Zurich’s Swiss Fintech Awards 2026 made one thing very visible. Across every finalist, AI is no longer a separate capability. It sits directly inside banking operations, ERP systems, and compliance-heavy workflows.

The shift is not about experimentation anymore. It is about implementation at scale inside regulated environments.

AI inside real financial infrastructure

Every finalist at this year’s awards used AI in a core part of their product. Fraud prevention, automation, governance, and operational workflows all relied on AI systems in some form.

What matters here is the placement. AI is not being added as a layer on top of existing fintech products. It is being embedded into the processes those products are built to run.

That changes how fintech companies design, deploy, and maintain systems, especially in regulated markets like Switzerland.

Porters and BLP show two execution paths

In the Early Stage category, Porters was awarded for its work on agentic AI in banking operations. The company focuses on automating back-office banking processes through structured AI-driven workflows. The direction is clear: reduce manual operational load and standardise execution for financial institutions.

In the Growth Stage category, BLP was recognised for ERP automation using AI agents and digital twins of existing enterprise systems. Their approach avoids replacing core infrastructure. Instead, it layers automation on top of systems companies already run, enabling end-to-end process handling without full system overhauls.

Both winners point to the same underlying pattern. AI is being used to reduce complexity in operations rather than introduce entirely new operating environments.

Open Banking as long-term infrastructure work

The Fintech Influencers of the Year award went to Sven Siat and Mike Hofmann for their long-term contribution to Open Banking in Switzerland.

Their work around bLink and the development of a standardised Open Banking ecosystem reflects a different type of fintech progress. Less visible product execution, more foundational infrastructure building across the financial sector.

The recognition highlights how ecosystem-level work is now part of what the industry values alongside startup growth.

Key takeaways for fintech startups

A few clear signals from this year’s winners:

• AI is now a baseline requirement in fintech product design
  
  
• The strongest use cases are tied to operational and enterprise workflows
  
  
• Integration with existing banking and ERP systems is more important than replacement
  
  
• Agent-based automation is becoming a practical model, not a concept stage idea
  
  
• Infrastructure work, especially in Open Banking, is gaining long-term recognition

Closing thought

This year’s awards point to a fintech sector focused on execution inside existing systems rather than rebuilding them from scratch. AI is now part of how those systems function day to day.

If you are working on a fintech story and want to shape how it is positioned in this shift, reach out to Your Fintech Story.