Over the last 15 years, the fintech sector has transformed, from early digital extensions of physical bank branches to the rise of neobanks focused on sleek, easy-to-use interfaces.
According to Sifted data, a staggering €13bn flowed into European fintech in 2025 with €4.3bn raised this year already. If investment continues at its current pace, the sector will have raised roughly €11.7bn by the end of this year.
Now, the industry is entering a new phase. A new generation of companies are rethinking banking as an integrated layer embedded into business operations.
Between logging into three different bank accounts and checking fragmented invoicing and cashflow tools, figuring out finances is often a nightmare for startups and small businesses.
“The problem is fragmentation, rather than the actual user experience,” says Deniz Guven, group CEO of finance platform Wamo. Guven believes fintech is no longer about building a better-looking digital bank but about building a connected operating system that brings tools together and helps to run entire businesses seamlessly. A new wave of fintechBefore the 2010s, fintech primarily operated as a digital version of physical bank branches, with onboarding requiring paperwork and transactions taking days to clear.
