Author: Gayathri

Treasury has quietly transformed itself from an operational cost center into a strategic intelligence hub. In the past year, the Enterprise Treasury & Risk Management (ETRM) market has undergone one of the fastest evolutions seen in the SPARK Matrix™ landscape. Cloud-native platforms, GenAI-driven forecasting, real-time risk analytics, and hyper-connected API ecosystems have redefined competitive advantage. The 2025 SPARK Matrix™ for ETRM captures this shift precisely, highlighting not just who leads but why certain platforms rose, fell, or exited entirely. According to Hetansh Shah, Analyst at QKS Group, “Enterprise Treasury and Risk Management (ETRM) solutions are critical financial tools that empower…

Introduction Retail loan origination has entered a decisive new phase. QKS Group defines Retail Loan Origination Systems (RLOS) as end-to-end digital platforms designed to automate and manage the origination lifecycle of retail credit products, including personal loans, auto loans, credit cards, mortgages, education loans, and Buy-Now-Pay-Later (BNPL) offerings. RLOS platforms enable banks and financial institutions to digitize customer onboarding, perform real-time credit checks, configure loan products, apply risk rules, generate documentation, and execute approvals all through a seamless, customer-centric interface. These systems integrate with core banking, credit bureaus, identity verification tools, and payment gateways to ensure speed, compliance, and accuracy.…

What is the SPARK Matrix™ The SPARK Matrix™, developed by QKS Group, is a proprietary competitive intelligence and benchmarking framework that evaluates technology vendors across two core dimensions: Technology Excellence and Customer Impact. It provides a data-driven, visual representation of how vendors perform against defined market standards, enabling enterprises to assess supplier capabilities, strategic direction, and operational maturity in a single analytical view. In the context of Retail Core Banking Systems, the SPARK Matrix™ evaluates vendors on their ability to deliver scalable, cloud-native, real-time, secure, and regulation-ready core platforms that support deposits, lending, payments, customer lifecycle, and digital ecosystem integration.…

The commercial lending technology landscape has shifted dramatically between 2024 and 2025. What was once a modest evolution is now a full-scale transformation, driven by the urgent demand for automation, real-time credit intelligence, and embedded finance capabilities. The 2025 SPARK Matrix™ continues to highlight these tectonic changes, reflecting how banks and non-bank lenders are re-evaluating their architecture to stay competitive. In comparing the 2024 and 2025 vendor sets, not only do we see clear winners and losers, but also a wave of fresh players, some surprising departures, and a reordering of priorities. Below, we break down who’s rising, who’s holding…

Vendor Risk Management (VRM) has quietly shifted from a compliance necessity to a core pillar of enterprise resilience. The 2025 SPARK Matrix™ highlights how global enterprises are reshaping their VRM programs, not through more questionnaires, but through AI-led automation, intelligence-driven assessments, and deeper integration into broader GRC and resilience programs. The year also marks a clear transition: more outsourcing, more fourth-party exposure, and more pressure on risk teams to operate at speed and scale. As a result, movement between the 2024 and 2025 quadrants becomes a strategic signal of which vendors are driving real innovation, and which are relying on…

Generative AI is no longer a lab experiment in financial services; it’s quietly running in customer service, software delivery, risk functions, and fraud teams. That shift blows up a lot of old assumptions in integrated risk management (IRM) and forces fintechs to treat GenAI governance as a first-class discipline, not an R&D side project. GenAI has arrived in financial services IRM Walk through any modern fintech stack and you’ll find GenAI everywhere; copilots embedded into CRM systems, “explain-this-alert” assistants in AML, code-generation tools wired into CI/CD, even internal chatbots used for policy and procedure queries. A growing body of surveys…

The new deal: JPMorgan starts charging for data For more than a decade, U.S. open banking ran on an odd subsidy: banks carried the cost and risk, while data aggregators and fintech apps captured most of the value. Plaid, Yodlee, Morningstar, Akoya, and others plugged into thousands of institutions, normalised the data, and resold connectivity to budgeting apps, robo-advisers, neobanks, and lenders, usually without paying the originating banks a cent for access. That equilibrium has just cracked. JPMorgan Chase has now reached agreements with several major aggregators that will see fintech firms pay the bank for access to customer account…

What Is KYC in Digital Banking Today? Know Your Customer (KYC) is the process banks use to verify a customer’s identity, understand their risk profile, and comply with anti–money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorist financing (CTF) rules. In a branch-first world, that meant paper forms, photocopied IDs, and many face-to-face judgment calls. In digital banking, the entire KYC process has shifted to mobile and web. Customers expect to open an account, upload documents, and pass identity checks from their phones in minutes, not days. KYC is no longer a back-office control; it’s a visible part of the onboarding journey that customers…

The New Collateral: Turning ESG Data into Financial Leverage In the evolving landscape of sustainable banking, 2026 marks a radical shift. The conversation has moved beyond green bonds and sustainability-linked loans, toward a future where ESG data itself becomes collateral. For decades, collateral meant tangible assets: property, inventory, or equipment. But as climate risk becomes synonymous with financial risk, banks are exploring how environmental, social, and governance (ESG) metrics can directly influence lending terms, credit exposure, and asset valuation. The result? A new era of climate-linked finance, where your sustainability performance could quite literally back your loan. Why ESG-Linked Collateral…

Legacy, rules-based monitoring is like using a rear-view mirror to drive a Formula 1 car. Financial crime moves in milliseconds; most controls still react in days. AI-powered transaction monitoring gives fintechs real-time visibility into risk, without grinding customer experience to a halt or endlessly adding headcount. What Is AI-Powered Transaction Monitoring in Fintech? Transaction monitoring is the backbone of fraud and anti–money laundering (AML) controls. It tracks customer activity across payments, transfers, and accounts to spot suspicious behavior that might indicate fraud, money laundering, or sanctions breaches. Traditionally, this monitoring has been rules-based: flag everything over a fixed amount, block…