American Banker's Innovation of the Year 2025: How to apply

Enjoy complimentary access to top ideas and insights — selected by our editors.

American Banker has opened up nominations for our new Innovation of the Year awards, which recognize 2024's most groundbreaking and influential technology-focused innovations, and the teams that brought them to life at banks, financial institutions and fintechs with banking charters or licenses. The awards celebrate achievements including the creation of new products, services, tools, technologies, infrastructure or markets shaping the future of financial services.

Honorees will come from across the following categories of innovation:

1. Digital + Mobile-First Banking
2. Open Banking + Open Finance 
3. Regulation + Compliance + Risk Management
4. Artificial Intelligence + Cloud Computing
5. Embedded Finance
6. Payments
7. Banking as a Service
8. Cybersecurity + Fraud 
9. On-Chain Finance (Crypto + Blockchain)
10. Other Innovations
    

Honorees from all 10 categories will be announced in May and recognized in person at Digital Banking, our live event in Boca Raton, Florida, June 1-4, 2025. An overall Innovation of the Year also will be revealed at the event.

Eligibility

Eligible innovations were launched during 2024 and involve a bank, financial institution, or a fintech firm with a banking charters or license. We welcome nominations for tech innovations that banks or financial institutions launched with partner firms, including fintechs, tech vendors, agencies, law firms and venture or private equity funds. 

There is no limit on the number of individuals who can participate but only the leader and four colleagues or partners will be recognized by name.

We will accept nominations until April 16. We do not require a nomination to be eligible to win an award.

American Banker's editorial team will review nominations and select the innovations to be recognized based on the return on investment, other measurable impacts or benefits, and whether it creates a new paradigm or broadly influences the market.

All information provided in the nomination form, with the exclusion of personal contact information, may be used for publication.

Important instructions

Please do not hit the "submit" button at the end until the application is fully completed. Once you hit submit, you will not be able to access your application again. Please note that we are not accepting printed nomination forms, only those submitted through our online portal.

Submit a nomination here. 

Deadline: Wednesday, April 16, 2025, at 11:59 p.m. EDT 

Please send any questions to awards@arizent.com.

For information about sponsoring Innovation of the Year, contact Brad Bava at brad.bava@arizent.com.