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Prudence, Profits, and Growth: A New Formula for Winning in Fintech

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Global Fintech Revenues Grew Robustly in 2023; Valuations and Funding Remain Depressed but Have Stabilized RecentlyThemes Shaping the Industry Include Embedded Finance, Connected Commerce, Open Banking, and Generative AI’s Impact on Productivity

BOSTON, June 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — While the fintech industry has navigated choppy waters in recent years, there is vast potential for future growth. As the sector matures, the rules of the game are changing, with a greater focus on unit economics and profitability over growth at all costs. From 2021 to 2023, global fintech revenues grew by 14% (at a compounded annual growth rate) while both funding and valuations plummeted. Key fintech players have achieved profitability and are scaling rapidly.

This is according to a new report released today by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and QED Investors. The report, Global Fintech 2024: Prudence, Profits, and Growth, draws on insights from interviews with more than 60 global fintech CEOs and investors to outline the key forces shaping the industry and the trends that will drive innovation.

“Profitability and compliance are now the cornerstones of fintech success,” says Deepak Goyal, BCG managing director and senior partner and co-author of the report. “They are essential for attracting continued investment, scaling operations, and building lasting, valuable companies.”

“With an annual global profit pool of $3.2 trillion on a base of $14 trillion of total revenue, the financial services industry is both massive and ripe for innovation,” says QED Investors Managing Partner Nigel Morris. “Fintechs are growing faster than incumbents and, while the $320 billion of fintech revenue represents less than 3% today, the exponential advances in GenAI and continued growth in embedded finance means we’re still in the early innings of fintech’s journey, where the separation of winners and losers is becoming apparent.”

A New Fintech Ecosystem Is Emerging

Coming off the highs of 2021, fintech revenue valuation multiples have fallen from 20x to 4x on average, and funding is down by 70%—and almost 50% in the last year. However, the global fintech market has continued to grow revenues at a robust pace: 14% over the past two years across the board, and 21% when crypto– and China-exposed fintechs are excluded (both at a compounded annual growth rate). Governments, especially in countries such as Brazil and India, are reaping the benefits of investment in integrated digital public infrastructure, spurring dramatic growth in digital payments and innovation on top. Perhaps more notably, the industry has initiated a shift from a “growth at all costs” model to one focused on profitable growth, with margins improving by 9 percentage points on average.

Four Themes Will Shape the Future of Fintech

The report outlines four trends that will drive the industry in the coming years:

Embedded finance will be a $320 billion market by 2030. The small and medium-size business (SMB) segment will account for about half ($150 billion); the consumer segment—already humming with activity and adoption in payments, insurance, and lending—will be worth $120 billion revenue by 2030; and the enterprise segment will reach $50 billion in revenue. Established fintechs will continue to reap the lion’s share of the near-term benefits, while larger, more established banks will increasingly grow share over time.

Connected commerce is poised for liftoff. Connected commerce is emerging as a long-awaited killer app for banks, creating a new revenue stream, increasing customer loyalty, and enabling banks to offer a marketing channel to their SMB and enterprise customers. Using granular customer data, banks surface hyper-tailored ads to their customers; merchants then pay the bank based on either attributable sales or traffic. As core revenue streams continue to come under pressure, and as deposits risk becoming commoditized in a higher-yield environment, connected commerce hints at a future model for banks.

Open banking will have a modest impact on banking, but a greater impact on advertising. Open banking will continue to be relevant, but is unlikely to change the basis of competition in consumer banking. In countries where open banking has had a decade or more to mature, no “killer” use case has emerged on the new service front. Of course, this is not to say that open banking will have no impact. But revenue pools in the connectivity layer will remain modest, with value accruing to the ultimate use-case providers leveraging open banking infrastructure. By contrast, in advertising, access to transaction-level data will enable more timely, targeted, and personal offers.

Generative AI will be a game changer now for productivity, with product innovation to follow. GenAI is already delivering tangible productivity gains in financial services. For GenAI in fintech, given their “digital-first” cost structures are heavily weighted toward areas where the technology is delivering huge gains—coding, customer support, and digital marketing—the impact is likely to be even more pronounced in the near term. The use of GenAI in product innovation will lag behind its uses for productivity, but is expected to follow eventually.

To thrive in this new environment, players will need to focus on the following:

Prudence. Seeing risk and compliance as competitive advantageProfit. Aiming to improve profitability by 25 percentage pointsGrowth. Setting the conditions for sustainable growth across the ecosystemFor fintechs: Beginning the journey to IPO (or strategic sale) and beyondFor incumbents: Retail banks need to become digital engagement platformsFor governments: Support the creation of comprehensive and integrated digital public infrastructure

Download the publication here:
https://www.bcg.com/publications/2024/global-fintech-prudence-profits-and-growth

Media Contacts:

Boston Consulting Group
Eric Gregoire
+1 617 850 3783
gregoire.eric@bcg.com

QED Investors
Ashley Marshall
+1 518 577-9984
ashley@qedinvestors.com

About QED Investors
QED Investors is a global leading venture capital firm based in Alexandria, Va. Founded by Nigel Morris and Frank Rotman in 2007, QED Investors is focused on investing in disruptive financial services companies worldwide. QED Investors is dedicated to building great businesses and uses a unique, hands-on approach that leverages its partners’ decades of entrepreneurial and operational experience, helping companies achieve breakthrough growth. Notable investments include AvidXchange, Betterfly, Bitso, Caribou, ClearScore, Creditas, Credit Karma, Current, Flywire, Kavak, Klarna, Konfio, Loft, Mission Lane, Nubank, QuintoAndar, Remitly, SoFi, Wagestream and Wayflyer.

About Boston Consulting Group
Boston Consulting Group partners with leaders in business and society to tackle their most important challenges and capture their greatest opportunities. BCG was the pioneer in business strategy when it was founded in 1963. Today, we work closely with clients to embrace a transformational approach aimed at benefiting all stakeholders—empowering organizations to grow, build sustainable competitive advantage, and drive positive societal impact.

Our diverse, global teams bring deep industry and functional expertise and a range of perspectives that question the status quo and spark change. BCG delivers solutions through leading-edge management consulting, technology and design, and corporate and digital ventures. We work in a uniquely collaborative model across the firm and throughout all levels of the client organization, fueled by the goal of helping our clients thrive and enabling them to make the world a better place.

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SOURCE Boston Consulting Group (BCG)

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KBR Launches Inaugural Innovation Studio Powered by Applied Computing in Bengaluru

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BENGALURU, India, June 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — KBR (NYSE: KBR) launched its inaugural Innovation Studio, powered by Applied Computing, in Bengaluru, India, establishing a base from which the two will deliver industrial AI from India.

Co-located with Applied Computing’s Bengaluru office, the studio serves as KBR’s operational hub for remote monitoring and advisory services delivered through INSITE 3.0, powered by Applied Computing’s Orbital Platform. The collaboration is built on combining Applied Computing’s foundation AI for energy with KBR’s process technology. The hub will deliver remote monitoring and advisory services to KBR’s existing global industrial customers, while also serving as the foundation for deploying the new INSITE 3.0 AI capability to the first wave of customers later this year.

In March, KBR launched INSITE 3.0, its digital delivery platform powered by Orbital, marking the first product to integrate the foundation model with KBR’s process technology expertise.

At the studio’s opening event last week, KBR leadership hosted members of the media as well as subject matter experts, experienced field engineers, operations and maintenance specialists. The launch event offered a first look at the facility and a live demonstration of INSITE 3.0 in action.

Hari Ravindran, SVP and Global Head of Technology Solutions, KBR, said: “The Innovation Studio reflects KBR’s commitment to building deep technology partnerships in India and investing in the future of industrial operations here. Co-locating the KBR Innovation Studio, staffed by our operational experts, alongside Applied Computing’s engineering team base, brings the best of both together: decades of process technology knowledge and a foundation model built specifically for energy. This is a long-term commitment to our customers in the region and to the engineers and specialists who will deliver for them.”

Dan Jeavons, President of Applied Computing, said: “India is where the future of industrial AI is being decided. The scale of operations, the pace of growth and the willingness to adopt advanced technologies are unmatched anywhere in the world. This studio launch is our chance to show, in a live control room, what foundation AI built for energy can actually do. Orbital is already delivering results at some of the largest refineries on the planet, and bringing the industry together in Bengaluru is the clearest signal yet of where we believe this technology is heading.”

Read more about how KBR and Applied Computing are working together to advance AI in the energy sector on kbr.com.
Learn more about Orbital at appliedcomputing.com.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/kbr-launches-inaugural-innovation-studio-powered-by-applied-computing-in-bengaluru-302801331.html

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Dun & Bradstreet Becomes the Trusted Partner for Global Agentic Workflows Through Integrations with Anthropic, OpenAI and Microsoft

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HONG KONG, June 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Dun & Bradstreet recently announced a series of collaborations with OpenAI, Microsoft and Anthropic, bringing the D&B Commercial Graph™ into their respective platform ecosystems. Users can now access Dun & Bradstreet data across leading AI platforms including ChatGPT, Codex, Microsoft 365 Copilot and Claude.

The collaborations represent an important step in embedding trusted business data into agentic workflows. As enterprises increasingly adopt AI to support research, analysis, onboarding, compliance, finance and risk decisioning, access to verified, structured and continuously updated business information is becoming essential to improving confidence, consistency and governance in AI-powered outcomes.

D&B Commercial Graph Powers the Core Data Foundation for the AI Era

As artificial intelligence continues to advance into the agentic era, enterprises increasingly require high quality data that is structured, contextualized and machine readable. AI agents supporting complex workflows, including due diligence, compliance screening, financial analysis and business decision making, rely on trusted data to generate accurate, reliable and actionable insights.

Anchored by the D-U-N-S® Number business identifier, the D&B Commercial Graph™ provides a foundational context layer for understanding business identity, relationships and risk across the global economy. Only with verified business information can agents deliver true business value and ROI in finance and risk management scenarios.

The D&B Commercial Graph™ integrates public and proprietary commercial signals, as well as directly contributed business information, to create a continuously validated view of business identity, ownership, supplier relationships, financials, and risk indicators. The result is an authoritative view of how businesses connect and operate globally. With more than 100 billion verifications, tests, and checks each month, D&B’s Commercial Graph™ delivers coverage, accuracy, consistency, and governance across enterprise systems and AI applications.

Building on this foundation, Dun & Bradstreet is working with leading AI platforms to embed a trusted data layer directly into enterprise workflows.

Collaboration with OpenAI: Bringing Verified Business Context into Finance Workflows

Dun & Bradstreet has collaborated with OpenAI to enable users to access the D&B Commercial Graph™ in ChatGPT and Codex via Model Context Protocol, or MCP, servers. The integration allows financial professionals to bring verified business identity, ownership, relationship, credit and risk data directly into their workflows to accelerate due diligence, financial reporting, validation, guidance and credit origination.

Through D&B-hosted MCP servers, customers can securely connect Dun & Bradstreet data to ChatGPT and Codex, using natural language prompts and custom agents to streamline data-intensive workflows. Users can also access D&B Finance Analytics tools via MCP servers to support automated business credit decisions, powered by real-time insight into hundreds of millions of businesses and a rules-based engine. This enables finance teams to identify and manage risk across portfolios within a headless AI architecture.

“AI is quickly becoming a core part of how organizations make decisions across finance, risk, and growth, and its impact depends on the quality of the data behind it,” said Scott Spencer, General Manager, Finance & Credit at Dun & Bradstreet. “By bringing the D&B Commercial Graph into ChatGPT and Codex, we’re meeting customers where they are working. This helps teams of all sizes, including small and mid-sized businesses, to embrace the power of AI with confidence in their workflows.”

Collaboration with Microsoft: Bringing Verified Business Data into Microsoft 365 Copilot

Through its collaboration with Microsoft, Dun & Bradstreet has made its Graph Connector available in Microsoft 365 Copilot, giving developers and enterprises no-cost access to a curated sample of data from the D&B Commercial Graph™. This allows users to explore how verified business data can support use cases such as research, business identification and workflow enhancement within Copilot.”

The D&B Graph Connector provides access to foundational information on tens of thousands of global public and private companies, including company summaries, locations, contact information, and key data such as employee and revenue ranges.

“Knowing who you’re doing business with is an essential part of knowledge workflows,” said Chantrelle Nielsen, Principal Product Management for Microsoft 365 Copilot at Microsoft. “Integrating this sample of Dun & Bradstreet data into Microsoft 365 Copilot provides that crucial first step of business identification and opens the door for users to explore new ways to use D&B’s continuously updated business data in Copilot.”

Collaboration with Anthropic: Accelerating Onboarding, Risk and Compliance Workflows in Claude

In collaboration with Anthropic, Dun & Bradstreet is bringing verified business, risk and compliance data capabilities into Claude to help enterprises accelerate onboarding and compliance workflows.

By integrating the D&B Commercial Graph™ into Claude, users can access verified business information, corporate linkage data and risk intelligence within a unified workflow framework, enabling more efficient entity verification, relationship analysis and process execution.

This approach represents the future of knowledge work for enterprises: AI systems that do not simply summarize information, but operate with verified enterprise context, risk logic, and governance.

Dun & Bradstreet China: Empowering Local Agentic Workflows with Trusted Business Data

From OpenAI to Microsoft to Anthropic, a clear trend is emerging: trusted business data is rapidly integrating into agentic workflows, becoming a critical foundation for large language models to connect with real-world business scenarios, support task execution and enable decision-making. Dun & Bradstreet China continues to drive the deep integration of trusted business data with both local and global AI platforms.

Currently, Dun & Bradstreet’s global data along with China Data by Topics via MCP servers support integration with leading international platforms and developer tools such as Microsoft Copilot, Cursor, Claude Code and OpenClaw, while also being compatible with local AI ecosystems including Trae, WorkBuddy, QoderWork, Coze and CherryStudio.

Leveraging the D&B Commercial Graph™, the D-U-N-S® Number and business data covering nearly 900 million companies worldwide, Dun & Bradstreet China embeds global business data capabilities into enterprise large language models, AI agents and business workflows. This helps customers access global company information more efficiently, identify corporate linkage networks and gain insights into potential risks.

In the AI era, Dun & Bradstreet is becoming a trusted partner within agentic workflows, helping customers make smarter, faster and more confident decisions across key scenarios including customer acquisition, risk management, supply chain management, trade compliance and global expansion.

About Dun & Bradstreet

Dun & Bradstreet provides the verified commercial identity foundation for enterprises to deploy AI at scale. The company originated the D‑U‑N‑S® Number in 1963, now the global standard for identifying commercial entities. Anchored by this identifier, the D&B Commercial Graph structures and connects business identity consistently across systems, enabling AI to operate on accurate, validated data. Since 1841, businesses of every size have relied on Dun & Bradstreet to navigate change and accelerate growth. For more information, visit: www.dnb.com.hk

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SOURCE Dun & Bradstreet

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Wuhan extends sincere invitation to young people across the globe

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BEIJING, June 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — A report from China Daily

Wuhan in Central China’s Hubei province is shining in its golden era. The city is hosting the ongoing 2026 World Youth Development Forum from June 15 to 17, capturing global attention across central China. A frontrunner in the optical and chip industries, Wuhan resonates with young people worldwide and extends a sincere invitation to them.

The five letters spelling “WUHAN” act as five open windows to the world, forming the city’s unique identity and a heartfelt invitation to global youth.

Represented by the letter W for Water, Wuhan is a city nurtured by the Yangtze River. Sitting on the convergence of the Yangtze River and the Hanjiang River, it enjoys convenient access to the whole world. The city encompasses 165 rivers and 166 lakes, with water areas accounting for one-fourth of its total territory.

As an international wetland city with a population of over 10 million, Wuhan features romantic seasonal scenery all year round, featuring cherry blossoms in spring, lotuses in summer, sweet osmanthus in autumn and plum blossoms in winter. It is home to 1,050 parks of various styles and 2,500 kilometers of picturesque greenways and serves as a habitat for the Yangtze finless porpoise, known as the “giant panda of the water.” Endowed with abundant vitality, it stands as a magnificent city of picturesque mountains and rivers.

The letter U stands for University. Wuhan is China’s third-largest hub of intellectual resources, home to 95 higher education institutions, including Wuhan University and Huazhong University of Science and Technology. It ranks fourth nationwide in terms of the number of academicians from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering. Fourteen of its disciplines, including remote sensing technology and earth sciences, rank among the world’s top ten. In the Nature Index Science Cities rankings, Wuhan takes the fifth place in China and eighth across the globe.

The city has rolled out over 50 world-class innovation achievements, including the world’s first Beidou high-precision chip and the world’s fastest maglev technology. One in ten Wuhan residents is a college student. Every year, 300,000 fresh college graduates choose to stay in Wuhan to start businesses or seek employment. It is truly a “land of talents where brilliance thrives.”

The letter H represents High-tech. Wuhan boasts nationally influential strength in scientific and technological innovation. The world-renowned Optics Valley of China is located right in Wuhan. The city hosts the world’s largest manufacturing hub for optical fibers and cables, as well as China’s leading production hub for optoelectronic devices and small-to-medium-sized display panels.

Pillar industries such as optoelectronic information, automobiles and biomedicine are accelerating toward the trillion-yuan level. Meanwhile, emerging and future industries covering the digital economy, quantum technology, commercial aerospace, 6G and hydrogen energy are maintaining steady growth. Wuhan has evolved into a dynamic, fast-evolving city of innovation.

The letter A symbolizes Art. With a 3,500-year history of urban construction, Wuhan acts as a vital carrier of Yangtze River civilization and Jingchu culture. The city features diverse charms, ranging from the poetic heritage of the Yellow Crane Tower and the futuristic vibe of the suspended monorail, to breathtaking scenery of vast rivers and lakes and a vibrant street-food culture.

More than 40,000 concerts, e-sports festivals and sports events are held in Wuhan annually. Consistently listed among China’s top ten most popular tourist destinations, it is an inclusive cultural city where ancient heritage and modern glamour complement and shine for each other.

Last but not least, the letter N stands for Network. Wuhan is a world-class comprehensive transportation hub. A 4-hour high-speed rail trip or a 2-hour flight can cover 80 percent of China’s major cities and reach a population of 1 billion.

The Yangtze golden waterway, China Railway Express (Wuhan) and multiple passenger and cargo hubs connect the Maritime, Land, and Air Silk Roads. Huahu Airport ranks fourth in the world and first in Asia among professional cargo airports. Equipped with a national-level internet backbone interconnection hub, Wuhan realizes seamless network connectivity nationwide, consolidating its status as a globally connected intelligent hub city.

During the ongoing forum, Wuhan is presenting a host of well-designed characteristic activities tailored for young people based on its superior resources. These events vividly showcase an authentic, multi-dimensional and vibrant urban panorama to participating global youth.

The forum is currently presenting Wuhan’s development experience as a thriving “City of Youth” to the world. It introduces China’s practices in building youth-development-oriented cities, displaying Wuhan’s all-round support for youth innovation, entrepreneurship and personal growth via startup incubators, talent apartments, targeted policies and comprehensive service platforms. At this moment, a sincere “Invitation from Wuhan” is being delivered to young people across the globe.

Delegates from all participating countries will explore Wuhan’s sci-tech innovation frontier in person. They will visit core innovation platforms including Hubei laboratories, Dongfeng Motor Group, the Hubei Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, and Xiaomi Smart Home Appliances Factory to experience the tremendous momentum of Wuhan’s “One City, Three Corridors, and Multiple Belts” innovation pattern and witness the diverse manifestations of Chinese modernization with their own eyes.

Participants will also immerse themselves in unique Jingchu cultural customs. They will pay a visit to the Yellow Crane Tower, Hubei Provincial Museum and the Changjiang Civilization Museum, admire the stunning night scenery along the two rivers, and explore the time-honored heritage of Zhiyin Culture and the profound essence of Yangtze River civilization. Furthermore, delegates will take part in the Youth Market and Dragon Boat Festival Intangible Cultural Heritage Experience activities.

They will communicate with young inheritors of Han embroidery, carved paper-cutting and traditional Chinese medicine sachets, and gain an in-depth understanding of the profound heritage of traditional Chinese culture as well as the innovative vitality of contemporary young craftsmen.

 

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/wuhan-extends-sincere-invitation-to-young-people-across-the-globe-302801355.html

SOURCE China Daily

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