Today, the global banking system is experiencing its most powerful recovery in the last decade. While leading institutions in Europe and the US are demonstrating record profitability and regaining investor confidence (PBR > 1.0), the industry faces challenges that cannot be solved by traditional methods.

Artem Lyashanov is a fintech entrepreneur, investor, and expert in the development of payment systems, whose activities are focused on the intersection of technological innovation and operational efficiency. He will analyze the role of stablecoins, AI, and DLT in creating invisible infrastructure, and also explore the global drift of the industry towards B2B models, where architectural efficiency is becoming more important than marketing.

The Illusion of Modernization and the Real Breakdown of 2026

The on-chain economy, the very system where assets are converted into digital tokens and instantly move along the blockchain, is unfolding much faster than in recent years. But there is a nuance: while traditional banks report successful digitalization, real control over the infrastructure of the future is being seized by completely different players.

My analysis of the current market situation indicates a critical gap. Neobanks have already taken market share in the traditional digital ecosystem, and fintech players are monopolizing the foundation of the tokenized world.

What is the problem with system giants? They are hostages of their digital heritage.

Scalability in fintech lies in the configuration that allows a business to grow without drowning in technical debt and endless development cycles.

It works according to the principle of the designer. Instead of building a plane from scratch for each new jurisdiction, you use a single flexible core where local features are activated with a simple configuration,” – Artem Lyashanov.

Thanks to the maturity of technology and strict regulatory acts, on-chain assets have become an autonomous and reliable infrastructure. A survey of top managers confirms that 80% of market leaders recognize that without hybrid cloud computing and flexible architecture, success in 2030 is impossible.

How tokenization transforms assets

Tokenization does for investments the same thing that digital applications did for banking, namely providing transparency, speed and cheap access to markets.

Key structural changes:

• The ability to divide into tokens anything from stocks and bonds to real estate and art.
• Tokenized assets allow businesses to raise capital instantly, avoiding paper bureaucracy.
• Thanks to the programmability of smart contracts, AI agents are able to autonomously execute complex transactions, which multiplies the ROI from the implementation of artificial intelligence.

“Tokenization turns a company’s static balance sheet into a live, dynamic flow of capital. When each of your assets becomes a liquid token, the concept of a cash gap disappears,” – Artem Lyashanov.

Market Gap 2026

“Stablecoins already occupy 7% of the entire crypto market, with 90% of this volume controlled by just two players – USDT and USDC. While the Middle East and Africa demonstrate an increase in the use of these instruments relative to their GDP, the traditional banking sector demonstrates dangerous inertia” , – Artem Lyashanov

We observe a paradox, managers understand the importance of the technology, but do not have the resources to implement it:

• Every fourth top manager calls tokenization the core of their strategy;
• Less than every tenth bank has actually launched or is ready to deploy an on-chain solution this year;
• The main barrier is the critical shortage of specialists who understand both blockchain architecture and banking compliance at the same time.

In the eyes of corporate CFOs, the bank remains the only legitimate partner for large capital. This opens up three key roles for them:

• Providing infrastructure for transactions;
• Reliable storage of digital keys and assets;
• Issuing their own tokenized assets or deposits.

However, there is a critical vulnerability. Only 32% of banks plan to develop their own wallets. This is a strategic mistake, because in a tokenized economy, the wallet is the new interface through which the client interacts with all finances. By giving this role to fintech startups, banks risk becoming invisible liquidity providers, losing direct contact with the client.

The case of Ukraine

The Ukrainian case in this context is anomalous and at the same time indicative. The main reason for the high speed of innovation is the absence of outdated infrastructure that holds back the US and Western European markets.

Unlike the American banking system, where core processes are still based on 1970s-80s mainframes and protocols like ACH, the Ukrainian banking system was built on modern stacks.

Also, crisis conditions (war, blackouts, capital restrictions) forced Ukrainian fintech to optimize its architecture for maximum resilience and autonomy.

Like China, Ukraine has, so to speak, bypassed the stage of checkbook dominance. Financial services in Ukraine are integrated directly into logistics (Nova Poshta) and retail (Rozetka).

“The speed of Ukrainian fintech is due to the fact that we do not waste resources on repairing outdated mechanisms. We are building a modular architecture on a free platform, where the speed of adaptation to extreme changes is the main indicator of the system’s efficiency,” – Artem Lyashanov.

It is important to understand that we are not talking about the current state of tokenization in Ukraine, which does not yet exist as a mass phenomenon, but about the fundamental readiness of platforms. The speed with which Ukrainian players implement new tools is due to the modularity of their systems. When global trends become regulatory accessible, the Ukrainian infrastructure will be able to integrate them in a matter of weeks.