Kani Payments has been named one of Prolific North’s 2026 Tech Companies to Watch: Scale-up Edition, recognising the company as one of the North of England’s ambitious, fast-growing technology businesses.
The annual list highlights scale-up companies across the North showing strong evidence of growth, market traction, funding success and ambition.
For Kani, the recognition follows a period of continued momentum. Founded in Newcastle in 2018, the company has grown from a specialist payments data platform into a global fintech business supporting clients across five continents.
Built in the North, scaling globally
Kani was created to solve one of the payments industry’s most persistent back-office challenges: helping banks, payment firms and fintech businesses bring control to complex financial data.
Its SaaS platform automates reconciliation, reporting and compliance workflows for payments businesses, helping teams reduce manual work, identify exceptions faster and maintain stronger oversight across high-volume transaction data.
Today, Kani supports a growing international client base across the payments and fintech ecosystem, including card programme managers, e-money institutions, processors and financial services businesses.
The company’s inclusion in Prolific North’s 2026 Tech Companies to Watch list reflects both its commercial growth and its continued role in representing the North East’s technology sector on a wider stage.
Continued recognition for Kani
The Prolific North recognition follows a strong period for Kani, including continued client growth, further platform development and industry recognition for its payments reconciliation, reporting and compliance technology.
Kani has recently been recognised in TechRound’s FinTech50 2026, named Payments Compliance Technology of the Year at the Payments Awards, and awarded FinTech of the Year at the Brit FinTech Awards.
Aaron Holmes, CEO and Founder of Kani Payments, said:
“Being named one of Prolific North’s Tech Companies to Watch is a proud moment for the team. Kani was built here in the North East to help payments and fintech businesses solve their toughest data challenges, and that mission has taken us from Newcastle to clients across five continents.
The roots still matter. We’re proud to be scaling from the North, and to be recognised alongside so many brilliant businesses building serious technology outside the usual centres.”
Kani’s inclusion in the 2026 Tech Companies to Watch: Scale-up Edition list underlines its continued growth as a specialist payments technology provider, helping firms simplify payment reconciliation, strengthen reporting and bring greater control to complex financial data.
