Author: Hasan Can Soygök, Founder, Remotify.co
Fintech looks different in 2026. The buzzwords have changed. The power dynamics have shifted. And three forces are rewriting the rules of financial services faster than most businesses can keep up.
Here is what you need to know right now.
AI Agents Are Learning to Spend Your Money
Forget chatbots. The biggest fintech story of 2026 is agentic commerce. These are autonomous AI systems that browse, negotiate, and complete financial transactions without human input.
Visa launched its Trusted Agent Protocol, backed by Microsoft, Stripe, and Worldpay. This system lets verified AI agents signal purchase intent, identify consumers, and transmit payment credentials on their behalf. Mastercard responded with its own Agent Pay Merchant Acceptance Framework. OpenAI and Google published competing protocols, each building ecosystems with partners like Coinbase, Salesforce, and American Express.
Banks are moving just as fast. Goldman Sachs spent six months embedding Anthropic engineers to co-develop autonomous agents for trade accounting and client onboarding. Lloyds Banking Group generated roughly £50 million in value from generative AI in 2025 and now plans enterprise-wide deployment of agentic AI in 2026. Stripe launched an Agentic Commerce Suite at its current $107 billion valuation.
The adoption numbers are hard to ignore. Broadridge found that 80% of financial services firms report active AI use, with 26% specifically deploying agentic AI. KPMG estimates companies earn an average $3.50 return per dollar invested in these systems.
However, serious risks remain. Gartner predicts more than 40% of agentic AI projects will be canceled by the end of 2027 due to escalating costs or poor risk controls. Only 27% of customers trust AI for serious financial decisions. And 86% of finance teams have already encountered inaccurate or hallucinated data from AI systems.
The biggest unanswered question? Who pays when an AI agent makes a fraudulent or erroneous transaction?
Pay-by-Bank Crosses the Traction Threshold
For years, account-to-account payments were a nice idea with no real adoption. That changed when Walmart partnered with Fiserv to launch instant pay-by-bank for online purchases. Early pilot results “surpassed expectations.” Then Amazon expanded pay-by-bank to UK customers through TrueLayer.
When the two largest retailers on earth adopt a payment method, the rest of the market pays attention.
The infrastructure is ready. FedNow now counts over 1,500 participating financial institutions across all 50 states, up 44% from its one-year mark. Transaction volumes surged 1,200% year-over-year. The transaction limit was raised to $10 million in November 2025 to support commercial use cases.
In Europe, the story is even further along. Wero, the pan-European A2A payment system backed by 16 banks, reached 43.5 million registered users within its first year. E-commerce functionality has launched in Germany and is rolling out across Belgium and France in 2026.
Still, a big hurdle remains in the US. Credit card rewards exceed $40 billion annually. Consumers see no equivalent benefit from paying by bank. Pay-by-bank currently represents just 1.5% of US consumer transactions. Breaking into everyday retail spending will require merchants to pass savings back to shoppers.
America’s Regulatory Landscape Has Flipped
The US fintech regulatory environment has undergone its most dramatic shift in over a decade. Three changes are happening at the same time.
First, the CFPB has been effectively gutted. A January 2026 GAO report documented an 88% planned workforce reduction. Sixteen of 34 ongoing enforcement actions were dismissed. The agency rescinded roughly 70 guidance documents, proposed rules, and advisory opinions.
Second, states are stepping in aggressively. New York enacted legislation treating BNPL arrangements as loans. At least 16 states proposed earned wage access legislation in 2025, with six enacting new laws. California and New York expanded their consumer protection statutes. For fintechs operating nationally, this patchwork creates significant compliance complexity.
Third, the OCC has become remarkably fintech-friendly. It approved conditional national bank charters for BitGo, Ripple, Paxos, Circle, and several others. Applications have poured in from Coinbase, Mercury, Affirm, and more. The OCC received 18 charter applications in 2025, with estimates of 25 more in 2026.
Meanwhile, the SEC under Chairman Paul Atkins paused or dismissed over 60% of ongoing crypto cases and established a dedicated Crypto Task Force.
The net result is a paradox. Federal oversight has weakened dramatically, yet state-level activism means fintechs may face a more complex compliance landscape, not a simpler one.
What This Means for Your Business
These three shifts create a clear message. AI agents will soon transact on behalf of your customers. Pay-by-bank could erode the interchange fees your business relies on or saves you money. And the regulatory ground beneath fintech is shifting in ways that demand close attention.
The companies that adapt early will gain significant advantages. Those that wait risk paying a premium to catch up.