Checkout.com Hits $750M — and Is Betting on AI Next
Hey FinTech Fanatic!
Checkout.com just crossed a pretty meaningful milestone: $750M in annualised net revenue, up 28% year over year.
But the number that caught my attention is what comes next.
The company expects around $150M in Adjusted EBITDA for 2026, after returning to profitability in 2024 and expanding its margins since then. At the same time, it expects to process $480B in payment volume this year.
That gives Checkout. com room to invest beyond its core acquiring business - from Business Accounts, Payouts and Issuing to its Platforms business for SaaS companies, ISVs and marketplaces.
And AI is becoming a bigger part of that strategy too, with Checkout. com investing in agentic payment optimization, agentic commerce and agent payments.
The interesting shift is that profitability is giving payments companies more room to build for the next cycle, rather than simply chase volume.
Not at Sibos? I’ve got you covered. Scroll down for the key announcements, deals and developments worth knowing.
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Now, let’s get into today’s FinTech stories. 👇
See you tomorrow!
Cheers,
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Not at Sibos? I’ve got you covered.
I’m tracking the announcements, deals, and developments coming out of Sibos across banks, FinTechs, payments companies, and infrastructure providers, and filtering it all down to what I think you need to know.
Here’s what stood out today:
1. 🇺🇸 Oracle integrates with SWIFT's ledger to help banks connect tokenized deposit infrastructures across institutions. The collaboration enables financial institutions to link tokenized deposit systems through a standardized connection to SWIFT's interoperability layer, reducing friction in cross-institutional digital asset settlement.
2. 🇺🇸 Finastra launches AI-powered Repair Recommendations for modern payments processing, announced at Sibos 2026. The feature helps banks resolve payment exceptions faster by providing scheme-validated correction guidance across Swift, Fedwire, SEPA, and more.
3. 🇬🇧 HSBC rolls out a new digital transaction banking platform announced at Sibos 2026 in Miami. The platform aims to modernize how corporate and institutional clients manage payments and cash flows across markets.
4. 🇺🇸 Bank of America expands payments capabilities with new intelligence and real-time services, announced at Sibos 2026. The bank is rolling out enhanced payment intelligence tools and real-time transaction services aimed at improving speed and transparency for corporate clients.
5. 🇰🇷 KB Kookmin Bank and BNY sign an MOU on cross-border digital-asset payments and remittances. KB Kookmin Bank plans to use BNY's global payments network and Pay to Wallet capabilities to improve overseas remittance services for foreign nationals and international students.
That’s it for now. Back at it tomorrow with more from Sibos.
INSIGHTS
💡 Incognia: How AI-Powered Fraud Farms Operate. Incognia explores how organized fraud networks are using AI to automate account creation, identity management, and activity across large numbers of devices. The challenge is that individual accounts or devices may look legitimate in isolation, while the connections between them reveal a much larger operation. The key takeaway for fraud teams is clear: detecting AI-powered fraud increasingly requires analysing the relationships between accounts, devices, and physical locations — not just individual transactions. Read the full article here
FINTECH NEWS
🇬🇧 Checkout.com sees $150 million in profit, marking a significant financial milestone for the payments firm. The result strengthens the company's position ahead of potential investment activity and signals improving unit economics after years of heavy growth spending.
🇬🇧 Blockchain.com is targeting a $500 million IPO later this year, according to Bloomberg. The crypto exchange is working with advisers on a public listing that would make it one of the more significant crypto market debuts of 2026.
🇱🇹 Nsave lands Electronic Money Institution approval, strengthening its regulatory standing. The FinTech also bolstered its board risk committee as it scales operations under the new EMI license.
🇸🇬 Alpaca secures MAS in-principle approval to launch brokerage services in Singapore. Once fully licensed, Alpaca Singapore plans to provide brokerage and custodial services, serving as a local counterparty for partners across Southeast Asia.
🇵🇭 Philippine FinTech firm Skyro wins a license to operate in Malaysia, expanding its footprint in Southeast Asia. The approval allows Skyro to offer its financial services to Malaysian consumers as it grows beyond its home market.
🇺🇸 Ingenico and Kennesaw State University open a new FinTech Innovation Hub in Atlanta. The hub features a lab where students can test payment devices in live-use scenarios. Nine former KSU interns have already joined Ingenico in full-time roles spanning software development, QA, and solutions engineering.
PAYMENTS NEWS
🇺🇸 Yuno launches in-person payments with multi-acquirer routing, unifying online and POS on one AI-native stack. Merchants can now route each in-store sale across several acquirers and accept Tap to Pay on compatible devices.
🇦🇺 Volt receives an Australian Financial Services Licence, completing direct regulatory authorization across Australia, the UK and EU. The open payments firm's Australian entity, Volt Connect Pty Ltd, secured the AFSL to operate independently across all three jurisdictions.
🇳🇱 Adyen launches a first-to-market upgrade to Authenticate, its payment optimization module within the Adyen Uplift suite. The update uses machine learning to route each transaction to the best-performing authentication method in real time, with TooGoodToGo reporting an 11% conversion increase.
🇨🇦 Shopify opens its full checkout flow to browser-based AI agents, including Shop Pay support. Three new WebMCP tools allow agents to inspect, update, and complete checkout with buyer authorization, rolling out to all eligible Shopify merchants.
🇺🇸 Citi becomes the first bank to launch multi-market instant payments on the Swift payments scheme. Clients can now access instant cross-border payments in AUD, GBP, INR, and USD through a single account structure, with more currencies planned.
🇦🇪 Visa launches the Visa Infinite Series in the UAE, a flexible premium platform for affluent cardholders. Issuers can shape curated experiences across travel, dining, wellness, and luxury retail to deepen engagement and loyalty.
🇺🇸 American Express now accepted at over 190 million merchant locations worldwide, with international acceptance more than doubling in four years. The payments giant says growth outside the U.S. has been driven by expanded coverage across merchants of all sizes in key global markets.
🇬🇧 Brite Payments launches Pay by Bank in the UK, bringing its account-to-account payment solution to British consumers and merchants. The Swedish open banking firm enables instant payments directly from bank accounts without card networks, expanding its footprint beyond the Nordic and European markets where it already operates.
ARTICLE OF THE DAY
💡 MassPay: Your Money, Your Way, Today. MassPay explores why a payout should be measured by when the payee can actually use the money, not simply when the sender releases it. The report highlights three priorities: choice, speed, and certainty - from bank deposits and mobile wallets to cash pickup and crypto across 180 countries and 80+ currencies. With 1.3B adults still without a financial account and 81% of gig workers prioritizing platforms offering instant payouts, payout infrastructure needs to be designed around the payee’s local reality, with transparent fees, reliable routing, and clear delivery status. The core message is simple: the payment isn't complete when it's sent, it's complete when the recipient can use it. Read the full article here
DIGITAL BANKING NEWS
🇬🇧 UK households could save over £370 a year by repairing instead of replacing, according to Klarna. The company launched Care & Repair in the UK and France, making repair options visible on past purchases inside the Klarna app.
🇺🇸 Grok now connects to users' bank, card, and investment accounts via Plaid integration. xAI's chatbot offers read-only access, letting users ask Grok to help manage spending and investments without sharing bank credentials.
BLOCKCHAIN/CRYPTO NEWS
🇺🇸 Maple Finance is upgrading syrupUSD assets to Chainlink CCIP 2.0, bringing faster bridging across 11 chains. The upgrade enables native minting and redemption beyond Ethereum, with no action required from holders.
🇪🇸 Cecabank takes its regulated crypto custody push to Luxembourg via MiCA passporting. The Spanish B2B custodian plans to extend MiCA coverage to Luxembourg, Ireland, and Portugal in 2026 after becoming the first Spanish custodian to secure a MiCA license.
🇻🇬 Bybit accepts Franklin Templeton tokenized fund shares as trading collateral, letting institutions earn yield while financing crypto trades. Eligible clients can pledge shares via the Benji platform and access credit lines in USDT or USDC without selling their holdings.
🇺🇸 Coinbase receives CFTC approval for Coinbase Clearing LLC, a significant regulatory milestone. The approval allows Coinbase to operate a regulated clearing entity for derivatives under U.S. commodity futures oversight.
🇺🇸 Goldman Sachs brings its roughly $100 billion Treasury fund into crypto's institutional plumbing. FTIXX will be distributed through settlement network Lynq, with trades handled by broker-dealer tZERO Securities. The fund is not being tokenized but offered as a new distribution channel for digital-asset firms.
🇰🇷 MoonPay launches its South Korean unit, MoonPay Korea, targeting the country as a hub for Asia expansion. The firm plans to pursue cooperation with Finger, Woori Bank, KB Financial Group, and KakaoBank on stablecoin distribution, cross-border remittances, and digital-asset services.
🇺🇸 DTCC and Chainlink collaborate to enhance 24/7 collateral mobility across financial markets. The partnership aims to use Chainlink's oracle and interoperability infrastructure to automate collateral movements between on-chain and traditional financial systems, reducing settlement delays and manual processes.
🇿🇦 Absa secures regulatory approval for digital asset custody, becoming the first African bank to offer institutional-grade safekeeping for digital assets. The service targets asset managers, corporates, and non-bank financial institutions within a regulated banking environment.
STABLECOINS NEWS
🇬🇧 Freemarket and Axiym launch LIQUI-DT, a service giving businesses 24/7 access to primary-market USDT from Tether. Audited trials show clients have minted or burned over $300 million through the regulated payment network.
PARTNERSHIPS
🇦🇪 Mambu and Mastercard join forces to simplify cross-border payments for banks in the Middle East. Mastercard Move will connect with Mambu's Intelligent Core to give banks a pre-built integration for cross-border payment capabilities within digital banking journeys.
🇳🇴 Vipps expands contactless payments with Klarna cards, allowing users to make contactless payments through Vipps with eligible Klarna cards. The Norwegian payments app is bringing its “blippning” functionality to Klarna cards, expanding contactless payment options for users.
🌍 Noah partners with Hyperbeat to bridge decentralized trading and regulated markets. The integration gives institutional traders a direct path between Hyperliquid and brokerages like Interactive Brokers, with on-and-off ramps across 70+ countries.
🇰🇷 Kakaopay Securities and Dinari partner to expand global access to Korean equities through tokenization. The firms will explore applying Dinari's dShares model to Korean-listed stocks and evaluate a framework for international distribution.
🇪🇺 BBVA and eDreams sign a strategic agreement to connect digital banking and travel in Italy and Germany. The partnership will integrate travel services into BBVA's digital banking experience across both markets.
🌍 Terrabank selects TerraPay for cross-border payments via the Mozrt platform. The integration will enable Terrabank to offer faster international payment services through TerraPay's global network.
🇰🇷 Kakao Pay Securities and Ondo Finance team up to expand overseas distribution of Korean listed stocks. The companies will jointly study tokenization infrastructure including omnibus accounts and token issuance procedures to support broader global access.
🇿🇦 Standard Bank Group and Huawei forge a strategic cloud partnership to drive digital and intelligent finance in Africa. The collaboration aims to accelerate Standard Bank's digital transformation using Huawei's cloud infrastructure across the continent.
🌍 Caliza and Yala partner to support cross-border trade for African businesses. Yala will use Caliza's stablecoin-powered infrastructure to settle payments with international suppliers across multiple corridors.
🇫🇷 Froda launches in France through an embedded partnership with Shine, expanding the Swedish lender's reach into a new European market. Read more
DONEDEAL FUNDING NEWS
🇺🇸 Jeeves raises $110M from a16z and Coinbase Ventures for its crypto expansion. The corporate expense platform is building infrastructure that bridges traditional finance and digital assets for cross-border spend.
🇺🇸 Insurtech Outmarket raises $34.5M in a Series B led by SignalFire, just months after its prior round. The AI startup helps insurance brokers automate paperwork and has attracted over 300 agencies, including 25% of the top 100, since launching its product 14 months ago.
🇮🇳 Kiwi seeks up to $40 million as the FinTech steps up its credit push. The Bengaluru-based startup offers bank-issued RuPay credit cards and credit lines for UPI payments, and the proposed round would be its largest after raising $24 million last year led by Vertex Ventures.
🇪🇺 Marble raises €6.5M to automate compliance for financial institutions. The RegTech firm will use the funding to scale its compliance automation platform across European markets.
🇺🇸 Blue Fire AI closes a $9M funding round, partnering with Mizuho Financial Group and Asset Management One. The firm focuses on AI-driven solutions for financial institutions in the asset management space.
🇹🇳 Tundr secures €11.6 million in Series A funding to scale its financial services platform. The FinTech startup will use the capital to expand its product offering and grow its team as it targets underserved segments across its home market and beyond.
🇺🇸 Elio Mortgage emerges from stealth with $5.1M to build an AI-native mortgage origination platform. Founded by a Microsoft AI alum, the startup aims to streamline the home loan process using automation.
M&A
🇺🇸 FinTech unicorn Capitolis to acquire eSecLending for $200 million in cash, adding securities lending capabilities and 120 employees. The deal is Capitolis's fourth acquisition in five years and expands its institutional client base to major asset owners.
MOVERS AND SHAKERS
🇳🇿 Revolut taps ex-Bendigo executive Ryan Brosnahan as its first New Zealand CEO. Brosnahan previously served as chief transformation officer at Bendigo and Adelaide Bank. Georgia Grange, who led Revolut NZ from launch, has been promoted to chief operating officer as the company pursues a banking license.
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