Date: December 5 2025
Author: FINTECH Circle

FinTech Connect 2025 reaffirmed its position as Europe’s flagship gathering for the global financial innovation community — drawing more than 5,000+ industry leaders, founders, regulators, investors, and technologists to London for two days of discussion, debate, and deal-making.

This year, FINTECH Circle played a highly visible and influential role across the entire conference. From curating an exclusive live pitching event, to moderating high-level panel discussions on technology transformation and the future of decentralised finance, our contribution helped shape some of the event’s most impactful conversations.

Below is a full round-up of our participation and key takeaways from FinTech Connect 2025.

1. FINTECH Circle Pitching Event: Showcasing High-Potential Fintech Innovators

A major highlight of the conference was FINTECH Circle’s curated Live Pitching Event, which brought together four dynamic fintech CEOs ready to demonstrate how their solutions are advancing finance.

With only five minutes each to present, founders delivered sharp, high-energy pitches that captivated the audience of investors, corporate innovators, and technology partners.

Featured Fintech Stars

Wyzr — Ajit Barik, CEO

Wyzr is redefining financial clarity for SMEs by functioning as an AI-powered CFO. Through real-time insights, instant answers, and plain-English financial explanations, Wyzr enables small businesses to make smarter, faster decisions. Their platform bridges the financial literacy gap and provides early warning signals on cash flow challenges — a capability especially vital in today’s volatile market.

ZENPULSAR — Alexander Pisemskiy, CEO

ZENPULSAR is giving institutional investors a competitive advantage through AI-driven public data intelligence. By processing millions of signals from social media, forums, and digital channels, the platform uncovers market sentiment shifts before they appear in traditional indicators. For hedge funds, asset managers, and traders who rely on early pattern detection, ZENPULSAR’s real-time feeds are proving transformative.

HandsIn — Samuel Flynn, CEO

HandsIn simplifies one of the thorniest challenges in online commerce: split payments. Their infrastructure supports multiple cards, group bookings, instalments, and complex payment breakdowns — all while simplifying reconciliation for merchants. As e-commerce becomes increasingly collaborative and multi-payer, HandsIn’s solution is easing merchant friction and boosting conversion rates.

Lenderwize — Lawrence Gilioli, CEO

Lenderwize provides liquidity solutions to telecom operators by transforming future receivables into investable digital assets. Their platform brings transparency, risk mitigation, and enhanced cash flow to a sector traditionally constrained by long billing cycles.

Insightful Judging Panel

A remarkable panel of experts interrogated the startup pitches, offering valuable feedback:

• Carol J. Hagh – FTSE 250 Non-Executive Director

• Irina Pafomova – CEO, Zestic AI

Their thoughtful questions helped founders refine their business models, clarify scaling strategies, and address investor expectations around compliance, market timing, and revenue validation.

A Catalyst for Investor Matching

For many attendees, FINTECH Circle’s pitching event remained one of the most practical and high-value sessions of the conference — creating a direct bridge between industry-ready innovation and active investors looking for scalable solutions.

2. Tackling Tech Debt at Scale: FINTECH Circle Moderates a Critical Discussion

Tech debt remains one of the most pressing challenges in financial institutions, influencing everything from product delivery to regulatory compliance. FINTECH Circle’s CMO, Glenn Burgess, moderated a highly anticipated panel that brought together senior technology leaders from some of the world’s most respected organisations.

Expert Panelists

• Mariya Brown, Head of EMEA Innovation – BNY Mellon Pershing

• Søren Rode Jain Andreasen, Head of Digital Customer Engagement Hub – Nordea

• Chris Knox, Global Director, Financial Services Regulatory Strategy – Microsoft

• Jeff Tijssen, Partner – Bain & Company

Key Themes Explored

1. Identifying the most dangerous types of tech debt
The panel stressed that not all tech debt is created equal. Architectural debt — embedded deep in legacy systems — poses existential risks, especially when regulatory requirements or security upgrades become mandatory.

2. Balancing modernisation with business-as-usual demands
Institutions can’t simply “pause operations” to rebuild their tech. Leaders discussed strategies to ensure innovation is ongoing while critical systems remain fully operational.

3. Incremental refactoring vs. full replatforming
While incremental updates offer lower short-term risk, some organisations will inevitably need large-scale replatforming to stay competitive.

4. The regulatory lens on technology transformation
As more supervisory bodies examine operational resilience, outdated technology stacks are becoming a formal regulatory concern, not just an internal technical issue.

5. Cultural change as the foundation for tech modernisation
Several speakers highlighted that the hardest part isn’t the technology — it’s aligning people, teams, and budgets behind a long-term transformation roadmap.

This panel was widely praised for its honesty, pragmatism, and forward-thinking perspectives, offering tangible lessons for executives navigating the complexity of legacy transformation.

3. Rethinking Regulation in the Age of DeFi: A Forward-Looking Debate Led by FINTECH Circle

As decentralised finance grows more sophisticated, regulators worldwide are grappling with new questions of risk, oversight, and standardisation. FINTECH Circle’s Founder & Chair, Susanne Chishti, chaired a high-impact panel on the evolving regulatory frameworks for DeFi.

Expert Speakers

• Laurent Marochini, CEO – Standard Chartered Luxembourg

• Dan Wilson, Head of Payments Customer Journey – Nationwide Building Society

• Myles Harrison, Chief Product Officer – AMINA Bank

Discussion Highlights

1. How regulators are approaching DeFi globally
While innovation is accelerating, approaches vary across regions, creating uneven rulebooks for institutions operating cross-border.

2. Legal uncertainty & security risks
The panellists addressed concerns ranging from smart contract bugs to DAO governance lapses — and the implications for consumer protection.

3. Standardisation of smart contracts
The discussion explored whether the industry can converge on shared templates or verification frameworks to reduce systemic risk.

4. Collaboration between banks and decentralised protocols
Traditional financial institutions increasingly recognise that DeFi’s underlying infrastructure — tokenisation, programmability, automated execution — can complement mainstream financial services.

5. The future of compliance in a decentralised world
The panel envisioned a future where compliance becomes programmable, embedded, and real-time, powered by on-chain logic.

Susanne guided the conversation toward actionable strategies, positioning DeFi not as a regulatory challenge to be feared, but as a frontier to be shaped responsibly.

4. The Influence of Neobanks & Challenger Banks in UK Financial Services – Moderated by Susanne Chishti

Another major highlight at FinTech Connect 2025 was the panel “The Influence of Neobanks and Challenger Banks in UK Financial Services,” chaired by our Founder & Chair, Susanne Chishti. With the UK continuing to be one of the world’s most competitive digital banking hubs, the discussion explored whether neobanks have truly disrupted the market at the scale once predicted — and what their rise means for incumbents.

Susanne guided a high-level conversation with industry leaders:

• Ishtiaq Ahmed, Global Product Lead – Emerging Technology, Innovation & Ventures, HSBC
• Mark Rydqvist, Managing Director EMEA Financial Services, Google
• Brian Baldacchino, Lending Strategy & Corporate Development, Allica Bank

Together, they examined how customer expectations have fundamentally shifted due to digital-first banking experiences, forcing traditional banks to accelerate modernisation, redesign journeys, and embrace embedded finance.

Key themes included:

Competition as a catalyst for innovation: Challenger banks have pushed legacy institutions to rethink agility, onboarding, and customer engagement.

• Evolving business models: While neobanks initially focused on user acquisition, they are now refining profitability strategies across lending, SME banking, and value-added services.
• Partnerships over rivalry: The panel highlighted a growing trend of collaboration between neobanks, incumbents, and tech giants.
• Future regulatory considerations: As market dynamics mature, the FCA’s evolving approach to operational resilience, consumer protection, and capital requirements will shape the next phase of growth.

Susanne wrapped the panel by emphasising that the real transformation lies not only in who provides financial services — but how seamlessly and intelligently those services are delivered. Neobanks have raised the bar, and now the entire ecosystem is racing to keep up.

Final Reflections: A Milestone Year at FinTech Connect

FinTech Connect 2025 offered a powerful snapshot of where the global fintech sector is heading — and FINTECH Circle was proud to play a leading role across innovation showcases, regulatory debates, and technology transformation discussions.

Our participation demonstrated:

• The strength of our global fintech community

• Our commitment to empowering founders and investors

• Our leadership in shaping the future of finance through dialogue, education, and collaboration

We extend our gratitude to every founder, speaker, partner, and attendee who contributed to an outstanding event. FinTech Connect 2025 has set the tone for the next chapter of fintech innovation — and FINTECH Circle looks forward to continuing this momentum throughout the year ahead.