Prestigious Annual Awards Program Celebrates a Decade of Recognizing the World’s Most Innovative Financial Technology Companies
LOS ANGELES, March 19, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- FinTech Breakthrough, an independent market intelligence organization that recognizes the top companies, technologies and products in the global FinTech market, today announced that Staq Technologies, a next-generation Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) and embedded finance platform, has been selected as winner of the “Best Use of Blockchain in FinTech” award in the 10th annual FinTech Breakthrough Awards program.
The recognition underscores Staq’s broader mission: to give banks, fintechs, and digital businesses the infrastructure they need to launch, embed, and scale financial services, securely, compliantly, and at extraordinary speed. Rather than requiring institutions to build from scratch, Staq’s platform delivers a modular suite of ready-to-deploy financial capabilities that can be woven directly into any product or customer experience.
The FinTech Breakthrough Awards is the premier awards program founded to recognize FinTech innovators, leaders and visionaries from around the world across categories including Digital Banking, Personal Finance, Cryptocurrencies, Lending, Payments, Investments, RegTech, InsurTech and more. The 2026 program represents a milestone year, reflecting a decade of spotlighting companies driving measurable innovation across the global financial technology ecosystem.
“Staq is building the financial infrastructure layer that modern banking and digital commerce depends on,” said Steve Johansson, Managing Director, FinTech Breakthrough. “Their platform gives any institution or business the ability to deploy sophisticated financial services, from payments and cards to lending and identity verification, without the traditional burden of regulatory complexity or legacy integration challenges. That is exactly the kind of real-world, scalable innovation this award is designed to celebrate.”
At the heart of Staq’s offering is its Bricks® platform, a composable, API-first financial infrastructure stack that empowers banks and digital businesses alike to design, deploy, and scale custom financial products. Built around connectors that integrate seamlessly with any existing banking system, Bricks® removes the technical and compliance barriers that have historically made embedded finance difficult to execute at scale.
Staq’s payments infrastructure enables institutions to manage money movement globally, with support for international transfers, real-time event-driven transaction processing, automated reconciliation, batch processing, and fully customizable recurring and scheduled payments. Multi-currency operations and instant spending insights give institutions the data they need to build smarter, more personalized financial products for their customers.
Through its card issuance capabilities, Staq allows businesses to design, launch, and manage prepaid card programs with full control over fees, fraud prevention, transaction limits, and geofencing rules. Native integrations with Apple Pay and Google Pay ensure that card products meet the expectations of today’s digital-first consumers from day one.
Staq’s account management infrastructure provides the full lifecycle toolset for creating and operating customer accounts, including multi-currency support, real-time balance visibility, deposit and transfer functionality, and configurable account parameters. Combined with Staq’s identity and onboarding capabilities, institutions can bring customers from registration to fully active accounts in seconds, with automated KYC and AML checks ensuring compliance without friction.
For institutions seeking to expand into credit, Staq’s Lending-as-a-Service offering covers the full spectrum from loan origination and underwriting through to funding and repayment management. Staq also powers Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) programs, enabling businesses to offer flexible, digital-first financing options that drive conversion and customer loyalty across consumer and enterprise segments.
Empowering Banks and Digital Innovators Across Every Sector
Staq serves two primary audiences. For established banks and financial institutions, Staq delivers the infrastructure to modernize legacy services, create new revenue streams, and respond to shifting customer expectations, without dismantling existing systems. For digital businesses, Staq makes it possible to embed financial services directly into their customer experience, transforming non-financial platforms into financial ones.
The platform serves clients across a wide range of verticals, including insurance, marketplace and e-commerce platforms, gig economy operators, telecommunications providers, healthcare organizations, travel and hospitality businesses, gaming companies, and neobanks. In each case, Staq’s established compliance frameworks and partnerships with local regulated banks give clients the foundation to scale confidently across regulatory environments, including the MENA region, where Staq has developed deep market knowledge and institutional relationships.
“Thank you to FinTech Breakthrough for this recognition,” said Amer Abulaila, CEO of Staq. “Winning the ‘Best Use of Blockchain in FinTech’ award reflects the ambition behind everything we build at Staq , to make powerful financial infrastructure accessible to every bank and business that needs it. Whether it is a bank looking to modernize, a marketplace embedding payments, or a lender digitizing its credit process, Staq’s platform is designed to make it happen faster, more securely, and without the complexity that has historically slowed financial innovation down. We are proud to be recognized alongside the world’s most innovative fintech companies, and we remain committed to driving the next chapter of embedded finance across the region and beyond.”
Security, Compliance, and Developer Infrastructure
Staq’s platform is built on industry-leading security infrastructure in line with international standards such as ISO27001, SOC2 and GDPR. Its Trustless SDK library provides developers with unparalleled data security when building on Staq’s capabilities, and its developer portal offers full sandbox access, comprehensive documentation, and a library of pre-built, customizable components to accelerate time-to-value. Every capability on the platform is accessible via a dedicated API, designed to integrate with existing infrastructure through Staq’s connectors and available on any device with browser support.
About Staq Technologies
Staq provides the technology, agility, and reliability innovators need to deploy digital banking products or embed financial services securely and at scale. Through its Bricks® platform, Staq offers a modular suite of financial infrastructure products, spanning payments, cards, accounts, identity, lending, and compliance-grade document workflows, enabling banks, fintechs, and digital businesses to build and scale compliant financial products faster, without complexity. Staq serves clients across the MENA region and globally, with a mission to seamlessly integrate finance and technology and make financial services more accessible, efficient, and adaptable for every business.
About FinTech Breakthrough
Part of Tech Breakthrough, a leading market intelligence and recognition platform for technology innovation and leadership around the globe, the FinTech Breakthrough Awards program is devoted to honoring breakthrough innovation in Financial Technologies and Services companies and products. The FinTech Breakthrough Awards provide public recognition for the standout achievements of FinTech companies and products in categories that include Payments, Personal Finance, Cryptocurrency, Wealth Management, Fraud Protection, Banking, Lending, RegTech, InsurTech and more. For more information visit FinTechBreakthrough.com.
Tech Breakthrough LLC does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in our recognition programs, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with award designations. Tech Breakthrough LLC recognition consists of the opinions of the Tech Breakthrough LLC organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Tech Breakthrough LLC disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this recognition program, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
CONTACT: Media Contact: FinTech Breakthrough Steve Johansson Steve@FinTechBreakthrough.com
