Kraken Launches ‘Embed’ to Bring Crypto to Banks and FinTechs
Hey FinTech Fanatic!
This week I had the chance to visit Dubai and was blown away by an exclusive tour at Majid Al Futtaim — truly impressive what they're building in FinTech and beyond. (I'll share more details soon — stay tuned.)
Funny side note: just a week earlier in Bangkok during the Money20/20 event, I ran into FinTech legend Brett King by complete chance — late at night in my hotel bar. Great to catch up and congrats again on your birthday, Brett!
Crypto exchange Kraken just made it much easier for banks and FinTechs to offer crypto trading. With the launch of Kraken Embed, any financial institution can now plug into Kraken’s infrastructure and let their customers buy and sell crypto, without having to build anything from scratch.
Think of Kraken Embed as a Crypto-as-a-Service: a simple, secure way to offer regulated access to 370+ digital assets, fully compliant with global frameworks like MiCA. Better yet, the first public integration is with bunq, my hometown and one of Europe's prominent neobanks, the first proof that Embed works!
"Our Crypto-as-a-Service solution enables a wide range of financial institutions to efficiently meet growing client demand without the complexity and overhead of running their own marketplace," said Brett McLain, Head of Payments and Blockchain at Kraken.
With Embed, Kraken isn’t just expanding its reach. It’s laying down the rails for crypto to become a mainstream financial product.
Read more global FinTech industry updates below 👇 and I'll be back with more tomorrow!
Cheers,
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INSIGHTS
🇬🇧 Revolut ends stock-only bonuses ahead of potential IPO. The change means that eligible Revolut employees will receive performance bonuses as a mix of cash and equity, entirely in equity, or entirely in cash, depending on their roles and levels of seniority.
FINTECH NEWS
🇳🇱 Adyen sales grew 22% as firm warns of economic uncertainties, with net revenue rising to €534.7 million. The company warned that risks related to rising economic uncertainty could slow growth, citing a more uncertain macroeconomic environment this year.
🇰🇿 MasterCard takes lead in Kazakhstan’s exploding card market in early 2025. According to the National Bank of Kazakhstan, Mastercard had approximately 14.5 million cards in circulation by February 1, 2025, up from 11 million a year earlier. This represents a 31% YoY increase, outpacing the 8% growth of Visa cards during the same period.
🇺🇸 LendingClub reports Q1 earnings, shares Hover. Announces AI spending Intel Platform. Net revenue increased 20% to $217.7 million, compared to $180.7 million in the prior year. This number was helped by higher interest rate income and improved marketplace loan sales pricing.
🇺🇸 FIS launches new platform Treasury and Risk Manager. The company says the cloud-based solution will be able to support larger transaction volumes and increased enterprise connectivity for financial institutions. The solution will also offer a liquidity hub model to enable cash-management analysis in real time.
🇫🇷 Lydia, the French mobile payment app, has launched a new online banking service called Sumeria, offering a remunerated current account with interest rates of up to 4% annually. This move marks Lydia's transition from a peer-to-peer payment platform to a full-fledged neobank.
PAYMENTS NEWS
🇧🇷 Vlademir Santos, Head of ACI Worldwide in Brazil, discusses the challenges and technological solutions for managing payment disputes in the Brazilian e-commerce sector. Santos emphasizes that managing these disputes is complex and costly, involving various stakeholders like consumers, banks, merchants, card networks, and payment processors.
🇺🇸 Write off paper checks, ACI Worldwide CEO Tom Warsop advises. He praised the Trump administration’s move to eliminate paper checks and suggested businesses should do the same. Read more
🇧🇷 PagBrasil completes the integration of Pix Automático on its platform. The Central Bank of Brazil expects to officially roll out the new feature on 16 June 2025, Pix Automático aims to improve recurring payments in the country by enabling automated, pre-authorised debits through the country’s popular Pix and Open Finance systems.
🇺🇿 Paysend unlocks instant payments to Uzbeckistan's Uzcard and Humo. The integration supports cross-border payments for enterprise clients by simplifying technical infrastructure and reducing the need for multiple third-party providers. Paysend’s Payouts to Cards API offers to over 12 billion cards globally.
🇺🇸 Cross River expands borderless finance with launch of international payments powered by Smart-Routing. Leveraging Cross River’s proprietary banking core and API technology, this new International Payments solution offers seamless, efficient, and cost-effective cross-border transactions for businesses.
🇺🇸 Affirm Launches “AdaptAI” to Merchant Partners. Retailers can now introduce personalized, real-time financial benefits, on top of Affirm’s flexible pay-over-time plans, to customers at the point of purchase. Continue reading
🇲🇽 TruBit joins Circle Payments Network as early design partner to advance borderless finance. The CPN is designed to modernize today's fragmented cross-border payment systems, enabling financial institutions to move money with internet-level speed, transparency, and efficiency.
🇨🇦 DailyPay expands into Canada. Launching in May 2025, its innovative platform will be available to new and existing clients with operations in the country. DailyPay’s On-Demand Pay solution has been proven to help workers in the U.S. pay fewer late fees on their bills and incur less credit card interest charges.
🇦🇪 PayPal opens first regional hub in the Middle East and Africa with new office in Dubai. PayPal’s expanded presence will bring global commerce capabilities to the region, including frictionless payments, robust security, and broader access to international payment networks to help large enterprises and small businesses.
REGTECH NEWS
🇬🇧 FCA Executive and Intelligence Officer Jessica Rusu comments on the regulation of digital assets. Rusu said the regulator is supporting growth via innovation while reducing regulatory burdens. She noted that entrepreneurs are “looking for predictability, regulatory certainty, and a pro-innovation environment.”
🇶🇦 Alfardan exchange launches Payee validation with iPiD. The integration of iPiD Validate enables Alfardan to verify payee details in real-time before processing international remittance transactions. This real-time Know Your Payee solution helps reduce fraud risk, minimise transaction failures, and improve the overall accuracy of cross-border payments.
DIGITAL BANKING NEWS
🇬🇧 LHV Bank sees 30% loan book growth in Q1. The bank’s loan book grew by over 30% compared to the end of 2024, reaching £0.4bn, while deposits rose to £0.7bn. The growth follows a £10m capital injection into the bank in March, supporting its plans for further expansion in the UK market.
🇨🇴 Regulation and lack of liquidity, challenges for medium-sized banks in Colombia. The report states that although banks have shown resilience in the face of contractionary monetary cycles, evolving funding conditions and new regulatory requirements could limit their competitiveness compared to larger banks and emerging FinTech companies.
🇦🇪 ADIB taps QUALCO to enhance sharia-compliant Supply Chain Finance platform. The new system aims to automate key processes, improve transaction transparency, and streamline operational workflows for both suppliers and buyers. It supports various Islamic financing structures, ensuring flexibility while adhering to Sharia principles.
🇮🇪 Revolut launches business instant-access savings account. The digital bank said its business savings account offers “Ireland’s best instant-access rate” when compared to legacy banks and other FinTechs. Meanwhile, Revolut set to offer mobile plans in Germany and the UK. The FinTech said it wants to disrupt the established market to improve customer experience, it will launch monthly mobile phone plans, hoping to disrupt the established telecoms market in the EU.
🇺🇸 Santander seeks to be ‘relevant’ in the US as it mulls sale in Europe. The behaviour of Santander’s auto financing business customers in the US was “really good” in the first three months of the year, and the lender isn’t seeing credit quality deterioration. The bank feels comfortable with the guidance for its US business.
🇳🇱 Backbase launches world’s first AI-powered Banking Platform, putting banks back in Growth Mode. By integrating Backbase’s AI experts directly into their teams, banks can rapidly co-create high-impact use cases and turn innovation into execution with speed and confidence.
🇬🇧 Allica Bank launches long-term sub-hire product and celebrates record-breaking month in asset finance. The innovative product means hire companies can hire the equipment to their customers for up to 36 months and opt for a fixed-rate hire purchase agreement of up to 72 months.
BLOCKCHAIN/CRYPTO NEWS
🇲🇽 Stablecoin-enabled FX, Now Live in Mexico. Bridge is launching local on and off-ramps, enabling developers to move funds seamlessly between dollars, pesos, and stablecoins through a simple set of APIs. This rollout is the first step in a broader effort to support cross-border financial operations across Latin America.
🌍 Dutch neobank bunq launched a crypto trading service for over 300 cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana. The service is available to Bunq users in the Netherlands, France, Spain, Ireland, Italy, and Belgium. It’s offered via Kraken.
🌍 Kraken launches Embed, a crypto-as-a-service, enabling banks and FinTechs to provide clients seamless access to crypto. It simplifies operational and infrastructure requirements, enabling financial institutions to make regulated crypto trading available to their customers without extensive in-house expertise in a matter of weeks.
🇪🇺 KuCoin commits $2B to 'trust project' focusing on crypto security, transparency. The new initiative aimed at reinforcing user safety, boosting transparency, and ensuring long-term accountability in the crypto market. Keep reading
PARTNERSHIPS
🇵🇱 Solidgate partners with RozetkaPay to enhance payments for international expansion. Through this collaboration, Solidgate will provide acquiring services with PLN payouts to enhance payment acceptance rates for RozetkaPay’s merchants in Poland. ROZETKA sees this partnership as a key step toward improving local payment processing and expanding its presence in the Polish market.
🇲🇽 Ualá users can now withdraw money at Oxxo shops throughout Mexico. The new partnership allows customers of this financial platform to withdraw up to 3,000 pesos per transaction, although they must pay a fixed fee of 20 pesos per withdrawal.
🇦🇪 UAE’s largest bank, FAB, to launch stablecoin, partnering sovereign investor ADQ, IHC. The stablecoin will be issued on the ADI blockchain, subject to regulatory approval by the Central Bank of the UAE. The intention is for the stablecoin to be used by consumers, corporates, and institutions, both domestically and for cross-border payments.
🌍 Qliro and Two integrate B2B BNPL for Nordic SMEs. The integration of Two’s solution into Qliro’s existing checkout is designed to support business buyers with more flexible terms while maintaining real-time risk assessment and instant credit decisions.
🇺🇸 Green Dot provides embedded banking services to Crypto.com. Green Dot is enabling Crypto.com customers to utilize cryptocurrencies more easily and affordably. It also enables partners to offer their customers the ability to move funds digitally between bank accounts.
DONEDEAL FUNDING NEWS
🇺🇸 Mastercard announced a $300 million investment in the cross-border corporate payments division of Corpay. The deal involves the purchase of a minority stake of approximately 3%, valuing Corpay at $10.7 billion. This implies a valuation multiple of 20 times the company’s projected EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization), a key metric used to gauge operational cash flow potential.
🇧🇷 Clara raises $80 million and is close to profitability. The new capital will be used to invest in technology and expand operations across Latin America, with a focus on Brazil. Keep reading
🇺🇸 Series D funding round brings Persona USD 200 million. With the newly acquired capital, it aims to further solidify its position in the market, intending to develop a verified identity layer, a secure infrastructure AI supports businesses in verifying individuals and entities across contexts.
M&A
🇦🇪 Zodia Custody in talks to acquire UAE-based Tungsten Custody Solutions. Julian Sawyer, CEO of Zodia Custody, described the move as a pivotal moment in the company's global strategy. He stated that the acquisition would provide Zodia with a license and enable strong connections with the region’s sovereign ecosystem.
MOVERS AND SHAKERS
🇨🇦 Jeremiah Glodoveza joined Nuvei as SVP of Brand and Communications. Jeremiah brings deep global experience and a passion for storytelling that will help the company continue to shape and share Nuvei’s journey with the world. Read more
🇷🇴 Bogdan Hristescu new Chief Commercial Officer at BLIK Romania. His expertise and knowledge of the Romanian market will support BLIK’s long-term growth strategy and play a key role in the upcoming launch of the BLIK payment system in the national currency (RON), starting with the e-commerce sector.
🌎 BofA hires from Citi, Deutsche Bank, and Santander for Latin America. Giovanni Fernandes, a former managing director at Santander covering utilities, oil and gas, and infrastructure concessions. Martin Cameo from Deutsche Bank, who’ll be a managing director for Latin America structured finance. And, Arturo Grisi, a Citigroup Senior Director covering power and infrastructure.
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