Fintech is entering its next phase. Here’s what will shape it in 2027

The focus in fintech is moving from just digitizing services to what technology can actually achieve.  AI agents are beginning to move beyond search and recommendations. Financial services are being pushed closer to the places where businesses already operate. And banks are confronting the infrastructure needed to let software make decisions in real time.

“Over the next 12 months, we expect to see meaningful take-up in how consumers use AI, not just to research, discover, and compare products, but to complete transactions end to end through their AI agents,” says Godfrey Sullivan, SVP, Products & Solutions, CEMEA at Visa.

“The defining shift in fintech will be AI that acts, not just advises,” says Mücahit Gündebahar, CEO and co-founder of Fimple.

“The next phase of fintech will be defined by financial services becoming increasingly embedded into the platforms and workflows where businesses already operate,” says Mohammed Aldossary, co-founder and CEO of SILQ Financial Services.

The shift is significant because the fintech industry is no longer simply asking how to make financial services digital. It is beginning to ask where those services should exist in the first place.

These are some trends we picked up at Money20/20 Middle East in Riyadh that could shape the coming year. 

AI AGENTS MOVE FROM BROWSING TO BUYING

Will you be using agentic payments anytime soon? The move toward agentic commerce still has some basic infrastructure to solve. “Banks need to enable Visa cards to be uploaded into agents. Today, an agent won’t accept your card because the card needs to be uploaded securely,” Sullivan says. “We’ve built Visa Intelligent Commerce, which allows for the secure tokenization of your card into agents. That’s step one.”

The second challenge lies with merchants. “Merchants need to be set up to deal with agentic commerce,” he says. “During my first agentic transaction, my agent couldn’t interact with many of the websites I use because they aren’t set up to accept agentic payments.”

That creates a new problem for businesses that have spent years optimizing websites for human customers. “They ask, ‘Who is this? Is this a bot?’ and block the agent.”

Visa has responded with two solutions aimed at helping merchants accept agentic payments.

“The first is an agentic score, so a small business can see how well their website is set up for agentic payments — whether an agent visiting their site will work or be rejected,” Sullivan says. “The second is an agent directory, so merchants and the industry can know which agents are trusted and which haven’t met our threshold of trust.”

But even when the infrastructure works, the customer journey can still break down.

“And to be honest, it’s not a smooth customer experience,” he says. “You see the pair of shoes you want, but you’re sent to a link. So you leave the agentic experience, complete the whole shopping process, enter your address, maybe your card details, it’s complex.”

Security and consumer protection will determine whether that experience can scale.

“It needs to be done securely, and in a way where, if something goes wrong and you want a refund, there’s a clear refund process in accordance with the rules for disputes and refund management.”

Sullivan sees the market approaching a point where those pieces begin to connect. “We’re at a tipping point.”

THE NEXT STEP IS AI THAT CAN ACT

The same movement toward action is emerging inside financial institutions, where AI has so far been used largely to support decisions rather than execute them.

“Over the next 12 months, the defining shift in fintech will be AI that acts, not just advises,” Gündebahar says. 

Banks across the region have spent the past few years using AI to answer questions, flag fraud and check documents, and the next step, he says, is “agentic AI: systems that can adjust a credit limit, restructure a repayment plan or pause a suspicious payment in real time, within boundaries the institution sets and with a human accountable for every outcome.”

While the Gulf is already moving in this direction, he says, the barriers will be less about the models and “more about what sits beneath them.”

Many financial institutions are still operating on infrastructure that was not designed for real-time decision-making.

“Many banks still run on systems built for a different era, where data moves in batches and launching a new product can require a development project,” Gündebahar says. “An AI agent that sees yesterday’s data and cannot safely execute a decision is simply an expensive recommendation engine.”

The challenge becomes more complicated for businesses operating across multiple markets.

“Companies operating across the region must also manage different regulatory requirements, data residency rules and customer expectations in each market,” he says. “For Islamic finance providers, adaptability must remain within Sharia-compliant product structures.”

Then there is the question of accountability.

“Every automated decision must be transparent and traceable so that customers, partners and regulators can understand how it was made.”

That distinction between recommending an action and actually taking one could become increasingly important as AI moves deeper into financial services.

“The next phase of fintech will not be defined simply by who adopts AI first, but by who can move from AI recommendations to safely executed actions,” Gündebahar says. “That requires current data, clear controls and infrastructure that can support decisions in real time.”

FINANCIAL SERVICES MOVE CLOSER TO THE BUSINESS

For SMEs, the next shift may happen somewhere less visible to consumers: inside the everyday systems businesses already use.

“I believe the next phase of fintech will be defined by financial services becoming increasingly embedded into the platforms and workflows where businesses already operate,” Aldossary says.

“For SMEs, particularly, the opportunity is to move financing closer to the actual flow of commerce.”

Instead of asking a business to step outside its day-to-day operations, approach a financial institution and go through a separate process to access capital, Aldossary says “financing can increasingly sit within procurement, supplier payments, receivables, point of sale and other everyday business activities.”

The technology is increasingly capable of supporting that model, but the bigger roadblocks are around infrastructure, data availability and building the right regulatory and risk frameworks to scale responsibly, he adds.

That shift also changes how businesses can be understood by financial institutions.

“The last decade was about digitization. The next decade will be about solving the fragmentation that digitization created,” says Aldossary.

“Businesses today use multiple digital systems across commerce, payments, banking and operations, but they often don’t speak to each other. The next phase is about connecting these workflows around a single source of truth to unlock greater efficiency.”

For SMEs, that fragmentation has a particular cost.

“They operate with lean teams and cannot absorb the operational workload of managing multiple external processes,” Aldossary says. “Bringing financial services closer to where they already operate makes them more efficient and better able to maintain momentum.”

It can also make previously invisible financial behavior more useful.

“A merchant may consistently pay suppliers early and demonstrate strong financial behavior, but much of that activity remains invisible to the broader financial ecosystem. They are not necessarily rewarded for being a good business.”

Embedded finance could change that.

“For us at Fina, it is about helping SMEs build their financial readiness and creditworthiness over time, so they can become more visible and ultimately access a broader range of financial products.”

The same principle applies to payments, where digitization has not necessarily eliminated the manual work surrounding transactions.

“B2B payments have largely moved online, but collections and the processes around them remain highly manual,” Aldossary says. “The next generation will go beyond payment acceptance to automate the workflow around money, from invoicing and collections to reconciliation and close management.”

This suggests that the next phase of fintech, instead of launching more separate financial products, most changes may start to appear within the tools and platforms that people and businesses already rely on.