After Polymarket, Binance Faces a $6.3B Security Incident

Hey FinTech Fanatic!

In a recent post, I wrote about Polymarket's security breach. This one is on a completely different scale.

Binance has estimated a $6.3 billion impact from a security incident and suspended all deposits and withdrawals while it investigates. Founder Changpeng Zhao said it "does look like a hack".

If confirmed, it would be the largest crypto heist on record, more than four times the $1.5 billion taken from Bybit last year.

The response has been fast. Binance says around $3 billion has already been frozen, with Tether and Circle among the firms freezing funds on their side. The preliminary cause points to a compromised engineer's laptop, and Binance says it has found no evidence that wallet private keys were exposed. TRM Labs has linked the attack to North Korea's Lazarus Group.

What I find interesting is who is part of the response. With roughly half the estimated amount already frozen, stablecoin issuers are now as much a part of incident response as the exchange itself.

Binance has pledged to cover all user losses from its SAFU fund and company reserves. The big question is whether that's enough to keep users' trust.

Plenty more happened in FinTech today.

Let’s dive in, and I’ll be back in your inbox tomorrow!

Cheers,

Marcel

#FINTECHREPORT

💡 Mastercard Q3 2026: Services Revenue Jumps 19% as Net Income Climbs 18%. Mastercard reported $9.81 billion in net revenue (+14% YoY) and $4.63 billion in net income (+18%), supported by growing payment activity and demand for value-added services. Cross-border volume increased 11%, while switched transactions reached 49.3 billion (+9%). The standout performer was its services business, with revenue rising 19% to $4.06 billion, outpacing the core payment network. The results highlight Mastercard’s growing ability to generate revenue beyond transaction processing through security, analytics, and consulting services. Read the full analysis here 

FINTECH NEWS

🇳🇬 SoftBank-backed OPay prices its US IPO at $19 a share, raising $304M. The Nigerian payments company sold 16M American depositary shares at the bottom of its range, valuing it at about $4B. It is listing on the NYSE as OPAY, with closing expected on 2 November.

🇺🇸 Coinbase returns to profit in Q3 on crypto investment gains. Net income reached $718.7M, helped by a $715M gain on crypto held for investment, while transaction revenue fell to $590.2M from $1.05B a year earlier. Subscription and services revenue made up 49% of the total.

🇮🇳 Pine Labs' Q2 net profit rises more than sixfold to ₹385.7M. Revenue from operations grew 24% YoY to ₹8.06B in the July–September quarter, led by its issuing and acquiring platform, which rose 30%. International markets contributed 15% of revenue.

🇵🇰 AdalFi plans Pakistan Stock Exchange IPO to raise up to PKR652M. The Lahore-based lending platform would be the first fintech listed on the exchange when it sells new shares next month. Proceeds will fund growth in its Islamic and small-business lending.

🇺🇸 FTC and eight states sue Toast over alleged hidden fees and misleading support claims. The lawsuit alleges undisclosed fees, unwanted services and difficult subscription cancellations. Regulators also question its 24/7 support claims. Toast denies the allegations and plans to defend itself in court.

HOW FINTECH PERFORMED LAST WEEK

📈 A snapshot of last week’s stock moves across public FinTechs:

PAYMENTS NEWS

🇦🇪 Qashio launches Global Pay with rewards on cross-border supplier payments. Businesses earn Qashio Points on overseas transfers, redeemable with more than 50 travel partners including Emirates Skywards and Accor. FX rates are shown upfront, with no fixed transfer fees.

🇪🇺 ECB selects network service providers for the digital euro. A grouping of Nexi and Deutsche Telekom Business Solutions will provide connectivity to the digital euro platform for the pilot, with Telefónica and Indra as the second-ranked provider from May 2027. Both must be ready by 2029 for a potential issuance.

🇺🇸 Liquidity Services implements Flywire to process domestic and cross border B2B payments. Its 6 million qualified buyers can now pay in 140 currencies across 240+ countries. Flywire is integrated via API with the customer portal.

DIGITAL BANKING NEWS

🇬🇧 Revolut and Monzo target UK small businesses in challenge to the big banks. Bloomberg reports that the digital banks are competing for the UK's youngest businesses as the new chancellor introduces measures to support startups and small firms. Monzo had more than 905,000 business customers as of June.

🇧🇷 Nubank refreshes its brand with design studio Koto. The update introduces NuSans, its first proprietary typeface, alongside a new colour system. The refreshed visual identity builds on the existing logo and wordmark, which remain unchanged. Nubank serves more than 140M customers in Brazil, Mexico and Colombia.

🇧🇷 Nubank grants David Vélez a $200M stock award vesting through 2036. The one-time award of about 13.6M restricted Class A shares replaces Vélez's annual equity grants for 2027–2031, according to a report citing an SEC filing. Vesting depends on his continued service.

INSIGHTS

💡 Incognia: How Fraud Farms Run Thousands of Accounts at Scale. In the second episode of The Fraud Economy, payments strategist Dwayne Gefferie speaks with Incognia CEO André Ferraz about how organised fraud operations use device farms, app cloners, mule accounts and AI to manage thousands of accounts. One case uncovered by Incognia involved roughly 160–170 devices operating more than 7,000 accounts from a single apartment. The discussion explores why analysing accounts individually often fails to reveal coordinated fraud, how fraudsters rent device infrastructure like cloud services, and how physical-world signals can expose the networks behind suspicious activity. Watch the full episode here 

BLOCKCHAIN/CRYPTO NEWS

🌐 Binance estimates $6.3B impact from security incident. The exchange suspended deposits and withdrawals, says around $3B has been frozen and has pledged to cover losses. Founder Changpeng Zhao said it ‘does look like a hack’, and TRM Labs has linked it to North Korea's Lazarus Group.

🇺🇸 FBI joins response to $6.3 billion Binance hack linked to North Korea. TRM Labs estimates hackers transferred $6.36 billion out of Binance wallets on Thursday. Researchers call it the largest cryptocurrency theft on record.

🇬🇧 HTX exit signals the end of the 'erratic' offshore crypto era, says Zumo CEO Nick Jones. Jones's comments form part of the broader industry reaction following HTX being forced to leave the United Kingdom.

🌐 OKX marks four years of Proof of Reserves with $36B backing customer assets. The exchange's latest monthly reserves report shows $36.36B across 22 cryptocurrencies, with reserve ratios of 110% for BTC, 100% for ETH, 105% for USDT and 101% for USDC.

🇺🇸 Ripple wants acquired treasury and prime brokerage clients to move on-chain. President Monica Long told Axios Pro that customers of GTreasury and Hidden Road, now Ripple Prime, still have cash and collateral tied to banking hours. Ripple expects to end 2026 at a product revenue run rate of about $900M.

🇺🇸 Kraken restores trading after an hour-long connectivity outage. Spot and derivatives clients could not connect or submit orders across web, mobile and API channels between 02:42 and 03:42 UTC on 30 October. Kraken has not disclosed a cause.

STABLECOINS NEWS

🇲🇽 Colombia's BordexPay expands stablecoin-based payments to Mexico. Mexican businesses can collect in pesos via SPEI or directly in stablecoins, with settlement in USDC, USDT, US dollars or Colombian pesos. The Bogotá-based company also serves Colombia, Brazil and Ecuador.

PARTNERSHIPS

🌎 Clara joins Mastercard Wholesale Program as a travel card issuer. The corporate card provider will begin moving the more than 800 travel agencies using its TravelPay virtual cards onto the programme in Brazil and Mexico from November. Citi was the first issuer in Brazil.

🇳🇬 FCMB and Mastercard launch AgroPass for smallholder farmers. The Mastercard-built platform links farmers with lenders, input suppliers and buyers to improve access to credit. FCMB lent ₦364.6B to more than 196,000 smallholder farmers in 2025.

🇪🇺 easyShop adds Klarna across 19 European markets ahead of its first Black Friday. Shoppers in 19 of the new marketplace's 21 countries, including the UK, France and Germany, can now use Klarna's interest-free payment options. easyShop is operated by OnCommerce, which also runs OnBuy.

🇺🇸 Klarna goes live at Kohl's online and in-app. Shoppers at the department store chain can now pay in full, use interest-free Pay in 4 or finance larger purchases through Kohls.com and its mobile app.

🇰🇷 MoonPay, NH NongHyup Bank and Finger sign MoU on digital asset payments. The partners will develop a model for overseas remittances, corporate payments and settlement, linking MoonPay's global network with Korea's domestic financial system. A proof of concept comes first.

🇺🇸 MoonPay adds Whop to PayBox Markets for AI agent purchases. AI agents connected through Claude, ChatGPT or Grok can now buy from hundreds of thousands of Whop businesses. Users can approve each payment by passkey or let agents act within preset limits.

🇮🇹 BBVA adds Gigs-powered eSIM data plans to its Italian banking app. Customers with a BBVA online current account can buy and activate travel data plans for their destination, then track usage and top up in the app. BBVA may extend the service to other markets.

🇬🇧 DNA Payments pilots Zeal's card-linked loyalty with UK merchants. Selected merchants can recognise returning customers by their payment card and reward them without an app, while gaining customer-level purchase insights from their DNA terminals.

🇮🇪 Unipaas expands embedded payments to Ireland with J.P. Morgan Payments. The provider will offer white-labelled card acceptance, fraud controls and routing to vertical SaaS platforms serving Irish businesses, with J.P. Morgan handling merchant acquiring and settlement.

DONEDEAL FUNDING NEWS

🌐 Unlimit founder backs AI agent blockchain Phase with $45M. Kirill Eves, who founded both companies, is providing the funding as Phase's Layer 1 mainnet goes live. Agents on the network pay in stablecoins or the PHASE token, with routing and compute products due in November.

🇺🇸 Collective raises $40M Series B and a $60M growth facility. General Catalyst, QED and Gradient Ventures led the round for the platform, which uses AI to handle accounting, payroll, tax and insurance for US solo business owners. The facility will fund customer acquisition.

M&A

🇺🇸 Global Payments shares jump 12% on report of potential $40 billion buyout. CD&R is working with GTCR, the largest outside shareholder, on a potential bid. The reported $40 billion valuation would be among the largest leveraged buyouts on record.

🇺🇸 LTVCo-led investor group acquires card decline recovery firm Kipp. Kipp lets merchants pay a premium to have insufficient-funds card declines approved by issuers. It will keep operating independently under its co-founders while expanding its US issuer and merchant network. Terms were not disclosed.

🇺🇸 TexasBank agrees to acquire Haskell National Bank. Haskell National Bank will merge into TexasBank, which holds $2.5B in assets. The combined bank plans to expand treasury management and digital banking for customers.

🇯🇵 Toss operator Viva Republica agrees to buy Japan's CHEER Securities. Its Singapore-based unit Toss Global will acquire the mobile-first online brokerage from Tokai Tokyo Financial Group. Nikkei estimates the price at about ¥4B ($25M), and completion is subject to regulatory approval.

MOVERS AND SHAKERS

🇬🇧 Revolut hires Nilesh Khatwani to lead institutional crypto sales. The former Crypto.com sales leader, based in Dubai, joins as Global Head of Institutional Sales – Crypto to build out institutional crypto and expand Revolut's crypto services beyond the UK.

🇺🇸 American Express hires U.S. Bank's Jodi Richard as its new chief risk officer. Richard, at U.S. Bank since 2014, joins Amex and its national bank on Jan. 25, 2027. She will also head the global risk and compliance team, reporting to CEO Stephen Squeri.

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