1) The Agentic Bank 2) EU Banks launch Stablecoin 3) The Core Banking Opportunity 4) Big Finance bets $104 mn on crypto

Welcome to my newsletter! Each week a few hand-picked topics from the world of fintech, payments and banking with behind-the-scenes analysis!

1) The Agentic Bank

It’s an oxymoron. But the AI bank debate ended before it even began. Banking is moving from customer- to agent-centric. And agentic banking is the real shift.

Three structural shifts are taking place:

• 𝗙𝗿𝗼𝗻𝘁-𝗲𝗻𝗱: Banks have always built tools to own the customer relationship - apps, portals, distribution channels. But agents will increasingly sit between customers and banks, making recommendations, negotiating, and even executing on their behalf. The entire customer journey is turned inside out, and banks need strategies to be discoverable, interoperable, and trusted by agents.

• 𝗕𝗮𝗰𝗸-𝗲𝗻𝗱: Core banking was once the heart of the bank - where accounts, ledgers, and transactions lived. Now agents are creating a new brain layer on top, orchestrating credit, risk, compliance, and operations in real time. Static legacy rules are replaced by adaptive reasoning powered by knowledge graphs, expertise, and reinforcement learning. The bank’s intelligence is migrating out of the core and into an agentic layer.

• 𝗢𝗿𝗴𝗮𝗻𝗶𝘇𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: Banks have long relied on hierarchies of people, processes, and departments. With agents acting as co-pilots and co-pilots evolving into autopilots, every role in the bank will be augmented or reshaped. This is an entirely different operating model where agents collaborate with humans, redefining how work is organized, supervised, and delivered.

These aren’t theoretical shifts - they’re already being put into practice. Huawei, a major provider of financial infrastructure, has released the 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗔𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗕𝗼𝗼𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿: a Financial Intelligent Agent Accelerator built to help banks move from pilots to full-scale commercialization.

FinAgent Booster is part of Huawei’s Digital Finance positioning – the application scenarios below are eye-opening:

• 𝗖𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗷𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗲𝘆𝘀: Accuracy, memory, and latency have long limited digital banking. Huawei employs a master-slave agent framework to interpret intent and coordinate tasks, a memory system that learns from context and past interactions, and full-chain optimization to ensure instant responses. The outcome is akin to a dedicated banker for every client.

• 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻-𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴: Agents are becoming the bank’s new decision layer. Thousands of reasoning chains and past insights are encoded into models that continuously learn and adapt.

• 𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀: Agents are being embedded to augment every role across the organization. Intelligent contact centres route customer needs to the right resources, insight hubs act as decision-making headquarters, and role-based agents support clients, loan officers, and back-office staff.

For banks, the agentic clock is already ticking.

Opinions: Panagiotis Kriaris, Graphic sources: Huawei, Panagiotis Kriaris

2) EU Banks launch Stablecoin

This was long overdue. European banks are finally stepping into the stablecoin play. Here’s the context you won’t find in the headlines.

Stablecoins are the most serious challenger to the banks’ business model:

• Instead of money sitting in bank accounts, it moves into tokens. For banks, that can erode their cheapest and most stable source of funding.

• Stablecoins enable instant, on-chain settlement across borders, cutting banks out of payment flows and fee pools tied to card schemes and correspondent networks.

• Stablecoins operate 24/7 and settle in real time, allowing corporates to manage liquidity continuously - and threatening banks’ cash-management revenues.

And yet if banks don’t adopt stablecoins, they risk being pushed out of the digital money layer entirely.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁

Nearly the entire stablecoin market - about 99% - is tied to the US dollar.

Why?

• The dollar is the world’s reserve currency and the dominant settlement asset in trade and finance.

• Stablecoin providers peg to USD because that’s where institutional demand and deep liquidity are.

• The more activity that happens in USD stablecoins, the harder it becomes for other currencies to gain adoption.

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗺𝗲𝗮𝗻𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗘𝘂𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗲

• European banks and corporates risk becoming price-takers in a dollar-denominated digital ecosystem. Even if a payment moves between two European parties, if it’s in USD stablecoins, it runs through US-centric infrastructure.

• Because euro liquidity in stablecoins is still thin, Europe lacks the depth to build robust digital financial rails of its own – leaving banks and corporates dependent on dollar flows.

• Without credible euro-based stablecoins, Europe risks losing the race in programmable money and embedded finance.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹𝗲

The above is exactly what the banks’ coalition wants to address.

• A euro stablecoin gives European banks and corporates digital money in their own currency.

• Via the euro stablecoin banks get to keep deposits and yield, unlock new revenues, stay central to digital markets, and align with regulators’ push for sovereign, supervised money.

• MiCA (the European digital assets regulation) forces issuers to hold fully backed, transparent reserves, audited under EU supervision.

• A euro stablecoin needs scale, liquidity, and trust — no bank can achieve that alone, but many banks together can pool balance sheets, customers, and credibility to make it viable.

• Banks can embed the stablecoin directly into accounts, treasury products, and settlement systems from day one.

• European corporates will prefer a euro-native stablecoin for settlement, liquidity, and embedded finance over USD tokens that expose them to FX risk and US regulatory dependence.

The question is: will European banks manage to break the dollar’s stablecoin monopoly?

Opinions: Panagiotis Kriaris

3) The Core Banking Opportunity

Core banking is mid-sized banks’ greatest handicap. Thousands of smaller banks are stuck on outdated infrastructure. And yet very few players are paying attention to this multi-billion gap.

𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗯𝗮𝗻𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴:

• Core banking systems are back-end software that banks use to manage their most critical processes, from transactions to accounts and to all kinds of day-to-day operational needs.

• Originally developed in the 1960s and 1970s, they are instrumental for banks: they influence costs, time-to-market, operational efficiency, and product sophistication. In essence the ability to innovate.

• Initially seen as the banks’ competitive edge, they have gradually turned into a handicap as their performance and sophistication can no longer match the needs of a digital world and competition from challenger players.

Today, core banking transformation is the jargon used by banks to modernize their infrastructure with 3 shifts standing out:

1) The move from in-house systems to the cloud

2) The adoption of open, modular microservices (breaking the core into small, independent building blocks)

3) AI as a foundational layer

𝗠𝗶𝗱-𝘀𝗶𝘇𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝗮𝗻𝗸𝘀:

For the largest banks, transformation is a multi-billion, multi-year journey. At the other end, fintechs can build greenfield platforms. Small and mid-sized banks sit in between: too complex to rely on lightweight fintech platforms, too small to justify the cost and risk of mega-projects.

What smaller banks need instead:

• Modular cores they can adopt step-by-step

• OPEX-friendly delivery with fast payback, vs heavy upfront CAPEX with delayed value.

• Real ecosystems: APIs, partners, and embedded finance options out of the box.

𝗧𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗱𝘀:

That gap is both smaller banks’ main pain point and the industry’s biggest opportunity.

And specialised players are stepping in.

Natech is a good example. It has long served regional banks with reliable core systems, but with its recent funding round it aims to become the go-to choice for mid-sized banks and FIs.

The playbook is absolutely spot-on and shows what the industry should be doing:

• Leverage AI to give smaller banks the same advanced capabilities their largest peers have enjoyed — out of the box and in a way they can roll out incrementally and affordably: mass personalization on the distribution side, smarter credit decisioning, real-time fraud detection, and automated compliance and reporting — all without multi-million IT budgets.

• Growth for mid-sized banks has long been confined to their own branches and apps. Natech’s API-first, cloud-native core unlocks embedded finance — allowing banks to distribute payments, lending, and deposits directly through retailers, fintechs, and digital platforms.

The next generation of core banking transformation will increasingly be customized and segment specific.

Opinions: Panagiotis Kriaris, Graphic source: Natech banking solutions

4) Big Finance bets $104 mn on crypto

This goes far beyond the headlines. Why would major financial players, including Morgan Stanley, pour $104 million into a crypto startup?

If you want to buy Bitcoin or stablecoins today, most people go to a crypto exchange like Coinbase or Binance. That’s where they open an account, move money over, and trade or hold their digital assets. In other words, exchanges are the on-ramp into the digital asset economy — the entry point where everyday users first gain access to buying, selling, and holding crypto.

But here’s the problem: for end-users, it means opening and maintaining a separate account outside their trusted bank, broker, or payments app.

For financial institutions, it means watching value (and customer relationships) flow out of their ecosystem.

Zerohash raised $104 mn exactly because it solves this problem. It gives institutions a new model for delivering digital assets.

Founded in 2017, it builds the invisible infrastructure that lets banks, brokerages, fintechs, and payments companies offer crypto and stablecoin services inside their own platforms.

• A brokerage can let clients buy and hold Bitcoin without sending them to Coinbase.

• A payments company can settle transactions instantly in stablecoins.

• An asset manager can tokenize funds and distribute them globally.

Zerohash manages the critical components — custody, compliance, settlement, licensing — via APIs, enabling institutions to launch faster without taking on the full regulatory and operational weight of an exchange build.

This is about infrastructure — building the layer that brings digital assets into the mainstream of finance.

By embedding crypto, stablecoins, and tokenized assets directly into banks, brokers, and payments apps, customers can stay within the platforms they already trust. For end-users, it means seamless access to digital assets without opening new accounts. For institutions, it means retaining relationships while delivering the next generation of financial products.

𝗦𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗵𝗲𝗱 𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗮 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗯𝗲 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗿𝘂𝗽𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝘆 𝗱𝗶𝗴𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗲𝘁𝘀. In that context, the $104 mn might actually be a bargain.

Opinions: Panagiotis Kriaris, Graphic source: CBNC