2026 FinTech Predictions: Insights from Wolf Ruzicka of Unlimit

I spoke with Wolf Ruzicka, Chief Commercial Officer at Unlimit, a global fintech company serving over 50,000 businesses and 1 billion users worldwide.

Wolf shares his perspective on how infrastructure, stablecoins, and AI will fundamentally reshape financial services over the coming years.

Over to you Wolf - my questions are in bold:

What's the biggest shift you expect across financial services in 2026?

The biggest shift will be the move from financial products to next-generation financial infrastructure. By 2026, differentiation will no longer come from launching another wallet, card, or user interface, but from controlling resilient, compliant, and programmable rails that move money globally in real time. Financial services are transitioning from product-led innovation to infrastructure-led competition.

Payments, treasury, liquidity management, and digital assets are rapidly converging into a single global stack. Stablecoins, real-time payment schemes, and API-driven banking are turning money into a software layer: programmable, interoperable, and available 24/7 across borders. This is fundamentally changing how capital moves, how businesses manage cash, and how financial services scale globally.

At the same time, regulatory complexity and fragmentation are increasing, making infrastructure the hardest and most valuable problem to solve. Institutions that can streamline regulatory, compliance, FX, and settlement complexity behind a unified platform will win.

In 2026 and beyond, the leaders in financial services will be infrastructure companies at their core: firms that combine global licensing, AI-driven orchestration, and programmable money to enable seamless global commerce.

Which emerging technology will have the most practical impact on banks and the FinTechs that support them?

Stablecoins, when combined with AI-driven orchestration, will have the most profound and practical impact. Stablecoins are no longer speculative instruments, they are becoming settlement tools that operate 24/7, reduce friction, and dramatically lower cross-border costs. AI, meanwhile, will sit above this infrastructure to optimise routing, risk, compliance, and liquidity in real time.

Together, stablecoins and AI transform payments from a static, rigid process into an intelligent, adaptive system. This combination allows banks and fintechs to move money securely, compliantly, and globally, while delivering a level of transparency, speed, and control that legacy infrastructure cannot match.

What customer behaviours or expectations will most challenge banks and financial service providers?

Customers now expect financial services to work like modern technology platforms: instant, always available, borderless, and invisible. They do not differentiate between domestic and international payments, or between traditional and digital money. The biggest challenge for banks will be meeting these expectations while operating on legacy systems designed for batch processing, limited operating hours, and country-by-country fragmentation.

What risks or blind spots do you think the industry is underestimating as we move into 2026?

The industry is underestimating how quickly infrastructure risk becomes existential risk. Legacy systems are not just inefficient, they are fragile, slow and difficult to adapt to new regulatory or market demands. There is also a tendency to view regulation as a constraint rather than a competitive opportunity. In reality, compliant global infrastructure has already become one of the most valuable competitive advantages in our industry.

If you were advising a bank's leadership team today, what strategic priority should they focus on to stay competitive in 2026 and beyond?

I would advise them to invest decisively in modern, integrated, and globally compliant payment infrastructure that leverages both AI-powered orchestration and stablecoins, either by building it in-house or by partnering strategically with those who have already developed it. This is not merely an IT upgrade, but a strategic transformation crucial for remaining competitive in the new financial reality. Banks that position themselves as platforms enabling seamless global commerce will remain relevant. Those that continue to treat infrastructure as a back-office function risk becoming utilities within someone else's ecosystem.

Thank you Wolf! You can connect with Wolf on his LinkedIn Profile and find out more about the company at www.unlimit.com.