36 Companies to Shape Europe's Digital Euro

Hey FinTech Fanatic!

The digital euro has taken another meaningful step toward becoming reality.

The European Central Bank has selected 36 payment service providers to take part in its digital euro pilot, bringing together banks, FinTechs, and payment companies from across Europe to test how the new payment infrastructure could work in real-life scenarios.

What's interesting is that this is the first time the project is moving beyond regulation and planning into practical testing. Over the next year, participating companies will experiment with everything from peer-to-peer payments to in-store and e-commerce transactions, giving the industry its clearest view yet of how a digital euro could fit into everyday payments.

Whether the digital euro launches or not, this pilot is likely to influence investment decisions across the European payments industry. Banks, FinTechs, wallet providers, and merchants now have a much better idea of where the market may be heading, and many won't want to wait until the final launch before preparing their products and infrastructure.

There's much more waiting below.

You'll also find a comparison of Mastercard and American Express, showing how two payment giants continue to deliver impressive results while pursuing very different business strategies.

See what else is shaping FinTech. 👇 See you tomorrow!

Cheers,

Marcel

#FINTECHREPORT

📊 Mastercard 🆚 American Express

Here's how Q1 2026 looked, side by side👇

FINTECH NEWS

🇹🇷 Papara founder Ahmet Faruk Karslı has been re-arrested as Turkish authorities intensify their investigation into the digital wallet provider's alleged links to illegal gambling payments. The case marks a significant escalation in Turkey's crackdown on financial crime, with regulators increasing scrutiny of FinTechs and payment providers. 

🌍 ECB selects 36 payment service providers to join the digital euro pilot. The pilot aims to support the ongoing preparatory work for the potential issuance of a digital euro and is due to start during the second half of 2027 for a period of 12 months.

🇺🇸 Klarna plans a new buy-now-pay-later SRT as it targets US growth. Klarna is reportedly preparing a significant risk transfer (SRT) transaction backed by approximately SEK 5 billion ($516 million) in buy now, pay later loans. The deal is expected to free up capital to support the company's international expansion.

PAYMENTS NEWS

📈 Maple reported its strongest first half on record, with assets under management reaching $4.6 billion, loans outstanding climbing to a record $1.9 billion, and annual recurring revenue rising to $17.5 million. The company also launched an on-chain Transparency Dashboard and is preparing to vote on a revenue-linked buyback proposal. Watch the full update here

➡️ Airwallex rolled out new features across payments, embedded finance, and spend management in July, including its Airi consumer wallet, AgentOS for AI-powered finance workflows, expanded local payment methods, and enhanced card, expense, and business account capabilities. Read more

🇪🇸 Bizum launches its app to pay with your mobile phone in physical stores. The new digital wallet Bizum Pay will be available for Android and iPhone and will allow users to pay by simply bringing their phone close to the payment terminal without opening the application.

🇷🇼 Rwanda launches full interoperability on the eKash national payment system. The move allows customers to send and receive money across banks and electronic money providers through a single interoperable system. Customers will pay a maximum transaction fee of RWF 20 for transfers processed through eKash, subject to financial institutions’ individual transaction and daily limits.

🇺🇸 Ramp cofounder says he hired people who built businesses on Minecraft at 15 years old. Ramp co-CEO Eric Glyman said the FinTech prioritizes hiring candidates with exceptional "proof of work" over traditional résumés. The company focuses on identifying standout talent through real-world achievements and referrals rather than conventional credentials.

🇺🇸 Linux Foundation announces operational launch of x402 Foundation to standardize internet-native payments for AI agents and applications. The x402 protocol embeds secure payment capabilities directly into web interactions so that AI agents, APIs, and applications can send and receive payments as seamlessly as they exchange data.

🌍 Emirates NBD launches real-time blockchain cross-border payments on the Partior Network. The launch marks the first phase of a broader roadmap to expand the capability across additional currencies, settlement corridors, and more participating banks globally as the Partior network scales.

🇺🇸 Brazil’s Pix Instant Payments System is at the center of a US trade dispute. USTR said in a press release that the investigation concluded that “certain of Brazil’s acts, policies and practices” related to digital trade and electronic payments services “are unreasonable and burden or restrict U.S. commerce” and therefore actionable.

🇺🇸 Visa introduces an AI financial assistant, helping banks guide customers from insight to action. The feature helps banks bring AI-powered financial insights to cardholders under their own brand, look and feel with no custom development required.

DIGITAL BANKING NEWS

🇪🇸 Revolut surpasses 120 ATMs in Spain one year after its launch. In addition to bringing the 100% digital experience to the physical environment, these terminals allow customers to withdraw cash without additional fees and apply the same competitive exchange rates as the app.

🇮🇪 Revolut rebrands as Revolut Bank in Ireland to encourage users to deposit salaries. The company said the rebrand is designed to remove any ambiguity and assure users that their funds and savings balances are backed by the same levels of protection as legacy banks under the European Deposit Guarantee Scheme.

BLOCKCHAIN/CRYPTO NEWS

🇺🇸 Coinbase CEO admits Base ‘messed up’ on content coins. Brian Armstrong admitted Base’s content coin strategy failed and said the network changed direction earlier. Base now prioritizes trading, payments, and AI agents, with most resources assigned to trading infrastructure.

PARTNERSHIPS

🇦🇷 Nexo arrives in Argentina with a card powered by Pomelo. With this launch, Nexo aims to bring the benefits of the crypto ecosystem closer to its users' daily lives, allowing them to use their digital assets through a modern, simple, and secure payment experience.

🇨🇩 Mastercard and Flash collaborate to broaden access to digital payments in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Through the collaboration, Flash will issue virtual and physical Mastercard prepaid cards via its super app FlashApp, giving users new ways to pay online and at point-of-sale terminals across the DRC.

🌍 Kraken launches Kraken Card, a Mastercard crypto debit card in the UK and Europe, allowing users to spend more than 600 cryptocurrencies and fiat currencies anywhere Mastercard is accepted. The card offers up to 2% cashback in Bitcoin, euros or pounds, with no Kraken transaction or ATM fees.

🇲🇺 Sunfintech partners with Flutterwave for cross-border payments. The collaboration integrates Flutterwave’s payment infrastructure into Sunfintech’s platform, allowing businesses to process cross-border transactions more efficiently while benefiting from faster settlements and multi-currency payment capabilities.

🌍 Adyen joins the European Payments Initiative as a principal member. The move is intended to give consumers a fast, secure, and straightforward way to pay at checkout, while helping to accelerate merchant adoption of the wallet across the region.

🌎 Hyundai completed a cross-border treasury pilot using Tether's USDT on the Avalanche blockchain, moving corporate funds between its U.S. and Mexico operations in an average of seven minutes. Continue reading

DONEDEAL FUNDING NEWS

🇨🇳 Grace Investment Machine closes $20m for agentic trading tech. A company statement said funds will be used to build products, from institutional strategies to individual-accessible vehicles, that turn self-evolving intelligence into a widely held asset, rather than a concentrated advantage.

🇩🇪 Founder who sold startup to Klarna for $124M raises $13.6M for AI tax firm Skalar. Skalar is developing artificial intelligence solutions for tax and accounting processes. The funding will support the company's product development and growth plans.

🇳🇱 Nopan raises €7.2M to further build its performance platform for account and wallet payments. The funding will help Nopan accelerate its mission to turn account and wallet payment methods into revenue drivers for digital businesses and FinTechs.

🇺🇦 Ukrainian AI FinTech Aiffin has raised over 3 million euros in funding. The company will use the raised funding to scale the already launched platform in France, develop AI infrastructure for business leasing, SME finance, credit scoring, risk assessment and underwriting, as well as expand the partner network. 

🇺🇸 Naver makes first investment in US crypto payments firm Rain ahead of planned merger. The move supports Naver Pay's plans to expand stablecoin-powered payments globally, leveraging Rain's Visa-based infrastructure to enable stablecoin transactions across merchants in more than 150 countries.

🇺🇸 Tether leads $7 million Series A in Pact Labs to expand USA₮ across payroll and payments. The investment will support Pact Labs’ development as a core infrastructure provider for USA₮ across payroll, earned wage access, credit, and everyday payments.

🇺🇸 Hadrius raises $27 million to build agentic compliance infrastructure. The funding will accelerate Hadrius' vision to consolidate compliance into a single AI-native workflow. More than 500 financial institutions and investment firms already run their compliance programs on Hadrius.

🇺🇸 Linker Finance secures $5 million seed to accelerate growth engine for community banks. The new funding will support Linker Finance's continued product development across retail banking, business onboarding, and business banking.

🇬🇧 Payments startup Velocity raises $38 million to help businesses tap stablecoin growth. The Series A funding will be used to further expand the company's global banking network and accelerate the development of products that embed stablecoins directly into consumer payment back-ends.

🇺🇸 Flex doubles valuation to $1.2B in 6 months as $70M Series B1 backs global private banking push for middle-market owners. Flex plans to use the new funds to double its staff from 110 to over 200 by the end of the year and to expand into business finance, personal finance, payments, private credit, and ERP.

🌍 Bibby Financial Services secures €250m HSBC facility for SME receivables finance. The facility extends the companies’ existing relationship and will provide back-to-back receivables financing across seven jurisdictions. Read on

MOVERS AND SHAKERS

🇺🇸 REPAY appoints Zach Sadek to its Board of Directors. Mr. Sadek brings more than two decades of experience investing in and advising companies across the payments, financial technology, business services, and software sectors. Continue reading

🌍 N26 evolves its leadership bench with the two new appointments. The bank has appointed Nathalie Picquot as Chief Growth and Marketing Officer to lead the digital bank's brand, customer growth, and engagement across Europe, and Marcin Pakulnicki as Chief Technology Officer, where he will oversee N26's technology organization and drive the scalability, resilience, and AI-powered evolution of its banking platform.

🇺🇸 Finexio founder Ernest Rolfson steps down as CEO. Co-founder Chris Wyatt will serve as interim CEO, while Rolfson joins Fern Capital to focus on FinTech M&A, investment and strategic advisory. Read more

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