Anthropic Is Coming for Financial Crime
Hey FinTech Fanatic!
Anthropic and FIS (Fidelity National Information Services) announced a partnership this week to bring agentic AI into banking, starting with financial crime.
Their Financial Crimes AI Agent compresses anti-money laundering investigations from days to minutes, automatically assembling evidence, flagging high-risk cases, and drafting Suspicious Activity Reports.
The problem is enormous: $2 trillion in illicit funds flows through the global financial system every year, and US banks spend $35–$40 billion annually on AML compliance alone. Most of that cost is manual evidence-gathering, exactly what this agent is built to eliminate.
Two details worth noting: Anthropic engineers are embedded directly within FIS teams, and human investigators retain final decision-making authority, with every agent action fully traceable and auditable.
If this model works, it could define how AI enters regulated banking: not through consumer chatbots, but through the compliance infrastructure banks are already paying a fortune to run.
See what else is happening in FinTech today. 👇See you tomorrow!
Cheers,
POST OF THE DAY
FinTech ❤️ Formula 1
Look at the sponsors across the F1 grid:
INSIGHTS
➡️ The State of Mule Account Handovers in 2026 by Incognia. Written by André Ferraz, the research highlights how mule account handover fraud is rising faster than detection capabilities. It shows most institutions still rely on reactive methods, with only 16% catching cases early, and argues for a shift toward continuous, real-world verification to better prevent this type of fraud. Read the full report here
FINTECH NEWS
🇺🇸 FINRA green lights Securitize for tokenized IPO underwriting and custody. The firm will now support atomic swaps between tokenized stocks and stablecoins, “eliminating the need for fragmented processes and enabling markets to operate with the speed and efficiency of blockchain infrastructure within a regulated environment,” CEO Carlos Domingo said.
PAYMENTS NEWS
🇮🇳 Razorpay gets shareholder approval for Rs 2,700 crore IPO. “The company intends to list its equity shares on one or more stock exchanges to enable the shareholders to have a formal marketplace for dealing with such equity shares. The company proposes to create, offer, issue, and allot fresh equity shares bearing a face value of Rs 2 each up to an aggregate of Rs 2,700 crore,” Razorpay said.
🇮🇳 UPI records 22.35 billion transactions in April 2026, continues digital payments momentum. The platform continues to play a key role in transforming the way transactions are carried out, with increasing acceptance among users. Read more
🇺🇸 PayPal plans job cuts as FinTech’s new CEO pursues turnaround strategy. PayPal employed around 23,800 people at the end of the year, meaning a workforce reduction of that size could eliminate more than 4,500 jobs. It’s part of the company’s plan to realize at least $1.5 billion in savings over the next two to three years, according to a statement.
🇨🇦 Visa expands ‘Agentic Ready’ program to Canada to advance AI-driven commerce. The program is designed to help the Canadian payments ecosystem prepare for the next evolution of commerce, where AI agents may act on behalf of consumers to initiate and complete transactions securely and at scale.
REGTECH NEWS
🇺🇸 FinScan ships digital wallet and stablecoin payments screening for global AML. FinScan Payments solution now supports screening for stablecoin transactions and digital wallets across global sanctions lists, alongside traditional payment rails, enabling a single, scalable approach for payments compliance.
DIGITAL BANKING NEWS
🇪🇸 Monzo will open in Spain in September with offices in Madrid and Barcelona and a team of 50 people. It is expected to operate with a branch of its Irish banking license, which it obtained last December in order to expand into European markets. The Bank of Spain is finalizing its authorization.
🇦🇪 Abu Dhabi’s Reem Finance gets digital bank license. Reem Bank (RB) will enable FinTechs and digital wallets through regulated embedded finance and Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) infrastructure, a statement said. Continue reading
🇧🇷 Nubank Parque is the new name of Palmeiras’ multipurpose arena. The choice was made by the public in an open vote held over the last month, which gathered almost half a million unique votes and selected the winning option with more than 47% preference.
🇨🇦 Wise introduces first-of-its-kind multi-currency Interest feature in Canada. Eligible customers can now opt into the new Interest feature to earn a market-leading return on balances held in CAD, USD, EUR, and GBP from the convenience of their Wise multi-currency account.
BLOCKCHAIN/CRYPTO NEWS
🇺🇸 Crypto exchange Coinbase to cut about 14% of workforce in AI-driven restructuring. The layoffs come as digital asset exchanges grapple with a slowdown in trading activity following a broader pullback in crypto markets from their October peak, reflecting more cautious investor sentiment.
🌍 Polygon Wallet introduces private USDC & USDT. The system enables users to transfer their USDC and USDT digital assets between different accounts. The development is a major advancement towards enterprise-ready blockchain infrastructure.
🌎 Binance Pay targets 10+ countries for QR crypto payments by Q3, building on early traction across Asia Pacific and Latin America. The product enables real-time, zero-fee crypto payments via existing QR codes, supporting the broader push to integrate digital assets into everyday transactions.
PARTNERSHIPS
🇿🇦 dLocal and inDrive launch cashless payments for rides in South Africa. Through dLocal's infrastructure, inDrive can now accept local cards in-app, including real-time payouts via PayShap, split transactions automatically between the driver's share and the platform fee, and pay out driver earnings through South African domestic rails.
🇦🇪 First Abu Dhabi Bank and Mastercard launch multi-tiered SME Commercial Cards Suite to accelerate digital business payments in the UAE. The solution integrates with FAB’s digital banking platform to provide greater control, visibility, and flexibility for growing enterprises.
🇪🇬 Coinbase taps Egyptian-founded Kemet for institutional crypto derivatives expansion. The deal will enable institutional clients to access Coinbase’s four trading venues, Coinbase Exchange, Coinbase Derivatives Exchange, Coinbase International Exchange, and Deribit, through a single platform.
🌍 Thunes and Vodacom Tanzania unite to power cross-border M-Pesa Payments across China and Uganda. Vodacom is leveraging the Thunes Direct Global Network to enable secure, real-time cross-border payments for Tanzanian traders, addressing inefficiencies in transactions with markets like Uganda and China and strengthening mobile money innovation across Africa.
🇮🇱 Israeli FinTech startup BridgeWise partners with Elon Musk’s X to gauge market sentiment. The collaboration enables investors to combine market sentiment with fundamental and technical analysis, helping them make more informed investment decisions.
🇺🇸 Anthropic and FIS are building an AI agent to help banks police financial crimes. The first use case focuses on financial crime detection, enabling banks like Bank of Montreal to automate investigations by gathering and analyzing transaction data more efficiently, while keeping humans in the decision loop.
🇺🇸 Electronic Arts and Visa team up to launch a global, multi-year partnership with EA SPORTS. By combining EA’s interactive, participatory platforms with Visa’s expansive global brand, this partnership demonstrates how the line between sports fandom and video games continues to blur as audiences increasingly play, watch, and connect across both physical and virtual sports.
🌍 Kraken has partnered with MoneyGram to enable users to convert crypto into cash through a global network of physical locations. The collaboration improves fiat off-ramps, especially for users in emerging markets, while supporting MoneyGram’s broader push into digital assets and modern payment infrastructure.
🇺🇸 Corpay signs JP Morgan and BVNK as blockchain infrastructure partners. These agreements expand Corpay Cross-Border’s multi-rail platform by adding blockchain-based settlement across select corridors. Corpay now supports multiple global payment rails, enabling clients to access different settlement methods through a single integrated platform.
DONEDEAL FUNDING NEWS
🇺🇸 Astrada raises seed round to build the data layer for autonomous finance. The funding will be used to accelerate product development and expand partnerships across the FinTech and enterprise finance landscape. Astrada enables platforms to support both human and agent-led financial workflows in real time.
M&A
🇺🇸 Deel acquires Sastrify to expand Deel IT into software management, adding capabilities for license purchasing, renewal tracking, and spend optimization. The move aims to give companies full visibility and control over growing software and AI-related costs through a unified platform.
🌎 Bullish to acquire Equiniti from Siris in a $4.2 billion transaction, creating the global transfer agent for tokenized securities. The combination creates the global transfer agent for tokenized securities and aims to position Bullish to lead the shift toward blockchain-native capital markets infrastructure.
MOVERS AND SHAKERS
🇺🇸 Plus500 appoints Merrill Lynch International as Joint Corporate Broker. Plus500 commented that “The Board considers that the appointment further strengthens the Company’s access to global capital markets and supports its continued engagement with a diverse, high-quality investor base”.
🌍 Plus1 has appointed Rasmus Rolén as CEO to lead its next phase of European expansion. The company aims to scale its debt consolidation platform beyond the Nordics into markets like Germany and Poland, addressing rising consumer debt across Europe.
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