Andrea Gelfi runs Galileo Network, an Italian SaaS company that serves Confidi and financial intermediaries. His market is built on digital processes, yet much of the daily work still relies on paper documentation and manual signatures.

The gap, between a digital sector and a paper-heavy reality, is where a great deal of value sits in 2026. It is also where the buying decision has changed. Across the European Credit and Lending market, we keep hearing the same thing from software company founders: customers still rely on their software, but the questions asked before a purchase are harder than they were a few years ago. One question underpins all others, regardless of whether the buyer is a bank, a Confidi, a non-bank lender, or a compliance team: what will your software change about the economics of my business?

Why the conversation changed in 2026

Three forces came together this year. The first is regulation. The Digital Operational Resilience Act, known as DORA, has applied across the European financial sector since January 2025. In practice, it means a buyer now considers how resilient a piece of software is, how well the vendor manages its own suppliers, and how thoroughly it is documented, before committing. The second Consumer Credit Directive applies from November 2026 and, for the first time, brings buy-now-pay-later and small loans under the same rules, with a higher bar for how a lender checks and records each credit decision. And under the EU AI Act, using AI to judge a person’s creditworthiness counts as high-risk. Those duties were set for August 2026, and after an agreement in May 2026 now apply from December 2027, pending the final vote. The dates moved, but the direction did not.

The second force is the manual gap, which is wider than most people expect. Deloitte’s 2026 banking outlook still finds the mortgage process slow, manual, and heavy on paperwork. A Sia Partners study of 64 banks in six Western European countries (Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Spain, and Italy) found that a fully digital mortgage journey is still rare: only eight of the 64 banks offer one from start to finish, and the final signature is often still made by hand.

The third force is clearer. There is less spare room in the budget. BCG reports that more than 60% of bank technology spending still goes on keeping existing systems running. Anything new has to win its place against that.

The four numbers a lending buyer counts

For years, Credit and Lending software could be sold on one promise: replace the paperwork and speed things up. That promise still holds. However, on its own, it no longer wins the deal.

Buyers now weigh up a purchase by its effect on their own accounts. That effect comes in four forms. For each one, you should be able to say clearly what your product changes for the customer, and where you can, put a number on it. Together they form a simple checklist you can reuse, including in your own sales deck:

• Time saved. Faster decisions, fewer manual steps, less re-entering of the same data.
• Risk reduced. Better credit decisions, fewer losses, sharper checks on fraud and affordability.
• Compliance made easier. A clear audit trail and governance built into the product, so the customer does not have to add it later.
• Better decisions. A stronger outcome from the same application, not just a quicker one.

These four are the figures a buyer’s finance team already tracks. Connect your product to all four, with real numbers, and you have an ROI story. Describe only what the software does, and you leave the buyer to judge the value alone, which usually means competing on price rather than on value.

One product, four very different buyers

A single ROI figure rarely convinces anyone, because not all buyers run the same kind of business. Each one looks at a different set of ROI numbers, and the conversation shifts again with the size of the customer and the weight of regulation they carry.

The pressure on Confidi is real. The 2026 Torino Finanza report found that 87% of larger Italian Confidi, and 81% of smaller ones, do not cover the cost of their core guarantee work, with the group running a negative operating margin of about €149 million over three years. The same authors make the deeper point: for a Confidi today, the advantage is no longer in carrying less risk, but in reading risk better. That is as much a question of software and data as of finance.

There is no single benchmark, and that helps you

Experienced founders already sense this, so we will say it directly. There is no public, Europe-wide ROI figure for Credit and Lending software. The return depends on the type of customer, their size, and how much regulation applies to them. If someone hands you one universal number, be careful with it.

This is not something to hide. It means the company that can explain its own value, buyer by buyer, is the one a customer will believe. The way to do that is to make the value visible inside the product itself, so it shows up in the day-to-day work, not in a report put together later. Andrea Gelfi describes exactly this at Galileo:

“We aim to shorten the entire guaranteed-credit value chain by reducing processing time, limiting the use of paper, and improving the connections between the distribution network, the central back office, and the decision-making bodies.”

That work is already paying off: full digital integration with the end customer has cut the time to handle an application by up to 25%, and the credit assessment stage by 35%, optimising costs and opening up commercial potential.

None of this is only theory. McKinsey’s 2026 fintech research finds that the software companies helping established lenders improve from within, rather than trying to replace them, are now growing faster than the rest.

AI is now a big part of this ROI story, and handling it well matters as much as the technology itself. Used carefully, in full compliance, and with no unlawful data processing, it strengthens the ROI case and can enrich a product over the next two to three years. Used loosely in a regulated market, it does the opposite and creates new risk.

A stronger ROI story is worth more than the next deal

It is tempting to treat ROI as a sales tool, useful only until the contract is signed. However, it is worth far more than that. A clear, provable ROI story lets you defend your price when a buyer asks for a discount. It keeps customers for longer and gives them reasons to spend more with you over time. And it raises what your company is worth, the price a serious partner would pay, on the day you ever decide to raise money or sell. Sharpening the way you prove value does not only help you close. It builds into the worth of the business.

A one-line test before your next plan

Before your next planning round, ask one question honestly. For each type of customer you serve, can you state in a single sentence the measurable value they get from your product? Where does it save time, lower risk, ease compliance, or improve a decision?

If the answer comes easily, your ROI story is ready for the harder conversations ahead. If it does not, that is the most useful work you can do this year. It is also worth being clear about what a strong ROI story is not. It is not about turning your product into something broad and ordinary. The best stories are built on the very things that make specialised software valuable: a deep understanding of your corner of the market, customers who stay, and a product people trust.

Why this needs a partner who can wait

None of this is built in a single budget year. In specialised software, the market is well defined and, by design, smaller, so two, three, or four years is rarely long enough to build something that lasts. That belief is why we built Upliift around Permanent Equity, with no exit mandate or timeline pressure to sell the businesses we fund. Andrea has experienced what that long-term backing makes possible at Galileo:

“Being part of a permanent investor framework lets Galileo grow with stability, a clear long-term horizon, and the support of a strong and reliable partner. A shared journey measured in decades naturally aligns everyone’s interests.”

You do not have to be considering an investment for any of this to be useful. The four-point checklist and the one-line test above are yours to keep and use, whether or not we ever speak. If you would like to go further, we are glad to compare notes: across our Financial Services portfolio we see how banks, Confidi, non-bank lenders, and compliance teams each weigh ROI in their own way, and we can discuss how that applies to your part of the market. And if you are building specialised Credit and Lending software in Europe and want a long-term partner who understands regulated software and how your customers measure value, we would welcome that conversation.

This blog is written with input from Andrea Gelfi, CEO of Galileo Network. It’s a part of the series exploring the forces shaping European Credit & Lending software. Read the other posts: The Long-Term Partner for Credit & Lending Founders, Five Forces Reshaping European Credit & Lending Software — and What They Mean for Founders & Beyond the AI Hype: How Credit and Lending Software Companies Can Create Real Value in 2026.

References

Deloitte. How to streamline the credit journey. Deloitte Luxembourg, 2025. https://www.deloitte.com/lu/en/our-thinking/future-of-advice/how-to-streamline-the-credit-journey.html

Deloitte. Banking Outlook 2026. March 2026. https://www.deloitte.com/nl/en/Industries/banking-capital-markets/perspectives/banking-outlook-2026.html

Sia Partners. 2025 Mortgage Credit Prospect Journey Benchmark. March 2025. https://www.sia-partners.com/en/insights/publications/2025-mortgage-credit-prospect-journey-benchmark

Boston Consulting Group. Tech in Banking 2025. 2025.

McKinsey & Company and QED Investors. The next age of fintech. 2026.

Comitato Torino Finanza. Rapporto 2026 sull’Osservatorio permanente sui Confidi in Italia. April 2026 (reported by Il Sole 24 Ore).

European Banking Authority. AI Act implications for the EU banking and payments sector. November 2025.

European Commission. Digital Omnibus on AI: provisional agreement on high-risk timelines. May 2026.