Wolf&Grayson EditorialCustomers have changed how they buy financial services, assembling their own mix of providers for payments, credit, foreign exchange, and lending. A consumer might use one app for daily spending, another for buy now, pay later, a third for international transfers and yet another for savings or credit.
Traditional banks often retain the current account, but they are losing access to the high-margin products that generate long-term value. Over time, that erosion weakens the relationship itself, leaving banks with data-rich but commercially thin connections that are increasingly easy for customers to abandon.
The fintech opportunities that matter most today reflect deeper shifts in how financial services are designed, delivered and experienced, shaped by customers who now expect relevance rather than routine. “The most compelling fintech opportunities are driven by changes in customer behavior that many institutions still underestimate,” says Nicki Bull Bisgaard, Founder and Group CEO at PayTech Group, a global payments consultancy and technology group.
These opportunities share one defining characteristic: they start with a deep understanding of what customers actually need, and use technology to meet those needs with precision. Bisgaard sees a widening gap between institutions that are still organized around products and campaigns, and those that are rethinking financial services around relevance, intelligence and timing.
A Structural Shift in Where Value Is Created
At the heart of today’s disruption is a shift in where value is created and captured. Traditional banks have spent decades assuming they own the primary relationship with customers. That assumption is now breaking down. “The biggest battle banks are losing is control of the user interface to financial services,” he says. “There’s no reason the way banks operate today that they should own that interface.”
Specialised providers are increasingly delivering payments, foreign exchange, credit and lending through intuitive digital experiences. Open banking regulation and modern APIs have lowered barriers to entry, allowing new players to integrate seamlessly into customers’ financial lives. The result is a quiet but profound reallocation of value. High-margin products migrate to focused providers, while incumbents are left with commoditised current accounts.
Customers are voting with their feet, adopting new services without formally “leaving” their banks. Loyalty, often measured through current account retention, masks the reality that profitable relationships are fragmenting.
AI as the Engine of Relevance
Artificial intelligence is the accelerant behind this shift when it is applied at a structural level. “AI is changing financial services. AI is changing everything,” he says. “And we’re still in the early days.”
The real opportunity lies in re-engineering how financial services understand and respond to customers. “What I need is relevant information, delivered at the right time,” he says, speaking this time as a customer. After a decade with the same business bank, Bisgaard’s assigned account manager was unable to articulate even basic facts about the company’s operations, despite all the relevant data sitting within transaction histories.
When applied properly, AI transforms static data into contextual insight. It enables financial services to anticipate needs, identify patterns and communicate with precision.
Separating Signal From Noise In Fintech
From Bisgaard’s perspective, genuine fintech opportunities share a clear set of attributes. They are real-time, relevant, intelligent, AI-powered, and enabled by open banking. “If you tick two or three of those boxes,” he says, “you’re off to the races.”
What matters is its ability to solve a real problem at the moment it arises. Campaign-driven models, built around selling predetermined products at fixed times, are increasingly disconnected from how customers operate.
“When a bank sends you an offer that’s completely irrelevant, it tells you two things,” Bisgaard says. “They don’t know anything about you, and they don’t really care.”
This disconnect erodes trust quickly. Customers do not object to being sold to, but they do object to being misunderstood. Once that trust is broken, winning it back becomes exceptionally difficult.
Precision Banking and the Power of Timing
All of these threads converge in what Bisgaard describes as precision banking. It is an approach grounded in using existing data intelligently, rather than expanding teams or layering on complexity. “It’s about providing the services people actually need, exactly when they need them,” he says.
Precision banking applies across consumer, business and corporate segments, and it is not limited to traditional banks. Any financial services provider that can combine intelligence with timing has the opportunity to redefine customer relationships.
Regulation, often seen as a brake on innovation, plays a supportive role here. Bisgaard is a strong advocate for frameworks that reinforce customer data ownership and open access. “The customer owns the data,” he says. “Open banking is one of the most supportive regulations we’ve ever seen for innovation.”
Customer Centricity as a Competitive Advantage
For all the sophistication of modern fintech, Bisgaard returns to a simple but often overlooked principle: true customer centricity is not a slogan, it is an operating discipline.
“It’s providing what I need at the point in time I need it,” he says. “Not because you’re running a campaign.”
Early-stage companies that internalise this mindset, and apply it with modern technology, are well positioned to capture value that incumbents continue to overlook. Those that fail to do so risk becoming increasingly irrelevant, regardless of their scale or history.
Follow Nicki Bull Bisgaard on LinkedIn for more insights on fintech, payments and AI, or visit his website.
