aLWAYS PRACTICAL, ALWAYS PRAGMATIC
THIS YEAR'S THEME
2026 theme: growth with agency
From Scale-Up to Market Leader: How the UK’s most ambitious fintechs will define the decade.
Fintech Week London 2026 is where founders, operators, and investors unpack what it actually takes to grow a UK fintech from challenger to category leader.
Come hear from the people not just thinking about growth – but making it happen.
CONTENT TRACKS
AI in action
When AI can copy your product, what’s your real moat?
Audience
For CEOs, COOs, and people leaders in the messy middle between fast-growing and category-defining
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: AI isn’t arriving in fintech, it already moved in and rearranged the furniture. So instead of asking whether to use it, we’re asking the sharper questions.
Where is it genuinely creating competitive advantage? Where is it quietly eroding it? And what does an actually AI-native fintech look like, not in theory, but right now? We’re putting founders on stage who’ve built the thing, not just talked about building it.
Stage 1:
- The Human and AI Balance: Where Automation Ends and Judgement Begins
- When AI Becomes Your Competitor: Rebuilding Your Moat
- Rolling Out AI Internally: What Works, What Backfires, and What Your Team Actually Needs
Stage 2:
- From Feature to Foundation: What AI-Native Really Means
- The AI Product Decision: What to Build, What to Buy, and What to Leave Alone
- Measuring AI ROI: The Metrics That Tell You Whether It’s Actually Working
BUILT TO SCALE
From fast-growing to market-leading. What actually separates the two?
Audience
Relevant to everyone in the room. Where’s AI creating advantage, where’s it eroding it, and what does an actually AI-native fintech look like right now?
Spoiler: it’s not the product. The fintechs that cross from promising to category-defining make different decisions about people, operations, fundraising, and expansion.
This pillar gets into all of it, honestly and specifically, with founders who’ve navigated the messy middle and operators who’ve seen what works and what quietly kills companies.
Stage 1:
- The Scaling Ceiling: Why Growth Stalls at £10M ARR and How to Break Through
- Build or Buy? The Operating Decisions That Define Category Leaders
- The People Problem: Hiring, Culture and Leadership at Scale
Stage 2:
- From UK to Europe to Global: The Expansion Playbook
- Operating Model Design: Building the Structure That Scales With You
- When to Hire a COO – and What to Expect When You Do
THE GROWTH ENGINE
Revenue doesn’t build itself. Neither does brand
Audience
For commercial leaders, marketers, and revenue teams. Pipeline, GTM, brand, distribution
Fintech has a product problem? Rarely. A go-to-market problem? More often than anyone admits.
This pillar is for the sales leaders, marketing directors, and commercial operators who are tired of being the afterthought in the product-first conversation.
Pipeline, brand, distribution, demand generation. The stuff that actually pays the bills.
Stage 1:
- Marketing to Machines: When AI Does the Research and Makes the Decision
- Why Safe Marketing Is Killing Your Growth
- The First 90 Days: Turning Sign-Ups Into Revenue
Stage 2:
- The GTM That Got You Here Won’t Get You There
- The Ecosystem Advantage:
How the fastest-scaling fintechs are amplifying with community - Thought Leadership That Generates Pipeline
ARCHITECTING
The rails, data, and architecture that determine who wins.
Audience
For CTOs and technical leaders. Infrastructure, architecture, and the stack decisions that compound
Unglamorous? Maybe. Critical? Absolutely. The fintechs that lead the next decade aren’t just building great products, they’re building on the right foundations.
Core banking infrastructure, API strategy, data architecture, and the growing question of what AI actually means for your tech stack. When anyone can copy your product, what you’ve built it on becomes the thing that matters.
Stage 1:
- Rethinking Core Infrastructure: The Stack Decisions You Can’t Undo
- API First: Building for the Embedded Finance Era
- The Legacy Trap: How to Modernise Without Grinding to a Halt
Stage 2:
- Data as a Moat: Why Your Architecture Is Your Competitive Advantage
- Cloud, Multi-Cloud, Hybrid: Making the Infrastructure Decision Before It Makes Itself
- Vendor Lock-In: How to Evaluate Dependencies Before They Become Liabilities
THE CONVERGENCE
Fintech and crypto have been building the same thing from opposite ends. Probably time to talk.
Audience
For founders, technical leaders, and payments leads who need to understand where crypto, AI, and traditional finance are colliding — and what that means for their product, stack, or cost base.
The fintech/crypto divide is one of the industry’s most expensive fictions. Two communities, overlapping technology, overlapping customers, overlapping problems, still somehow not in the same room. Until now.
How do you build crypto into your fintech without your banking partners losing their minds? What has DeFi figured out about distribution that fintech hasn’t? Where does the stablecoin opportunity actually sit for scale-up companies?
Stage 1:
- What Stablecoins Mean for Your Payments Costs Right Now
- The End of the TradFi/Crypto Divide
- The New Consumer Crypto: What Mass Adoption Actually Looks Like
Stage 2:
- When AI Agents Need Wallets
- Real World Assets: The Tokenisation Opportunity Fintechs Are Sleeping On
- DeFi Is Not Dead: What Decentralised Finance Actually Offers Fintech Builders Now
REGULATION REIMAGINED
What if the rules weren’t the obstacle, but the opportunity?
Audience
For compliance, product leaders, MLROs, and AML leads who treat regulation as a growth lever, not a checkbox.
We know, we know. Regulation doesn’t exactly scream exciting. But hear us out. The fintechs that treat compliance as a strategic lever rather than a checkbox are quietly building moats their competitors can’t touch.
From Consumer Duty to AI regulation to digital identity, this pillar is for the leaders who’ve figured out that getting ahead of the regulator is actually a growth move.
Stage 1:
- Consumer Duty: Who’s Winning and Why
- The AI Regulation Playbook: What Fintechs Need to Know Now
- Open Finance Is Here: What the New Data Rules Mean for Your Product Strategy
Stage 2:
- Turning Compliance into a Growth Strategy
- RegTech That Actually Works: Moving Beyond Checkbox Compliance
- Cross-Border Compliance: How to Scale Across Jurisdictions Without Doubling Your Legal Bill
TRUST AS CURRENCY
In fintech, trust isn’t a soft value. It’s your hardest asset.
Audience
For the people building and protecting trust at scale. Fraud, security, identity, resilience.
You can have the slickest product in the market. If people don’t trust you, you’re done. Here we get into the full picture: fraud, cybersecurity, digital identity, and the customer confidence that takes years to build and seconds to lose.
The fintechs that scale sustainably aren’t just the fastest. They’re the most trusted. There’s a difference.
Stage 1:
- The Trust Stack: Building Security Customers Can Actually Feel
- Fraud at Scale: How the Best Fintechs Stay One Step Ahead
- The Breach Playbook: What to Do When – Not If – Something Goes Wrong
Stage 2:
- Proving Who You Are Without Killing the Experience: The New Identity Verification Standard
- Third-Party Risk: Managing the Security Gaps You Didn’t Build Yourself
- Operational Resilience: Meeting the Regulator’s Bar Without Slowing Down
FOLLOW THE MONEY
The founders who scale fastest aren’t just well funded. They’re financed strategically.
Audience
For founders and CFOs navigating capital – Seed to Series A, VC alternatives, term sheets, strategic investment.
There’s no shortage of advice on how to raise. What founders actually need is a map. This pillar tells the capital story through the companies that have lived it, with founders sharing exactly what they raised, from whom, and why it was the right fit for where they were.
Wherever you are in your journey, someone on stage has been exactly there.
Stage 1:
- Seed to Series A: The Founders Who’ve Made the Journey Share What They Know
- When VC Isn’t the Answer: The Case for Debt, Grants, and Revenue-Based Finance
- How to Build an Investor Engagement Strategy That Attracts the Right Capital
Stage 2:
- Strategic Investment: What Happens When a Corporate Wants In
- Runway Management: How to Make Capital Last Without Killing Growth
- The Term Sheet Decoded: What Founders Get Wrong When Negotiating Investment