PayPal Makes Venmo a Standalone Business Unit

PayPal Makes Venmo a Standalone Business Unit
PayPal Makes Venmo a Standalone Business Unit

Hey FinTech Fanatic!

PayPal’s CEO, Enrique Lores, has told managers that he is reorganizing the firm’s reporting lines to separate Venmo, the popular mobile payments app, from the company’s other operations.

Announced this week, the move aims to supercharge Venmo's growth amid intensifying competition from FinTech upstarts and Big Tech wallets. No longer just a quirky sidekick to PayPal's core ecosystem, Venmo now gets its own dedicated leadership and resources to chase aggressive expansion.

PayPal is looking to recruit a digital banking executive to run the new Venmo segment, said the people, who asked not to be named because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.

Venmo, with its nearly 100 million users, is viewed as arguably PayPal’s most valuable standalone asset because of its growth prospects. Analysts have said it is a key target for potential acquirers and could attract a premium valuation.

Who do you think is more likely to acquire Venmo? Hit reply and let me know your thoughts! 

See what else is happening in FinTech today. 👇See you tomorrow!

Cheers,

Marcel


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The AI - Enabled Fraud Landscape

FINTECH NEWS

🇭🇰 PhotonPay unveils Dual-Rail Recurring Billing for the AI Era. Designed to meet the sophisticated demands of the Agentic Commerce era, this unified engine allows businesses to orchestrate recurring payments across fiat and stablecoin rails through a single, seamless integration.

🇦🇺 Airwallex launches Latitude 37 to back Australia’s next generation of AI founders with $1M in annual funding. Latitude 37 is designed to complement the existing venture and angel funding ecosystem, addressing a critical gap by supporting founders earlier and more directly.

🇺🇸 Stripe builds out the economic infrastructure for AI with 288 launches. The updates aim to support AI-driven businesses, enable agents to transact securely, and expand global financial capabilities across payments, treasury, and fraud prevention.

🇺🇸 Eric Trump disappears from troubled FinTech’s public leadership. Eric Trump has been removed from the public leadership listings of Alt5 Sigma Corp, where he was previously an adviser and board observer. The change comes amid broader challenges facing the Trump family’s crypto ventures.


PAYMENTS NEWS

🌏 Visa announces global expansion of Agentic Ready program to Asia Pacific and Latin America, helping banks and partners prepare for AI-driven commerce where agents can initiate payments on behalf of users. The program enables real-world testing of agent-based transactions while ensuring security, trust, and readiness for the next phase of digital payments.

🇺🇸 Ramp launches a fleet of AI agents across its procurement platform. The solution targets the majority of companies without dedicated procurement teams, helping finance and operations leaders manage rising, complex expenses, especially from AI tools, more efficiently and with greater cost control.

🇺🇸 PayPal’s new CEO, Enrique Lores, makes Venmo a standalone business unit as potential buyers circle. Venmo will soon be its own standalone segment within PayPal, making it easier to track its progress or potentially sell the business to another company, said people with knowledge of the changes.


DIGITAL BANKING NEWS

🇯🇲 Kenya’s WapiPay expands into Jamaica to tap $2.5 billion remittance market. The Bank of Jamaica’s approval will allow the company to begin operations through a partnership with JN Money Services Limited (JNMS). The deal will enable WapiPay to facilitate transfers between Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean, targeting both diaspora remittances and trade-linked payments.

🇺🇸 Revolut would start one of its secondary share sales later this year that would value the FinTech at between $100bn and $120bn. Revolut has secured a UK banking licence and is pursuing one in the US as part of its global expansion, while preparing for a potential IPO in the coming years.

🇩🇪 Finom launched a standalone version of its accounting software in Germany, allowing freelancers and small businesses to use the company's automated bookkeeping and tax-filing tools without opening a Finom business account.

🇬🇧 Monzo lost one current account switcher for every two gained in 2025. Monzo saw strong customer switching gains but also significant outflows, ending the year with a net increase of about 36,000 accounts, highlighting challenges in retaining users.


BLOCKCHAIN/CRYPTO NEWS

🇨🇦 KOHO launches crypto offering powered by Ndax, bringing low-cost, regulated trading to Canadians. KOHO Crypto allows users to buy, hold, and manage crypto without leaving their existing money management app. It also lowers the barrier to entry and makes crypto participation more accessible.

🌎 Meta quietly rolls out stablecoin payments four years after the demise of the controversial Libra project. Meta has reentered the stablecoin space by enabling creator payouts in select markets using USDC on Solana and Polygon. The rollout marks a renewed push into digital payments after the company’s earlier stablecoin project was abandoned.


PARTNERSHIPS 

🌍 Merchants gain a strategic edge by connecting to Ecommpay through BridgerPay partnership. Through BridgerPay’s AI-powered payment orchestration platform, Ecommpay is providing merchants with access to secure and transparent payment solutions. Also, Ecommpay provides merchants in the UK, EU, and Southeast Asia with access to its payment gateway as well as specific Alternative Payment Methods (APMs).

🇺🇸 Google and Mastercard get behind Fido Alliance on agentic commerce standards. The FIDO Alliance will leverage its track record of delivering standards at internet scale, building on its work to replace passwords with passkeys and advance digital credentials, to address emerging trust and interoperability challenges.

🇳🇿 Revolut partners with Akahu on open banking credit cards. Under the partnership, Revolut will use real-time applicant data accessed through Akahu's application programming interfaces to assess credit card applications. This will replace parts of a process that have typically relied on manual paperwork, uploaded bank statements, and longer wait times.

🇺🇸 Sardine partners with Modulr to bring real-time, AI-enabled fraud detection to automated payments. The integration enables Modulr to leverage Sardine’s platform to detect and stop financial crime across card and real-time payment rails, while strengthening AML compliance and operational controls as the business scales.

🇷🇴 PayU expands partnership with Klarna in Romania, in a market where 1 in 4 consumers use Buy Now, Pay Later payments. The move aims to offer modern payment methods, such as "Pay in 30 days" or payment in three interest-free installments, without additional costs for customers who meet the deadlines.

🇸🇦 barq has partnered with Alipay+ to enable its 12 million users to make QR code payments at merchants in over 220 markets worldwide. The move marks barq’s expansion into global payments and supports Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 push toward a cashless, digitally connected economy.

🇺🇸 FIS and six U.S. banks will launch Project Keystone, a bank-owned and bank-administered network for digital money to be built on regulated deposits. The initiative will give participating banks direct control over how digital money is issued, transferred, and settled, without ceding that infrastructure to third parties.


DONEDEAL FUNDING NEWS

🇺🇸 Rogo raises $160M Series D to scale the agentic platform for finance. The Series D brings Rogo's total funding to more than $300 million and positions Rogo to accelerate the company's global expansion, deepen its partnerships with the world's leading financial institutions, and scale its AI agent, Felix.

🇺🇸 IPO-Bound Kissht nets ₹278 Cr from Anchor Investors ahead of its IPO, with participation from major institutions like Goldman Sachs and domestic mutual funds. The offering will value the company at around $294 million as it prepares to go public.

🇬🇧 Santander to invest $67 mln in Ebury via Centerbridge-led funding rounds. The rounds will be carried out in two separate transactions, ​and the proceeds will be used ​to accelerate growth with a focus on scaling the ‌business ⁠and enhancing AI capabilities to improve payment processing.

🇺🇸 Pmtbox raises $15M for merchant payments software. The newly raised capital will be used to deepen the platform’s capabilities and scale its reach. pmtbox plans to invest heavily in engineering, risk, and enterprise teams while accelerating its go-to-market efforts across high-complexity verticals.

🇺🇸 A sports crowdfunding app, Onsetto, pivots to finance and raises $9 million to help banks onboard and activate business clients more efficiently. The company, led by Cale Johnston, is rapidly gaining traction, already signing around 30 banks and aiming to reach 100 by year-end.

🇺🇸 Versana closes $43 million capital raise led by BNP Paribas with Fitch Ventures, MassMutual Ventures, Motive Partners, and Apollo Joining as Investors. This investment underscores the increasing demand for modern digital infrastructure across the loan markets and reinforces Versana's position as a leading industry platform.


M&A 

🇺🇸 Chicago FinTech agrees to acquire BNC National Bank in $130 million deal. Under the terms of the agreement, BNCC stockholders will receive $19.375 per share in cash, and 1.90 shares of OppFi Class A common stock for each BNCC share owned. OppFi stockholders will own approximately 93%, and BNCC stockholders will own approximately 7% of the combined company at closing.


MOVERS AND SHAKERS

🌎 Mastercard appoints Marvin Rodríguez as Country Manager for Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. From this position, Rodríguez will be in charge of leading the company's strategy in the three markets, with a focus on driving sustainable growth, strengthening strategic alliances, and continuing to develop a more digital, secure, and inclusive payments ecosystem.


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