Fintech on the Move: AI Takes Center Stage in Financial Services at DFS 2025

Two weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending DFS 2025, the annual Belgian Fintech conference hosted by Fintech Belgium. As always, the event brought together thought leaders and innovators to explore how financial services are evolving in tandem with the latest technologies.
The sessions were packed with insights, and a few powerful trends stood out.

AI was at the heart of nearly every pitch and panel. It’s becoming a fundamental engine for internal efficiency and next-level customer service:

Automation via AI is expanding into areas like KYC, AML, insurance claims, credit origination and many others, thanks to its ability to transform unstructured data into actionable intelligence.
Personalized services are reaching more customers. With AI chatbots, AI investment-advisors and AI-driven recommendation engines, financial institutions can now offer tailored product recommendations, investment advice and other services once reserved for high-net-worth clients.
New financial products are rising out of AI, such as offering liquidity based on inventories (thanks to AI-based instant asset valuation, cfr. Finrack), get immediate insights into upcoming regulations (cfr. Prismos) or assess the trustworthiness of a third-party thanks to combination of Open Banking and AI (cfr. Fintensy).

But with all this innovation comes risk and a number of concerns:

Privacy: What happens to the personal data AI consumes?
Security: Emerging threats like prompt injection attacks.
Transparency: Can we trust the output of an AI model, especially when it hallucinates or when it can have inherent bias? Can we explain to customers and employees why certain decisions are taken, e.g. rejection of a credit demand or blocking of a payment for fraud reasons.
Dispute management: If agentic AI takes action on behalf of users (e.g. making purchases), who’s accountable for errors? And how can disputes be settled?

These aren’t theoretical questions, i.e. they’re already shaping the future of trust in finance.

Another trend, which is not new, but more prominent present in this year’s conference, is the revolution in payments. From card to A2A (account-to-account) payments, from batch to instant payments and from cash to digital, the transformation in payments is undeniable. The shift is also happening on a broader scale:

Payment rails transforming from national to international payment rails
Digital currencies, such as stablecoins and CBDCs, being picked up more and more by mainstream players (such as VISA, major banks…)
Tokenized payments and new financial architectures

At the same time, the payment space is under increasing pressure of fraudsters. Fraud is escalating in sophistication and will continue to be a major focus of investment in the coming years. While AI can help payment providers to better detect fraud, it is used equally as a tool by fraudsters to improve the quality of scams (e.g. more personalized communication of much better quality, fake websites and social media pages which are much more professional and can resemble much better credible companies, deep fakes…), making it an ever faster race between both sides. Fortunately, financial services companies have more opportunities to collaborate by sharing data and insights on fraud, although this potential remains largely underexploited today.

With all those new evolutions in technology, new risks inevitably emerge, e.g. AI model risks, data privacy concerns or risks with new less regulated players potentially gaining significant market positions (e.g. MiCA-licensed entities possibly holding higher deposits than some banks). Regulation must keep pace. However, there is growing concern that EU overregulation could stifle innovation. Striking the right balance between fostering innovation and ensuring adequate oversight is therefore essential.

There are growing calls for:

A simplified regulatory framework
Greater alignment and collaboration across EU member states, e.g. advancing toward a Savings and Investments Union to create a unified EU capital market.
A single rulebook and stronger EU-level supervision. Fragmentation within the EU’s financial landscape continues to hinder progress. Harmonizing regulatory structures will be critical to further boost innovation in the Financial Services industry.

DFS 2025 made one thing clear: Fintech’s future is both thrilling and complex. AI, payments and regulation are rapidly converging and the decisions we make today will shape the financial ecosystem of tomorrow.

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