Key Article Takeaways
- AI is the dominant force reshaping fintech. Embedded finance, open banking, and API infrastructure follow next.
- Tokenization and decentralized finance (DeFi) are rising under new regulatory clarity
- Security, compliance, and third-party risk are top priorities.
- Media coverage centers on AI, blockchain, and crypto – shaping 2026 narratives.
- Tailoring media angles to market trends and industry developments is key to impactful coverage
Fintech continues to transform the global financial landscape with rapid advancements in AI, decentralized finance, and next generation digital experiences. The numbers are undeniable. The U.S. leads with more than 42,500 fintech startups, while global funding reached $44.7 billion across 2,216 deals in the first half of 2025. Combined with a more flexible regulatory environment, the conditions are ideal for both established enterprises and emerging innovators.
At 10Fold, we closely track how these market shifts translate into visibility, media narratives, and investor and analyst attention. Understanding which fintech trends are gaining traction, and how they are covered by the media, is essential for companies looking to position themselves credibly in an increasingly crowded market. As fintech innovation accelerates, the ability to align product progress with the themes journalists and industry stakeholders care about becomes a competitive advantage.
The following fintech trends highlight where the industry is heading into 2026, and which narratives are shaping both business strategy and media coverage.
Agentic and Explainable AI: The New Power Duo Transforming Finance
AI has evolved from a back-office tool to a front-line driver of personalization, underwriting, fraud detection, and customer experience. A 2025 Gartner survey of CFOs and finance leaders shows that 59% of finance functions are using AI, up from 58% in 2024 and significantly higher than approximately 37% in 2023. JPMorgan Chase’s “AI driven Coach” illustrates this evolution with results that include 95% faster advisor research support, major sales gains, and almost $1.5 billion saved through fraud prevention and efficiency.
2026 will bring broader adoption of generative and agentic AI, paired with heightened regulatory focus on explainability in credit scoring, fraud models, and other high-risk areas.
From One Size Fits All to One Size Fits You: AI Powered Personalization
Personalized banking is becoming a major competitive differentiator. 72% of consumers say personalization impacts where they bank. Bank of America’s virtual assistant “Erica” exemplifies this shift by analyzing financial behavior and delivering customized insights and reminders. In 2024, Erica supported billions of interactions, positioning it as a leading AI driven customer experience tool.
In 2026, fintechs will compete less on price and more on relevance, trust, and ease of use.
Embedded Finance Unlocks New Revenue Streams for Non-Financial Platforms
Embedded finance integrates financial services directly into non-financial apps and marketplaces such as e-commerce, ride share, travel, and gig platforms. A key example is Lyft, which enables drivers to access checking accounts and debit cards within the app.
This trend will accelerate into 2026 as new distribution channels emerge and competition expands beyond traditional financial institutions.
The Rise of Tokenization, Decentralized Finance, and Real World Assets
Tokenization and decentralized finance continue to gain adoption. Regulatory clarity is accelerating progress. The GENIUS Act of July 2025 provides a unified legal framework for stablecoins and digital assets, improving consumer protection and supporting broader adoption across fintech apps, payment processors, and non-traditional financial platforms.
In the EU, Markets in Crypto‑Assets Regulation (MiCA) provides a parallel stablecoin and crypto regulatory structure. Together, these frameworks will drive new models for liquidity, fractional ownership, and tokenized securities in 2026.
Open Banking Moving From Niche to Mainstream
Open banking has scaled significantly with 87% of global banks implementing capabilities directly or through partners. This trend enhances personalization, improves risk modeling, and fuels innovation.
Yavrio’s API driven model, which connects to the five largest U.S. banks and enables embedded real time payments, showcases the expansion of open banking into corporate and business finance.
In 2026, interoperability improvements and standardized data sharing will continue to propel growth.
Security and Compliance Scaling With Complexity
As fintech ecosystems expand across APIs, third party vendors, cloud infrastructure, and DeFi integrations, attack surfaces increase. 41.8% of fintech breaches originate with third party vendors, making zero trust models, behavioral biometrics, and cloud native security essential.
In 2026, fintechs that invest in advanced AI driven security, supply chain risk management, privacy preserving AI, and multi region compliance will build stronger trust and maintain competitive advantage.
Fintech Topics and Trends Driving Media Coverage in 2025
The explosion of the fintech sector and the dynamically changing news environment have led to establishing non-traditional news and information channels monitoring and analyzing the increasingly complex financial technology landscape.
We’ve analyzed which fintech terms and industry developments have driven the most media coverage this year (January 1 – November 30), an illustration of the media’s interest in current trends:
Media attention reflects industry momentum. In 2025, the most covered fintech topics included:
- AI and artificial intelligence in 47% of articles
- Blockchain in 21%
- Cryptocurrency in about 11%
- Other terms/topics covered included: Digital payments (6%), Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) (3%), Open banking (2%), Embedded finance (2%), InsurTech (2%), RegTech / regulatory technology (1%) and Neobank (1%).
These trends offer a preview of the 2026 narrative as fintech innovation continues to reshape banking, payments, compliance, and financial infrastructure.
How To Leverage Trends and Secure Stronger Media Coverage
To stand out in an increasingly competitive landscape, PR teams can use trend alignment to pitch more effectively. Key best practices include:
- Anchoring your story in a broader industry trend. Reporters care more about patterns than standalone announcements, so make sure to tie your pitch to either new data showing a shift in the market, an emerging technology or regulatory change, rising consumer behavior trends, sector-wide challenges or opportunities.
- Craft storylines that solve industry pain points. Identify persistent challenges in your sector, especially those that media is already covering, frame your pitch as the remedy, and make it a part of a broader conversation.
- Quantify your angle with comparative data. Comparative framing helps reporters understand why the trend matters now: use comparisons such as “up 40% since 2023,” “adoption doubled in the last year,” “more than half of CFOs…”.
- Capitalize on real-time news cycles. Monitor breaking news and offer expert commentary relevant to your industry. E.g. with new regulations, provide impact analysis; when a big competitor move occurs, offer perspective on market implications.
- Use fresh data to create news. Impactful data (proprietary customer insights, survey results, industry reports) is one of the fastest paths to coverage.
- Position executives as credible thought leaders. Tie each perspective to a timely industry movement by placing timely op-ed articles, publishing LinkedIn POV posts, and engaging with analysts.
- Build trend-driven content assets. Create materials that make it easier for journalists to pull from: infographics, market snapshots, expert Q&As, research briefs, and visual data charts.
- Leverage annual cycles and “predictable news moments.” Use industry calendars to time activity to budgeting season, holiday shopping trends, quarterly earnings cycles or end-of-year predictions, among others.
- Partner with industry analysts and influencers. Share your insights with analysts, podcasters and influential LinkedIn creators. Their coverage often leads to mainstream media interest.
- Build a trend-first media list. Target reporters who regularly cover emerging technologies, innovation narratives, market analysis and regulatory changes.
2026 Outlook
Fintech is accelerating into its next phase of growth, driven by AI, embedded finance, tokenization, decentralized finance, and open banking. These innovations are being reinforced by regulatory clarity and sustained global investment, creating new opportunities across banking, payments, lending, and financial infrastructure.
At the same time, media coverage is evolving alongside the technology. Journalists are increasingly focused on AI adoption, security and compliance, blockchain infrastructure, and real-world business impact. For fintech companies, success in 2026 will depend not only on building innovative products, but on clearly articulating how those innovations connect to broader industry trends and market needs.
This is where strategic communications plays a critical role. Translating complex fintech developments into clear, relevant narratives that resonate with media, analysts, and executive audiences helps companies stand out, build credibility, and earn sustained visibility. As fintech continues to evolve, organizations that align their messaging with the trends shaping both the market and the media will be best positioned for long-term impact.