Sophia Furber is a research analyst in the 451 Research Fintech research and consulting group within S&P Global Market Intelligence. Her coverage focuses on Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Sophia has more than a decade of experience as a financial journalist and researcher. Prior to her current role, Sophia was a part of the European Financial Institutions Group, where she spearheaded fintech news coverage for the EMEA region. She has a particular interest in payments, remittances and digital currencies. Prior to commencing her journalism career, Sophia worked as a freelance political risk analyst and served as a long-term observer in Nepal with The Carter Center’s international observation mission during the peace process. She holds an MA in South Asian Area Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Cambridge University.
More favorable macroeconomic conditions set the scene for a brighter fintech outlook in 2025, but vendors will need to be more tactical and intentional to find the growth that was once seen as a given. Constrained venture funding, intensifying regulatory scrutiny and spreading market saturation are signals that fintechs must work harder than ever in coming years to scale their businesses.
Deepfakes are a growing threat in fintech and payments, and the level of sophistication among fraudsters continues to increase exponentially. Widely available GenAI tools enable the average hacker to create convincing images and audio, taking identity fraud from a cottage industry to an enterprise-grade operation.
Fast-growing neobank Papara offers a diversified suite of products targeting both consumers and merchants. The company has racked up 20 million users as of mid-2024, and is now weighing international expansion plans.
Popular mobile payment solution BLIK has been designed with e-commerce at its core. The Polish payment system allows consumers to make payments and send peer-to-peer transactions via a six-digit code generated by an app linked to each user's banking app and mobile phone number. It now has about 17 million active users, a little less than half of Poland's population.
Every year, millions of consumers are tricked into transferring money to scammers posing as legitimate payees, which is an especially difficult fraud typology for financial institutions to detect and prevent. In Part 2 of our report, we examine innovative tech and partnerships that the financial services industry is using to fight back.
The event saw the launch of a delegation tool that allows users to help others make transactions, as well as an interoperable platform meant to streamline business-to-business invoicing, payments and collections across India. Additionally, some skepticism was raised about connecting FedNow with global payment systems.
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