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RNS Number : 3245F  Finch Capital  21 May 2026

AI put the brake on SaaS, while it made Financial Technology more valuable
Finch Capital's first State of AI in Financial Tech report: regulation, data and judgement are turning FinTech into the winner of the AI sell-off

European buyout and growth investor Finch Capital today published
(https://www.finchcapital.com/) its inaugural State of AI in Financial Tech
report, arguing that Financial Technology is emerging as a net beneficiary of
the AI wave that sent the wider software industry into turmoil since the
beginning of the year. The report draws on public market data, the Anthropic
Economic Index, and disclosures from leading FinTechs including Klarna, Adyen
and PayPal.

Financial Technology has held up where SaaS has cracked

Since the so-called "SaaSpocalypse" began in January 2026, public market data
tells a clear story. The Finch Capital FinTech Index has fallen 19% from its
peak. A comparable basket of generic SaaS names has fallen 32%, a sell-off
three times as severe at its worst point. FinTech has already bounced 11% off
its low as the market stabilises; SaaS continues to set new lows, down as much
as 33% from peak. In other words: Financial Technology has been less hard hit
by AI as other software and technology sectors.

Why Anthropic's breakthroughs broke SaaS but not Financial Tech

The catalyst is no secret. The sell-off was triggered by a step-change in
frontier model capability, most visibly the release from Anthropic earlier
this year, that made large parts of the generic SaaS workflow stack look
automatable. But the same models that are eroding SaaS moats are reinforcing
the moats that matter in Financial Tech.

Three structural reasons stand out in the report:

●    Regulation: Financial Tech sits behind years of licensing,
supervisory engagement and compliance investment under regimes such as DORA,
PSD3, MiFID II, AMLR, MICA and the EU AI Act. AI can accelerate the work of
compliance -KYC refresh, transaction monitoring, SAR drafting, trade
surveillance, but it cannot manufacture the licences, audit history or
regulator relationships that make a Financial Tech business defensible in the
first place.

●    Proprietary data and approved networks: FinTech moats are built on
transaction data, fraud signals, credit performance and access to scheme- and
bank-approved rails. None of this can be vibe coded.

●    Human judgement: Anthropic's own Economic Index shows Claude is 94%
as capable on Business and Financial tasks as it is on Computer and Math
tasks. Yet only 3% of enterprise AI usage today is in Business and Financial
work, compared with 52% in coding. AI is replacing workflows far faster than
it is replacing the regulated, judgement-heavy decisions at the core of
finance - exactly where Financial Tech operates.

"The consensus narrative is that AI breaks software, and that Financial Tech
is just a regulated flavour of software. We think the consensus is wrong. The
same Anthropic release that triggered the SaaSpocalypse is quietly making
Financial Tech more valuable, not less. AI is brilliant at automating
workflows, but it cannot conjure a banking licence, replicate a decade of
transaction data, or take regulatory responsibility for a credit decision. As
generic SaaS moats erode, FinTech's moats - regulation, proprietary data,
approved networks, human judgement - are being reinforced and this is
particularly true in Europe." says Aman Ghei, Partner at Finch Capital.

A productivity story, not a top-line story, yet!

The report also pushes back on the idea that AI is already showing up in
revenue. FinTech and SaaS revenue growth have converged at around 13%
year-on-year. Where AI is showing up is on the cost side: median revenue per
employee across the FinTech Index jumped 9.8% in a single quarter, while
EBITDA margin moved just 0.6 percentage points - labour productivity is
accelerating, but the savings are migrating into other line items, including a
roughly 4x rise in frontier model inference cost in under a year.

Company disclosures point to 30 to 60% efficiency gains in support, fraud,
onboarding and collections. Klarna alone now reports AI is handling around 66%
of its customer support queries. By 2030, Finch Capital estimates AI will cut
15 to 50% of operating costs across FinTech verticals, but who keeps those
savings will vary sharply by sub-sector. Insurance and RegTech are positioned
to retain them in margin; Payments will see them competed away in price.

"AI is already delivering efficiency gains on core financial technology cost
drivers and accelerating labour productivity. However, the cost of running
frontier models is also ramping up significantly and might be absorbing some
of the savings in the short term. We are seeing business models transforming
for financial technology companies and those with deep moats and high
operating leverage will emerge as the strongest beneficiaries of AI." says
Aman Ghei, Partner at Finch Capital

Where the category winners sit

The report identifies sub-sectors that combine deep compliance moats with high
AI-automation potential - what Finch Capital calls the "regulated AI edge".
Trade surveillance, KYC, fraud detection and insurance underwriting score
highest. Lower-moat areas such as personal finance apps, lead-generation
marketplaces and basic accounting tools are most exposed to AI
commoditisation.

The full 2026 State of AI in Financial Tech report is available at
www.finchcapital.com/research (https://www.finchcapital.com/) .

ENDS

About Finch Capital

For nearly 15 years, Finch Capital has been at the forefront of European
growth and buyout capital, identifying and nurturing the next generation of
financial and regulated technology companies. We combine deep industry
expertise with growth capital to help entrepreneurs build sustainable,
market-leading businesses. Our portfolio includes over 50 companies such as
Fourthline, Goodlord, eFlow, Zopa, AccountsIQ, NomuPay, and Lavanda.

Finch Capital comprises a team of 10 investment professionals across
Amsterdam, London, and Dublin with deep entrepreneurial experience, and
remains committed to partnering with the next generation of FinTech leaders.

 

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