Navigating the future of payments: a discussion between PwC Luxembourg and Finologee

In a European economy navigating inflationary pressures, regulatory shifts, and digital acceleration, Luxembourg stands at a pivotal crossroads. As one of the continent’s most agile financial hubs, it faces a dual imperative: to preserve its competitiveness amid rising interest burdens and to lead innovation in payment infrastructures that serve both financial and non-financial sectors.

Against this backdrop, we engaged in a forward-looking dialogue with experts from PwC Luxembourg and Finologee, following the announcement of their strategic partnership. Together, we explored how payment operating models are being reimagined in 2025 – driven by regulatory transformation, client expectations, and the need for operational resilience. This article provides key insights from that exchange, offering a lens into the evolving payments landscape and the opportunities it presents for institutions ready to lead.

What’s cooking on the payment domain?

PwC: As organisations evolve and society embraces digital-first behaviours, expectations are shifting fast. More and more finance leaders are rethinking their operating models – not just to streamline low-value tasks, but to strengthen control environments and unlock the power of data.

We’re seeing a clear trend: clients want to free their teams from repetitive operations, reinforce risk management, and gain real-time insights. Nowhere is this more visible than in the payments value chain. With rising transaction volumes, tighter reporting obligations, and a growing variety of fraud risks, the pressure to modernise is real – and rising.

Finologee: That’s right. At Finologee, we’ve noticed a similar trend. Our clients are increasingly looking for solutions to digitalise payments. The demand for instant payments is also on the rise, of course pushed by the regulatory context but also with businesses and consumers expecting faster and more seamless transactions.

Another trend we’re seeing is the integration of AI in payment processing. AI is becoming critical for fraud detection and prevention. For instance, AI models can now predict and neutralise threats in real-time, significantly boosting the fraud prevention capacity.

PwC: The role of regulation cannot be overlooked either. Regulations like PSD2 and DORA have been pivotal in promoting innovation and ensuring security in the payment’s ecosystem. The role of regulation cannot be overlooked either. Regulations like PSD2 and DORA have been pivotal in promoting innovation and ensuring security in the payment’s ecosystem.

Considering the specificities of each sector, organisation, and IT environments, how do you respectively address this operational friction?

PwC: Payments are universal. Regardless of size or sector, every organisation must manage them. In Luxembourg, this reality is amplified by a uniquely diverse ecosystem – ranging from banks and corporates to funds and alternative investment SPVs. Many of these entities operate across multiple layers – holding companies, SPVs, and beyond – often as part of larger European or global groups.

Luxembourg’s strength lies in its ability to build interconnected, agile operating models that serve international needs while reinforcing the appeal of its local entities. That’s why we value solutions like LYNKS, developed by Finologee in Luxembourg. It’s designed with the Grand Duchy’s market in mind, especially the nuanced needs of the alternative investment sector.

Finologee: Exactly. Centralised platforms like LYNKS are designed to streamline operations and enhance efficiency. By automating administrative tasks and providing real-time insights, these platforms help businesses stay ahead in a competitive market. Businesses are looking for integrated solutions that can handle everything from payment initiation to liquidity management as ready-to-use features or by neatly integrating with existing tools and context-specific platforms. This not only improves efficiency but also provides better oversight and control.

Particularly for alternatives, we have developed, with the input of our clients and contributors like PwC, dedicated modules, and functionalities (capital call monitoring and reporting) tailored to Luxembourg market players.

In your respective roles, what are the key assets you bring to your clients?

PwC: At PwC, as part of our advisory practice and projects, we always insist on key considerations for a successful transformation project:

• To kick-off, a project requires both functional and economical internal buy-in. Thanks to existing incentives proposed by the Luxembourgish government in terms of innovation and digital transformation, we support our clients from the very first steps, identifying the projects with the best ROI or structuring them in an optimised manner.
• The tool is not the solution but the enabler, meaning that a project needs to be driven by a clear ambition, supported by structural changes and part of a global target model implementation journey.
• Once this is cleared and defined, it is key to rely on solutions that are scalable enough to support your growth, to evolve with your needs and the regulation, and suitable/connectable in a complex IT environment.

This common philosophy shared with Finologee and the key differentiators of the solution, have helped us to identify LYNKS as a great candidate for our clients who aim to transform.

Finologee: Indeed, Finologee complements this advisory approach with LYNKS, a secure and compliant platform that brings together banks, accounts, and payments within a single hosted platform. Designed to meet the needs of financial institutions operating in regulated environments, LYNKS enables operational efficiency through advanced features such as automated multi-step workflows, granular user and signature rights and additional industry-tailored modules such as cash concentration, capital call management and multi-bank securities accounts reports collections. The platform integrates easily with ERPs, TMS and sector-specific tools, for example to manage fund operations, enabling seamless data flows and enhanced control across the entire treasury and finance infrastructure. The products we have developed is sharing this approach.

Conclusion

Payments, liquidity management, and bank connectivity are no longer back-office concerns – they’re strategic levers. As technology evolves and regulations tighten, organisations are rethinking how they move money, manage cyber and fraud risks, and connect with financial partners.

At PwC Luxembourg and Finologee, we believe the future leaders will be those who combine innovation with compliance, and agility with control. The transformation is already underway. The question is: how ready are you to lead it?

Let’s talk…

Participants

• Baptiste Guionnet, Partner at PwC Luxembourg
• Anne Massardier, Director at PwC Luxembourg
• Jonathan Prince, Co-founder and CSO at Finologee
• Stefan Kirsch, Head of Sales at Finologee

Rather than replacing fund accounting or core systems, LYNKS complements them by supporting data exchange, process oversight and approval workflows. It integrates with existing setups through APIs, file import/export, and SWIFT messages, making it easy to incorporate into existing operations.

About PwC

PwC Luxembourg (www.pwc.lu) is the largest professional services firm in Luxembourg with over 3,800 people employed from 90 different countries. PwC Luxembourg provides audit, tax and advisory services including management consulting, transaction, financing, and regulatory advice. The firm provides advice to a wide variety of clients from local and middle market entrepreneurs to large multinational companies operating from Luxembourg and the Greater Region. The firm supports its clients in creating the value they are looking for by contributing to the smooth operation of the capital markets and providing advice through an industry-focused approach.

About Finologee

Finologee is one of Luxembourg’s leading digital finance platform operators. The company facilitates the financial industry’s quest for optimisation and innovation with its digital platforms for bank & account management through LYNKS, as well as for KYC/AML , bank compliance and mobile payments. Finologee serves more than 75 institutions with its unique Software-as-a-Service toolkit. The company is ISO 27001 certified and is operating as a regulated financial services professional under a ‘Support PFS’ license granted by the Ministry of Finance.