Alta Raises $80M With Airwallex on Board as zerohash Bets on Agent Identity

Hey FinTech Fanatic!

If AI agents are going to move money, they'll need two things: rails to move it on, and a way to prove who they're acting for.

Two deals today tackle exactly that.

First, Alta has announced $80 million in total funding, including a $47.5 million Series A led by Index Ventures. It's building blockchain infrastructure that lets institutions move money instantly while keeping balances and transactions private, "whether it's a bank settling a transaction or an AI agent making a payment," as CEO Loong Wang puts it.

Airwallex is one of the first to build on it. It's connecting its global payments network to Alta, with pay-ins and pay-outs via stablecoins and local rails across 200 countries. Airwallex CEO Jack Zhang is also one of Alta's co-founders.

Second, zerohash has acquired an agent-identity infrastructure stack, including its IP portfolio. Its creator, former NASA AI researcher Mark Meadows, joins as Head of Applied AI.

The idea is simple: every agent credential links back to a verified person or company, who decides what the agent can do, where, and up to what amount.

Put the two together and you can see where this is heading. One builds the rails agents can pay on, the other answers who is behind the agent.

"Agents are going to be the biggest new participants in the financial system," says zerohash CEO Edward Woodford. Definitely one to watch.

Anyway, plenty more happened in FinTech today.

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

Cheers,

Marcel

INSIGHTS

💡 Plaid: AI Is Scaling Fraud. Intelligence Fights Back. Plaid’s latest report explores how generative AI is weakening traditional fraud defenses, from identity checks and deepfake detection to device and location signals. It argues that the next generation of fraud prevention must look beyond individual identity checks and analyze financial behavior across devices, accounts and institutions. According to the report, stepping up just 5% of users could help detect 40% of previously undetected first-party fraud, while reviewing 10% could catch 47% of fraud that had already passed KYC. The report also highlights Plaid Protect, built on connection patterns across 1B devices, 12K+ financial institutions and 9K+ apps. Read the full report here

FINTECH NEWS

🇺🇸 Incognia secures US patent for location-based user verification technology. Granted by the USPTO on 13 October, U.S. Patent No. 12,764,491 covers technology that uses device sensor data to validate user information.

🇺🇸 Wise launches Interest and Stocks investment products for US customers. Wise Interest invests in a BlackRock Treasury fund, while Wise Stocks invests in an S&P 500 index fund, both using customers' USD balances. The launch marks the first use of Wise's US broker-dealer licence.

🇺🇸 Glia surpasses $100M in annual recurring revenue. The banking AI provider's AI sales grew 93% YoY in Q3, and it is deployed at 700 financial institutions reaching about 95 million US consumers.

🇺🇸 REPAY's Q3 revenue nearly doubles to $153.4M. Revenue rose 97% YoY, helped by the KUBRA acquisition, with organic growth of 14%. REPAY posted a net loss of $10.4M and kept its full-year guidance of $490M to $500M.

#FINTECHREPORT

💡 Fiserv: Q3 2026 Results: Banking Business Returns to Growth as Client Retention Improves. Fiserv reported $5.2B in GAAP revenue, with flat organic growth and adjusted EPS of $1.75. Financial Solutions returned to organic growth (+2%), while banking client attrition declined by more than 25% YTD. Merchant Solutions remained under pressure, with organic revenue down 2%, although Clover continued to grow. Meanwhile, Fiserv doubled its Project Elevate savings target to $1B and reaffirmed its full-year guidance. CEO Takis Georgakopoulos also highlighted an “AI-everywhere mindset” as part of the company's efficiency drive. The key question is whether improving banking performance and aggressive cost reductions can accelerate growth into 2027. Read the full Q3 analysis here

PAYMENTS NEWS

🇺🇸 Global Payments adds Visa IDX to its Adaptive Authentication platform. The Visa Intelligent Data Exchange API lets merchants send richer transaction data to issuers during authorisation to reduce false declines. It initially covers eligible US and Canadian transactions.

🇺🇸 Bilt moves beyond housing with Neighborhood OS for local commerce. The platform connects merchants' payment, reservation and loyalty systems, with partners including Adyen, Shift4, Clover and Verifone. Bilt has more than 8 million members and 50,000 merchant partners.

🇦🇺 Wise launches Everyday Account in Australia. The account adds PayID, BPAY, BSB details and fee-free domestic transfers for all Australian customers, whose balances reached A$2.8B by September, up 53% YoY.

🇺🇦 Ukraine moves toward joining the Single Euro Payments Area. Parliament faces a mid-November deadline to pass the legislation needed for SEPA accession, after which Ukraine can apply to the European Payments Council.

ARTICLE OF THE DAY

💡 Tuum: Where Should AI Sit in a Bank’s Core? Tuum argues for an “around-the-core” architecture where AI analyzes data and makes recommendations, while the core banking system remains deterministic, auditable and responsible for recording transactions. The approach relies on validated APIs, logged actions, human oversight and the ability to replace AI providers without changing the core system. Tuum’s CPTO Ove Kreison sums up the principle: AI recommends, while the core applies the rules and keeps the record. The article also explores the implications of the EU AI Act, DORA and US model-risk guidance for AI governance in banking. Read the full article here

DIGITAL BANKING NEWS

🇮🇱 Revolut receives conditional banking licence in Israel. Led by former Pepper CEO Uri Nathan, Revolut Bank Israel has secured conditional approval, becoming Israel's third recipient of a new banking licence since 2019, although it cannot yet begin banking operations.

🇿🇦 Absa aims to complete its African banking expansion within two years. The bank is converting its Nigerian representative office into a merchant bank and opening a representative office in Angola, as it seeks to reduce reliance on South Africa, Kenya and Ghana.

🇵🇾 Paraguay names Jorge Luis Schreiner as central bank president. The Senate approved the economist's appointment, Reuters reports, as fallout from the collapse of digital lender Ueno Bank continues. His predecessor Carlos Carvallo resigned on 3 November.

PODCAST RECOMMENDATION

💡 Nik Storonsky on Building Revolut into a Global Financial Super-App. In this interview with Stripe Co-Founder John Collison, Revolut CEO Nik Storonsky discusses scaling to 80 million customers, competing with Amex and Chase in the US, and Revolut’s strict approach to launching and scaling new products. He also explains why the business prioritizes subscriptions over lending, how AI is transforming operations and cross-selling, and why product development matters more than attending industry conferences.

BLOCKCHAIN/CRYPTO NEWS

🌐 Binance hackers used memecoins to launder stolen funds. The attackers minted six tokens on NEAR to move about $430,000, less than 0.01% of the $6.3B stolen, Elliptic found. Around $2.85B of the stolen assets have been frozen.

🌐 Binance warns iOS flaw could expose crypto wallet keys. The exchange says the iOS-level issue affects several versions and is not unique to Binance, with no confirmed thefts. It is unclear whether Apple's latest updates fix the flaw.

🇺🇸 Robinhood does not object to tokenised trading of its shares on OKX-ICE. It is the third company to accept trading on the OKX and ICE venue, while 56 of 62 proposed issuers, including Apple and Nvidia, objected. No launch date has been set.

🇺🇸 BitGo's Q3 revenue falls 51% YoY to $2.85B. Revenue after direct costs dropped 32% to $37.3M as trading slowed, while net income rose to $44.1M thanks to a $71.5M unrealised treasury gain.

🇺🇸 Coinbase, Kalshi and Payward back the CFTC in lawsuit over single-stock perpetuals. The firms, alongside DRW, Jump Trading and Paradigm, sought to file an amicus brief opposing the Capital Markets Alliance, which argues equity perpetual futures are security-based swaps.

🇱🇹 DriveWealth receives MiCA authorisation from the Bank of Lithuania. UAB DriveWealth Europe can now offer crypto-asset services across the EU alongside its existing MiFID II licence, giving partners one regulated entity for securities and crypto. Services will launch in the new year.

🇱🇹 Axiology gets expanded investment firm authorisation in Lithuania. The Bank of Lithuania's approval lets Axiology receive, transmit and execute client orders, simplifying institutional access to tokenised money market funds. Axiology already runs a DLT trading and settlement system under the EU DLT Pilot Regime.

STABLECOINS NEWS

🌎 MiPlata launches Visa prepaid card for direct stablecoin spending. The card, issued by Lead Bank and built on Stripe Issuing, lets users spend USDC balances and targets underserved Latino customers in the US and 16 Latin American countries.

PARTNERSHIPS

🇫🇷 Sage partners with Adyen and Mastercard on business accounts for small businesses. Small businesses using Sage 50, Sage 100 and Sage Active will get accounts with debit cards, starting in France, using Adyen's banking-as-a-service infrastructure and Mastercard's network.

🇸🇬 Elephants selects Thredd to power its Mastercard business card programme. Thredd will provide issuer processing, including card controls, fraud management and 3D Secure, for the upcoming Elephants Reserve debit card, which is open for waitlist registration.

🌍 Mastercard and LiaPay bring earned wage access cards to GCC workers. The payroll app will issue Mastercard Platinum prepaid cards to salaried employees across four markets, letting them spend wages earned before payday. It marks Mastercard's entry into earned wage access.

🇬🇧 Stripe powers HSBC UK's Tap to Pay for small businesses. Eligible HSBC UK business customers can accept contactless payments on a compatible smartphone without a card reader, setting up the service in the HSBC Business Banking app.

🇲🇽 BanCoppel adds bill payments and top-ups to its app with tapi. The service, live from 9 November for the bank's 14 million monthly app users, lets customers pay electricity, water, phone and internet bills from their BanCoppel accounts.

🇦🇪 AFS partners with Tabby on in-store instalments for UAE merchants. AFS merchants in the UAE can let customers spread payments with Tabby at the point of sale, as AFS expands the capabilities available across its merchant network.

🇺🇸 Bottomline completes first USDC payments through its enterprise platforms. Working with Circle, Bottomline processed cross-border stablecoin payments via its Global Payments Hub and Cash Management, starting with an intra-company transfer.

🌍 Circle and Global Citizen partner on USDC payments in Africa. Circle will introduce USDC as a payment option for vendors at Move Afrika events, starting in Rwanda in 2027, and fund an impact award for charities in USDC.

🇺🇸 Morgan Stanley and Hyperlayer launch programmable loan deposit programme. Wealth clients can access securities-based loan proceeds in existing bank accounts, with use-of-proceeds rules enforced in real time by Hyperlayer's programmable banking technology.

🇩🇪 LIQID migrates over €3B in client assets to Upvest. The German wealth manager moved most of its more than €4B in client assets onto Upvest's investment infrastructure, which also serves Revolut, N26 and bunq.

🌐 FrankieOne adds Trulioo's KYC and KYB checks to its platform. Customers can switch on Trulioo checks through their existing FrankieOne integration, covering business and beneficial owner verification in more than 100 markets.

🇬🇧 Wise selects Navan for its global travel programme. The AI-powered travel and expense platform will provide Wise with real-time cost-centre data, traveller tracking and carbon reporting to support the management of its global business travel.

🇭🇹 Mbanq secures core banking deal for Haitian credit union network. The US firm will bring 41 credit unions in the Le Levier federation onto a shared ledger system, with local partner TekNsol managing the set-up.

DONEDEAL FUNDING NEWS

🇺🇸 Alta raises $80M to bring global banking on-chain. Index Ventures led the $47.5M Series A, with GV and Blackbird joining. The company is building blockchain infrastructure for instant, global and programmable financial transactions. Airwallex has chosen to build on Alta, whose co-founders include Airwallex CEO Jack Zhang.

🇬🇧 Zilch secures £165M debt boost ahead of potential IPO. The Deutsche Bank-led agreement will bring the BNPL provider's total debt facilities to nearly £400M, increasing its annual lending capacity to £6B as it considers a London stock market listing.

🇬🇧 Capital on Tap secures up to £200M from NatWest. Backed by the British Business Bank's ENABLE Guarantee programme, the funding will expand the company's lending capacity, helping UK small businesses access flexible working capital through its business credit cards.

🇩🇰 Sumary raises $25M seed to expand AI accounting software across Europe. Singular led the round, with byFounders, Partech and Tenity joining. The Copenhagen-founded firm will start with Benelux, using London as a commercial hub; customers include Deloitte and Grant Thornton.

🌎 Clara secures $105M through Series C and General Catalyst funding. The $65M Series C was backed by Citius, Kaszek and DEG, alongside a renewed $40M facility from General Catalyst. The funding will support commercial expansion, particularly in Brazil, and further development of its AI and automation tools.

🇺🇸 geniosAI raises $19.1M to bring traceable AI analysis to financial institutions. The combined seed and Series A funding includes backing from FactSet, Zoom and General Catalyst, with FactSet leading the Series A. The platform helps financial teams verify AI-generated analysis by tracing figures, calculations and assumptions back to their sources.

🇨🇭 Light Frame raises $5.1M seed for private banking software. Led by Fortino Ventures, the round will support further development of its core banking and portfolio management platform and commercial expansion across EMEA.

🇬🇧 Planky secures €6.9M for AI credit decisioning. Innovation Global and Azimut funds co-led the round for the BKN301-owned London FinTech, which will expand in the Middle East and internationally.

🇺🇸 Echelon makes strategic investment in CREATE. Payments. The investment builds on a partnership begun in 2025, when the non-profit payments provider joined Echelon's Strategic Partner Program. Terms were not disclosed.

🇿🇦 Lumepay raises $6M pre-seed for cross-border B2B payments. The South African firm used the funding to launch its products, build payment infrastructure and partnerships, and secure regulatory approvals. It also secured approximately $10M in capital float to support liquidity for clients across its African markets.

M&A

🇺🇸 zerohash acquires agent-identity infrastructure and IP portfolio. The stack covers agent authentication, permissioning and machine-initiated financial transactions. Its creator, former NASA scientist Mark Meadows, joins as Head of Applied AI.

🇺🇸 Securitize agrees to acquire River One. The deal links stablecoin capital to the asset-backed finance market and is expected to close in Q4 2026. Terms were not disclosed.

🇬🇧 Raenest acquires UK payments company Remitise. The Nigerian FinTech takes 100% of Remitise, gaining its UK FCA registration as it expands globally. Raenest has more than 1.5 million registered customers.

AI DEVELOPMENTS

🇩🇪 Pliant opens its platform to third-party AI agents. Its Pliant for Agents connector and CLI allow external AI agents to access transaction data, manage receipts and assist with card controls, subject to user permissions, according to co-founder and CPO Fabian Terner.

🇬🇧 UK banks reportedly block AI agents from accessing customer accounts. HSBC, Nationwide, NatWest, Barclays and Lloyds have reportedly moved pre-emptively, with no signs yet of agents accessing accounts, as the FCA works on rules for AI agents.

🌐 Rain launches Agent Vaults for AI agent payments. AI agents can spend, receive and send money from owner-funded balances under owner-set rules, with partners embedding the product under their own brands.

🇪🇸 Maisa, the Valencian AI start-up serving banks, eyes a 2030 listing. The company, which builds auditable AI agents for banking, insurance and energy, has nearly multiplied recurring revenue tenfold in a year, CEO David Villalón said.

MOVERS AND SHAKERS

🇭🇰 Mox appoints Anshul Sabherwal as CEO. The former Standard Chartered Hong Kong executive succeeds Barbaros Uygun and will lead the digital bank's next growth phase, focusing on making wealth management more accessible to customers.

🇳🇱 Backbase appoints two CTOs for digital and agentic banking. Greg Fahy becomes CTO for digital banking and Deepak Pandey CTO for agentic banking, with both internal promotions effective immediately.

🇪🇺 European Network for Payments appoints William Olgiati as CEO. The former Amazon payments executive leads the joint entity of Bancomat, Bizum, EPI/Wero, SIBS–MB WAY and Vipps MobilePay, which serves about 130 million users in 14 countries.

🇮🇪 Payzone appoints Peter O'Halloran as CEO. The former Fiserv executive returns to the payments company, where he began his career, succeeding Jim Deignan after 27 years. O'Halloran aims to drive growth across new markets, products and payment channels.

🌐 GTN appoints former Gemini Europe CEO Mark Jennings as global head of digital assets. Jennings, who also held senior Kraken roles, will lead GTN's tokenised securities strategy. GTN offers access to more than 90 markets.

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