Israel financial companies are stepping up the innovation in digital payments

In the past few months, Israeli start-ups experienced significant turmoil.

Initially, there was a period of shock and uncertainty following the October 7 massacre, during which many tech company workers were recruited into reserve army duty. After adapting to the new situation in Israel, workers who were operating remotely from Gaza resumed their responsibilities as best they could.

Then, upon their return, there was a brief adjustment period before operations ramped back up to full speed.

International expansion

Despite the complications of travelling and leaving their families behind in Israel and the high costs associated with relying almost exclusively on Israeli flight carriers, these employees persevered.

Effectively, the Israeli start-up scene primarily focuses on developing products or platforms within a supportive local ecosystem before it targets international markets. With a population of nearly 10 million, however, Israel’s domestic market is not large enough to sustain these start-ups. Therefore, as soon as possible, new start-ups aim to attend major conferences and events in relevant regions to expand their reach.

Fintech, or financial technology, refers to innovative technologies designed to enhance and streamline the delivery and utilization of financial services. In Israel, the fintech sector is expanding rapidly. It features various companies – from major international firms – to emerging start-ups.

Israeli startups attend international conferences

A key event in Europe that highlights these fintech advancements is the Money20/20 event in Amsterdam, which draws industry leaders from all over the world.

In this year’s Money20/20 gathering, 53 companies from Israel were in attendance.

Talking with Bentzi Aviv, the global head of Fintech Solutions at Amdocs, a company renowned for its billing products designated for large corporations, it is evident that Amdocs is making significant strides in financial services.

“We offer comprehensive management solutions for our clients, including a range of financial products. It is often challenging for banks for example to bundle and connect several services effectively, but we excel in this area,” Aviv explained.

"At the conference, we aimed to highlight our expanding activities in financial services. Given that the market is relatively conservative, we wanted to ensure that more companies were aware of our new message and unique capabilities. We can deliver diverse customer experiences, and we have garnered a lot of interest in this domain,” Aviv said.

Australian-founded company opens Israel location

One of the companies that also attended the conference was Airwallex, a fintech company from Australia that provides a global payments and financial platform for advanced businesses.

Airwallex offers solutions for handling everything from payments made by business accounts to the management of capital resources and embedded finance. The company opened a branch in Israel and hired a local team to amplify the innovation coming out of Israel and to work with leading international companies.

Speaking with Pranav Sood, Executive General Manager, EMEA at Airwallex, he stated, “The Israeli ecosystem is well known for innovation and we want to support global Israeli companies. We want to be close to them to provide our services to them firsthand.”

The increasing impact that AI is having in the financial service sphere was a particularly hot topic at Money20/20, with discussions focusing on AI’s applications in payments, banking, and trading.

It became evident that banks that had already established their “AI factories” were now exploring twice as many use cases as they did before this upgrade in computing power became widespread.