Insights: What it’s really like to start a fintech in 2026

**David Brear** (0:14)
Hello, and welcome to Fintech Insider Insights. I'm David Brear, CEO here at 11FS. Today, we're asking a pretty simple question. What's it actually like to start a Fintech in 2026? Wasn't that simple, really, was it? A decade ago, the first wave of Fintech challenges were building in a very different world. Banking as a service barely existed. The regulatory paths for launching new propositions were far less established, and there was still huge areas of financial services being underserved by incumbent players. Fast forward to today, and the founders have access to better infrastructure, APIs, cloud technology, and AI, alongside a decade of lessons from Fintechs that came before them. In theory, and theory is always an interesting one, there has never been an easier time to build a Fintech product. But does that actually mean it's easier to build a successful Fintech? Competition is tougher, customer expectations are much higher, funding has changed in terms of what it's backing, and many of the obvious problems for the first generation of Fintech went after has already really been solved in one way or another. So today we want to find out whether Fintech has become easier to build, but harder to win, and whether the next generation of founders still see opportunities to do something genuinely different in this space. And to do that, we're going straight to the people actually building Fintech businesses right now.
First up, we are joined by Fatbardha Rino, who is the CEO of Jet Bank, Albania's first digital-only bank.
Barra, welcome to Fintech Insider. That's to be the first in any geography is always a, you know, you're lighting the pathway for other people. But for anybody that doesn't know, tell us a little bit about yourself and your company.

**Fatbardha Rino** (2:07)
Yeah, thank you for having me. It's always a pleasure to be here and discuss all the things that you already looked like you covered in the interview. But, you know, the subject is very personal to me because I've been spending almost 25 years in traditional banking and now I'm leading Jet Bank, which is the first fully digital in Albania. And I have experience, let me say, both parts or phases and changes in the industry itself.
And the banking model that have been built before around branches, around paper, around legacy system, and now the new model that is being built around, obviously, technology about data and customer. So these are the fundamental change that, let me say personally, that the industry have changed drastically in the last 10 to 15 years mostly.
In my view, starting the Fintech in 2020, technology is easier. From the technology point of view, it's much easier than it was 10 years ago. But building a successful financial institution is not. It's, I would say, that is getting more and more difficult. The infrastructure is better, you mentioned, like the technology is more accessible, customer are ready for digital service nowadays, but the expectations that they have are much higher from a financial institution, and the competition is greater. The trust remains difficult to build it over time. And I think that this is, trust always have been one of the most difficult part when it comes to a financial institution. So that is the challenge that we are dealing now at this moment.

**David Brear** (4:08)
Yeah. It's interesting. And when you sort of took those founder stories, you know, whether it's Anne Boden at Starling, or if it's Nick at Revolut, actually a lot of people who really stayed the course for building something significant have had great experience in financial services in itself. So, I mean, I have myself, I always find it makes you much more empathetic to how difficult it actually is to solve those problems in those organizations. But what problem particularly was it that you were like, do you know what, I'm going to give this a go to fix it myself.

**Fatbardha Rino** (4:41)
Look, I've been always a person that's curious, changing things, being in bigger institution, being part of the transformation. And actually, I mean, as you mentioned, I mean, looking at the customer expectation at this point, one of the main issue is under serving customer. We are not talking anymore about under bankable customer that we used to talk some years ago.
But the traditional banks need to accelerate in under serving customers. So customer expectations are higher. They are not comparing us to the banks. They are comparing to the experiences that they have with other digital models. And this is quite different. So for me, even though, as you mentioned, I mean, 25 years I've been in traditional banking, but I always have been a person to change the things. I've always been their doer. I was leading teams, but changing things. And this was a great opportunity for me to lead the, and to found this bank from zero. So, and in the market that actually doesn't exist, the fully digital bank. So it's, for me, it's challenging, interesting, and have always been like, you know, a dream come true to be at the right place, at the right moment. And in the market that actually needs to have this change.