The fintech cluster Norwegian Finance Innovation (FI) has been a partner for DIG since the beginning. They stay plugged into DIG’s research to help their members stay on top of industry trends – lately to better assess how the Norwegian finance industry will be affected as AI is adopted throughout the sector.
Communications Manager Håkon Kløve-Graue Lavik highlights one of the key challenges facing the fintech cluster and the members, explaining how Finance Innovation is drawing on its partnership with DIG.
- For most companies, retaining ownership of their relationships to customers is crucial. As agentic AI and agentic commerce continue to advance, financial institutions must understand how to maintain these relationships and strengthen their brands in a world where customers may no longer need to interact directly with the banks but instead engage with its products through a trusted AI agent. We use research and expert speakers from DIG to help us build a deeper understanding of emerging technological trends like this.
Rea Parashar is the CEO of Finance Innovation. She points out that at their core the cluster is a connection engine, facilitating collaboration and innovation while offering their members platforms and forums to take part in new knowledge, research and to tap into and maintain important industry networks.
- DIG makes recent knowledge and research more available for industry actors and clusters like us. We can extend that knowledge and research to our members, thus ensuring that it makes an impact in the financial industry. One or our missions as a cluster is to build stronger ties between academia and business, as research often ignites innovation, Rea Parashar says.
Finance Innovation has recently received project funding from Vestland fylkeskommune to work towards initiatives on both cyber security and digital inclusion – two of the clusters focus areas for 2026. Apart from AI, digital inclusion fits into DIG’s other grand challenge - the demographic change in the Norwegian population.
- Many customers struggle to access and navigate modern digital financial services. People want to feel included and empowered to resolve issues on their own. Our members are working to make banking accessible for everyone and to offer better digital guidance for customers,” says Parashar further.
The adoption of AI also give rise to new challenges from cyber criminals taking advantage of the possibilities offered by the new technology.
To counter the growing wave of cybercrime targeting both fintechs and traditional financial institutions, regulators such as the EU are introducing stricter cybersecurity requirements.
-Complying with regulations such as the Digital Operational Resilience Act and the EU AI Act require significant resources from stakeholders of all sizes. As a cluster, our role is to create forums where companies can learn from one another, and to help bridge the gap between small suppliers and large institutions on cybersecurity measures — a crucial task in areas like supply chain risk, says Lavik.
As Finance Innovation prepares its members for rapid changes driven by AI, cybersecurity demands, and shifting customer expectations, access to timely research becomes increasingly important.
-Raising the overall level of knowledge, competence and expertise within the cluster will be a valuable contribution from DIG going forward. We look forward to gaining even better data and deeper understanding of emerging trends through our continued collaboration, Parashar concludes.
