Fintech Magazine September 2026 | Page 29

THE FINTECH INTERVIEW
And it’ s striking because for organisations that have been around for 350 years; these are longstanding institutions.
“[ They ] have become digital businesses whether they liked it or not – their customers pushed them into that model.”
Being digitally native does come with some risks, as Dave warns that some businesses feel vulnerable.“ Previously you were protected, because even if there were huge technological shifts happening in the industry, you could still serve your customers through human touch, the branch or the telephone,” he explains.“ But now that you’ re a digital business, as those technologies change, you have to change with them.”
AI: A double-sided digital coin As banks turn to AI for anything from conversational customer service to some of the first few live end-to-end agentic transactions, Dave refines his view of AI into two neat dimensions: historical, which is closer to machine learning, and agentic.
Machine learning models are the driver for most developments around personalisation as the amount of data gathered increases. This, Dave argues, can be maneuvered into a greater monetisation of data. This change has been ongoing for some time, which is a stark difference to agentic AI. The most notable example is the chatbot. fintechmagazine. com 29