Kyiv, Ukraine — ANewswire — June 12, 2026 — In an exclusive interview, Tetiana - CEO of SoftBees shared valuable insights into the company’s mission, innovation strategy, and commitment to delivering high-quality software solutions. The discussion covered key industry trends, emerging technologies, business growth opportunities, and the challenges organizations face in today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape. The CEO also highlighted how SoftBees empowers businesses through customized technology solutions, helping clients accelerate digital transformation, improve operational efficiency, and achieve sustainable growth in an increasingly competitive market.
Tetiana, can you share the story behind SoftBees? What inspired you to establish the company, and what problem were you determined to solve?
After more than 20 years in banking and fintech, including launching digital banking products, leading large-scale transformation programs, and managing teams of up to 2,000 people, I repeatedly saw the same problem: launching a fintech or digital bank was unnecessarily expensive, slow, and complex.
Financial institutions often spent millions of dollars and years building capabilities that could have been delivered much faster with the right expertise, technology architecture, and execution approach.
That inspired us to create SoftBees. Our mission is simple: help financial institutions launch digital financial products faster, with lower risk and lower cost.
We combine deep fintech expertise with reusable technology components, proven delivery methodologies, and practical experience gained from launching multiple banking and fintech solutions across different markets. We believe innovation should not be limited to organizations with massive budgets. Modern financial technology should be accessible, scalable, and adaptable to different regulatory and customer environments.
SoftBees has become a recognized fintech and banking technology provider. What key milestones have defined your journey so far?
The first stage was Ukraine. We became a trusted technology partner for banks and financial institutions, helping them accelerate digital transformation and launch modern banking products. One milestone I am particularly proud of was helping launch one of Ukraine’s first fully digital SME banks from scratch in just five months during wartime. At a time when many organizations were focused on survival, our team proved that innovation, resilience, and execution could continue even under extraordinary circumstances.
The second stage was Europe. We established SoftBees in Poland and began transforming from a technology services company into a fintech startup with its own reusable banking modules, launch framework, and fintech infrastructure components. We started packaging years of banking expertise into scalable solutions that could be adapted for different markets and significantly reduce the time and cost of launching digital financial products.
The third milestone was our expansion into Africa. Signing our first major neobank project in Nigeria validated our ability to localize fintech solutions for completely different regulatory, technological, and customer environments. It demonstrated that our approach could work far beyond Europe and confirmed the global relevance of our expertise.
Today, we are entering the fourth stage of our evolution: becoming an AI-native company. Through years of launching banks and fintech products, we realized that our greatest asset is not the technology itself, but the expertise accumulated by our team over decades. Our vision is to codify and scale that expertise through AI, enabling faster product launches, smarter decision-making, and more efficient delivery across global markets.
Looking ahead, I see the next stage of our journey in Switzerland. Switzerland is one of the world’s leading financial centers and a global hub for fintech, digital assets, and financial innovation. For SoftBees, it is a natural next step—not only as a market for growth, but also as an ecosystem where we can collaborate with forward-looking financial institutions and technology companies.
Since June 2026, I have also been serving as the Ambassador of the IT Ukraine Association in Switzerland. In this role, I am actively focused on strengthening connections between the Ukrainian and Swiss technology ecosystems, building new partnerships, and creating opportunities for collaboration in fintech and digital innovation.
I believe Switzerland can become an important bridge between Ukrainian fintech expertise and global financial markets, and I am excited to contribute to that journey both as an entrepreneur and as an ambassador.
The financial services sector is evolving rapidly. What major trends do you believe will shape the future of digital banking and fintech over the next five years?
I see five major trends shaping the future of financial services.
The first is the rise of AI-native organizations. AI will move beyond chatbots and isolated tools and become embedded into every layer of banking operations.
The real challenge will not be deploying AI models. It will be designing the right AI architecture, building effective control points, and ensuring proper human oversight. In highly regulated industries such as banking, accountability and trust will remain human responsibilities.
I often say that AI will not replace fintech experts. Fintech experts who know how to work with AI will replace those who do not.
The second trend is the convergence of traditional finance and digital assets. I believe regulated stablecoins and compliant digital asset infrastructure will become a standard part of financial services. In the future, customers will be able to seamlessly hold, transfer, and manage both fiat and digital assets within trusted financial institutions while remaining fully compliant with KYC, AML, and regulatory requirements.
We are moving toward a world where crypto is not an alternative to banking but an integrated part of the financial ecosystem. Today, a growing number of European fintechs are launching with digital asset capabilities from day one, and I expect this trend to continue accelerating.
The third trend is real-time finance. Customers increasingly expect instant payments, immediate account opening, and real-time access to financial services regardless of location.
The fourth trend is hyper-personalization. Financial institutions will use data and AI to deliver highly tailored financial experiences, products, and recommendations.
Finally, embedded finance will continue expanding beyond traditional banking, integrating financial services into everyday business and consumer platforms.
The institutions that successfully combine AI, compliance, real-time infrastructure, and customer-centric experiences will define the next generation of financial services.
Artificial intelligence is transforming nearly every industry. How is SoftBees leveraging AI to improve financial services, customer experiences, and operational efficiency?
We are currently transforming SoftBees into an AI-native company.
The most valuable asset in any fintech company is not the code—it is the knowledge, experience, and decision-making capabilities of its people. Our goal is to capture that expertise and make it scalable through AI.
We use AI to accelerate business analysis, documentation, requirements generation, localization, customer support, and product delivery. AI helps us reduce repetitive work and increase speed, while our experts remain focused on strategy, validation, quality, and customer outcomes.
A critical success factor is building the right AI architecture. As organizations adopt multiple AI agents and automated workflows, governance becomes essential. Companies need clearly defined responsibilities, validation mechanisms, escalation paths, and control points throughout the AI-driven process.
In highly regulated industries such as banking and fintech, trust, compliance, and accountability cannot be delegated entirely to machines.
Our vision is to combine the scalability of AI with the judgment and expertise of experienced professionals, creating organizations that are both more efficient and more intelligent.
Many fintech startups struggle to scale successfully. What are the most common challenges you see founders facing today, and how can they overcome them?
Fintech is a unique industry because success requires much more than building great technology.
The first challenge is understanding how financial institutions actually operate. Founders often focus on product features without fully understanding how banks, payment providers, and regulated financial institutions work, what constraints they face, and what problems they are truly trying to solve. Deep domain expertise is a significant competitive advantage in fintech.
The second challenge is thinking beyond product-market fit. Once a solution solves a real customer problem, founders need to understand the broader context in which that product will be used. This means understanding detailed user journeys, operational processes, compliance requirements, integrations, internal workflows, and long-term customer needs.
The third challenge is trust. Financial institutions do not buy software the same way other industries do. They are trusting a vendor with critical business processes, customer data, compliance obligations, and often their reputation. Building trust takes time.
This becomes particularly difficult when entering a new market where you have no established reputation. In those situations, strong partnerships become essential. The right partners can help open doors, provide local credibility, and accelerate market entry. However, meaningful partnerships are built over time and require consistent investment in relationships.
The fourth challenge is patience. Many founders underestimate how long enterprise sales cycles can be in financial services. In our market, the period from the first conversation to project launch typically ranges from nine to fifteen months.
Founders need to be financially and emotionally prepared for that reality. You need sufficient resources to sustain the business, continue improving the product, and support your team while negotiations, procurement processes, compliance reviews, and partnership discussions are taking place.
There is also a challenge that is often overlooked. As a woman founder in fintech, you quickly realize that access to funding is not always equal. Female-founded startups still receive only a small share of global venture capital funding. This means women entrepreneurs often need to build stronger track records, demonstrate greater traction, and overcome additional barriers before receiving the same level of investor confidence.
Fintech is ultimately a long-term game. Technology matters, but expertise, trust, partnerships, and persistence often determine who succeeds.
SoftBees serves clients across multiple markets and regions. What lessons have you learned about building technology solutions for diverse regulatory and customer environments?
The biggest lesson is that there is no universal fintech platform.
Every market has unique regulations, infrastructure, customer behavior, and cultural expectations. What works in Europe may not work in Africa, and what works in one country may require significant adaptation in another.
That is why we focus on reusable modules rather than rigid platforms. Instead of forcing markets to adapt to technology, we adapt technology to the realities of each market.
Localization is not a feature. It is a strategic capability.
Innovation often requires balancing speed with compliance and security. How does SoftBees approach this challenge while developing modern financial products?
Speed without compliance is dangerous.
Compliance without innovation leads to stagnation.
Our approach is to integrate security, compliance, and risk management into the product development process from day one. We work closely with regulators, compliance teams, banking partners, and payment providers throughout the entire development lifecycle.
Because of my background in banking, I understand that compliance cannot be treated as a final checkpoint before launch. It must be embedded into the architecture, business processes, and customer journeys from the very beginning.
At the same time, financial institutions cannot afford multi-year implementation cycles anymore. Customers expect modern digital experiences, and competition is increasing from fintechs and technology companies.
For us, security and compliance are not just requirements—they are part of our culture. Our company has successfully passed ISO 27001 certification and subsequent surveillance audits, demonstrating our commitment to information security and continuous improvement.
We have also completed a GDPR compliance review with legal experts to ensure that our solutions meet European data protection requirements.
In addition, for one of our current fintech projects, we are currently undergoing PCI DSS compliance processes, which are essential for organizations working with payment card data and financial transactions.
That is why we focus on reusable components, proven delivery frameworks, and close collaboration with stakeholders. This allows us to move quickly while maintaining the trust, resilience, security, and regulatory standards that financial services require.
As a CEO, what leadership principles have been most important in helping you build a high-performing and innovative team?
Several leadership principles have guided me throughout my career.
The first is leading by example. When difficult decisions need to be made or complex problems need to be solved, I believe leaders should be willing to step in, take responsibility, and help the team find solutions.
The second is ownership. I encourage people to take responsibility for outcomes, not just tasks. Strong organizations are built when individuals think like owners and proactively solve problems rather than waiting for instructions.
The third is accountability. In fintech, reliability matters. We work in an industry where trust is essential, and that starts inside the organization. We strive to keep our commitments, respect deadlines, and deliver what we promise to customers and partners.
I also believe that culture is one of the most important competitive advantages. At SoftBees, we encourage people to take initiative, support one another, and continuously learn. At the same time, we maintain high standards of execution and responsibility.
Throughout my career, whether managing startup teams or organizations with thousands of employees, I have learned that great results come from combining trust, accountability, expertise, and a shared commitment to achieving ambitious goals.
What opportunities do you believe are currently being overlooked by financial institutions and fintech companies?
One opportunity I believe is still underestimated is deeper collaboration between fintech startups and established financial institutions.
For many years, fintechs and banks were often viewed as competitors. Today, I believe the greatest value can be created when they work together.
Banks have customers, infrastructure, licenses, operational expertise, and a deep understanding of regulatory requirements. Fintechs bring speed, innovation, flexibility, and new ways of solving customer problems.
When these strengths are combined, it becomes possible to create products that solve real operational and customer challenges, validate them in a live banking environment, and then scale them across other institutions and markets.
The second opportunity is the practical application of AI.
Many organizations are experimenting with AI, but relatively few are systematically integrating it into business processes, product delivery, compliance, operations, and decision-making. The real value is not in using AI as a standalone tool, but in redesigning how organizations operate and deliver value.
Finally, I believe many institutions still underestimate the value of reusable fintech infrastructure and accumulated industry expertise.
In the past, every bank tended to build everything from scratch. Today, the organizations that move fastest are often those that can leverage proven components, best practices, and lessons learned across multiple markets.
The future belongs to institutions that are willing to combine partnership, technology, and expertise rather than trying to solve every challenge alone.
Looking ahead, what is your long-term vision for SoftBees, and what strategic priorities will drive the company’s next phase of growth?
Our vision is to become a global AI-native fintech company that helps financial institutions launch and scale digital financial services anywhere in the world.
Over the past four years, we have participated in the launch of seven fintech solutions across Ukraine, Europe, and Africa. Each market brought different challenges, regulatory environments, customer behaviors, and infrastructure realities. These experiences taught us that technology alone is not enough. What truly creates value is the combination of fintech expertise, execution capability, and the ability to adapt solutions to local markets.
Over the next few years, our priorities include:
• Transforming SoftBees into an AI-native organization.
• Strengthening our presence in Ukraine, Europe, Africa, and Switzerland.
• Building strategic partnerships with banks, fintechs, payment providers, and technology companies.
• Continuing to reduce the time, cost, and complexity of launching financial products.
Our ambition is to become the preferred neobank launch partner for banks, fintechs, and financial institutions looking to bring new products to market quickly and efficiently.
We believe the future of fintech delivery will combine reusable infrastructure, AI-powered execution, and deep domain expertise. Technology alone is no longer enough. The winners will be those who can scale knowledge, accelerate execution, and continuously adapt to changing markets.
That is exactly the future we are building at SoftBees.
Finally, what advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs and fintech founders who want to build impactful businesses in today’s competitive landscape?
- Start with a real problem.
- Stay close to your customers.
- Learn faster than your competitors.
- Do not be afraid to enter complex industries or challenging markets. Some of the greatest opportunities exist where others see obstacles.
- Most importantly, remember that investors invest in people before they invest in products.
- Technology changes. Markets change. Strategies evolve.
- But strong teams, resilience, integrity, and the ability to consistently deliver results remain timeless competitive advantages.`
Our sincere thanks to the Tetiana - CEO of SoftBees for participating in this insightful discussion and sharing their knowledge, experiences, and vision for the future. We greatly appreciate the time and transparency devoted to answering our questions and providing valuable industry perspectives. We wish the entire SoftBees team continued success and look forward to witnessing their future achievements and innovations.