in 2024), which means more resources and product development toward tailored offerings. 

Wrapping up with fintech trends 2026: Key takeaways

As you see, 2026 is not about incremental change. It’s rather about reshaping the core of financial services. The technology, regulatory frameworks, and customer expectations are aligning to make finance faster, smarter, and more integrated than ever before. 

Below are some expert takeaways that can help you make the most of the new fintech trends: 

1. Integration is the new baseline. AI agents, embedded finance, and tokenized assets show that isolated solutions are giving way to connected systems. Financial institutions that can embed services seamlessly into platforms, workflows, and customer journeys will gain a clear edge. 

2. Speed and efficiency are strategic imperatives. Real-time settlement and AI-driven operations mean that transaction speed, operational accuracy, and instant insight are no longer optional — they’re expected by both customers and regulators. 

3. Regulation is a growth lever, not a constraint. Compliance-focused innovation, such as DORA or PSD3-aligned systems, enables banks and fintechs to scale securely while opening new business models. Institutions that proactively design infrastructure around regulatory requirements can reduce risk and accelerate adoption. 

4. Customer-centricity is measurable. Personalization and inclusive finance are proving that tailored experiences drive engagement, retention, and financial inclusion. Companies ignoring this shift risk losing relevance, especially among younger and underserved demographics. 

5. Digital-native assets are moving mainstream. Tokenized assets and blockchain infrastructure are no longer experiments; they’re becoming reliable tools for liquidity, settlement efficiency, and broader investor access. Institutions embracing these tools now will shape the next generation of financial markets. 

Fintech isn’t just about products anymore. It’s about building financial systems that are smart, reliable, and work for everyone.

The winners in 2026 will be those who combine technology, regulation, and customer insight into an integrated strategy, rather than chasing isolated innovations.  

Ready to leverage these trends for your business? Let’s chat and explore how the right fintech partner can help you innovate securely and stay ahead.