Payment Expert’s Fintech Unwrapped delivers the latest and developing news that has shaped the sector over the course of the week.
This week, Santander has deployed AI for its entire 185,000 workforce from all corners of the globe as it has forecasted to generate over $1bn in AI revenue in the next two years.
Also this week, bunq has launched a Banking-as-a-Service for its European clients, Starling has been inspired by a Netflix crime documentary with its latest scam prevention tool, a former Revolut COO has joined Quint Group, and Wero adds another country it has launched in.
Santander is all-in on AI revenue and usage
Santander has committed to generating more than $1.14bn (€1bn) in AI revenue by 2028 as the bank has made the technology accessible to its 185,000 global workforce.
The new measurement period started in 2026, with €35m in business value generated in Q1. Santander expects this figure to increase further in Q2 and is on track to exceed €200m by the end of the year.
The bank revealed 17,000 people have been using AI within Santander’s software with more than 40% of code developed in June. Santander currently has more than 280 automated agents within its production.
Santander has also been deploying AI within its digital banking platform, Openbank. The AI models adopted into Openbank have seen it process over 100,000 anti-money laundering alerts per year.
Ricardo Martín Manjón, Chief Data & AI Officer at Banco Santander, said: “AI becomes truly powerful when it is progressively embedded in how we serve customers, support analysis, make processes faster and get work done. That is already happening across Santander, within clear ethical, legal, cybersecurity and risk frameworks.
bunq’s BaaS to streamline European business payments
Europe’s second-largest neobank, bunq, has launched a Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS), labelled ‘bunq-as-a-service’.
The BaaS software will be offered to European clients to manage funds and issue cards, managing loyalty programmes and subscription functionalities that will be embedded into their payment services. It follows bunq attempts to crack the US market earlier this year.
bunq-as-a-Service aims to modernise payments by offering instant settlements and digital wallet payments such as Google Pay, Apple Pay, and more. Additionally, the BaaS platform deploys instant on-and-off ramping of fiat currencies, and serves as an all-in-one financial operating system for clients’ users.
Joe Wilson, Chief Evangelist at bunq, said: “For years, we’ve been obsessed with building technology that simplifies life for our users. With bunq-as-a-Service, we’re taking that mission a step further by empowering the most innovative companies in Europe to do the same.”
“It’s our license, our compliance, our infrastructure but the partners own the user journey and focus on what they do best: creating exceptional experiences for their users.”
‘Tinder Swindler’ doc inspired Starling’s AI romance scam tool
Starling Bank launched a new romance scam detection tool to be built in-app after finding inspiration from a victim from the Netflix crime documentary, ‘The Tinder Swindler’.
The new tool uses scam intelligence AI to detect romance scams in real-time, as well as up to 10 other fraud methods, including pension, deepfake and investment scams.
Bernadette Smith, Chief Customer and Banking Officer at Starling Bank, said: “Fraud must be stopped at source, but without effective collaboration from the social media platforms where most scams originate, it’s up to individuals and their banks to keep the scammers at bay.”
The new Starling fraud detection tool was developed with advice from Cecilie Fjellhøy, a victim of a sophisticated romance scam which was highlighted in The Tinder Swindler documentary. Fjellhøy lost nearly £200,000 and helped Starling to analyse and identify common romance scam behaviours.
“Sometimes it needs someone or something objective, like your bank, to help you see the scammer’s behaviours for what they really are,” said Fjellhøy. “It’s great to have been involved in helping bring this feature to life and see it make a difference to people’s lives.”
Ex-Revolut COO is Quint Group’s latest high-profile appointment
Acquired.com parent company Quint Group has appointed former Revolut Chief Operating Officer, Laurence Krieger, as its latest Director.
Krieger will help the company accelerate growth of Quint Group’s portfolio businesses and assist in its M&A strategy as Quint explores aggregation opportunities across payments and credit.
Krieger’s appointment as Director is the latest in a series of high-profile hires at Quint Group, following Eline Blomme [ex-Worldline] and Lee Clifton [ex-Stripe and JP Morgan] at Acquired.com, among others.
He was an early senior leader at Revolut, serving as COO during a period of rapid growth and international expansion, before joining Tide from the startup stage, where he held senior
C-suite roles and became CEO in early 2021. Krieger will report to CEO Greg Cox.
“Having been a keen follower of its phenomenal success so far, I’m incredibly excited to help Quint Group meet the huge potential it has,” said Krieger. “Greg’s focus and financial discipline have become ingrained in the firm’s DNA, and I’m looking forward to working closely with him to help fulfil Quint’s enormous potential as a leader of businesses in payments and credit.”
Wero adds Austria to its growing European footprint
Erste Bank Oesterreich has joined the European Payments Initiative (EPI) and will support the rollout of Wero across Austria.
Erste Bank will make Wero available to its customers and is the EPI’s answer to reduce the reliance of Visa and Mastercard in Europe. Wero enables free and instant account-to-account payments.
Austria becomes the latest European country Wero is active in, following France, Germany, the Netherlands and Luxembourg’s adoption of the digital payment.
Gerda Holzinger-Burgstaller, CEO Erste Bank Oesterreich: “We have a proven track record in providing our customers with secure and convenient innovations as well as a freedom of choice for their payment solutions.
“We continue this philosophy by adding Wero to our services, having proven to be a compelling and secure solution. As a shareholder of EPI, we aim to not only provide this solution to our clients, but also take an active role in shaping it.”
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