NjiaPay Raises $2.1M As Amsterdam’s FinTech Momentum Continues
Hey FinTech Fanatic!
Today’s headline comes from close to home. 🇳🇱
I always enjoy seeing new FinTech stories coming out of Amsterdam. Over the years, I’ve watched the local ecosystem grow from a handful of strong players into one of Europe’s most exciting FinTech hubs.
And along the way, I’ve consistently worked to support and spotlight the Amsterdam FinTech scene, which has clearly been on fire lately.
The ecosystem here keeps growing, with new companies, funding rounds, and innovations emerging at a rapid pace.
NjiaPay is the news story that immediately caught my attention today.
The Amsterdam-based payments orchestration start-up has raised $2.1M (R35 million) in seed funding, led by European SaaS investor Newion.
Founded in late 2024 by Jonatan Allback and Roderick Simons, the company was spun out of international calling app Talk360, which operates across multiple African markets.
While scaling Talk360, the founders ran into a familiar challenge: managing several payment service providers, each with different integrations, reporting systems, and success rates.
The company says payment failures are a major issue for subscription businesses, with around one in five transactions failing due to expired or replaced cards.
“Closing this seed round with Newion is a pivotal moment for NjiaPay,” said CEO Jonatan Allback. “In just one year, we have demonstrated that payment orchestration is becoming essential for businesses operating in Africa.”
If you want to see how strong the Amsterdam FinTech ecosystem has become, I recently shared a post highlighting many of the key players across the city, which you’ll see visualized in the map below:
Shout-out to Artiom Anton, who launched a brilliant initiative mapping the strongest FinTech players in Amsterdam.
How about checking out all of today's industry news? Scroll down and take a look. I'll be back tomorrow with all the latest news.
Cheers,
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FINTECH NEWS
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🇬🇧 SumUp expands into the accounting market with a free Making Tax Digital for income Tax offering, powered by Sage. Through this joint offering, sole traders will be able to streamline their Income Tax reporting, reducing administrative burden and helping them stay compliant with HMRC requirements.
🌎 MercadoLibre bets on AI and digital banking as shares trade below targets. MercadoLibre is rolling out AI tools across its platform, including humanoid robots in warehouses, to automate logistics and customer interactions. The company is also preparing to launch full digital banks in Mexico and Argentina.
🇬🇧 Coinbase CEO highlights UK regulatory risks as US stablecoin framework advances and global adoption surges. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has raised concerns about proposed UK stablecoin regulations, warning that limits on holdings for individuals and businesses could hinder innovation and weaken the country’s position as a global financial hub.
🇵🇱 Brighty launches an API for agentic banking. The API enables AI agents to check balances across all accounts, send payments, convert currencies in real time, manage payroll, and reconcile transactions. In addition, Brighty’s AI agent can read incoming invoices and initiate international transfers with full audit trails and compliance.
PAYMENTS NEWS
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🇮🇪 Main Irish banks to launch mobile payments service. Customers of AIB, Bank of Ireland, and PTSB will be able to send, request, and split payments under the new system this week. The Zippay service will be rolled out on a phased basis, with the potential to reach more than five million eligible customer accounts of the three retail banks.
🇺🇸 Stablecoin firms bet big on AI agent payments that barely exist. Circle Internet Group Inc. and Stripe Inc. are building payment systems for a future with autonomous AI agents that transact in stablecoins. Continue reading
🇸🇬 Visa Intelligent Authorization modernises payment processing for banks and financial institutions, unlocking the era of innovation. Visa Intelligent Authorization enables modern payment processing across major card networks through a single API, helping eliminate the need for costly infrastructure rebuilds.
🇦🇷 Banco do Brasil launches a feature in Argentina. Banco do Brasil has announced the arrival of Pix to physical establishments outside of Brazil. The initiative allows Brazilians, whether or not they are account holders with the institution, to make purchases abroad using the same QR Code reading system already used here.
🇷🇴 CEC Bank launches RoPay P2B for instant payments to merchants. The new functionality enables customers to complete payments by scanning a QR code displayed in stores, with funds transferred instantly from account to account. Read more
🇸🇬 UQPAY launches full-stack payment infrastructure bridging fiat and stablecoins for global commerce. The platform combines global acquiring, multi-currency accounts, cross-border payouts, card issuing, and stablecoin infrastructure to help businesses manage the entire payment lifecycle through one API.
🇮🇳 PayU and GoKwik launch checkout and payments solutions, aiming to address persistent revenue leakage caused by checkout drop-offs and payment failures. The collaboration combines GoKwik’s checkout optimisation and conversion intelligence capabilities with PayU’s payments infrastructure to create a unified commerce layer designed to improve transaction completion rates.
DIGITAL BANKING NEWS
🇬🇧 Monzo slammed for ‘shaming’ end of year reviews. Digital bank Monzo has been accused of overstepping the mark by using data it holds on customers to call out their spending habits and lifestyle choices. The bank used data to tell one customer with a past eating disorder that she eats a lot of fast food.
🇧🇷 PicPay's feature shows investments from other institutions within the same app. The feature allows users to view and track investments held in different financial institutions directly within the app. The aggregator also identifies available balances in other institutions and presents investment opportunities on the platform.
BLOCKCHAIN/CRYPTO NEWS
🇬🇭 Blockchain.com doubles down on Africa with Ghana launch, sets sights on wider African expansion. The brokerage firm is accelerating its commitment to financial access and digital asset innovation across the region by offering Ghanaian customers a secure, compliant platform.
🌍 Futures Contracts now available on Coinbase in Europe. The launch of futures contracts on Coinbase offers traders in Europe access to regulated crypto futures, indices, such as the Mag7 + Crypto Equity Index Futures, and perpetual-style futures.
🇺🇸 LINE NEXT launches stablecoin platform ‘Unifi’ globally. Unifi is a stablecoin-focused wallet designed to enable the seamless use of stablecoins. The platform provides an end-to-end stablecoin experience, including deposits, custody, payments, transfers, and rewards, all within a single service.
PARTNERSHIPS
🌎 Bitget Wallet has partnered with Mastercard to launch a crypto payment card in 11 Latin American countries, providing local users with a zero-fee USD-denominated payment experience. This expansion further covers key markets including Argentina, Mexico, Panama, Guatemala, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Uruguay, and Paraguay.
🇦🇪 Mawarid Finance and Liabify join forces to redefine infancial lfexibility fr middle-income workers in the UAE. The strategic partnership introduces LiaPay, an AI-powered prepaid platinum Mastercard with Earned Wage Access and a full digital financial ecosystem. The card is designed to offer middle-income workers in the UAE smarter and more flexible ways to manage their finances.
🇧🇷 Kalshi teams up with Brazil’s XP for first international push. Kalshi will start offering yes-or-no contracts tied to Brazil’s economy, on events such as changing inflation and interest rates in the country, co-founder Luana Lopes Lara said.
🇨🇭 AMINA becomes the first regulated bank on 21X, Europe’s first fully regulated DLT trading and settlement venue. The partnership creates a complete tokenisation infrastructure that addresses a major constraint of institutional adoption.
🇵🇭 Security Bank and VeritasPay expand digital payment solutions for MSMEs. Through this partnership, Security Bank’s MSME clients can access VeritasPay’s secure POS terminals at preferential rates through the Bank’s referral program, making digital payment acceptance more accessible and affordable.
🇺🇸 Nasdaq and Kraken are teaming up to let you trade tokenized stocks. Nasdaq plans to work with Kraken to distribute tokenized versions of public stocks globally as the exchange pushes to bring blockchain infrastructure into traditional markets.
DONEDEAL FUNDING NEWS
🇺🇸 Kalshi and Polymarket are each eyeing roughly $20 billion valuations. Prediction-market platforms Kalshi and Polymarket are exploring new fundraising rounds that could value each company at around $20 billion, roughly double their valuations from late 2025.
🇮🇳 StrideOne raises ₹100 Cr, onboards ex-Max Life Insurance Rajesh Sud as Cofounder. trideOne plans to deploy the freshly raised capital in fueling the expansion of enterprise anchor programs, strengthening StrideOne’s partner-lender network, and building technology and risk infrastructure.
🌍 Orca Fraud raises $2.35M to scale real-time fraud intelligence across emerging markets. The company already processes over $5 billion in monthly transactions across 70+ countries, supporting banks, telcos, and payment providers as demand for advanced fraud prevention grows in emerging markets.
🌎 Stablecoin Payments Firm KAST raises $80 million in funding. The funding will be used to fuel the company’s global expansion in key markets across North America, Latin America, and the Middle East, as well as for hiring, licensing, and product development.
🇿🇦 South African payment routing startup NjiaPay raises $2.1 million seed round. NjiaPay helps online businesses manage their payments in one place by connecting to many different payment providers and methods through a single integration.
M&A
🇧🇷 Elo acquires AI technology from Chatbank to innovate services on WhatsApp. With this acquisition, the payments company intends to expand its financial services via messaging applications, especially WhatsApp. The value of the transaction was not disclosed.
MOVERS AND SHAKERS
🇦🇪 Bybit announces the departure of Co-CEO Helen Liu as she embarks on an entrepreneurial journey. Over the past five years, Helen has played a central role in shaping that journey, helping guide the company through key phases of global expansion, organizational development, and market transformation.
🇺🇸 Yuno appoints former Mastercard Executive Mauricio Schwartzmann as Chief Banking and Financial Institutions Officer. In this role, Schwartzmann will lead Yuno’s global strategy and partnerships with banks, card networks, and other financial partners, overseeing the company’s banking vertical and helping expand the payments infrastructure that powers agentic commerce worldwide.
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