Amsterdam Doesn't Stop. Dutch Blockchain Week Is Next
Hey FinTech Fanatic!
If you're just catching your breath after Money 20/20 Europe, I have news for you: Amsterdam isn't finished.
The 8th edition of Dutch Blockchain Week runs June 22–28, and my hometown is about to host another round of the conversations that matter most in FinTech right now.
From the people steering crypto regulation in the Netherlands to those who built MiCAR from the inside, the room speaks for itself.
This year's lineup brings together crypto-native firms and traditional financial institutions.
If you've been reading this newsletter, you know this is the convergence I've been pointing to.
The flagship DBW Summit on June 24–25 takes place at the Johan Cruijff ArenA, and yes, as an Ajax fan, I'll admit there's something surreal about watching blockchain and institutional finance take over that stadium.
If you're thinking of going, use code Connectingthedots15 at checkout for 15% off your ticket. You won't regret the trip.
👉 Get your ticket for Dutch Blockchain Week
Keep scrolling to find a deep dive I did on Monzo vs Starling. See you tomorrow!
Cheers,
#FINTECHREPORT
📊 Monzo vs. Starling (FY2026 Snapshot). Monzo and Starling Bank continue to rank among the UK’s leading digital banks, but with distinct growth strategies. Monzo leads in customers, deposits, and revenue, while Starling remains more profitable and maintains a larger loan portfolio. Read the full article here
INSIGHTS
🇺🇸 Ramp vs Limited. While Ramp focuses primarily on spend management and corporate cards, Limited targets companies operating across multiple markets by enabling local collections, global payouts, and centralised treasury management from a single platform, positioning itself as a global banking and payments infrastructure provider.
FINTECH NEWS
🇵🇪 Prex receives the green light from the SBS to begin operations as the country's first 100% digital credit institution. With this authorisation, Prex Peru is moving towards its own supervised model, aimed at integrating credit, payments, and digital wallet within a credit company.
PAYMENTS NEWS
🇺🇾 dLocal expands BNPL Fuse, unlocking transparent financing for 500m buyers in emerging markets. The enhanced solution adds an active intelligence layer: eligibility screening before checkout, payer data enrichment to improve approval rates across the provider network, and checkout optimisation that reduces friction at the moment of payment.
🇸🇬 dLocal anchors in Singapore to strengthen its APAC cross-border payments strategy. The company views Singapore’s regulatory framework, financial talent pool, and regional links as key advantages for supporting pay-in and pay-out capabilities, while capitalising on the rapid growth of digital payments, local payment methods, and cross-border commerce.
🇮🇳 Paytm plans a 10% staff increase in an AI pivot with some roles cut. Paytm is set to hire about 4,000 people over the next nine months, part of a pivot aimed at expanding its merchant network and artificial intelligence-driven product offerings. Read more
🇦🇺 Vivi Money showcases Australia’s first AI-initiated payment experience over the NPP. Leveraging Open Banking and Australia’s New Payments Platform, the solution verifies recipients, performs security checks, and executes payments while keeping users in control through explicit approval and confirmation steps.
🇬🇧 Wirex joins the Visa Agentic Ready programme to enable AI-driven payments. Through the programme, Wirex will work with Visa and ecosystem partners to test and validate how AI-driven agents can initiate and complete transactions on behalf of consumers, while maintaining the security, control and trust that underpin digital payments.
🇺🇸 Thunes opened a new office in New York City as part of its U.S. expansion strategy, supported by its $150 million Series D funding round. The move strengthens Thunes’ ability to serve enterprises, marketplaces, payment providers, and financial institutions with faster and more efficient global payout capabilities across its international payments network.
🇺🇸 Rain releases Agent Control Layer, a governance framework for agentic payments that enables businesses to set programmable spending rules for AI agents. The solution allows organisations to control merchants, recipients, transaction limits, frequency, and card usage, helping ensure autonomous payment activities remain auditable, compliant, and securely governed at scale.
DIGITAL BANKING NEWS
🇳🇱 Digital bank bunq fined for late response to fraud complaints. The main reason for the fine is bunq’s failure to respond on time to seven complaints from customers who were victims of online fraud. Customers who filed a complaint only received feedback from bunq several weeks after the deadline had expired.
🇭🇰 SoFi confirms a third-party data breach at its Hong Kong subsidiary. The company said its investigation is ongoing and has not yet determined the scope of the incident or what customer information may have been exposed, while advising users to remain alert for phishing attempts and suspicious account activity.
🇬🇧 Lloyds expands AI fraud defences after blocking £1bn. The bank said the new system deploys multiple AI agents simultaneously during customer interactions, enabling fraud teams to conduct identity checks, transaction analysis and scam risk assessments in real time.
🇺🇸 Klarna has launched FDIC-insured savings accounts, expanding beyond payments and BNPL into everyday banking services. Offered through WebBank, the accounts feature no minimum deposits, no monthly fees, and interest rates above 3% APY, further strengthening Klarna’s position as a full-service digital banking platform.
BLOCKCHAIN/CRYPTO NEWS
🇱🇺 Zodia Custody secures a Luxembourg payment institution license to expand EU stablecoin services. The approval adds to Zodia Custody’s existing MiCA license and extends its institutional digital asset offering as stablecoins gain a larger role in settlement, liquidity, and treasury operations, the company said in a statement.
PARTNERSHIPS
🇬🇧 Ecommpay introduces express checkout for Google and Apple Pay users, enabling merchants to offer faster, wallet-based payments directly within their checkout flow. The new feature reduces friction for guest shoppers by minimising manual data entry and streamlining the path to purchase, helping merchants improve conversion rates and checkout efficiency.
🇲🇽 Getnet and Mastercard, in collaboration with Neivor, have completed the first live AI-agent payment transaction in Mexico and Latin America using Mastercard Agent Pay. The new infrastructure enables businesses to securely accept and process payments initiated by AI agents through integrated authentication and identity verification mechanisms, advancing the region’s adoption of agentic commerce.
🇵🇭 Paymentology powers PayMongo’s new virtual Mastercard card for Philippine SMEs. The solution is the first virtual prepaid card in the market to combine prepaid functionality with business-focused payment capabilities, giving SMEs access to tools that help them manage spending, control expenses and operate more efficiently.
🇬🇧 Stripe powers Lloyds' new suite of payment tools for UK small businesses. Integrated directly into Lloyds Business Accounts, the service enables merchants to accept in-person, Tap to Pay, and online payments through Stripe’s infrastructure, helping businesses start accepting payments within minutes.
🌍 Banking Circle helps power Bridge’s global money movement capabilities. The collaboration enables businesses to convert and transfer funds across EUR, GBP, AUD, and USD payment rails, combining Banking Circle’s regulated banking infrastructure with Bridge’s stablecoin payment capabilities to streamline cross-border transactions.
🌍 OpenWay collaborates with Visa to help banks launch new payment products at speed and scale. The collaboration enables banks, processors, and FinTechs to launch selected Visa payment capabilities faster on OpenWay’s Way4 digital software payments platform.
🇧🇷 Apple gives in and should allow contactless Pix payments on the iPhone. If an agreement is reached, Brazilian users could gain access to Pix-based tap-to-pay functionality via NFC, potentially ending a long-running dispute over access to Apple’s payment infrastructure and competition in mobile payments.
🇺🇸 Coinbase and Cardless unveil a credit card backed by stablecoins. The card enables stablecoin holders who may not qualify for traditional unsecured credit products to use their digital assets as collateral while continuing to earn yield on the pledged funds, further bridging crypto assets and consumer credit.
🌍 Yuno partners with Onafriq to unlock Pan-African payments for global merchants. Through this integration, Yuno’s clients gain instant access to Onafriq’s network spanning 43 African markets, nearly 1 billion mobile wallets, 500 million bank accounts, and 2,000 cross-border payment corridors, all through Yuno’s single, developer-friendly API.
DONEDEAL FUNDING NEWS
🇮🇩 Akulaku Finance secures a $27.5m facility from Danamon. The funding will strengthen its financing capacity and support growth in Indonesia’s digital financing market. Akulaku Finance Indonesia said the funds would support working-capital needs as demand for digital financing rises.
🇺🇸 Earlytrade raises $25M to deploy agentic AI across the construction payments ecosystem. The company plans to accelerate U.S. expansion and embed agentic AI into its subcontractor payments marketplace. Read more
🇫🇷 Morpho Association raises $175M to build the open credit network for the world. Morpho Association will deploy the capital to deepen technical and commercial integrations with strategic partners and continue developing and strengthening the infrastructure businesses need to build programmable credit products.
🇺🇸 Vinyl Equity raises $20m to modernise IPO Infrastructure. The funding will be used to invest in the engineering, compliance, and go-to-market teams and to accelerate infrastructure development across capital markets and corporate transactions. Continue reading
M&A
🇨🇦 Nuvei is in advanced talks to acquire payment firm Payoneer for $2.7 billion. The deal would combine Nuvei’s merchant acquiring and payment processing capabilities with Payoneer’s global payout and cross-border payments network, strengthening its position in high-growth areas such as B2B payments, global commerce, and emerging-market money movement.
MOVERS AND SHAKERS
🌎 Mastercard appoints Silvana Hernández to lead the North Latin America Division. With more than 15 years at Mastercard, Silvana has held a variety of regional and global leadership roles across product strategy, innovation, and acceptance. Before assuming this position, she served as EVP, Core Payments for Latin America.
🇳🇴 Vipps MobilePay is on the hunt for a new CFO as Andreas Saastad announces his departure. During his three-year tenure, Vipps MobilePay completed the merger of Vipps and MobilePay, expanded to nearly 13 million users, surpassed NOK 2 billion in revenue, and significantly improved profitability.
🇦🇪 Crypto.com hires OKX alum Maria Allott to head Prediction Markets sales. With the title of Vice President – Head of Sales, Maria will assume responsibility for sales of Crypto. com’s expanding list of financial products, primarily Prediction Markets, but also Real World Assets and Tokenised Equities.
🌏 KakaoBank taps Kim Woo-joo to lead global push after Kia, Hyundai tenure. Kim brings extensive experience in global investments, M&A, and business development as KakaoBank advances initiatives including Superbank in Indonesia, Bank X in Thailand, and partnerships across Asia.
🇺🇸 Yendo appoints Kevin Bird as Chief Product Officer and Nizar Rana as Chief Marketing Officer. The company said the additions strengthen its leadership team as it seeks to leverage AI to improve lending decisions, reduce operating costs and expand access to affordable credit for underserved consumers.
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