Ramp hits $60 billion as AI moves into the back office
Hey FinTech Fanatic!
Remember when Ramp raised $750 million at a $44 billion valuation just four months ago? Well, it's reportedly back for more, with a new $1.85 billion funding round valuing the company at around $60 billion.
But the interesting part isn't just the valuation. Ramp is moving beyond corporate cards and expense management, building AI agents that can handle procurement, accounting and payments. The idea is to turn finance teams from people processing transactions into people supervising AI agents that do the work.
For CEO Eric Glyman, this shift puts Ramp at the intersection of finance and AI. And when those agents can spend company money, controls become just as important as automation. Every agent needs clear budgets, spending limits, human approvals and an audit trail. Ramp is betting that the future of financial operations isn't just about managing company spending, but managing how AI spends it too.
Meanwhile, two other questions are worth exploring: Pomelo CEO Gaston Irigoyen looks at how cash, cards, real-time payments and stablecoins can work together, while Taxbit explains how companies can prepare for CARF and CRS 2.0 without building two separate compliance processes.
That’s just one story from today’s FinTech news.
There’s plenty more below, so let’s get into it.
See you tomorrow!
Cheers,
INSIGHTS
💡 Pomelo: What if cash, cards, real-time payments and stablecoins didn’t have to compete? Each solves a different problem, from everyday acceptance to instant transfers and cross-border payments. Pomelo CEO Gaston Irigoyen explores how these four rails could work together, with payments taking the route that makes the most sense based on cost, speed and geography. Explore how these payment rails are starting to converge
FINTECH NEWS
🌐 Oobit lets AI assistants pay for users with crypto and stablecoins. Users connect their Oobit account to an assistant, tell it what to buy or book, and review the purchase. Once the amount is approved, the AI pays with a card issued for that purchase only.
🇺🇸 Moomoo launches real time deposits through Visa and Checkout.com, expanding how eligible users fund their investment accounts. New Apple Pay and Google Pay options let users fund accounts in real time, 24/7. Deposits can go toward stocks, cryptocurrencies, ETFs, options and event contracts.
🌐 Elon Musk proposes shopping by uploading credit card photos to Grok. The AI chatbot would search for the best available deals and complete purchases on users' behalf, raising concerns about the privacy and security risks of sharing sensitive payment information with AI platforms.
🇺🇸 Unit launches international payments to 190+ countries and territories. Companies can now offer customers payouts over the SWIFT network. Each payment starts with a quote that locks the rate and shows fees.
🇳🇬 NGX pushes for Nigerian investors to own a stake in OPay. Reports of OPay's planned IPO in the US revived calls for a possible secondary listing on the Nigerian Exchange. NGX Group leaders named OPay among companies that could list locally during an August meeting with President Tinubu.
🇱🇺 Carta secures authorisation to operate as a fund administrator and transfer agent in Luxembourg. The approval from regulator CSSF allows fund managers to combine fund administration, investor onboarding and reporting on Carta's existing platform, supporting cross-border fund operations through a single system.
🇺🇸 FIS launches Agentic Insights Suite, an agentic AI solution for the office of the CFO. The suite helps finance teams manage collections, liquidity, risk and cash flow from a single view. A new forecasting module projects cash across multiple time horizons.
PAYMENTS NEWS
🇨🇳 Weixin Pay and WeChat Pay HK become payment options for Meta ads, giving eligible advertisers in mainland China and Hong Kong access to locally preferred payment methods. Boku powers the integration, with full rollout scheduled for Q4 2026.
🇧🇭 Taptap Send launches money transfer services in Bahrain, its second GCC market after the UAE. The launch follows a Payment Service Provider licence from the Central Bank of Bahrain. The platform lets users in more than 35 countries send money to recipients in over 90 destination markets.
🇳🇱 YeePay secures an EMI licence from the Dutch central bank, a core payment credential for entering the EU market. The Dutch licence works alongside its UK EMI licence to build a localised licensed service network across Europe. YeePay covers more than 200 countries and regions and supports over 100 currencies.
DIGITAL BANKING NEWS
🇬🇧 Revolut aims to become a global tech company beyond financial services. CEO Nik Storonsky revealed that the FinTech has developed proprietary AI models trained on customer transaction data. Processing 30 to 40 million transactions daily, Revolut plans to use its data capabilities to develop a broader range of technology products.
🇰🇷 KakaoBank opens its app to foreign residents, allowing eligible users in South Korea to open bank accounts remotely, get debit cards and send money to around 200 countries in over 50 currencies. The service also offers AI-powered translation in English, Chinese and Vietnamese, helping foreign residents access everyday banking without visiting a branch. Read more
🇺🇸 Alkami customers prevent over $263M in fraud with BioCatch. Institutions using BioCatch through the Alkami Digital Banking Platform stopped that amount in 2025, according to BioCatch data. Its Account Takeover Protection analyzes behavioral, device and session signals in real time to flag compromised accounts.
🇦🇪 Mashreq pilots IBM Bob to advance agentic AI for integration engineering. Early results show up to a 60 to 70% cut in integration design and troubleshooting time. Tasks that took two to three hours of manual work were completed within minutes. Mashreq's integration platform processes an average of 650 transactions per second.
ARTICLE OF THE DAY
💡Taxbit: CARF and CRS 2.0 are coming around the same time. Does that mean double the compliance work? Not necessarily. Taxbit looks at how companies can prepare for both frameworks using much of the same groundwork, from mapping their entities and products to getting customer and transaction data in order. Rather than building two separate reporting processes, the idea is to create one data foundation that can support both.Taxbit breaks down what companies need to know about the CARF and CRS 2.0 rollout
BLOCKCHAIN/CRYPTO NEWS
🇰🇷 Jeonbuk Bank becomes South Korea's first bank to offer loans backed by bitcoin. The JB Financial Group unit lends Korean won to corporate clients, while a registered crypto provider holds the BTC. Defaults trigger a court ordered sale of the bitcoin under rules effective Oct. 1.
🇦🇷 Argentina's central bank rejects near term crypto banking integration, keeping its 2022 ban on financial institutions offering crypto services. Superintendent Juan Curutchet said nothing will change this year, leaving the door open in a possible second Milei term. Banking groups are still building institutional stablecoin projects through separate entities.
🇸🇬 MAS plans to settle tokenised MAS Bills with wholesale CBDC, marking the next phase of its wholesale settlement work. Managing Director Chia Der Jiun said the initiative brings tokenised assets and central bank money onto common infrastructure. MAS made wholesale Singapore dollar CBDC available through its test network in 2025.
🇺🇸 Blockchain.com seeks U.S. approval for prediction markets, filing for two CFTC licences covering event contracts and crypto derivatives. The company wants to become a designated contract market and futures commission merchant. It already offers prediction markets to some international customers through a partnership with Polymarket.
🌐 Bybit opens stocks trading to eligible global users, offering access to more than 1,000 U.S. listed stocks and ETFs. Users in permitted jurisdictions who complete KYC can buy and sell supported equities using USDC. Available names include Apple, NVIDIA, Tesla and the Invesco QQQ ETF.
🇨🇳 China is pushing to build a national blockchain network, alongside a nationwide integrated computing network. The plan forms part of a national strategy to integrate the real economy with the digital economy. Beijing has not disclosed a construction timeline or operating model for the blockchain network.
🇲🇾 Ledger investigates suspected crypto thefts linked to Malaysian reseller CryptoBilis, with an independent researcher estimating losses above US$86M. Ledger asked the reseller to suspend device sales and shipments following concerns over possible hardware tampering.
🌐 KuCoin unveils KuCoin 5.0, a comprehensive upgrade to how users trade, manage assets and interact with the platform. The release spans six areas, including compliance, technology, AI and wealth management. Key changes include a redesigned experience, Profile Center 2.0 and improved subaccount management.
🇦🇪 Kraken plans a UAE launch following full market approval from VARA in Dubai. Expected to go live in the coming weeks, the platform will offer spot and margin trading with AED-denominated pairs, direct dirham deposits and withdrawals, staking and tokenized equities. Institutional clients will also gain access to OTC trading and Kraken Prime.
🌐 Kudo launches instant crypto withdrawals and hints at a new mobile app. The new withdrawal feature is intended to give users faster access to their crypto assets, while a potential mobile app could expand access to Kudo's services.
STABLECOINS NEWS
🌐 BVNK adds native support for Plasma, a network designed for high frequency USDT transfers. Plasma removes the need to buy and hold a separate native token to pay transfer fees. Recipients receive stablecoin payouts in seconds with no network fee, and Plasma supports global payroll with platforms like Deel.
🇬🇧 Bank of England will not rush a digital pound, eyeing stablecoins and tokenized deposits. It expects three sterling stablecoins, each with £40B in demand, and will strengthen oversight. The RTGS upgrade will enable instant settlement 24/7.
🇺🇸 BNY Mellon reportedly includes XRP in its corporate payments roadmap. The bank aims to help corporate treasuries move money around the clock through stablecoins and digital assets. BNY Mellon also serves as the primary reserve custodian for Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin.
🌐 Standard Chartered adds custody support for Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin. The move expands the bank's digital asset custody offering to include Ripple's US dollar-backed stablecoin, bringing RLUSD into its institutional custody services.
PARTNERSHIPS
🇬🇧 Klarna partners with The White Company, enabling shoppers at the British home and lifestyle retailer to spread the cost of homeware. Customers can now choose Pay in Full, Pay in 3 and Pay in 30 days at the online store.
🌏 WEX and Mastercard partner to launch Asia Pacific's first unified fleet payments network. The initiative aims to simplify fleet payment management across the region, helping businesses manage vehicle-related spending through a more integrated payment infrastructure.
🇺🇸 Hinkal joins the Mastercard Crypto Partner Program, a network of crypto and blockchain teams working with Mastercard on digital assets in everyday commerce. Wallets, payment platforms and chains plug Hinkal in to keep stablecoin activity confidential. Program members span stablecoin issuers, on and off ramps, crypto card enablers and blockchains.
🇩🇪 FC Bayern München extends its partnership with Adyen, which began in 2023. Cutting average stadium transaction time from 30 to 27 seconds lets the club process about 10% more kiosk transactions on match days. Online, fans can choose from over 250 payment methods in more than 200 countries.
🇦🇪 Paymentology and Huru expand their partnership, supporting the launch of Huru's card on Jaywan, the UAE's domestic card scheme. Huru handles AED 3B in annualised salary flows, with more than 24,000 employers using the platform to pay employees. It targets about one million Universal Accounts over the coming year.
DONEDEAL FUNDING NEWS
🇺🇸 Ramp reportedly raises $1.85 billion at a $60 billion valuation. The funding round was led by Dragoneer Investment Group and Thrive Capital, with participation from Founders Fund. The reported pre-money valuation marks an increase from $44 billion in June, when Ramp raised $750 million.
🌐 SoftBank-backed OPay secures a proposed $185 million private placement with Standard Bank. The investment would give Standard Bank a stake of up to 4.99% in OPay, subject to its planned US IPO and regulatory approvals. The companies also plan to explore merchant acquiring, digital banking and other financial services across Africa.
🇳🇿 Qippay secures a NZ$5M investment from All Roads, with the Australian investor taking a 25% stake in Qippay Group. The Auckland open banking company plans to grow headcount from six to about 12 to 15 staff. Its platform offers bank to bank payments as an alternative to cards and direct debits.
🌐 Sui Foundation invests $30M in DATA Network, becoming the largest institutional holder of the AI training data protocol. DATA Network will retire its standalone blockchain and migrate tokens to Sui at a 1:1 ratio. Walrus will become the default storage layer for DATA Foundation applications.
🇹🇷 Payment orchestration platform Craftgate receives investment from Turkven, with the founding partners retaining a majority stake. Craftgate lets businesses reach local and international payment providers through a single integration. The company aims to reach more businesses in Turkey and accelerate product development.
🇺🇸 Agentiq raises $4M to launch a platform for investing in athletes. The round was led by defy.vc and a group led by the owner of two major European football clubs. Fans can indirectly invest in professional athletes' careers through public offerings run via a Delaware Series LLC.
🇬🇧 Smarter Web raises £10M in its Bitcoin treasury preferred share IPO. The amount meets the deal minimum but falls short of the £15M to £25M target range. Retail investors supplied £7.6M, or about 76% of demand, ahead of the MORE shares listing on the LSE. Read more
M&A
🇬🇧 Trade Nation acquires FXCM UK, the UK client business of the retail FX and CFDs broker. Filings show FXCM UK brought in $10.8M in commission revenue in 2025, up 73% YoY, with client cash of $110.3M. The sale came days before AvaTrade agreed to acquire most of the rest of FXCM.
🇬🇧 Intelliflo acquires Mabel Insights, the UK database for managed portfolio services. The deal completed on 30 September, and the tool remains free to advisers. Its database spans more than 80 asset managers and over 3,000 risk rated portfolios. Keep reading
🇺🇸 IonQ agrees to acquire Elisity for up to $1.3B, combining quantum security with Zero Trust technology. The stock deal opens a microsegmentation market worth over $10B to IonQ. Elisity has more than 100 global customer deployments and zero churn among deployed customers.
MOVERS AND SHAKERS
🇬🇧 Yapily appoints Daniel Morgan as Head of Policy. Previously Vice Chair of Blockchain for Europe, Morgan will lead the company's policy and regulatory strategy across the UK and Europe, supporting its open banking initiatives and product development.
🇩🇪 N26 appoints former Postbank CFO Marc Hess to complete its Management Board. Hess will serve as CFO and managing director of N26 SE and N26 Bank SE, replacing Arnd Schwierholz, subject to regulatory approval. His appointment comes as the digital bank remains under heightened scrutiny from German regulator BaFin.
🇬🇧 Damian Thompson will become CEO of LHV Bank Limited, the UK banking subsidiary of AS LHV Group. At Starling Bank, he grew the loan portfolio to more than £5B. He joins on 4 January 2027, subject to regulatory approval. Continue reading
🇬🇧 Lloyds names HSBC's Jane Gilmour as new CTO. She will succeed Victor Weigler, who has served as group CTO since June 2022. She will lead the digital overhaul supporting Accelerate 2030, the bank's growth strategy.
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