Categories
A completed entry will include:
1. Payment Form
2. Entry Form
3. 1000 Word Submission
4. Company Logo
5. UK contact details
2026 WINNERS & SHORTLISTED
Data, AI & Analytics
1. Data & Analytics Project of the Year
This award recognises a company, solution, or project that can demonstrate the innovative and large-scale management and analysis of data to the benefit of a business, its customers, or the financial industry’s infrastructure. The winning entry will demonstrate successful data management aligned with commercial strategy and underpinned by cutting-edge technology, showing clear impact via KPIs such as cost benefits, improved internal processes, enhanced customer service, or future business growth. Enter Here
2. Enterprise AI & Machine Learning Implementation
This award highlights the successful deployment of traditional artificial intelligence and machine learning within core back-office, middle-office, or infrastructure operations in financial services. Nominations may be for a single project or an enterprise strategy focusing on areas such as predictive modelling, automated underwriting, risk assessment, or process automation. The winning entry will demonstrate a clear business case, seamless implementation, and quantifiable returns on investment. Enter Here
3. GenAI Application in Financial Services
This award recognises the most effective deployment of generative AI models to transform customer experience, operational productivity, or financial product innovation. Eligible entries include AI-powered customer engagement platforms, automated research synthesis tools, personalised advisory engines, or internal knowledge systems. Entries should demonstrate responsible execution, measurable efficiency gains, and strict compliance with regulatory and ethical standards. Enter Here
4. Agentic AI Innovation of the Year (New)
This category celebrates breakthrough applications of autonomous, agentic AI systems capable of executing multi-step workflows, complex decision-making, and goal-directed tasks across financial ecosystems. Entrants must demonstrate live, operational deployments of AI agents that interact with enterprise software, manage dynamic processes, and reduce operational friction while maintaining appropriate human-in-the-loop oversight and safety guardrails. Enter Here
5. Responsible AI Implementation
This award recognises financial institutions or vendors leading in the responsible development and use of artificial intelligence. Entries may highlight work in bias mitigation, model explainability, ethical frameworks, or compliance with emerging AI regulation. Demonstrable commitment to transparency and stakeholder trust is essential. Enter Here
Technology Leadership in Financial Services
6. Best Use of IT in Consumer Finance
This award recognises targeted innovation across consumer-facing financial sectors, including retail banking, personal lending, wealth management, and personal insurance. Nominations should focus on technology-led initiatives—such as automated lending engines, digital onboarding, or robo-advisory platforms—that deliver measurable improvements in customer engagement, financial accessibility, and operational efficiency. Enter Here
7. Best Use of IT in Wholesale & Commercial Finance
This award highlights the strategic application of IT to enhance business operations within wholesale banks, investment banks, corporate lenders, and commercial finance institutions. Nominations may cover trading infrastructure, corporate Treasury management, institutional lending platforms, or capital markets tech. The winning entry will demonstrate clear return on investment, streamlined B2B workflows, and enhanced client service capabilities. Enter Here
Customer Experience & Product Innovation
8. Best Customer Service and Experience Technology
This award highlights technological innovation across the complete customer journey, including omnichannel support platforms, conversational tools, and self-service portals. Eligible submissions may feature a specific project or an overarching digital experience strategy. The winning entry will demonstrate how technology enables the organisation to anticipate customer needs, personalise interactions, and optimise operational workflow. Enter Here
9. Most Innovative B2B Product of the Year
This award recognises a standout software product or platform designed for enterprise use by financial institutions. Examples include RegTech platforms, core banking modules, fraud detection systems, or institutional infrastructure platforms. Entries must provide concrete evidence of commercial traction, technical sophistication, and clear operational value delivered to client institutions. Enter Here
10. Most Innovative B2C Product of the Year
This category highlights a breakthrough digital financial product aimed directly at individual consumers, such as budgeting and saving apps, personal investment platforms, or on-demand insurance products. Entries must demonstrate strong user adoption metrics, intuitive design, and quantifiable outcomes in improving consumer financial well-being or digital engagement. Enter Here
11. Retail Payments Innovation of the Year
This award celebrates innovation in consumer payment systems and checkout experiences. Eligible entries include mobile wallets, buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) architectures, loyalty-linked payment rails, or embedded retail checkout solutions. Submissions should demonstrate tangible value for both consumers and merchants alongside improvements in transaction speed, security, and conversion. Enter Here
12. Wholesale Payments Innovation of the Year
This category recognises technological advancements in B2B and institutional payment infrastructure. Eligible entries include cross-border payment networks, real-time gross settlement systems, liquidity management platforms, and multi-currency clearing engines. Entries should emphasise interoperability, scalability, reduced transaction latency, and regulatory compliance. Enter Here
13. Digital Identity Innovation
This award celebrates breakthroughs in digital identity verification and access management across financial services. Eligible entries include biometric authentication, decentralised identity protocols, electronic Know Your Customer (eKYC) engines, or continuous risk-based authentication systems. The winning solution must demonstrate an optimal balance between robust security, compliance, and frictionless user experience. Enter Here
14. WealthTech & Digital Investment Innovation (New)
This award recognises technological innovation across retail investment platforms, wealth management, private banking, and robo-advisory tools. Eligible entries include portfolio management systems, automated rebalancing engines, fractional investing platforms, and digital client portals. The winning submission will demonstrate how technology has improved investment accessibility, client engagement, and portfolio transparency. Enter Here
Digital Transformation & Core Infrastructure
15. Digital Transformation Project of the Year
This category recognises enterprise-wide core modernisation and digital transformation initiatives undertaken by financial institutions, either independently or in partnership with technology providers. Eligible projects include legacy infrastructure replacement, cloud-native migration, or service-oriented architecture redesign. Entries must detail strategic alignment, technical execution, and measurable outcomes across agility, cost reduction, and performance. Enter Here
16. Cloud Innovation of the Year
This award recognises a financial services organisation that is using cloud technologies in a transformative, forward-looking manner to deliver measurable business or customer impact. The winning entry will highlight innovative use of cloud-native architectures, multi-cloud strategies, or advanced capabilities such as AI integration or real-time data processing. Judges will look for evidence of tangible benefits – such as enhanced agility, operational resilience, or customer experience – as well as leadership in cloud governance, scalability, and secure delivery. Enter Here
17. Best Use of Embedded Finance and Open Banking
This award recognises organisations that leverage Open Banking APIs or embedded financial architectures to deliver seamless, contextual financial services within third-party digital journeys. Entries may include embedded lending, open banking payment initiation, account aggregation engines, or non-financial platform integrations. Submissions should show how these capabilities expand market reach, create new business models, or improve customer convenience. Enter Here
18. Banking as a Service – Platform of the Year
This award celebrates excellence in the development and deployment of Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) platforms. The winning entry will showcase a modular platform that enables non-banks, FinTechs, or brands to integrate regulated banking services smoothly into their offerings. Criteria include platform scalability, API robust, security standards, and comprehensive regulatory alignment. Enter Here
19. Digital Sovereignty Enabler of the Year (New)
This award recognises technology vendors, infrastructure providers, and cloud enablers that provide the critical platforms, software, or storage architectures allowing financial institutions to maintain digital, operational, and data sovereignty. Eligible entries include hybrid-cloud control platforms, sovereign cloud environments, local encryption key management systems, open-source containerisation, and data-residency compliance engines. The winning entry will demonstrate how the solution enables financial services clients to avoid vendor lock-in, satisfy regional data regulations, and maintain uninterrupted operational resilience. Enter Here
20. Most Disruptive Financial Sector Technology
This award will go to a company that has developed the most disruptive financial sector technology during the past 12 months. Nominations can be from any company operating in the financial sector. The winning entry will demonstrate the key industry issues the technology is looking to disrupt, with case studies to highlight its success. Enter Here
Security, Compliance & Resilience
21. Anti-fraud Solution of the Year
This award recognises anti-fraud strategies or technology solutions implemented to protect financial institutions and consumers from financial crime. Solutions may cover Authorised Push Payment (APP) scams, identity theft, account takeover, chargeback prevention, or insider fraud. Winning entries will showcase how technology balances stringent security and regulatory compliance with minimal user friction. Enter Here
22. Cyber Security Solution of the Year
This award recognises internal or external cybersecurity strategies and solutions designed to protect critical financial infrastructure, data, and applications from cyber threats. Nominations should demonstrate continuous adaptation to evolving threat vectors, deployment of advanced defense mechanisms, and strong protection of enterprise and client data. Enter Here
23. Risk Management Solution of the Year
This award recognises success in the development, implementation and running of risk management solutions in the financial sector. The winning entry will demonstrate how the software solution has been developed, with evidence of ongoing performance, continued support and genuine business or customer benefit. Enter Here
24. Operational Resilience Award
This award recognises a financial institution that has demonstrated outstanding proactive leadership in safeguarding critical business services against potential operational disruption. Eligible entries include stress-testing frameworks, crisis simulation environments, automated failover and incident recovery systems, ICT third-party risk management strategies, or comprehensive regulatory readiness programs (such as DORA or FCA/PRA resilience mandates). Submissions should show how the organisation systematically maps important business services, models severe but plausible disruption scenarios, and embeds dynamic operational adaptability into its core enterprise architecture while maintaining full regulatory compliance. Enter Here
25. RegTech and Compliance Project of the Year
This award highlights technology projects that streamline regulatory compliance, AML monitoring, transaction reporting, or governance functions. The winning entry will showcase how the implementation mitigates compliance risk, reduces operational overhead, and delivers tangible efficiency gains to the financial institution. Enter Here
Sustainability & Inclusion
26. ESG and Sustainability Solution of the Year
This award recognises technology solutions, institutional frameworks, or bank-wide strategies that advance Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) goals within financial services. Eligible entries include carbon tracking engines, climate risk modelling tools, green finance products, or holistic corporate sustainability initiatives. Entrants must present verifiable data demonstrating environmental or social impact. Enter Here
27. ESG Excellence in Banking
This award recognises banks that have demonstrated exceptional commitment and tangible progress in meeting their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals. The winning entry will showcase a comprehensive ESG strategy that has been successfully implemented across the organisation, resulting in measurable positive impacts. Initiatives may include sustainable financing, responsible investing, minimising environmental footprint, promoting diversity and inclusion, robust corporate governance practices, and active engagement with stakeholders. Enter Here
28. Financial Inclusion Award
This award honours projects, products, or platforms leveraging technology to extend access to essential financial services to underserved individuals, communities, or small businesses. The winning submission will demonstrate increased financial accessibility, user adoption, and positive societal or economic impact supported by user feedback or case studies. Enter Here
29. Digital Accessibility Innovation of the Year (New)
This award recognises a financial institution or technology provider that has demonstrated excellence in creating inclusive, accessible digital products and services. Eligible entries include screen-reader optimisation, neuroinclusive UI/UX design, accessible mobile apps, assistive technology integrations, or compliance frameworks meeting WCAG standards. The winning entry will present clear evidence of co-design with neurodivergent or disabled users, demonstrable adoption, and measurable improvements in digital accessibility. Enter Here
Leadership, Teams & Organisational Impact
30. CTO/CIO of the Year Award
This award recognises a senior technology decision maker who has made a significant impact on the industry over the past year and has served as a consistent leader in the organisation’s deployment and support of cutting-edge technologies. The winning entry will have a track-record of outstanding performance and leadership in the industry, setting an example for C-Suite technology leaders and their teams, with clear examples of the individual’s inspiring leadership in financial services technology. Enter Here
31. Best Financial Services IT Team
This award will recognise the best IT team within any financial services firm, be it bank, insurer or investment business. The team will have to have proven their excellence in the delivery and/or support of IT services over the course of the last year and to have demonstrated good collaboration skills and a clear vision of how technology can be applied to ensure business benefits. The team can be nominated from within the financial institution itself or by partners and suppliers. Enter Here
32. Digital Workplace Initiative of the Year
This category recognises internal, technology-driven initiatives created or implemented by financial institutions to transform employee productivity, internal workflows, knowledge management, or staff collaboration. Unlike off-the-shelf software purchases, entries must demonstrate bespoke adaptation, custom development, or innovative integration that solves specific internal operational challenges. The winning entry will provide evidence of strong internal adoption, measurable efficiency gains, and positive workforce impact. Enter Here
33. Technology Provider of the Year
This award will reward the tech vendor operating in financial services which has had an outstanding year with financial results, product innovations and customer testimonies being key factors. The winning entry will, with case studies, showcase the company’s past 12 months, its response to market pressures and future plans. Enter Here
Startup & Collaboration
34. Startup of the Year
This award recognises an outstanding FinTech or InsurTech startup (under three years old at the time of entry) that has demonstrated significant market traction. Eligible entries must showcase clear evidence of customer adoption, commercial growth, successful funding rounds, or product-market fit. Submissions should detail the firm’s unique technological advantages, scalable business model, and vision for driving sector-wide impact. Enter Here
35. Financial Institution and Technology Provider Project of the Year
This award recognises the most impactful collaboration between an established financial institution and a technology provider. Eligible projects include co-developed products, Open Banking implementations, core modernisation partnerships, or joint ventures. Submissions should demonstrate how both entities combined technical and domain expertise to deliver quantifiable commercial value, operational efficiencies, or enhanced customer outcomes. Enter Here
36. Tech Ecosystem Collaboration of the Year
This award celebrates strategic partnerships between two or more technology providers delivering a combined solution to the financial sector. Eligible submissions include joint API integrations, cross-platform interoperability, or collaborative innovation labs. The winning entry will showcase clear technical sophistication, smooth integration, and measurable commercial benefits for their joint end-clients. Enter Here
