Our FinTech Forward Companies to Watch are helping banks step up their game by offering virtual assistance, better money management tools and other solutions.

Funding of startups will cool overall, but venture capitalists anticipate growth in new areas of financial services that are ripe for innovation, including wealth management, insurance and back-office operations.

There were bound to be growing pains in the friendship between banks and fintech. Bankers plugged into the world of innovation give their advice on overcoming the challenges.

Banks are expected to spend more on technology in the coming year, with the cash earmarked for things like upgrading mobile apps and adding self-service tech in branches.

For regulators to develop a unified framework for fintech companies to operate in, they first have to come to a consensus.

The once-icy relationship between banks and fintechs thawed quite a bit in the last year. The next step might be for banks to start buying startups.

Fintech not only solves problems for banks and their customers, it also helped break a curse.

To identify the fintech startups deserving of special recognition this year as part of the FinTech Forward program, we asked our judges to consider several factors: Is this organization solving relevant problems for the banking industry? Is the organization creating change? Is the solution timely? Does it speak to the challenges the industry faces now? The following 20 companies are the standouts.

It's hard to sell a big bank something regardless of the tech company's size. But for early-stage startups with only a handful of employees and a product still under development, the challenge is far greater than for seasoned tech vendors.

Kim Kaselionis saw a lot of small-business-loan applications die on her desk when she was a bank chief, so she started a crowdfunding firm to nurse along startups till they were bankable. That's where Fresno First comes in.

A new wave of exciting innovation is presenting businesses with opportunities to improve processes and the consumer experience.

Up until now, no fintech company has succeeded on a mass scale to offer solutions beyond its core product. But disruptors are trying to go in that direction, and banks should watch their efforts closely.

The surprise vote by the U.K. in June to leave the European Union may encourage fintech firms in London to expand across the pond. That was the case with Duco, a financial data management company, which recently added senior managers in New York. "Hiring talent in London was already hard on the tech side, and we think it's going to get even harder" says CEO Christian Nentwich. Duco was selected last year to participate in Accenture's Fintech Innovation Lab in London.

Mixed messaging on fin tech doesn't just emanate from the halls of Congress. It can also be found at the regulatory level as well.

For large banks, the risks of partnering with marketplace lenders do not matter. But small community banks can't afford to partner with competitors angling to poach their customers.

With new fintech investments tapering off and banks starting to get the hang of digital innovation, young companies need to take a hard look at their business models.

Banks need more specific guidance that clarifies requirements around vendor contracts, risk assessments, data management and other issues.

Banks are playing a more active role in the next phase of fintech, both as investors and partners, says David Sica, partner at venture capital firm Nyca. That change is shaping how the firm looks at new investments.

Screen scraping is an out-of-date way to share transaction data with mobile apps and services. It's high time for banks to invest in OAuth, a protocol that lets customers access their financial data in a portal of their choosing and is secure.

Sure, there is an inherent business tension between banks' digital offerings and personal financial management software. However, the ground rules for making account data available to consumers for use in external software products and apps are in place and the so-called rivalry is overblown.