The Cloud, The Branch, and The Algorithm | Nordic Fintech Highlights August 2026

Welcome back to another edition of Nordic FinTech Highlights! This month, Pål and Janne are joined by a heavily jet-lagged Ville, who is battling through Zoom technical gremlins after an eight-day trip to the US West Coast. Fresh off a stateside marathon of exceptional progressive house and trance music, Ville powers through to help cover the biggest August headlines across the Nordic fintech landscape.

In this episode, we break down:

Avanza’s Algorithmic Ambitions: A look into Avanza Sigma, a new discretionary portfolio management service targeting high-net-worth individuals in Sweden with a low-fee structure. We debate the growing trend of AI-driven investments and whether humans are still in the loop behind the scenes.

Ericsson & MTN’s Cloud Migration: Ericsson is moving its massive mobile money platform for MTN Group to the public cloud. We discuss the trade-offs between incredible cloud-native performance gains and the long-term reality of hyperscaler vendor lock-in.

Revolut’s Push for a Finnish Branch: Revolut is applying for a branch license in Finland to finally offer local IBANs to its 250,000+ Finnish customers. We explore what this means for local e-invoicing, salary deposits, the strong authentication ecosystem, and the future of primary banking relationships.

Finally, stick around to the very end to hear Janne’s latest terrible dad joke about the new €2 commemorative coins. You might regret doing so, but at least we warned you.

Episode hosted by Pål Krogdahl, Ville Sointu & Janne Salminen

Episode produced and edited by Fintech Daydreaming

- Email us on Hello@FintechDaydreaming.com

- Fintech Daydreaming home page - https://www.FintechDaydreaming.com

- Fintech Daydreaming on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/fintech-daydreaming

- Pål Krogdahl - https://www.linkedin.com/in/krogdahl/

- Ville Sointu - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ville-sointu-54682b/