Adyen's Black Friday
Hey FinTech Fanatic!
Adyen's share price dropped 14% on Friday. Sharp enough to trigger a temporary trading halt on the Amsterdam stock exchange.
To put it in perspective: the €3.8 billion wiped off Adyen's market cap in under two hours is more than 60% of Klarna's entire market value. In one afternoon.
The trigger? A note from American research firm Cleveland Research Company (CRC), which compared Adyen's European pricing against rival Checkout.com and flagged concerns about margin squeezing.
Markets overreact. We saw it with the SaaSpocalypse, a $285B single-day wipeout triggered by fears that AI would make enterprise software obsolete overnight. Some of those fears were valid. Some weren't.
A 14% intraday drop on a research article? That smells like an overreaction too. But sometimes the real story hides behind the trigger, and with a CFO exit and margin pressure mounting, there's more to unpack here. I'll keep following this.
On another note. Money 20/20 Amsterdam came and went. Keep scrolling to find a summary I made of the event’s highlights. 👇
See you tomorrow!
Cheers,
#FINTECHREPORT
🚨 Moneybox just released its 2025 Annual Report: AUA surged 62% to £19B as revenue surpassed £100M.
INSIGHTS
📊 Busy at Money20/20 and missed the headlines?
Same here, so I've made a full recap.
FINTECH NEWS
🇺🇾 Mercado Pago has launched four new products in Uruguay: daily returns on digital account balances, an international prepaid Mastercard, the Point Smart POS terminal for merchants and small businesses, and Meli+, a subscription program offering benefits for frequent Mercado Libre shoppers.
🇳🇱 Shares of Adyen fell sharply after Cleveland Research Company raised concerns about the payment processor’s market share, margins, and growth prospects. Trading was briefly halted as the stock dropped as much as 14%, before recovering to close down 8.9%.
🇺🇸 Dakota is launching a self-service registration system for its stablecoin infrastructure platform, expanding the possibilities for building a FinTech company. According to Dakota, what used to take months and millions of dollars in licensing, banking partnerships, custody, and compliance can now be achieved with far lower costs and in a matter of weeks.
🇺🇸 Cash App introduces Cash App Tags, NFC-enabled payment accessories linked to the Cash App Visa Card that allow customers to make contactless payments without a phone or wallet. The first edition, the Cash App Wand, is available in a limited release for eligible Cash App Card holders.
🇺🇸 Experian has launched the Experian Loans ChatGPT application, allowing consumers to explore personal loan options directly within ChatGPT. The experience combines conversational AI with Experian’s lender network and marketplace infrastructure to help users compare borrowing options.
PAYMENTS NEWS
🌍 Mastercard expands its Offers Network in Asia, enabling banks to deliver merchant-funded offers directly within their digital banking apps. The platform connects banks and merchants through transaction-linked rewards and performance measurement based on actual purchases, as Asia-Pacific continues to lead the global digital payments market.
🌍 Triple-A has launched Multicurrency Accounts with direct access to stablecoin rails, allowing businesses to collect EUR via SEPA without setting up a local entity and pay out in stablecoins or local currencies across 70+ countries from a single system. Continue reading
🇬🇧 UK seizes payments firm Euro Exchange on laundering concerns. The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority has seized the company and is seeking to place the company into special administration. The regulator cited concerns over potential money laundering links, high-risk customers, and possible widespread breaches of anti-money laundering rules.
🇺🇸 Google announced new Google Wallet and Google Pay features, including the expansion of digital ID capabilities in Europe and a direct checkout experience that brings payment credentials from Google Wallet directly to merchant checkout pages for faster and more secure transactions.
HOW FINTECH PERFORMED LAST WEEK
📈 How did FinTech stocks perform last week? Let's find out:
DIGITAL BANKING NEWS
🌍 Klarna launches in-app inbox to help consumers avoid scams. The Klarna Inbox is an industry approach that expands on existing anti-fraud communication features by compiling both physical and digital messages into one easy-to-verify source of truth. The feature is currently live in the Klarna app in all markets.
🇦🇷 Ualá relaunches its investment section to make investing easier for beginners. The bank has relaunched its stocks, bonds, and CEDEARs investment section, introducing a redesigned interface, interactive charts, advanced filters, and a 20-second guaranteed price feature.
🇨🇭 Revolut's Swiss tactics "Border on unfair competition," Yuh CEO Jan De Schepper says. He stated that competitors such as Revolut benefit from an uneven regulatory environment in Switzerland, arguing they avoid the licensing costs faced by locally regulated banks. The comments came as Yuh outlined plans to grow its customer base through AI-driven automation.
🇬🇧 Revolut is considering a secondary share sale that could value the digital bank at $115 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. The transaction would provide liquidity for early investors and employees and could begin as soon as this month. Keep reading
BLOCKCHAIN/CRYPTO NEWS
🇺🇸 Better and Coinbase have funded the first Fannie Mae-backed mortgage secured with Bitcoin collateral in the United States and announced plans to make the product available nationwide by Summer 2026. The offering allows qualified borrowers to secure a mortgage without selling their digital assets.
🇺🇸 JPMorgan, Citigroup, and other major U.S. banks plan to launch a tokenized deposit network in 2027 through The Clearing House. The platform will enable blockchain-based, 24/7 settlement of tokenized deposits and is intended to help banks compete with the growing adoption of stablecoins. Continue reading
PARTNERSHIPS
🇺🇸 PaidBy by Xryma and Mastercard form a strategic partnership to expand cross-border account-to-account payments. The collaboration combines Mastercard’s Open Finance connectivity with PaidBy’s orchestration and settlement infrastructure, initially extending real-time A2A payment capabilities across Europe and the UK.
🇺🇸 Plaid and Fin integrate Plaid Link into Fin’s AI customer service platform, allowing users to connect or reconnect bank accounts directly within chat conversations. The open beta aims to help financial institutions resolve bank-linking issues without requiring customers to leave the conversation.
🌍 Flutterwave has partnered with Tempo to expand stablecoin settlement options for cross-border payments across Africa. The integration will support wallet-to-wallet stablecoin transfers through Flutterwave’s platforms, helping businesses and individuals move money across corridors more efficiently. Read more
🌍 Kraken and Tempo partner to provide payments companies, neobanks, and stablecoin issuers with access to liquidity, custody, listings, and fiat on/off-ramps through a single institutional relationship. The partnership also brings native support for Tempo-based USDT0 and USDC.e transfers on Kraken.
🇨🇦 Neo Financial has launched four new credit cards for Canadian consumers across its Neo World and Neo World Elite Mastercard lineups. The new Shop & Dine and Everywhere options complement its existing Gas & Grocery cards, while allowing customers to switch rewards categories every 90 days.
🇺🇸 Ether.fi allocates $100 million exclusively to Plume’s RWA Vault, expanding access to institutional-grade real-world asset yield for its users. Integrated directly into the ether.fi platform, the vault provides exposure to curated RWA strategies through Plume’s non-custodial infrastructure and compliance-focused architecture.
🇦🇪 HashKey MENA has partnered with Aptos and Daya to pilot a regulated stablecoin payment corridor between the Middle East and Africa. The initiative aims to support faster cross-border B2B settlements by connecting local currency payment rails, stablecoin infrastructure, and compliant on- and off-ramp services across key markets.
DONEDEAL FUNDING NEWS
🇲🇽 Banco Plata has expanded its financing line by $300 million to strengthen its funding base and support growth in Mexico. The additional funding follows a $500 million credit facility secured last year and is backed by institutional investors including Oaktree, Macquarie Group, Fasanara Capital, and Banco Covalto.
🇮🇩 Indonesian crypto platform Floq raises $11.3m. The company provides crypto trading and related digital asset services for Indonesian users, and plans to use the funding to strengthen its technology infrastructure, cybersecurity, product capabilities, compliance, and governance.
M&A
🇺🇸 Airwallex has acquired Leapfin, a financial data automation platform specializing in revenue recognition and reconciliation. The acquisition expands Airwallex’s financial lifecycle capabilities, helping businesses automate accounting workflows and streamline the transition from transaction data to GAAP-ready financial reporting.
🇺🇸 Repay has completed its $372 million acquisition of Kubra Data Transfer, expanding its customer engagement and payments capabilities. The deal will connect Kubra’s experience platform with Repay’s payments engine through unified APIs and phased platform enhancements. Read more
🇩🇰 Penning has acquired Veli’s wealth-management business, including its European client base and a perpetual software license. The deal expands Penning’s MiCA-compliant digital asset offering with crypto wealth management, automated portfolios, and RWA investment solutions across Europe.
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