London Overtakes New York And San Francisco As The World’s Top FinTech Hub
Hey FinTech Fanatic!
Big shift in the global FinTech landscape today. 🤯
London has overtaken both New York and San Francisco to become the world’s number one FinTech hub.
According to new data from Finch Capital, reported by Reuters, for the first time, European FinTech funding has reached parity with the United States, with both regions now sitting at roughly €40B in total funding.
Between 2022 and 2025, European FinTech funding grew 37%, while funding across major U.S. hubs declined 13%. London appears to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of this shift.
But there’s an interesting twist. Despite the strong momentum in Europe, every European FinTech round above €1B was still led by U.S. investors.
All of this raises a bigger question 👉 Is Europe entering its FinTech decade, or is this simply a temporary shift while the U.S. market resets?
I'd also like to know what you think...
Still speaking of the U.S., I’ll be heading back soon, with stops in New York, San Francisco, and this time also in Las Vegas for FinTech Meetup (March 30 - April 1).
At most events, you’re lucky to even find the right person. At FinTech Meetup, meetings are designed differently, using double opt-in matchmaking between qualified buyers and sellers scheduled in advance.
Check out the short video below where CEO Sanjib Kalita explains how it works. 🤣 Indeed, it's a piece that already gives a sense of the experience:
Stop Barking Up the Wrong Tree
Ah, by the way, with the event just around the corner, so make sure to secure yours while you still can.
Keep scrolling 👇 I'll be back next week with all the latest news. And hopefully, see you soon in Vegas as well!
Cheers,
FEATURED NEWS
This is how the 𝕏 Money metal card will look like👌
INSIGHTS
🌎 How a LATAM staffing company stopped losing top talent to broken payments by Noah. In this article, Noah explains how Tenui, a platform connecting Fortune 500 companies with freelance developers across Latin America, improved its payment infrastructure by enabling instant USDC payouts. The solution reduced fees, eliminated payment delays, and helped Tenui retain top talent while simplifying cross-border payment operations.
FINTECH NEWS
🇺🇸 London overtakes San Francisco and New York as top FinTech hub, growth capital fund says. European FinTech funding grew 37% between 2022 and 2025, while investment in top U.S. hubs declined 13%, reaching an equivalent 40 billion euros each.
🌎 Santander and Visa deliver Latin America’s first end-to-end payments powered by AI agents. Through this collaboration, Banco Santander and Visa are advancing practical agentic commerce use cases and helping establish a framework to support responsible and scalable adoption across the region.
🇪🇺 EU countries call for stronger European payment systems. Finance ministers for the EU's six largest economies called for the commission to prepare and swiftly issue an ambitious EU strategy promoting strategic autonomy and reducing EU dependencies in payments.
PAYMENTS NEWS
🌏 The Mastercard Collection: Savor the Extraordinary with Mastercard’s Asia Gourmet Circle Program. The dining program is an exclusive gateway where cardholders can instantly check reservation availability and book tables at top-tier dining establishments in APAC and around the world.
🌍 Mastercard weighs in on European payments sovereignty debate. With European policymakers advocating for greater payments sovereignty, US giant Mastercard has felt compelled to make its case as a friendly partner, deeply embedded in the continent.
🇬🇧 Ecommpay benchmarks payment strategies across the UK’s top 10 online travel agencies. Ecommpay has released a benchmark report analyzing the payment strategies of the UK’s top 10 online travel agencies, highlighting how checkout optimization can drive revenue, trust, and conversion.
🇧🇷 Stone lays off 370 employees in restructuring. The restructuring mainly affects the FinTech's technology area, which has more than 2,000 professionals. Approximately 20% of this division was impacted by the cuts, although the layoffs represent 3% of the total workforce of 11,000 employees.
🇮🇳 RateGain and Juspay drive seamless, high-performance travel payments worldwide. This partnership marks a significant step in Juspay and RateGain’s mission to drive higher checkout conversions, unlock localized and flexible payment options, and create seamless, scalable booking experiences for travelers around the world, aligned with the recent launch of RG Pay.
FINTECH RUNNING CLUB
🌍 Join us for a run this month and meet the FinTech community in motion. Check the upcoming runs and RSVP to join us. 🏃➡️
DIGITAL BANKING NEWS
🇮🇳 India neobank Fi winds down banking services on its platform. India’s neobank Fi is discontinuing banking services on its app and ending its partnership with Federal Bank, directing customers to access their savings accounts through the bank’s FedMobile app instead.
PARTNERSHIPS
🇺🇸 Incognia partners with Cabify to strengthen transportation safety for improved city living. By using Incognia’s device and location intelligence, Cabify aims to better detect threats such as fake rides and identity manipulation while maintaining a secure and reliable experience for drivers and riders.
🇳🇱 Worldline and ABN AMRO extend partnership to support payment services in the Dutch market. Under the renewed contract, Worldline will continue to drive critical payment services for ABN AMRO, overseeing card issuing and personalization activities, and a comprehensive suite of payment solutions.
🇮🇳 Razorpay taps Anthropic's Claude to build AI agents for payments. The agents can handle routine tasks such as recovering abandoned purchases, retrying failed subscriptions, resolving disputes, and forecasting cash flows, the company said in a statement.
🌍 Mambu selected as core banking provider by Nyla. Mambu's core banking engine powers Nyla's ambition to expand into a full-service pan-African digital Islamic bank by enabling account creation, product configuration, balance management, and transaction processing across its suite of digital financial services.
🇺🇸 Kerry payments firm Fexco agrees a partnership with PayPal. The company is expanding its payUnite platform and has agreed a strategic partnership with PayPal, which will enable merchants using payUnite to add PayPal payment options, including Checkout, Venmo, and PayPal Pay Later, directly.
🇺🇸 B4B Payments expands partnership with Thredd to power U.S. growth. The collaboration will enable B4B to process Durbin-compliant, dual-branded Visa and STAR Network cards through Thredd’s platform as it grows its corporate disbursement and operational spend solutions in the U.S. market.
🇦🇪 Ziina and Virtuzone partner to deliver unified payments and instant settlement to UAE SMEs. Virtuzone businesses gain access to Ziina’s payment gateway and acceptance capabilities, allowing merchants to accept and manage transactions across both online and in-person channels through a unified platform.
🇧🇪 OpenWay and UnionPay International expand global cooperation to deliver full UPI product support on Way4. With this expansion, OpenWay clients worldwide can now issue, acquire, and tokenize UnionPay cards on Way4, enabling a faster and more consistent rollout of UnionPay-powered payment services across markets.
🇨🇦 PureFacts and Innover Digital forge a global partnership to redefine AI-powered transformation in financial services. Together, the two companies will help financial institutions modernize the revenue lifecycle so they can reduce operational friction, strengthen compliance, improve transparency, and unlock new opportunities for growth.
🇪🇹 Abyssinia Bank and Visa sign a five-year partnership to advance digital payments. The agreement is expected to improve financial inclusion and expand access to secure electronic payment services, while reinforcing the two institutions’ commitment to inclusive and innovative digital payment solutions in the country.
DONEDEAL FUNDING NEWS
🇺🇸 Ripple kicks off share buyback at $50 billion valuation. The company plans to buy back up to $750 million in shares from investors and employees. Ripple plans to run the tender offer through April. Read more
🇮🇹 Cleafy raises €12M to expand financial fraud detection technology. With the new investment, Cleafy plans to accelerate the development of its predictive security capabilities, expand global threat analysis, and strengthen its presence in key banking markets across Europe and Latin America.
🇺🇸 PayPay and SoftBank raise $879.8 million in the payments firm’s US IPO. The digital payments firm priced its shares at $16 each, giving it a market valuation of about $10.7 billion, with backing from investors including Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Qatar Investment Authority, and Visa.
🇫🇷 Worldline begins final capital raise underpining recovery plan. Worldline has launched a €392 million capital increase as part of a broader €500 million fundraising plan aimed at supporting restructuring efforts after last year’s share price collapse.
🇺🇸 deepidv closes $1M seed round, expands to San Francisco, and launches a comprehensive AI Fraud Detection Suite. The seed round will accelerate deepidv’s product development, expand its go-to-market operations across the United States, and grow the company’s engineering and sales teams.
🇨🇭 Tether announces strategic investment in Ark Labs, reintroducing stablecoins to programmable Bitcoin infrastructure. This latest round brings Ark Labs’ total funding to $7.7 million, allowing the company to cater to the growing retail and institutional demands for access to Bitcoin infrastructure.
🇺🇸 Cryptio raises $45m series B to expand its financial data and ERP platform for digital assets. The company helps banks, exchanges, and asset managers standardize and reconcile on-chain and off-chain data, supporting accounting, reporting, and treasury workflows for regulated crypto operations.
🌍 IperMoney announces the successful closing of its seed investment round. The funding will strengthen the FinTech’s position in the European market and accelerate its expansion on a global scale, speeding up the product roadmap ahead of the company’s next milestone: the Series A round.
M&A
🇸🇻 FinTech Monetae agrees to acquire Transferencias de El Salvador, a regulated Electronic Money Provider, from AirPak. The move aims to strengthen Monetae’s financial infrastructure by enabling integrated services across electronic money, digital assets, and Bitcoin under the supervision of El Salvador’s financial authorities.
🇻🇳 Kredivo Group acquires Vietnamese digital bank Timo in regional push. Kredivo plans to invest approximately US$15 million in Vietnam over the next three years, targeting one of Southeast Asia’s fastest-growing FinTech markets. The Timo brand is expected to be retained, with Kredivo’s Vietnam operations consolidated under it over time.
MOVERS AND SHAKERS
🇺🇸 PayPal cofounder Luke Nosek has joined X, prompting speculation among users about a possible connection to Elon Musk’s upcoming X Money payments platform.
🇸🇬 Thunes has appointed Guy Duncan as CTPO and Parvinder Bhatia as CFO as it enters a new phase of growth. The hires aim to strengthen the company’s technology, AI capabilities, and financial strategy as it continues expanding its global payments network.
🇺🇸 Binance. US names compliance veteran Stephen Gregory as CEO as regulation and competition get tougher. Under Gregory's leadership, Binance.US plans to expand products such as its Earn suite, staking services, and DeFi and tokenized-asset gateways to attract both crypto-native and traditional investors.
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