Banking technology provider Finzly has been named a finalist in the Banking category of the 2026 Money20/20 Money Awards for BankOS, its cloud-native bank operating system. Entered in the Infrastructure subcategory, the platform is designed to help financial institutions modernize payments, accounts, digital assets and banking workflows without replacing their legacy core in a single step.

Replacing a bank’s core infrastructure remains one of the most difficult technology projects in financial services. Legacy systems often underpin deposits, payments and account processing so deeply that a full replacement can require years of planning, extensive integration work and significant operational risk.

Finzly is taking a different approach with BankOS, its cloud-native bank operating system, which has been named a finalist in the Banking category of the 2026 Money20/20 Money Awards.

The platform was entered under the Infrastructure subcategory and is the only bank modernization platform among the 18 finalists in the Banking group, according to Finzly. Winners are scheduled to be announced at Money20/20 USA in Las Vegas on October 18.

The recognition puts attention on a broader issue facing banks: how to modernize infrastructure while continuing to operate existing core systems.

BankOS is designed to run alongside a bank’s existing core rather than requiring an immediate rip-and-replace migration. Finzly calls this its “surround-and-shrink” approach, in which individual products, customer segments, channels and payment rails can gradually be moved away from legacy infrastructure.

The idea is straightforward but strategically significant. Instead of making modernization a single transformation project, banks can migrate individual capabilities as business requirements and technology readiness allow.

BankOS organizes those capabilities into modular components that Finzly calls “Galaxies.”

The Payment Galaxy provides payment processing across multiple rails, including ACH, Fedwire, RTP, FedNow, Swift and blockchain networks. That combination reflects the increasingly fragmented payments environment banks must support as real-time payments and digital assets develop alongside established payment infrastructure.

The Account Galaxy provides a real-time, 24/7 ledger for fiat accounts, specialty deposits and virtual accounts. Finzly positions the unified ledger as a way to maintain a consistent view of balances and value movement across banking products.

Digital assets are addressed through Token Galaxy, which supports tokenized money, including stablecoins and tokenized deposits. As banks experiment with blockchain-based representations of deposits and other forms of digital money, the ability to connect those instruments with conventional banking infrastructure is becoming an important technology consideration.

The platform also includes Trade Galaxy for international banking activities such as foreign exchange and trade finance, while Digital Galaxy is intended to unify customer experiences across channels.

An Agentic Galaxy adds AI capabilities across the platform. Finzly’s positioning here follows a broader banking technology trend in which AI is moving beyond standalone chatbots and analytics tools toward workflow automation and systems capable of assisting with operational processes.

The common infrastructure underneath these components is central to Finzly’s proposition. Because the Galaxies operate on the same operating system, the company says banks can activate new capabilities without deploying separate infrastructure for each one.

That architecture also targets a persistent operational problem: reconciliation. Banks frequently manage balances and transactions across multiple systems, products and payment networks. Maintaining a consistent source of truth can become difficult when those systems do not share the same underlying data model.

Finzly argues that putting accounts, payments and digital assets onto a unified platform can reduce reconciliation gaps and simplify operations. Whether that translates into lower operational costs will depend on individual implementations, integrations and migration strategies, but the underlying challenge is widespread across financial institutions.

The company’s modernization strategy has already been applied to ACH infrastructure. Finzly says Metropolitan Commercial Bank became the first U.S. bank to fully decommission its legacy ACH mainframe in February 2026 and now operates Finzly as its primary ACH system.

That example illustrates the commercial argument behind a gradual modernization strategy. ACH is a mature payment rail with demanding reliability requirements, making it a particularly consequential component to remove from a legacy environment. Successfully moving such a workload can provide a template for migrating additional functions.

BankOS is entering a competitive market that includes traditional core banking providers, cloud-native banking platforms, payment processors and infrastructure companies building modular financial services technology. Large technology companies including Microsoft, Google and Amazon are also investing heavily in cloud and AI infrastructure used by financial institutions, although their role differs from specialized banking operating systems.

For banks, the appeal of modular modernization is less about adopting technology for its own sake and more about reducing the dependency on systems that can constrain product development. New payment rails, embedded financial products, tokenized deposits and AI-powered services can require capabilities that older cores were not designed to provide.

At the same time, operating alongside a legacy core does not eliminate integration or migration complexity. Banks still need to manage regulatory requirements, security, data consistency, resilience and governance across old and new environments.

Finzly’s Money20/20 finalist recognition therefore comes at a time when bank modernization is shifting from a question of whether legacy systems need to change to how institutions can change them without disrupting core operations.

BankOS represents one answer: gradually move individual workloads to a common cloud-native platform until the legacy core becomes less central. If that model scales, modernization could become a series of manageable technology decisions rather than a single multiyear transformation.

Market Landscape

Banking infrastructure is moving toward modular, API-driven and cloud-native architectures as institutions seek alternatives to large-scale core replacements. Payment modernization is a particularly active area because banks must support ACH, instant-payment networks, cross-border rails and increasingly digital-asset infrastructure.

Finzly’s approach competes with both next-generation core banking platforms and specialized payment infrastructure providers. Its differentiation is the ability to operate alongside an existing core while progressively shifting workloads to BankOS.

The emergence of stablecoins, tokenized deposits and real-time payments adds another layer of complexity. Banks increasingly need infrastructure capable of handling multiple forms of value without creating disconnected ledgers and reconciliation processes.

Top Insights

• Finzly’s BankOS is designed to modernize banking infrastructure incrementally rather than requiring institutions to immediately replace their legacy core.
• The platform combines payments, accounts, tokenized money, trade finance, digital channels and AI capabilities within a common operating environment.
• Finzly’s surround-and-shrink strategy moves individual products, payment rails and workloads from legacy systems in stages.
• Metropolitan Commercial Bank reportedly became the first U.S. bank to decommission its legacy ACH mainframe using Finzly as its primary ACH system.
• BankOS reflects the convergence of traditional banking infrastructure, real-time payments, tokenized money and AI-powered financial operations.

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