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The Developer Productivity Paradox in Modern Fintech

  One of the most frequently used arguments behind the rise of Fintechs and especially neo-banks, is the inability of large incumbent banks to remain agile. Traditional financial institutions often struggle to rapidly adapt to changing customer expectations, evolving regulations, and technological innovation. Fintechs, by contrast, start smaller, carry significantly less historical software legacy, and operate with far less bureaucracy. Decisions are taken faster, teams move quicker, and products evolve continuously. In short: they are more agile . Yet after speaking with many Fintechs and observing numerous start-ups and scale-ups from close by, I increasingly notice a paradox: many young Fintech companies begin to lose their agility surprisingly early, not because of business bureaucracy, but because their IT organization becomes the bottleneck. Ironically, this happens despite hiring highly talented, motivated, and technically excellent engineers. In many start-ups, productivit...
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ISO 20022 Structured Addresses: A Data Quality Challenge in Disguise

  The migration to ISO 20022 has already delivered significant change across cross-border payments, introducing richer and more structured data that promises greater efficiency, transparency, and interoperability. Yet one of the most operationally important milestones is still approaching: the November 2026 SWIFT CBPR+ deadline for structured postal addresses . While many financial institutions initially view this as another messaging format requirement, the reality is far more complex. The deadline is not simply about changing how addresses appear in payment messages. It is about understanding, controlling, and improving transaction data quality across the entire payment lifecycle. Since SR 2025, institutions have been allowed to use hybrid address formats within CBPR+ traffic, providing a transition period for adapting systems and processes. That flexibility will end in November 2026. From that point onwards, payments containing only unstructured address information will no ...
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The Future of Services: Digital at Scale, Personal by Design

  In recent years, the way we consume products and services were fundamentally changed, and perhaps more importantly, they changed our expectations of what good service should feel like. The Corona crisis accelerated two major trends in our consumption patterns. On the one hand, there was a clear move toward local and smaller-scale commerce . Some of this shift emerged out of necessity: transport became more difficult, larger crowded places created uncertainty, and local alternatives simply became more practical. But increasingly it also became a conscious choice. People wanted to support local businesses and preserve the social fabric of their communities. Shopping locally was not only about purchasing products; it became a way of staying connected. Buying bread from the local bakery, visiting nearby shops, or choosing local suppliers created a stronger sense of community and human interaction. At the same time, another trend accelerated at an enormous pace: eCommerce and digita...
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The Belgian Startup Paradox: Pessimism Outside, Unicorns Inside

  Belgium loves underestimating itself. Ask almost any Belgian entrepreneur about the country’s business climate and the reaction is often immediate: taxes are too high, regulation too complex, labour too expensive, venture capital too limited, the market too small…​ We compare ourselves to Silicon Valley and conclude we are hopelessly behind before the conversation has even properly started. In the United States, founders supposedly build billion-dollar companies in garages before breakfast. In Belgium, we are still scheduling a steering committee to determine whether the garage complies with zoning regulations. And yet, beneath all that national pessimism, Belgium has quietly built one of Europe’s more impressive technology ecosystems . Not loudly or theatrically. Belgium rarely dominates startup headlines or founder culture online. But while the country kept doubting itself, something significant happened in the background: Belgium started producing globally relevant tech co...
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Financial Wellbeing Is the New Employee Benefit

  B2C PFM fintech apps have always been a difficult business. Consumers love free financial tools, but very few are willing to pay for them. At the same time, neobanks like Revolut and N26 have invested heavily in Personal Financial Management (PFM) features directly inside their banking apps, making it increasingly difficult for standalone fintech apps to differentiate. Traditional banks are still behind in many areas of financial guidance, but the consumers most interested in advanced PFM functionality are often also the ones most willing to switch banks entirely. And yet, despite the challenging business model, the underlying problem remains enormous: financial literacy is still alarmingly low . Modern society expects people to make increasingly complex financial decisions. Mortgages, pensions, taxes, investments, inflation, insurance, digital fraud, Buy Now Pay Later services, crypto…​ all require a certain level of financial understanding. But very few people were ever pro...
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The New Frontline Against Scams: Detecting Fraud Before Payment Initiation

  Fraud prevention has long been centered around the payment itself : detecting suspicious transactions, applying scoring engines, triggering step-up authentication, or blocking transfers at the final moment. But scams increasingly prove that this approach alone is no longer sufficient. By the time a payment instruction reaches a bank, the manipulation has often already happened: the victim has been convinced, pressured, coached, or emotionally pushed into authorizing the transaction themselves. In an era of instant and irrevocable payments, the time window for intervention at payment initiation is shrinking dramatically . That means scam prevention must move further upstream, towards the earlier moments where deception begins. This is precisely the evolution I already described in my previous blogs " The First Line of Defense: Tackling Scams Before Transactions " ( https://bankloch.blogspot.com/2025/09/the-first-line-of-defense-tackling.html" ) and " The Missing L...
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