Nasdaq Verafin Fundamentals Remain Solid With More Growth Vectors On-Deck But the AI Debate Persists; Mgmt Dinner Takeaways

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Nasdaq Verafin Fundamentals Remain Solid With More Growth Vectors On-Deck But the AI Debate Persists; Mgmt Dinner Takeaways

Michael Cho AC North America Equity Research

(1-212) 622-3619 21 May 2026 J P M O R G A N

michael.cho@jpmchase.com

In the ‘give to get’ model, Verafin has accumulated financial institution data over two+

decades that underpins its anti-financial crime solutions/analytics. While clients

ultimately own their respective data, Nasdaq is permitted to anonymize and utilize these

datasets, supporting robust fraud and AML detection for clients. We think Verafin’s data/

network creates a considerable competitive moat for its business.

• Solid near-term fundamentals, but the existential AI debate persists. Despite

consensus expectations for Verafin revenue growth to accelerate as 2026 progresses, the

existential risk from AI disruption continues to command considerable mind share across

investors. We certainly appreciate the rapidly changing AI environment and it is also

evident that financial institutions (clients) have begun to increasingly prioritize AI

initiatives/partnerships. Moreover, the recent FIS-Anthropic announcement to develop

a Financial Crimes AI agent (with BMO among the first to test deployment) caught

investor attention. On balance, this is not the first high-profile entrant into the anti-

money laundering segment (e.g., Google AI/2023, Jack Henry/2023) andthe segment

is littered with less-scaled vendors. But it is also not lost on us that BMO has been a

high-profile Verafin client, and Anthropic, with its large resources/capabilities, has

honed in on financial crime. While the anti-financial crime industry is not a winner-take-

all market, in our view, vendor spend consolidation (as well as in-house spend) likely has

room to narrow.