Adyen Cut Out the Middlemen in the UAE and Got its Own License

Hey FinTech Fanatic!

Adyen has been on fire lately. After a busy stretch of acquisitions, the FinTech just made another big move.

After 6+ years in the UAE supporting companies like Careem, noon, and Ziina, Adyen has secured its Retail Payment Services (Category II) license from the Central Bank of the UAE.

That means more independence, more oversight, and more compliance over its local settlements, without relying on 3rd parties like it had to until now.

On Sunday, the group phase of WC2026 wrapped up, and as I shared at the start of the tournament, I set up our own league. Here's the top 10 of that phase 👇

Congrats, Flavio Machado and the other 9!

I guess you could even put it on Prediction Markets and make some more out of it.

Not in my case, though, I didn't even make the top 30... Putting way too much faith in Curaçao to reach the knockouts clearly didn't pay off 🤣

More on that coming soon. For now, let's get back into FinTech. See you tomorrow 👇

Cheers,

Marcel

#FINTECHREPORT

📊 American Express 🆚 Visa

Here is a comparison of 𝗞𝗲𝘆 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝘁𝘀:

FINTECH NEWS

🇺🇸 Interactive Brokers expands agentic wealth ecosystem with ChatGPT and Grok Alliances. These new integrations allow global clients to instantaneously research deep historical metrics, dissect shifting macro market patterns, and programmatically generate complex transaction instructions utilizing conversational natural language.

PAYMENTS NEWS

🇧🇩 bKash and Mastercard partner to expand remittance access in Bangladesh. Under the collaboration, bKash will use Mastercard Move to enable remittances sent from abroad to be received directly into bKash mobile wallets. Customers will also be able to access cash through bKash's nationwide network of more than 350,000 agents.

🇦🇪 UAE Central Bank licenses Adyen for expanded operational capabilities. The license allows Adyen to further develop its local capabilities across fraud prevention, emerging payment methods, and unified commerce, while laying the foundation for future technologies such as agentic AI.

🇿🇦 Visa launches B2B payments platform in South Africa with FNB and RMB. The platform is designed to simplify how organisations manage supplier payments, corporate travel, and operational spend. It enables secure virtual card issuance, automates reconciliation, and provides visibility into spending patterns through a centralised interface.

🇮🇳 PayU India reported its first full year of operating profitability in FY2026, posting adjusted EBITDA of $18 million after a $25 million loss the previous year. Backed by Prosus, the FinTech grew revenue 13% to $781 million while improving margins across its payments and credit businesses.

🇨🇳 Tencent tests TenPayGo mobile app for overseas visitors. The app is part of the company's effort to help foreign travelers navigate the country's highly digital payment system without the usual challenges of setting up local payment methods. Read more.

INSIGHTS

📰 Stop punishing your good users by André Ferraz, Incognia’s CEO & Co-founder. In this article, he highlights precise location intelligence that combines signals to verify user identity in the background, helping financial institutions reduce false positives, minimize unnecessary authentication, and improve fraud detection without disrupting legitimate users. Read the full story here

DIGITAL BANKING NEWS

🇮🇪 Goldman Sachs has begun hiring in Ireland to assess the launch of its Marcus digital banking business, bringing the Wall Street firm closer to an Irish debut. Marcus by Goldman Sachs would mark Goldman’s first consumer banking offering in the EU, helping expand its retail deposit base to support growth.

🇵🇭 Revolut has opened an early access waitlist in the Philippines, signaling progress toward a future market launch. While the company has not yet received a banking licence or announced a launch date, the move follows the appointment of Albert Tinio and the establishment of its Manila technology hub. Additionally, the company has said that securing a New Zealand banking licence remains a strategic priority as it continues its application with NZ’s Reserve Bank. The FinTech views a banking licence as key to expanding its services and has ruled out partnering with an existing local bank.

🇱🇺 UK FinTech Tide targets Luxembourg launch with local IBANs for SMEs. The FinTech intends to use its Luxembourg licence to support expansion into Germany and France, making the country both its European headquarters and one of its first EU operating markets.

BLOCKCHAIN/CRYPTO NEWS

🇦🇪 Coinbase and OKX have launched incentives to attract European users as Binance temporarily restricts some EU services while pursuing a MiCA licence in another member state. The offers come ahead of the EU's July 1 MiCA compliance deadline, as regulated exchanges compete for market share across Europe.

🇺🇸 Polymarket faces a CFTC probe and deals with a $3 million hack. The company says it will audit its promotional content and reimburse affected users whose wallets were compromised. Continue reading

🇫🇷 Flowdesk Europe receives CASP authorization from the AMF under MiCA, allowing it to offer regulated crypto-asset services across the European Union under MiCA passporting rules. The licence strengthens Flowdesk’s European expansion and reinforces its focus on institutional-grade digital asset infrastructure and regulatory compliance.

🇬🇧 Bullish receives Gibraltar Financial Services Commission approval to offer trading in tokenized securities. The approval enables Bullish to launch tokenized securities trading for eligible non-U.S. investors and expands its end-to-end tokenization infrastructure.

PARTNERSHIPS

🇵🇭 Maya rolls out prepaid Mastercard and Visa cards made from 100% recycled plastic. The cards will continue to offer the same security, durability, and functionality while helping reduce the company’s reliance on virgin plastic. Cardholders can use the recycled plastic cards for ATM withdrawals and purchases at more than 150 million merchant locations worldwide. 

🇺🇸 BNY expands relationship with Circle and adds to institutional-grade stablecoin enablement services. BNY clients can now hold USDC in their digital asset custody wallets at BNY, and through BNY they can instruct Circle to convert (“mint”) U.S. dollars into USDC and to redeem (“burn”) USDC for U.S. dollars.

🇻🇳 9Pay becomes a direct payment partner with Visa, driving cross-border payment solutions. By partnering directly with Visa and CyberSource, 9Pay has upgraded its technological capabilities to provide a comprehensive card processing suite capable of offering customized solutions that fulfill complex technical operations specific to various industries.

🇪🇬 Banque Misr and Vodafone Business expand digital banking solutions for SMEs. The two companies signed a strategic cooperation protocol to deliver integrated operational and financial solutions that support entrepreneurs and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) through the ENGEZ digital platform.

DONEDEAL FUNDING NEWS

💰Over the last week, there were seven funding rounds in Europe, totaling €628.7m in disclosed funding, including two transactions in France, two in the UK, one in Germany, one in Spain, and one in Austria.

🇦🇪 Dubai FinTech AXON raises $1 million for cross-border payments. The company outlined plans to expand infrastructure connecting traditional financial systems with digital assets. Read more

🇨🇿 ARIADNEXT founders backed Wultra’s €6.8M Series A as customers before investors. Wultra will use the new funding to grow its digital identity platform, develop European Digital Identity Wallet features, expand into the Middle East and the United States, and hire more staff to support bigger clients.

🇳🇬 Konga-backed stably raises $2.7m to fix Africa's broken foreign exchange market. The funding aims to eliminate the friction, slow clearing times, and fragmented counterparty reliance that currently plague cross-border African currency corridors.

🇺🇸 Google Ventures leads $30M seed funding for space FinTech startup Nebex. The platform aims to standardize these transactions, creating something closer to a proper exchange with transparent pricing, improved liquidity, and streamlined deal flow.

🇮🇳 Finnovate secures $2 Mn in pre-Series A funding from angel investors. The proceeds will be deployed towards scaling operations, enhancing the mobile application and technology infrastructure, expanding marketing efforts, and strengthening business development initiatives. 

🇩🇰 Januar secures a MiCA licence and raises €1 million. It can now offer fiat payments and stablecoin services under a single regulatory framework across the EEA. Continue reading

M&A

🇬🇧 Atom Bank sale process nears collapse amid weak £600mn bid interest. Pollen Street Capital is said to have submitted a lower bid, while other interested parties, including building societies, ultimately chose not to pursue an acquisition. Continue reading

MOVERS AND SHAKERS

🇭🇰 Crypto exchange BitMEX removes CEO, CFO, and head of growth. The leadership changes come as the crypto exchange is reportedly exploring a potential sale. BitMEX has reshuffled its executive team, appointing Peter Wilkinson as CEO.

🇬🇧 Revolut enlists City grandee John McFarlane, former board leader at Barclays and Aviva, to boost global expansion plans. The FinTech aims to expand into key overseas territories, leveraging this high-level expertise to navigate complex global markets and regulatory environments. Additionally, the firm recruited Tranch co-founder Philip Kelvin as UK CIO. He says he will work to "scale the technology, payments and operations" at Revolut Bank UK.

🇸🇬 Finmo appoints Josh D'Ambrosio as Chief Commercial Officer. He will be responsible for establishing and scaling Finmo's global go-to-market engine, driving commercial growth and customer acquisition as the company expands into new markets and regulated jurisdictions.

🇩🇪 N26 appoints technology and banking experts Marieke Flament and Dr. Andreas H. Tuczka to its Supervisory Board. Flament is an experienced technology executive, investor, and advisor with more than 15 years of international leadership experience. Tuczka is a seasoned banking and financial services executive and private equity investor. 

🇺🇸 American Express hires head of stablecoin and blockchain strategy in push for crypto payments. The new role suggests it is exploring stablecoin and blockchain opportunities alongside its core card, lending, and rewards business. Read more

Want your message in front of 275.000+ FinTech fanatics, founders, investors, and operators?

👉 Explore Partnership here