The 2025 Fintech Year in Review
Executive summary
2025 marked a decisive shift from fintech experimentation to industrialization: clearer rules for crypto and digital assets (EU MiCA; US stablecoin legislation such as the GENIUS Act), rapid roll-out of real-time payments (EU Instant Payments Regulation; FedNow in the US), maturing digital banks (e.g., Revolut, Nubank), and practical AI deployment in core financial processes (e.g., DNB/boost.ai; Bank of America’s Erica).
Key takeaways:
Crypto moved further into the mainstream as major jurisdictions tightened rules (MiCA in the EU; the GENIUS Act in the US) and institutions expanded tokenization pilots (e.g., J.P. Morgan Kinexys/JPMD, BlackRock’s BUIDL via Securitize, UBS Tokenize).
Digital banking continued to scale globally (e.g., Revolut, Nubank, Monzo, N26) while incumbents doubled down on partnerships and core modernization (e.g., JPMorgan, BBVA, Nordea) - also visible in the Norwegian market (DNB/Sbanken; SpareBank 1 and Eika member banks).
Payments innovation accelerated: instant rails became the regulatory baseline in Europe (Instant Payments Regulation; ECB TIPS / EBA Clearing RT1), the US scaled real-time rails (FedNow), and Nordic wallet ecosystems continued to consolidate and grow (Vipps MobilePay; Swish).
AI shifted from pilots to production in customer service, fraud/AML, and internal workflow automation - e.g., DNB’s conversational AI deployments (boost.ai), JPMorgan’s internal AI tooling, Citi’s developer copilots, and Bank of America’s Erica - alongside stronger governance expectations (EU AI Act).
Consumer credit and BNPL faced sharper scrutiny: new consumer protection frameworks are reshaping product design and disclosures heading into 2026 (EU Consumer Credit Directive (EU) 2023/2225; UK FCA regulation of BNPL/Deferred Payment Credit), impacting providers such as Klarna, Affirm, and Clearpay/Afterpay.
Norway/EEA regulatory snapshot
Crypto (MiCA): Kryptoeiendelsloven in force 1 July 2025; transition extended to 30 June 2026 for already-registered providers; new entrants need MiCA authorisation before launch.
ML/CTF (Travel Rule): Regulation (EU) 2023/1113 incorporated into the EEA (Feb 2025) - expect tighter originator/beneficiary data capture, screening and recordkeeping for crypto transfers.
Operational resilience (DORA): DORA-loven in force 1 July 2025 (replacing IKT-forskriften) - incident reporting, ICT third-party contracts, and resilience testing move to the top of the compliance agenda.
Payments rails: Norges Bank’s modernization track (TIPS participation; exploration of joining T2; ISO 20022 migration) underpins the scaling of NOK instant payments and contingency planning.
Consumer credit/BNPL: Forbrukertilsynet guidance and enforcement treats BNPL payment deferral as a credit agreement under finansavtaleloven - focus on fees, disclosures and marketing.
Crypto and blockchain
Crypto markets in 2025 continued the normalization cycle: broader institutional access, clearer supervisory expectations, and continued focus on operational and consumer protections.
Global highlights
Bitcoin’s integration with traditional markets deepened after the first year of US spot Bitcoin ETFs - such as BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), Fidelity’s Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC), and Ark 21Shares (ARKB) - reinforcing institutional participation.
Stablecoins became a central policy theme. The US adopted a federal framework for payment stablecoins in 2025 (the GENIUS Act), as issuers like Circle (USDC), Tether (USDT) and PayPal (PYUSD) expanded use-cases, while the EU advanced implementation of MiCA’s e-money token and asset-referenced token regimes.
MiCA began consolidating EU crypto regulation into a single authorization regime for crypto-asset service providers, with EU-level coordination by ESMA and EBA and national licensing by competent authorities - raising baseline requirements (capital, governance, disclosures, consumer protection) for firms such as Bitpanda, Coinbase, and Kraken operating in Europe.
CBDCs: divergent approaches
CBDC trajectories diverged sharply. China’s e-CNY pilot (People’s Bank of China) continued to scale. At the same time, other jurisdictions weighed retail CBDCs’ added value versus operational, privacy and financial-stability risks - alongside ongoing workstreams like the ECB’s digital euro and the Bank of England’s digital pound programme.
Norway’s position was notably cautious: after extensive research, Norges Bank concluded in December 2025 that a retail digital krone is not warranted at this time, given the security and efficiency of existing payment solutions. The Bank continues to monitor international developments (including the digital euro) and to explore technical options, but has paused plans for immediate issuance.
Digital banking and open finance
Large neobanks continued to scale user bases while broadening beyond payments into credit, savings and wealth features (e.g., Revolut, Nubank, Monzo, N26, Chime).
Incumbents increasingly pursued ‘build + partner’ strategies - combining internal modernization with specialist fintech capabilities (e.g., DNB partnering with Stacc; banks working with Stripe/Adyen for acquiring, or with regtech providers like ComplyAdvantage for AML tooling).
Norway: collaboration and core upgrades
In Norway, 2025 underscored the role of partnerships in large-scale modernization. DNB advanced major digital initiatives, including a new digital mortgage platform with Stacc (for DNB and Sbanken customers) and continued work on payments modernization. Across the market, bank groups and alliances continued core and platform upgrades - e.g., Eika banks on next-generation core and payments platforms, and partnerships between regional banks (such as Sparebanken Norge and Lokalbank) and Tietoevry Banking. And even outside traditional banking players, new entrants emerged – for example, retail cooperative Coop Norge announced a fintech collaboration to launch a new core banking system with cloud core vendor Mambu in 2025. These examples underscore a broader 2025 theme: collaboration between legacy institutions and fintech innovators became essential to deliver seamless digital banking services.
Open banking to open finance
Open data policy remained a strategic theme. In Europe, the direction of travel beyond PSD2 is toward broader “open finance” via PSD3/PSR. DORA took effect in January 2025, raising expectations for ICT risk management and third-party oversight, including cloud-concentration risk (e.g., AWS and Microsoft). In the US, the CFPB’s Section 1033 rule is designed to expand consumer-controlled data access and accelerate API-based ecosystems (supported by data aggregators like Plaid).
Key compliance implications
Consent and data governance: robust permissioning, purpose limitation and record-keeping for data sharing (e.g., GDPR requirements; PSD2/PSD3-style consent flows; CFPB Section 1033).
Resilience and outsourcing: operational controls aligned with DORA-style expectations, including oversight by the European Supervisory Authorities (EBA/ESMA/EIOPA) and closer supervision of critical third-party ICT providers (e.g., AWS, Microsoft, Google Cloud).
Consumer protection: marketing, disclosures and product suitability scrutiny as fintechs scale—e.g., enforcement focus from authorities such as the FCA (UK), the CFPB (US), and Forbrukertilsynet (Norway).
Payments
The payments sector in 2025 was defined by ever-increasing speed, convenience, and integration. Around the world, use of cash hit record lows as digital payments became virtually ubiquitous. Nowhere was this more evident than in the Nordic region: Norway and its neighbors are now among the most cashless societies on Earth. Only about 1% of Norway’s GDP circulates as cash (versus ~11% in the Euro area) – a statistic vividly illustrating how entrenched digital and mobile payments have become in Norwegian daily life.
Norway and the Nordics: near-cashless maturity
Norway remained among the world’s most cashless economies. Mobile payments and wallet usage continued to grow, with Vipps MobilePay—now a consolidated Nordic wallet—serving more than 12 million users across the region and processing high transaction volumes. New entrants and payment facilitators (e.g., Stripe, Adyen and Klarna’s merchant products) expanded in the Norwegian market, adding competitive pressure and accelerating merchant adoption of modern payment stacks.
Europe and the US: instant rails as the baseline
Globally, the drive toward real-time payments took major leaps forward. The European Union’s new Instant Payments Regulation came into effect, requiring banks in the euro zone to both receive and send euro instant payments by late 2025. As of October 9, 2025, all payment service providers in the Euro area must be capable of offering SEPA Instant Credit Transfers within seconds – a regulatory push to make instant payments the “new normal” for euro transactions. This has led banks across Europe (including EEA countries like Norway) to invest heavily in upgrading payment systems to 24/7 real-time capabilities. In the United States, the Federal Reserve’s FedNow service – launched in mid-2023 – saw broader adoption in 2025, with more banks joining to enable instant dollar transfers. Payment interoperability also improved: multiple countries began linking their domestic instant payment networks. Notably, India’s UPI forged cross-border ties (such as with Singapore’s PayNow), hinting at a future network-of-networks for real-time global payments.
New frontiers
Stablecoin settlement pilots (including card-network initiatives) suggested an emerging hybrid model where blockchain rails complement conventional payments—e.g., Visa’s USDC settlement pilots, Mastercard’s settlement initiatives with Circle (USDC/EURC), and merchant-side offerings such as Shift4’s stablecoin settlement platform.
Big Tech continued its incursion into finance: Apple’s tap-to-pay and installment offerings gained traction in more markets, and Apple and Google faced proposals in the EU to subject their wallet services to banking-style regulation (to ensure fair competition).
Embedded payments also grew: many non-financial apps integrated payment capabilities, making transactions “invisible” within consumer experiences (ride-hailing, e-commerce, etc.).
Resilience planning expanded (including discussions of offline payment capabilities and cyber incident readiness), informed by central-bank workstreams (e.g., the ECB’s exploration of offline digital-euro functionality).
AI in financial services
2025 was the year AI became operationally embedded: not just proofs of concept, but production deployments in customer interactions, fraud prevention, AML, risk and internal process automation—across firms such as DNB, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America.
Where AI delivered measurable impact
Customer operations: AI assistants reduced handling time for routine queries and improved onboarding workflows (e.g., Bank of America’s Erica; DNB’s virtual agents via boost.ai).
Financial crime: machine learning enhanced anomaly detection for fraud and AML, supporting faster triage and better prioritization (e.g., scam and fraud detection programmes highlighted by banks like ANZ and Westpac).
Efficiency and workflow automation: document processing, case management and internal tooling improved throughput in lending and compliance processes (e.g., Citi’s internal AI tools for developers; Morgan Stanley’s DevGen.AI).
Governance and regulation
The EU reached a final agreement on its pioneering Artificial Intelligence Act, which officially entered into force in 2024 and started applying certain provisions in 2025. Under this regime – the first of its kind – AI systems in finance may be classified as high-risk, requiring rigorous testing, transparency, and human oversight. For instance, as of February 2025, any AI systems deemed to have an “unacceptable risk” (such as social scoring) were banned in the EU, and by mid-year, new rules took effect for general-purpose AI, mandating disclosures when content is AI-generated. These regulations will tighten further over the next 1–2 years. European financial firms spent much of 2025 preparing for compliance with the AI Act’s strict requirements, from documenting their AI models to establishing oversight committees. In the US, while there is no federal AI law yet, agencies like the Federal Reserve and OCC have stressed model risk management practices for AI, and the FTC has warned against unfair or deceptive AI outcomes in credit decisions.
Lending and credit
Fintech lending in 2025 navigated a more demanding consumer-protection environment. Regulators targeted transparency and affordability—especially for BNPL and other short-term credit structures.
BNPL under tighter rules
EU consumer credit reforms (Directive (EU) 2023/2225) and the UK’s incoming FCA BNPL regime (from 2026) tighten disclosure and affordability expectations for providers such as Klarna, Affirm, Clearpay/Afterpay and PayPal.
Broader lending trends
Partnership models grew: banks paired their balance sheets with fintech underwriting, data and user experience (e.g., bank-fintech partnerships around embedded credit and cards).
In Norway, authorities maintained a conservative posture on consumer debt and transparency (Finanstilsynet; Forbrukertilsynet), and cross-border providers faced scrutiny when disclosures were deemed insufficient.
Forecast for 2026
Convergence of TradFi and DeFi: the integration of blockchain into mainstream finance is likely to continue deepening. More banks are preparing to introduce tokenized deposits and explore interbank payment systems using distributed ledgers. 2026 could see pilot projects in which government bonds or other securities are issued directly on blockchains and settled instantly (e.g., J.P. Morgan Kinexys; BlackRock BUIDL).
AI arms race with guardrails: Financial institutions will race to outdo each other in deploying AI-driven services. We anticipate advanced personal finance assistants becoming common – for example, an AI that analyzes your spending and automatically optimize savings and investments in real time. The competitive advantage of such services will lead banks and fintechs to invest heavily in AI talent and systems. However, by the end of 2026, regulatory guardrails will largely be in place: the EU’s AI Act will be fully applicable by then (high-risk AI compliance expected by 2026–27), and other jurisdictions may introduce AI oversight frameworks.
Embedded Finance: Financial services will increasingly integrate into non-financial platforms—providing credit, insurance, or payments within the context of another service. By 2026, virtually every consumer-facing app (from ride sharing to retail) might include a financial element powered by fintech in the background. This offers vast growth potential, especially through partnerships between banks and technology companies.
Digital Currencies and Payments Innovation: Central banks exploring CBDCs will make key decisions in 2026. The European Central Bank, for example, is expected to decide on launching a digital euro around that time; if they proceed, a pilot rollout could follow within a couple of years. Norway will assess these developments – although it has paused a retail CBDC, the central bank might advance experiments in wholesale CBDC for interbank use. Private digital currencies (stablecoins) will also grow with clearer regulations: we may see approved stablecoins used in mainstream payments (for cross-border transfers or settlement between financial institutions) as legal frameworks become more solid. Additionally, the global payments landscape in 2026 could feature more cross-border instant payment linkages and possibly the first industry-wide moves to ISO 20022 messaging for real-time payments, improving interoperability.
