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Security Patching Is Becoming a Competitive Advantage

  Over the past decade, application security has changed dramatically. Yet the biggest shift is not that software has suddenly become less secure . The real change is that discovering vulnerabilities has become much easier , while fixing and distributing those fixes has become significantly harder . For software vendors, the bottleneck is no longer finding security issues. It is maintaining secure software throughout the entire lifecycle of a product. Not that long ago, finding vulnerabilities was largely a manual exercise. Internal penetration tests, customer security assessments and occasional code reviews uncovered issues that developers would then address before the next release. Today, vulnerability discovery is continuous and increasingly automated . Static Application Security Testing (SAST) tools such as SonarQube analyze every build for insecure coding patterns. Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) has become a standard part of many security programs, both int...
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From Open Banking to Agentic Finance: When Data Starts Working for You

  Open Banking has been around for several years. With PSD2 in the European Union and Open Banking in the UK, banks were forced to open access to payment accounts and payment services to regulated third parties. Since then, we have seen a growing number of use cases emerge: account aggregation in personal financial management applications, transaction data used for credit scoring and risk decisioning, account verification during onboarding, cashback and loyalty services, and account-to-account payments. Yet despite all the attention Open Banking has received, its impact remains relatively limited compared with its original promise. Part of the explanation is technical. API quality and availability still vary significantly between banks. Implementations differ, making connectivity complex and costly for third-party providers. Authentication and consent processes can introduce additional friction, while seemingly basic challenges around historical information, joint accounts, transac...
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From Pull to Push: The Shift to Embedded, AI-Driven Banking

  Banking is undergoing a quiet but profound transformation. While most people still interact with their bank through mobile or web applications, this model is quickly becoming outdated. The future lies in contextual, intelligent, and embedded financial experiences , powered by AI and shaped by the user’s life. Today’s digital banking is largely pull-based, i.e. customers log into their banking app to perform specific tasks, from checking balances to transferring money. In tomorrow’s world, banking will be increasingly push-based . Financial institutions, powered by AI and integrated ecosystems, will proactively suggest actions at the right moment. Imagine getting a pop-up to pay an invoice as soon as it’s received, or being notified when you’re about to go overdrawn with the option to transfer funds or access a credit line, all without opening an app. Banking is moving beyond the app. In the near future, financial actions will be initiated within other digital environments, such...
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Electronic invoices don’t automatically create automated finance departments

  For many years, electronic invoicing has been presented as one of the major milestones in the digital transformation of finance. In Belgium, that transformation accelerated significantly with the mandatory adoption of PEPPOL for B2B invoicing (since 1st January 2026). The promise is compelling: invoices become structured, digital and standardized , allowing companies to exchange them securely and efficiently while improving transparency, reducing administrative overhead and creating a foundation for further automation. On paper, it sounds like the moment finance departments have been waiting for. If invoices can move automatically from one ERP system to another, shouldn’t Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable departments become dramatically smaller? Interestingly, that is not what we are seeing in practice. While PEPPOL adoption is undoubtedly an important step forward, most organizations have not  experienced the dramatic reduction in headcount that some initially ...
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Stablecoins Have Left the Crypto Niche. Now They Are Entering Everyday Finance.

  The momentum behind stablecoins has become impossible to ignore. Hardly a month passes without another major bank, payment provider, fintech, or technology company announcing a new initiative. What was once considered a niche crypto instrument has rapidly evolved into one of the most important developments in modern payments. Looking only at the past few months illustrates this acceleration. In April, the stablecoin market surpassed $312 billion in market capitalization while annual transaction volumes were estimated at more than $33 trillion . Additionally HSBC obtained a stablecoin issuer licence in Hong Kong, PayPal expanded the availability of its PYUSD stablecoin to millions of users across more than seventy markets, and several Swiss banks began testing a regulated Swiss franc stablecoin. May brought the first regulated Canadian dollar stablecoin, Coinbase listed its first British pound-backed stablecoin, and Nium partnered with Coinbase for USDC-powered cross-border p...
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Beyond Buy versus Build: Rethinking Software Strategy in the AI Era

  For decades, one of the first questions asked at the start of every IT project was remarkably simple: Should we build the solution ourselves or should we buy a package? Entire sourcing strategies have been built around this seemingly binary decision. Some organisations adopted a "buy before build" philosophy, believing packaged software would reduce costs and implementation risks. Others preferred custom development, convinced that unique software was essential to differentiate themselves from competitors. Over time, this discussion expanded with additional questions. Should development be done in-house , outsourced, or somewhere in between? Should the solution run on-premise or in the cloud? Should it be implemented using Agile or Waterfall ? Should one choose a single vendor or a best-of-breed landscape? These remain valid questions today, but they no longer describe the reality of modern software delivery. The traditional buy-versus-build discussion assumes on...
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