Mastercard's Agentic Payments Live in LATAM & the Caribbean
Hey FinTech Fanatic!
Mastercard has just marked a major milestone in agentic payments. Completing live transactions across Latin America and the Caribbean using AI agents on existing rails.
Mastercard's latest breakthrough sees AI agents executing real debit/credit purchases across 17+ banks like Itaú, Santander, and Bancolombia.
A key accelerator for adoption: no new infrastructure required, as tokenization and biometrics are already live across 100% of regional issuers.
Mastercard embeds Verifiable Intent, its open standards-based trust layer, directly into agentic payment flows, creating tamper-resistant records of cardholder authorizations.
This shared source of truth across consumers, merchants, and banks distinguishes legit activity from fraud while speeding dispute resolution.
Agentic payments are here, rewriting commerce on the rails we already know.
Next up: today's other key FinTech moves. Dive in below.
Cheers,
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FINTECH NEWS
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PAYMENTS NEWS
🌎 Mastercard advances agentic payments in Latin America and the Caribbean with live transactions completed across the region. Mastercard has executed live end-to-end agentic payment transactions, demonstrating that AI agents can securely initiate and complete payments using existing infrastructure.
🇸🇬 FOMO Pay launches FOMO AI Soundbox, an AI-powered business partner for Singapore merchants to enhance business intelligence. By consolidating multiple payment methods into one device, FOMO AI Soundbox gives merchants a unified point of acceptance without the need to manage multiple devices or fragmented integrations.
🇱🇺 Huawei and Yowpay launch open banking smartwatch POS app. Christian Caumont, CEO, Yowpay, says: "By integrating our Open Banking and generally Sepa payments tech into Huawei’s industry-leading wearables, we are giving merchants total mobility and financial sovereignty."
🇺🇸 American Express launches New Graphite™ Business Cash Unlimited Card. The rollout includes new cards, expense management tools, and AI-driven features to help businesses simplify operations, boost productivity, and manage finances more effectively.
🇮🇩 Apple launches Tap to Pay on iPhone in Indonesia. The launch enables merchants to accept contactless payments directly through their iPhones without requiring dedicated electronic data capture (EDC) terminals. Keep reading
REGTECH NEWS
🇬🇧 UK clearing house FinTech Bank of London fined £2m over fraudulent documents. The regulator fined the company for failing to conduct its business with integrity, marking the first time such a charge has resulted in a financial penalty. Keep reading
DIGITAL BANKING NEWS
🇺🇸 PAObank becomes the first digital bank to offer 16-hour U.S. stocks trading. PAObank extends U.S. trading sessions up to 16 hours a day, giving customers the flexibility to react to market news or global events, even during the day in Hong Kong, without sacrificing peace of mind.
🇩🇪 German FinTech Solaris to axe 20 per cent of 400-strong workforce, as it becomes “AI-native bank". Under new CEO Steffen Jentsch, the company is shifting toward AI-driven operations and automation while continuing to serve partners with embedded financial services.
BLOCKCHAIN/CRYPTO NEWS
🇬🇧 Monument Bank launches £250m blockchain deposit tokenisation initiative. The bank plans to tokenise customer deposits into blockchain-based assets backed 1:1 by pound sterling reserves, while maintaining interest accrual and FSCS protection. The initiative targets mass-affluent customers and aims to bring regulated blockchain capabilities into retail banking.
🇲🇹 Blockchain.com opens Malta office to anchor European operations. Blockchain.com’s Malta office will support a range of functions, including regulatory engagement, operational development, and retail client services across the European market.
🌍 Circle and Sasai FinTech partner to expand USDC access across Africa. Circle said the partnership will explore practical uses of USDC, a fully reserved, dollar-backed stablecoin issued through its regulated affiliates. The companies plan to examine how Circle’s platform can reduce costs, settlement friction, and processing times for Sasai’s enterprise and consumer customers.
PARTNERSHIPS
🇸🇬 Triple-A integrates with Circle Payments Network to support cross-border stablecoin settlement. With this integration, Triple-A brings its cross-border payout capabilities into CPN to support use cases including remittances, payroll, supplier payments, and global treasury management across major financial markets.
🇬🇧 Trip.com teams up with Checkout.com to simplify payments for global travellers. The collaboration supports Trip.com’s global expansion by enabling high-performing payments and an effortless booking experience for its customers around the world as they plan their next adventure online.
🇺🇸 Stripe brings a new checkout experience to Facebook, allowing users to purchase directly from ads using saved Meta wallet credentials. Built on its Agentic Commerce Protocol, the solution reduces friction between discovery and purchase, helping businesses drive faster, seamless conversions across Meta platforms.
🇬🇧 Manchester United and Moroccan International Noussair Mazraoui become strategic partners with the world's leading Islamic FinTech, Wahed, expanding its roster of global sports ambassadors. The move reinforces Wahed’s mission to promote inclusive, values-based financial services worldwide.
🇺🇸 Quorum and Glia redefine phone banking with always-on, intelligent voice support. The expansion introduces a sophisticated, banking-specific voice AI agent that enhances speed and convenience for Quorum members through instant access to 24/7 conversational phone support, reinforcing Quorum as a technology-forward organisation in a rapidly evolving financial landscape.
🇵🇭 Infosys Finacle to power digital transformation for producers' savings bank corporation in the Philippines. This upgrade strengthens the bank's digital foundation, enhances operational resilience, and unlocks new capabilities to deliver broader, faster, and more personalised financial services to its customers.
🇺🇸 Klarna expands Elliott partnership to drive up to $17bn in US financing loans. Under the agreement, US-based Elliott Investment Management is doubling its initial $1 billion facility established in November 2025 to $2 billion. The deal also extends the original agreement's duration from two years to three.
🇺🇸 Zapier and Rillet partner on AI-Native Finance Stack. The partnership connects Rillet’s intelligent general ledger with Zapier’s network of 8,000+ app integrations, enabling AI agents to orchestrate complex financial workflows across a company’s entire tool ecosystem without engineering resources or expensive consultants.
DONEDEAL FUNDING NEWS
🇫🇷 Crypto Firm Ledger completed a $50 million secondary share sale, and is preparing for both private and public market options, though it has no immediate IPO plans. The company is also expanding its app-based wallet, which now drives over half of its revenue, as it targets further growth.
🇵🇪 Prestamype closed a bridge round and a US$27 million credit line. Carlos Ferreyros, CEO of Prestamype, said that the main objective of this bridge round is to create an investment fund management company with the capacity to access public financing (SAFI).
🇨🇦 Chexy raises $14 million Series A led by Khosla Ventures. Chexy said in a statement that it will use its latest funding to scale its payments platform across Canada, expand its partnership ecosystem, and grow its team. Keep reading
🇬🇧 Eunice raises USD $8 million for regulated market AI. The new funding will be used to deepen its agent-based systems, expand coverage across private markets, and grow commercial operations. This points to plans beyond its initial digital asset customer base and into other parts of alternative investing.
M&A
🇨🇴 Tpaga acquires Spanish payment gateway MYMOID to expand card processing in Colombia. With this acquisition, Tpaga will integrate MYMOID's technology into its payment infrastructure to offer credit and debit card processing for businesses in Colombia, especially in the e-commerce segment.
MOVERS AND SHAKERS
🇬🇧 Global Payments Leader Peter Theunis joins Paymentology as Principal Advisor. Peter brings decades of leadership experience across the global payments ecosystem and is widely recognised for his ability to drive strategic growth, market expansion, and innovation across complex international markets.
🇺🇸 Alyssa Henry to join PayPal's Board of Directors and Gail J. McGovern to Retire from Board. Henry brings more than three decades of experience scaling global commerce, payments, and technology platforms. Read more
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