AI is changing FinTech's talent war. Tomorrow, we're taking the conversation to the stage.
Global FinTech Talent is at Amsterdam Fintech Event today, listening to the conversations shaping the industry. Tomorrow, Angela Ward and I, Boudewijn van Heezik, will take the stage to contribute to one of them.
Our session, “FinTech's Talent War: AI Just Changed the Rules”, starts with a tension that matters to anyone building a FinTech team: AI can make recruitment faster. That doesn't automatically make hiring better.
AI is changing both the skills companies need and the way they identify and assess talent. For FinTech leaders, those changes create questions that go well beyond choosing the next recruitment tool.
What should companies expect from AI? What should they still expect from people? And how do we judge whether faster recruitment is producing better decisions?
Those are some of the questions we'll be exploring tomorrow.
AI is changing the hiring equation.
There is plenty to be positive about. AI can improve sourcing, research, matching and administration, giving recruiters and hiring teams more time for the conversations that matter.
We see real opportunities to improve efficiency and the experience of hiring. Recruitment should evolve as the technology improves. The question is what that evolution should achieve.
Speed is easy to recognise. Hiring quality takes longer to assess. When a company can search more widely, process more information and produce a shortlist more quickly, it can feel as though the hardest part has been solved.
But has it?
As these tools become part of everyday recruitment, we think leaders should be asking:
What happens when AI is applied to incomplete or inconsistent talent data?
Does better matching necessarily result in better hiring?
Are companies improving recruitment processes, or simply accelerating the processes they already have?
As search becomes more precise, do teams become better at identifying potential, or simply better at filtering people out?
If AI skills become increasingly common, does genuine FinTech domain expertise become more valuable rather than less?
Where, in an increasingly automated hiring process, does human judgement matter most?
These questions matter commercially. Hiring decisions shape a company's ability to build products, enter markets and serve customers. The attraction of efficiency is clear, but the standard against which we assess it deserves just as much attention.
Tomorrow, we'll discuss the tension between what technology makes possible and what a business actually needs from its next hire.
AI for scale. Humans for judgement.
One idea sits at the centre of our thinking: AI for scale. Humans for judgement.
What that means in practice, and where we believe the dividing line should sit, is something we'll be exploring on stage tomorrow.
For us, this is a question about responsibility as much as capability. As more of the hiring process becomes automated, who challenges the assumptions behind a decision? What should leaders expect to understand about the way a candidate has been identified or assessed?
We have a clear point of view, but these are also questions worth discussing with the people making hiring decisions across the FinTech ecosystem.
AFE26 gives us an opportunity to bring those perspectives into the same conversation.
What today's conversations are already telling us.
One theme from today's conversations is the importance of application. Much of the discussion ultimately comes back to where technology solves a genuine problem, creates value or changes an existing process.
That is a useful lens for thinking about AI and talent too. Having access to a tool and knowing what to ask of it are different things.
As specialist FinTech recruiters, we're interested in how leaders are making that distinction, both when they hire people who will use AI and when they use AI to hire people.
From Amsterdam to Hong Kong and Singapore.
Next month, Global FinTech Talent will also be spending time in Hong Kong and Singapore, taking some of these same questions into conversations across their FinTech ecosystems.
Different regulatory environments, talent pools and business conditions may produce different perspectives. Are leaders seeing the same changes in hiring? Are expectations around AI fluency developing in similar ways? Which questions feel most urgent in each market?
We want to hear those perspectives directly and understand how they compare with the conversations we're having in Amsterdam.
Our involvement across these markets gives us opportunities to contribute, listen and challenge our own thinking. That exchange matters when technology moves across borders more easily than the context in which companies use it.
See you tomorrow.
If you're at AFE26, come and join us tomorrow for “FinTech's Talent War: AI Just Changed the Rules.”
Angela and I will be exploring what AI is changing in FinTech hiring, where the opportunities are, where the risks are, and what companies should be thinking about before simply adding more technology to the process.
We look forward to hearing your questions and perspectives too.
If you're in Hong Kong or Singapore, we'd also welcome a conversation ahead of our visit next month.
AI for scale. Humans for judgement.
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