NAO Launches in Amsterdam 🚀 + FinTech Running Club Keeps Growing
Hey FinTech Fanatic!
What started as an experiment, mixing FinTech and running, has now turned into a global movement.
The FinTech Running Club was just featured in Gan@Más magazine in Lima, Perú 🇵🇪!
In the Q&A, I dive into how it all began, why we run, and how we grew to 18 cities (and counting). 👉 Read the feature here.
Closer to home, big kudos to our Berlin host Robin Binder, whose company NAO officially launched in Amsterdam today. Love seeing our community making moves, on the FinTech side and on the running track!
Speaking of Amsterdam: join me and Jil Ebanoidze this Friday for a run in Vondelpark. Good people, good pace, and FinTech talk along the way. Be there.
Alright, enough pavement talk, scroll down 👇 and check out today’s FinTech news, it’s definitely worth the read.
Cheers,
PODCAST
🎤 The Future of Money Movement. In this episode, Mark Beresford and Amine Saidi of Edgar, Dunn & Company speak with ACI Worldwide’s Erich Litch and Phil Bruno about how banks can modernize legacy systems without full-scale overhauls. They discuss the rise of payment rail convergence, real-time payments, and the impact of open banking.
The Future of Money Movement
FINTECH NEWS
🇬🇧 Robinhood explores launching prediction markets outside the US. The brokerage has been speaking to overseas regulators like the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority about how it might offer prediction markets locally, as demand for the space continues to grow.
🇬🇧 From Nutmeg to J.P. Morgan Personal Investing. Nutmeg will rebrand as J.P. Morgan Personal Investing in November, combining its digital-first platform with J.P. Morgan’s global investment expertise. Clients will keep existing services and gain new features like a digital wealth planner, dedicated relationship managers, and a DIY investment platform by 2026.
PAYMENTS NEWS
🎤 Rethinking Payments with ACI Worldwide and IKEA. In a dedicated session, Paul Skeldon speaks with Anna Pulante, Global Payments Manager at IKEA, and Dan Coates, Global Omnichannel Payments Solution Evangelist at ACI Worldwide, to explore IKEA’s omnichannel payments approach and the evolving retail landscape. The discussion covers how payments and data are transforming retail and the future of payments.
🇦🇷 Pomelo hosted its first Pomethon, a hackathon with 140 participants across 4 countries and 14 teams. In just two days, teams developed innovative projects and pitched them to a top-tier jury, who judged based on impact, feasibility, and originality. The result: 14 new ideas, key learnings, and one winning team.
🇬🇧 Black Friday & Cyber Monday 2025 by Ecommpay, lessons retailers can learn from 2024. A new report from Ecommpay offers key insights from last year’s shopping events. The report highlights trends such as increased email bounce rates, a drop in basket abandonment, and more. Additionally, Ecommpay released the latest edition of Payments Digest, their monthly newsletter filled with updates and highlights.
🇬🇧 CellPoint Digital’s OSO Model in the T2RL Engage event. CellPoint Digital showcased its One Source Orchestration (OSO) model, demonstrating how airlines can optimize the entire payment journey. This evolving dialogue highlights payments as a key driver in the future of travel retail.
🇨🇳 UnionPay International drives global interoperability via China's cross-border interconnection payment gateway. Guided by public-oriented inclusivity and accessibility, the CPG enables institutions in and outside China's mainland to achieve cross-border QR code interoperability with one point of access.
🇩🇪 Nium launches Global Collections to power cross-border collections for banks. Nium's Global Collections is a white-label solution that enables banks to offer multi-currency collection accounts directly to their customers, powered by Nium's virtual account infrastructure and APIs.
🇺🇸 Stripe launches new products to drive stablecoins and agentic commerce into the mainstream. Announcements included Open Issuance, which empowers businesses to launch and manage their own stablecoins with just a few lines of code, and new solutions for agentic commerce, helping businesses and their customers transact via AI tools and agents.
🇧🇷 Pix gets a dispute button against fraud. The feature will allow victims of fraud, scams, or coercion to request a transaction dispute completely digitally, directly through the app of the financial institution where they have an account. Keep reading
🇺🇸 Powering smarter and more personal advertising with Mastercard Commerce Media. Mastercard is leveraging its permissioned data, trusted reputation, industry-leading technology, and connections to advertisers, publishers, and consumers to power smarter, personalized commerce across the board.
🇰🇿 Kazakhstan launches interbank QR payment service for mobile apps. The service allows clients to make and receive interbank QR payments to any participating bank, expanding the range of payment options available. Continue Reading
🇬🇧 Ant International’s WorldFirst reports 300% transaction growth in emerging markets. The company, which provides cross-border payment and treasury account services, said its banking network now includes eight global systemically important banks, among them J.P. Morgan, Standard Chartered, Barclays, HSBC, and Citibank.
🇧🇷 Wise is now directly integrated with Pix. This integration gives Wise full control over the payment process, enabling faster, more reliable, and lower-cost transfers by removing intermediaries. Continue reading
DIGITAL BANKING NEWS
🇪🇺 FinTech SumUp targets EU and UK banking licences. SumUp is preparing to enter the banking space, with plans to apply for an EU banking licence as early as next year, followed by a UK application. The move comes as the company looks to scale its offering and compete more directly with incumbent lenders.
🇫🇷 French neobank Shine expands to Europe, six months after its surprise sale by Société Générale. The name of the French neobank will serve to unify all of its new parent company's companies and products in Europe. The goal: to become a "one-stop shop" for the professional market.
🇬🇧 How Revolut’s UK bank became CEO Nik Storonsky’s ‘number one priority’. Regulators in the US, Australia, New Zealand, and Switzerland have told Revolut executives that they would like to see the FinTech certified by its domestic watchdog as they work to sign off on other licenses.
🇱🇺 Revolut surpasses 100,000 Luxembourg customers. The bank stated that it was the most downloaded finance application in the Grand Duchy in the third quarter of 2025, which it said positioned the company among the top tier of financial players in the market.
🇸🇦 QNB Group receives Saudi Central Bank license approval for new digital bank, ezbank. With ezbank, the goal is to introduce a new model of customer-centric banking built around innovation, efficiency, and accessibility. The entity aims to offer a digital-first banking experience that is simple, inclusive, and secure, and to provide innovative solutions for the youth and entrepreneurs.
🇵🇪 FinTech Ligo will bring Apple Pay and Google Pay to Peru. More than 186 million monthly transactions were made under this system, which integrates instant transfers, mobile payments, and QR code operations. The company is seeking to consolidate its financial ecosystem and diversify its business lines to integrate two international giants.
BLOCKCHAIN/CRYPTO NEWS
🇺🇸 What backs stablecoins like Tether and Circle? A breakdown of their reserves shows U.S. treasuries dominate their holdings👇
🇺🇸 Stripe plans to apply for a federal charter in a stablecoin push. Stripe is expanding into digital assets with a new stablecoin issuance platform and plans to seek U.S. banking licenses, moves that bring the payments giant closer to traditional financial regulation. The new service is called Open Issuance.
🇺🇸 Coinbase’s Bitcoin-Backed loans surpass $1B as exchange prepares to lift borrowing cap. The move comes as the asset-based lending industry continues to expand. A July report projected the market could reach $1.3 trillion by 2030, reflecting broader interest in loans secured by assets beyond traditional real estate or vehicles.
🇺🇸 Tether to distribute coins on conservative video platform Rumble. The stablecoin giant recently unveiled plans for a new token named USAT that will comply with US rules, and it’s counting on Rumble’s millions of users to capture market share. Tether holds a 48% stake in Rumble.
🇺🇸 Crypto Wallet Phantom unveils stablecoin and payments service. Phantom designed its own stablecoin, CASH, to underpin its new consumer financial platform, Phantom Cash. It will offer unique features like peer-to-peer transactions, a Visa debit card, and rewards on unspent CASH.
PARTNERSHIPS
🇬🇧 PhotonPay partners with Thredd to enhance card infrastructure. This collaboration allows PhotonPay to further refine its card product capabilities, providing customers with a more secure, streamlined, and flexible payment experience across virtual and physical cards.
🌍 noon payments and Visa Launch First-Ever Payment Passkey for Merchants Globally. This strategic collaboration introduces Fast Identity Online (FIDO)-based authentication for payments, leveraging the biometric capabilities of consumer devices for e-commerce authentication, designed to create a smoother, more secure, and password-free online checkout experience.
DONEDEAL FUNDING NEWS
🇦🇪 UPFRONT secures $10M pre-seed to tackle $250b SMB liquidity problem across MENA. UPFRONT plans to use the new capital to grow its engineering and go-to-market teams, and double down on building infrastructure that empowers SMBs to grow sustainably, without the constraints of outdated financial workflows.
🇮🇳 RUGR FinTech seals $5 million pre-Series A investment. The funds will be utilized to scale next-generation FinTech solutions, enhance digital payment systems, and accelerate financial inclusion for underbanked and unbanked communities across the country.
🇺🇸 Mesta secures $5.5 million seed round to redefine cross-border payments. Mesta will deploy this capital to expand its global payment features, strengthen its international teams, and accelerate growth worldwide. Read more
🇬🇧 UK FinTech Love Finance grabs £45M to help SMEs secure loans in a few hours. The funding will allow Love Finance to lend directly from its own balance sheet, speeding up decision-making and broadening access to vital capital for UK small and medium-sized businesses.
MOVERS AND SHAKERS
🇨🇭 Nexi Switzerland appoints Bianca End as new Country General Manager. Thomas Spreitzer, CEO of Nexi DACH, stated that Bianca End is an excellent fit for Nexi and its expansion strategy in omnichannel payment solutions, citing her strong focus on growth, collaboration, and proven expertise in digital transformation.
🇦🇹 Markus Dorner appointed as the new Chief Technology Officer of Bitpanda. Markus will lead the company’s technology vision, focusing on scaling infrastructure and ensuring a seamless experience for over 7 million users worldwide. Keep reading
🇺🇸 Ripple CTO David Schwartz to step back and join the board. Schwartz, one of the original architects of the XRP Ledger, announced the transition in an X post. He said the decision will allow him to spend more time with family while staying active in the XRP community.
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