NatWest’s intellectual property-backed lending solution, launched last year in England for growth-stage companies, has clearly found its audience—it’s now set to expand into Scotland through NatWest’s subsidiary, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS). 

Products like this remain rare in Europe’s banking sector. Banks have long lent against tangible assets—inventory, industrial equipment, real estate—but these models no longer meet the needs of today’s knowledge-economy startups, particularly software and AI companies, whose capital is largely intangible and often hard to value.

NatWest’s answer: allow high-growth startups to access financing using their intellectual property as collateral, evaluated by an independent expert, without relying solely on equity raises that dilute ownership—an option that can be tricky in today’s market.

Partner Inngot not only assesses IP market value but also streamlines the process for CFOs. A short questionnaire determines eligibility for free, and in just 30 minutes and under £1,000, the potential funding is quantified and submitted to the bank for a final decision.

NatWest cites recent transactions and notes several Scottish sectors that could benefit from the program—following a regulatory change enabling its rollout there—including gaming, entertainment, and climate-transition initiatives.

Financial institutions are only beginning, slowly, to adapt to the specific needs and constraints of startups and their founders. As NatWest shows, banks must also reckon with the gap between traditional products and the realities of a shifting SME landscape—where deindustrialization has fundamentally changed company profiles and how they fit into conventional lending criteria.

Alongside content specifically tied to its core business and clients’ financial concerns, CaixaBank—long familiar with ventures beyond traditional banking—recently unveiled Esfera, its new online media platform. With a somewhat generalist focus, the initiative is designed to broaden the bank’s audience and expand its influence.

Integrated into both its mobile app and website, and freely accessible to everyone—clients or not—the platform aims to educate, inform, and inspire visitors, while remaining focused on topics where the bank believes it has the legitimacy to speak. To achieve this, it draws on the voices of experts and enthusiasts, presented across a variety of formats—articles, reports, interviews, videos, podcasts—and promises, the bank says, an original perspective.

Centered on a handful of themes dear to CaixaBank (or at least to its marketing department)—global economics, financial health, well-being and social progress, entrepreneurship, sustainability, and innovation—Esfera offers visitors the chance to stay up to date on current events (from markets to national news), discover advice for managing their money or business, explore the bank’s commitments in its domain and sponsorships, or dive into the innovations it introduces to better serve clients.

The stated rationale behind this somewhat surprising initiative (though not unique in the sector) emphasizes a desire to forge a different kind of relationship between the bank and the public, reflected notably in its slogan: where everything connects. The name Esfera itself—the “sphere”—is meant to shed light on, or give meaning to, the accelerated transformations occurring across the globe, enriching understanding of today in order to anticipate tomorrow.

As you might have guessed, I’m not entirely convinced by this pitch. Whatever CaixaBank’s intentions or sincerity, one can’t help but question, as with any financial institution stepping outside its traditional remit, how the target audience will respond to Esfera and to what extent it will be persuaded by the arguments presented—especially in a world saturated with digital information sources.

What adds intrigue to CaixaBank’s move is its long history of offbeat ventures beyond its core business. The most emblematic example is Compra Estrella, an online store for electronics and household appliances that later expanded to a physical location in Málaga in 2018. Everything quietly disappeared, likely due to insufficient traffic. Despite these past setbacks, CaixaBank continues to believe in—and invest in—sectoral diversification.

As major changes loom over its core business of installment payments and other forms of small consumer credit, BNP Paribas subsidiary Floa is quietly venturing into a new area with the upcoming launch of a web-based goal-based savings app—not a revolutionary concept, but still a rarity in France.

The idea is familiar: after signing up—with no commitment or restrictions (you don’t even need to be a Floa customer)—users are invited through an intuitive, playful interface to define one or several personal “dreams” such as a special outing, a big trip, a Christmas gift, or a new phone, each with a target amount and a desired completion date, whether near or far.

Next, users set the parameters for how they’ll save to reach their goal, specifying the amount and frequency of contributions to their savings pot. These deposits can even be triggered by specific life events chosen from a wide range of options—including sports activity, shopping habits, or even the weather. Transfers to the account created during registration are likely handled through open banking mechanisms.

To keep users motivated, the platform includes gamified touches, such as progress trackers and encouraging messages when milestones are reached. Once the target amount is saved (though early withdrawals are always possible), a virtual card allows the user to spend the funds at almost any retailer.

Floa also leverages its expertise in consumer finance to introduce a distinctive feature called Save&Pay: once users have saved half of their target amount, they can make their desired purchase ahead of schedule with a little in-house boost—a three-installment payment plan, possibly without fees. In addition, users gain access to exclusive promotions from Floa’s partner merchants.

It’s a clever approach. Not only does it encourage savers to explore Floa’s broader range of financial products, but it also enables the company to use behavioral data to better assess a customer’s financial reliability. When handled responsibly, this capability can become a powerful tool for promoting sound personal financial management across three key areas: saving, spending, and borrowing.

With the European Consumer Credit Directive—which will impose stricter borrower protection rules—set to take effect next year, Floa is taking an early step forward. Perhaps not in terms of timing, but certainly in terms of purpose. Rather than simply tightening credit checks, its new app, expected to launch in 2026, subtly guides users toward healthier financial habits.

In conclusion, one can only hope this initiative fares better than similar ones within the BNP Paribas Group—such as Didid by Fortis in Belgium, now discontinued, or the past collaborations with Swedish startup Dreams (and previously in Ukraine), which seem to have faded away. Hopefully the lessons from those earlier experiments have been fully absorbed in this new iteration on the same theme.

As the new European regulations on beneficiary verification come into effect, banks across the continent are loudly promoting their efforts to protect customers’ accounts. But few, like Memo Bank, are using this moment to show genuine commitment rather than mere compliance.

For years, fraud levels have been climbing to record highs, with bank account impersonation among the most common tactics. In an ideal world, the financial industry would have swiftly implemented the necessary preventive measures—simple and relatively inexpensive solutions that could have drastically reduced the threat. Instead, inaction prevailed. Nothing was done voluntarily, and the problem has only worsened.

As often happens, regulators eventually stepped in—belatedly—to impose their own requirements. Predictably, these mandates were met with industry complaints about additional burdens and operational complexity. And when deadlines finally arrive, despite the marketing rhetoric, most banks’ approach tends to boil down to bare minimum compliance.

Memo Bank, however, demonstrates that there’s another way. For this digital bank serving small and mid-sized businesses, compliance isn’t just a box-ticking exercise. It’s an opportunity to think about the regulation’s true purpose—and to turn a constraint into a real benefit for clients.

Its new system for beneficiary verification goes well beyond what most competitors offer. The goal isn’t simply to satisfy regulators but to genuinely protect users. Memo Bank verifies beneficiary details as early as the setup phase—rather than at the moment of initiating a transfer—to prevent surprises in time-sensitive situations. It also enriches the verification process with additional data points, such as address information, to ensure greater precision.

Even more interestingly, Memo Bank addresses another dimension of fraud prevention through Memo Bank Protect, a continuous monitoring system that watches over registered accounts. If any linked account is suspected of illicit or risky activity, the client is alerted immediately—without waiting for a transaction to occur. This proactive feature helps users anticipate potential issues (including transaction delays) and limit disruptions to their business operations.

Such an approach deserves to become the norm—both across the financial ecosystem and whenever new regulations arise. After all, the core mission of supervisory authorities, apart from rare missteps, is to protect consumers. Every new compliance requirement should therefore be viewed not as a burden but as a chance to improve relationships, build trust, and strengthen the integrity of financial services.

Less than three years after the splashy debut of ChatGPT, nearly every major financial institution in the world has deployed some form of generative AI for employees. But the next evolution—agentic AI—is already here, and Citi is among the first to begin integrating it into its operations.

Like similar systems developed by its peers, Citi’s proprietary AI platform currently allows employees to query a chatbot in natural language to quickly retrieve information, summarize documents, or prepare presentations—now routine uses for generative AI. Its next iteration, called Citi Stylus Workspaces, takes things a step further by integrating directly with the company’s internal tools, enabling employees to actually execute tasks, not just prepare them.

With this enhancement, users will be able to issue a simple command in English and have their virtual assistant perform the multiple steps of a complex workflow—interacting autonomously with the necessary systems along the way. In many respects, this represents an evolution of robotic process automation (RPA) tools, which themselves have been gradually incorporating AI-driven capabilities in recent years.

That said, it appears—though Citi’s official communications remain vague on this point—that the new system will initially be limited to “administrative” applications. The bank has cited examples such as the corporate directory, online search tools, translation utilities, and data analysis software. For now at least, agentic AI won’t be given access to core banking systems, which remain far too sensitive for autonomous operations.

Citi is taking a cautious, phased approach. The rollout began in September with a few thousand employees, all of whom are receiving specific training to ensure they can not only use the technology effectively but also understand its limitations. This approach is designed to minimize the inevitable risks and errors that could arise as the AI begins handling real work tasks.

Unsurprisingly, the bank’s stated goal is to boost productivity and performance across its workforce—and, despite the optimistic framing, it’s likely they are also aiming to reduce headcount and associated costs. Yet such strategies carry familiar risks. On one hand, they tend to avoid addressing potentially outdated internal processes, instead relying on automation to navigate bureaucratic complexity. On the other, they risk sidelining the very people who possess deep institutional knowledge—knowledge that will be vital when the time comes to untangle that complexity and drive meaningful modernization.


Stay ahead with the latest innovations in financial services