ID Finance raises €545M to take Plazo beyond lending
Hey FinTech Fanatic!
What do you do when your lending app grows revenue 300% in a year?
Raise €545 million and go after payments, too.
That’s the latest from ID Finance, the FinTech co-founded by Boris Batine and Alexander Dunaev, behind Plazo in Spain. The app wrapped up 2025 with more than 400,000 users, turned profitable, and is now aiming to grow another 300% in 2026 🤯
But there’s more to the story.
Plazo is moving beyond lending. ID Finance recently launched Turrón, which combines an e-money account, a debit card, and buy now, pay later. You can use it to shop online and in-store, and the company is working to get more merchants on board.
The big question is whether ID Finance can turn its lending customers into payments customers, too. Definitely one to keep an eye on.
And speaking of what’s next, I’ll be swapping San Francisco for Vegas in just a few days. Money20/20 is coming up, and Maple and I are getting together a small group for dinner on Monday, so we can take a break from the conference floor and catch up properly. If you’re heading to Vegas too, request an invitation here. Would be great to see you!
Plenty more happening in FinTech before we meet in Vegas.
Let’s get into it 👇
See you tomorrow!
Cheers,
INSIGHTS
💡 Infinia: What happens when we tokenize everything? What if airline miles, loyalty points, cloud credits and financial assets could all move between platforms more easily? In this piece, Ianai Urwicz, CEO and Co-Founder of Infinia, explores how tokenization could make different forms of value easier to exchange and use, opening up new possibilities for digital commerce as AI agents take on more transactions. Explore Infinia’s take on the future of tokenization
FINTECH NEWS
🇮🇳 Indian FinTech firm Juspay sees revenue rise 30% to $75 million. The company processed 400 million transactions daily in FY26, with annualised payment volumes exceeding $1 trillion. Juspay also expanded internationally and remained adjusted EBITDA positive despite increased investment in AI.
🇭🇰 Hong Kong FinTech firm Regtitude launches its Expansion Bridge initiative. The programme aims to help FinTech, Web3 and digital businesses enter Hong Kong and mainland China by simplifying regulatory compliance, licensing, cybersecurity and legal documentation requirements.
🇺🇸 American Express publishes its Intent Intelligence framework for trusted agentic commerce. The framework captures and authenticates customers' purchase instructions before AI agents transact, including spending limits and merchant preferences. It also uses secure payment credentials to help prevent unauthorised purchases and support dispute resolution.
#FINTECHREPORT
💡 zerohash x Ava Labs: Blockchain Is Becoming Standard Infrastructure for Financial Institutions. A new survey of 162 financial operators shows how quickly institutional blockchain adoption is moving forward. 38.9% still see regulatory uncertainty as the biggest blocker, while 68.5% say regulatory clarity would accelerate adoption most. Investment is also concentrating around stablecoin payments (37.7%) and RWA tokenization (25.3%), while 61.5% of banks expect blockchain to become standard within two years. The broader message is clear: onchain infrastructure is moving from experimentation toward mainstream financial use. Download the report here
PAYMENTS NEWS
🇨🇳 Visa receives approval to begin preparations for a domestic business in China. The People's Bank of China (PBOC) has authorised Visa to begin establishing a domestic bankcard clearing institution. The company must complete further regulatory steps before it can begin processing domestic card transactions.
🇨🇦 Payoneer Canada registers with the Bank of Canada as a payment service provider. The registration under the Retail Payment Activities Act supports regulated payment services, including local currency collection. It also reinforces the regulatory foundation for Payoneer's relationships with its Canadian banking partners.
🇳🇬 Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System has launched a National Payment Stack, built on open source technology. The platform supports A2A instant transfers, QR code merchant payments and phone number payments, as well as bulk payments. It runs on Transactility's jPTS switching platform and ISO 20022, and NIBSS keeps access to the source code and control of its development roadmap.
🌍 Vipps MobilePay reaches more merchants through Rootline, which integrated the wallet using Vipps MobilePay's new PSP API. Platforms using Rootline can now offer Vipps MobilePay to all their merchants without each merchant needing its own agreement. Event platform Preo processed 20,000 MobilePay payments through Rootline during Copenhagen's Kulturnatten.
DIGITAL BANKING NEWS
🇺🇸 Upgrade has applied to establish an industrial loan company, submitting applications to the Nevada Financial Institutions Division and the FDIC. The proposed Upgrade Bank would give the company more options to fund affordable credit products alongside its existing bank partners. Virginia Varela, currently Head of Banking Strategy, has been named CEO of the proposed bank.
🇫🇷 SBS launches banking's first sovereign AI platform for generative and agentic AI. The SBS AI Foundation, powered by NVIDIA, lets banks deploy AI without data leaving their own environment. It is live with Scottish Building Society on Amazon Web Services and available to hundreds of SBS clients worldwide.
🇺🇸 Texans Credit Union grows active digital banking users by 42% with Alkami. After moving to Alkami's Digital Banking Platform, the credit union serving more than 150,000 members improved NPS from 73.6 to 89.4. It also doubled online account openings and made account opening in its branches up to five times faster.
BLOCKCHAIN/CRYPTO NEWS
🇷🇺 Sberbank has secured approval to exchange cryptocurrencies, after the Bank of Russia added it to its register of crypto exchange providers. Russia's largest bank plans to open crypto trading to all clients on Dec. 1 and is already testing BTC, ETH and USDT trades in its app. Nine organizations now sit on the exchange register, including VTB and T-Invest Lab.
🇮🇹 YouHodler Italy has been authorised by CONSOB as a CASP under MiCA. The authorisation covers five services, including custody, exchange of crypto for funds, order execution and crypto transfers. The company plans to extend its services to all 27 EU Member States through the procedure set out in the regulation.
🌐 BingX has launched U.S. stock trading through Alpaca, giving eligible users access to more than 7,000 U.S. stocks and ETFs. Users can fund trades with USDT and USDC without fiat deposits or a separate brokerage account. The offering provides access to U.S. securities through brokerage infrastructure, including custody, clearing and settlement.
🇰🇷 South Korea has blocked access to 27 unregistered crypto exchange websites, including KuCoin, MEXC and BingX. Regulators have also referred 44 unregistered crypto operators to investigative authorities over suspected unauthorized business activities. Authorities plan further website blocks and withdrawal guidance for affected customers.
STABLECOINS NEWS
🌐 TrustLinq now lets RLUSD holders pay any bank account, expanding its partnership with Ripple. Users can make fiat payments directly from their self custodial wallets, with recipients receiving local currency bank transfers across 190+ countries and 80+ currencies. The capability is live for all verified clients with no integration required.
🇬🇧 Noah CEO Shah Ramezani discusses stablecoin payments and AI-driven transactions on etn.'s The Arena. He explained how AI agents could automate invoice processing and prepare payments while retaining human approval. Noah connects stablecoin infrastructure to traditional banking systems, enabling recipients to receive funds in their local currencies.
🇺🇸 Rain introduces wallets, putting the account at the center of its stablecoin payments platform. The embedded wallets let users get paid, save, spend, and send from one balance. Balances back Rain cards at 175 million merchant locations. Wallets where users hold their own keys are live today and support twelve blockchains.
🇫🇷 Flowdesk Europe has secured Payment Institution authorization from France's ACPR, granted under PSD2. The license allows it to provide custody and transfer services for electronic money tokens to clients across the EU. It follows the CASP authorization Flowdesk Europe received from the AMF under MiCA at the end of June.
PARTNERSHIPS
🌐 Ecommpay adds Klarna, giving consumers a more flexible way to pay. Merchants across retail, travel, hospitality, mobility and insurance can offer Pay in 3, Pay in 4 and Financing through one integration with no extra technical work.
🇵🇹 TAP expands flexible payment options to four new markets. Klarna lets passengers in Spain, France, Italy and the US pay in three instalments. Financing is also offered on costlier long haul trips booked directly through TAP's website.
🌏 Travog and Mastercard digitize business travel spending with a new travel and expense card. Designed for SMEs, the card integrates payments with travel bookings, spending controls and approvals on Travog's platform, giving finance teams real-time visibility into expenses and simplifying reconciliation.
🇧🇭 National Bank of Bahrain has partnered with TerraPay to expand international payouts. Through TerraPay's network, the bank can reach more than 12 billion endpoints, including digital wallets and bank accounts. TerraPay receives Swift ISO 20022 messages and delivers cross border transactions in real time with no deductions from the principal amount.
🇬🇧 SaaScada and Zumo partner to give UK banks a ready-built route into regulated crypto. Zumo will provide crypto custody, trading and KYC/AML services, while SaaScada will manage the cash accounts used to fund purchases and receive sale proceeds. The integration will allow banks and wealth managers to offer customers a unified view of their cash and crypto holdings.
🌏 Samsung Wallet will add WeChat Pay in a push into China's payments market. Samsung Electronics and Woori Bank plan to sign an MOU with Tencent later this month to link Samsung Wallet Money to WeChat Pay's QR payment system. The move targets China and Southeast Asia, where QR payments are widely used.
🇰🇷 KB Kookmin Card and SBI Holdings will explore stablecoin payments for Japanese tourists in South Korea. The four party agreement with Everspin and SBI Everspin will also test identity verification for AI agents acting on behalf of users. KB Kookmin Card plans to examine AI agent integration with its existing KB Pay platform.
🇬🇧 Fairer Finance and Sideways launch a Michelin-star-style accreditation for banks. The scheme assesses governance, customer complaints and compliance with the UK's Consumer Duty. An accompanying AI-powered tool identifies issues in customer communications that could undermine trust.
🇺🇸 Bakkt selects Thredd to power credit card as a service program settling in stablecoins. Thredd will provide card processing, tokenization, wallet integration, and fraud management. Bakkt targets a proof of concept in the first half of 2027.
DONEDEAL FUNDING NEWS
🇪🇸 ID Finance secures €545 million in debt and equity funding. Backed by Spice Expeditions, WashU, Kingsway Capital and i80 Group, the financing will support the expansion of its consumer finance app Plazo, including new products and AI-driven lending capabilities. Plazo reached profitability in 2025 and now serves over 400,000 customers.
🌐 SWI Group has raised €800 million from institutional investors, valuing the company at €6.1 billion. The capital will help repurpose former FTX backed miner Genesis Digital Assets for AI workloads at its U.S. and Swedish facilities. SWI also plans to sell the unit's sites in Kazakhstan.
🌐 Revolut and Vinted backer Sprints raises a $725 million investment fund. The new fund will provide capital for future investments, expanding the firm's capacity to back businesses following earlier investments in Revolut and Vinted.
🌎 Tether invests in EFY Finance to accelerate institutional stablecoin usage in LATAM. The seed round investment aims to strengthen infrastructure connecting stablecoins to traditional finance. EFY Finance settles to local accounts in 17 countries and serves more than 25,000 active accounts.
🇺🇸 Causa Prima has raised $20 million in a seed round, led by Base10 Partners. Its agent to agent platform uses AI agents to resolve billing disputes and speed up payment times between companies and their suppliers. The round brings total funding to $30 million and will support a new office in New York.
🇦🇺 Australian FinTech Archa has secured A$61 million, comprising an A$11 million equity raise and a A$50 million debt facility. The business spend platform aims to help companies access working capital without personal guarantees, while developing AI tools to flag spending that breaches company policies. The funding will support product development and expansion.
🇦🇺 Tidal Ventures has led a $5.3 million seed round for RedOwl, the Melbourne FinTech backed by Mastercard. The round gives the AI powered FinTech a valuation of nearly $40 million, with CP Ventures also participating. RedOwl previously raised $15 million in March last year.
🇫🇷 French FinTech Wavo raises €10 million in a new funding round. The company announced the investment on its official website, although further details on the funding's intended use remain to be verified.
M&A
🇩🇪 Crédit Agricole to launch a digital-first bank in Germany and acquire IKB. Crédit Agricole Deutschland will debut in late October with current accounts, Visa cards and savings products. Separately, the planned IKB acquisition will expand the group's corporate lending business, with completion expected by Q2 2027, subject to regulatory approval.
🇺🇸 Mesh acquires crypto exchange connectivity provider Bluvo. The deal brings Bluvo co-founders Florian Sabani and Luca Dalla Chiara into Mesh, strengthening its network of more than 300 exchanges and wallets. The acquisition aims to improve connectivity and reliability across its crypto payments infrastructure.
🇲🇽 PayJoy has acquired Finia, a Mexican FinTech, to gain deeper credit insights. The deal lets PayJoy apply Finia's technology and expertise to enhance its underwriting capabilities. PayJoy serves underserved consumers in emerging markets and plans to expand services for customers with limited access to formal credit
MOVERS AND SHAKERS
🇺🇸 Convera has appointed four senior leaders, to accelerate its global money movement platform. Mike Cahill joins as Chief Operating Officer, Jon Southall as CTO, Tui Allen as Chief Product Officer and Chris Steinig as Chief Information Officer. Together they will lead the execution of an integrated global money movement platform combining cross border payments and FX risk management.
🇺🇸 MoonPay names Anne Giviskos as its new CFO. Giviskos will lead the finance organization, set financial and capital strategy and build the infrastructure to support MoonPay's next phase of growth. Her appointment comes as MoonPay scales across financial markets. Keep reading
🌐 KAST appoints Claire Wells as Chief Legal Officer. Wells will lead global legal, compliance, regulatory, and licensing strategy as KAST expands across North America, Latin America, and the Middle East. She previously held senior roles at Kiln, Coinbase, Plaid, and Circle.
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