AIB: New Insight-Driven App Signals Shift to Smarter Banking
Allied Irish Banks (AIB) has launched a redesigned mobile banking app – what it’s calling its “most significant change to its mobile channel in over a decade”.
The phased rollout, beginning at the end of June, is part of a strategic shift towards delivering a “complete financial experience” that goes beyond transactional banking.
The move comes as customer behaviour is constantly and consistently changing.
AIB’s research shows that 76% of adults in Ireland check their banking app multiple times a week, though 47% rarely use it for financial insights – a discontent that highlights the broader industry challenge that high engagement does not necessarily translate into financial empowerment.
AIB’s response? A platform designed to bridge that gap, combining usability, insight and security within a single ecosystem.
How Moody’s Encodes Financial Expertise into AI Skills
By bringing human analytical frameworks into the digital space, Moody’s Corporation is transforming centuries of market wisdom into single natural-language prompts with the launch of its first set of platform-agnostic AI skills.
Available across compatible AI platforms beginning with Microsoft 365 Copilot Cowork, the capability allows customers to execute complex analytical workflows through a single natural-language request.
These purpose-built, platform-agnostic instruction kits encode Moody’s analytical frameworks and connect AI agents to its decision-grade intelligence. The software grounds all outputs in proprietary ratings, research and risk intelligence.
Cristina Pieretti, Head of Digital Content and Innovation at Moody’s, says: “Moody’s is among the first financial data providers to deliver a full library of skills on an open standard and today’s launch is just the beginning.”
Spendesk’s CEO Shares Vision for AI-Driven Finance
Across financial services, AI is rapidly shifting finance from a backward-looking function into a real-time, decision-making engine.
Static reporting cycles and delayed insights are giving way to continuous intelligence, where data is analysed and acted upon at the moment decisions are made.
For CFOs, this marks a fundamental transformation: from overseeing historical performance to orchestrating dynamic, forward-looking strategy.
At the centre of this shift are platforms embedding AI directly into financial workflows.
Axel Demazy, CEO of Spendesk, is positioning the company at the forefront of this evolution.
With a background in scaling technology organisations and leading data transformation, he sees AI not as an add-on, but as the foundation of a new operating model for finance.
Under his leadership, Spendesk is moving beyond spend management to become what he describes as the intelligence layer for the modern Office of the CFO.
In this Q&A with FinTech Magazine, Axel delves into how AI is reshaping finance and what it takes for CFOs to build truly AI-native functions.
Global Payments: Is Embedding Payments Crucial for SaaS?
A single, unified screen where consumers can both browse and pay without being redirected to external websites is always the main preference for most people when it comes to online bookings and purchases.
The research from Global Payments confirms this trend, revealing that a poor payment process causes 71% of British consumers to abandon a booking altogether, making embedded payments essential to meeting the modern consumer expectations.
In the UK, the wellness industry in particular is experiencing a digital transformation as consumers migrate to mobile applications.
Consumers now spend an estimated £15bn (US$19.6bn) a year booking personal services through software-as-a-service (SaaS) platforms and apps, as revealed by the research.
At the heart of this boom is the fitness sector, which has emerged as one of the single biggest drivers of digital bookings.
Who is Airwallex's New Chief Financial Officer, Pranav Sood?
Global financial platform Airwallex has named Pranav Sood as its new Chief Financial Officer, marking a significant step in its next stage of institutional expansion.
The appointment comes as the fintech, recently valued at US$8bn, accelerates its ambitions in what it describes as intelligent financial systems – an ecosystem where money, data and decision-making operate seamlessly together.
Pranav joins from Bain Capital’s growth equity arm, where he focused on scaling technology businesses across the UK and Europe.
His return is somewhat of a homecoming – in his earlier tenure at Airwallex, he led the global marketing function and played a central role in establishing its EMEA presence.
This combination of external investment insight and deep familiarity with Airwallex’s commercial engine is set to inform the company’s evolving financial strategy.
“As Airwallex enters its next phase of growth, we need a CFO who is as much a commercial strategist as a financial steward,” says Jack Zhang, Co-Founder and CEO of Airwallex.
“Pranav is a rare leader who balances rigorous financial discipline with a builder’s mindset.
“His experience at Bain Capital, combined with his intimate knowledge of our commercial drivers and the fintech vertical, make him the ideal CFO to guide our financial strategy through this next chapter.”
