See You in Vegas for FinTech Meetup: Where Real FinTech Conversations Happen!
Hey FinTech Fanatic!
My bi-monthly US trip is coming to an end after a few intense weeks of meetings and freezing snowstorms.
New York was amazing as always, but I'm looking forward to heading back to sunny Curaçao tomorrow and spending the weekend relaxing on the beach.
I'll be back in the US soon — New York and San Francisco as usual — but this time with a key focus: FinTech Meetup in Las Vegas. And here's why:
At most events, you're lucky to even find the right person. At FinTech Meetup, you'll meet them by design.
Traditional conferences waste your time chasing leads that go nowhere. FinTech Meetup flips the script with double opt-in meetings between qualified buyers and sellers, scheduled in advance by our proprietary event tech. It's networking without the guesswork, chaos, or clowns 😉
Don't bark up the wrong tree. Meet decision-makers who can actually say yes. Check out this funny video featuring CEO Sanjib Kalita that explains it all 🤣
Stop Barking Up the Wrong Tree
Oh, by the way, ticket prices increase after today, so make sure to secure yours while you still can.
See you in Vegas!
Cheers,
PAYMENTS NEWS
🇫🇷 Lyf Pay is shutting down. The FinTech Lyf, which offers an electronic wallet, QR code payments in stores or at tables, and peer-to-peer money pools, has never been able to generate sufficient volume against heavyweights like Apple Pay or Lydia. Read more
🌍 Volt launches Volt Accounts, a flagship cash management suite for merchants and partners in the UK and the EU. Volt Accounts monitors transactions in EUR and GBP from initiation to receipt, providing status updates at crucial stages of the payment value chain. When payments are completed, merchants can dispatch goods or deliver services faster and with greater certainty.
🇰🇷 South Korea and Indonesia to launch cross-border QR code-based payment system in April. Travelers moving between South Korea and Indonesia will be able to make payments without exchanging currencies using a QR code-based payment system starting in April, Seoul's central bank said.
🇪🇸 The Bank of Spain has a simple warning for anyone who pays by phone. Financial authorities warn that users often rely on weak locks, unchanged spending limits, and disabled security features such as two-factor authentication, leaving phones vulnerable if lost or stolen.
🇺🇸 Visa introduces Visa & Main, a new platform to accelerate small business growth across the U.S. The new program aims to tackle the biggest challenges for entrepreneurs across three pillars: Business Capital, Business Connect, and Business Essentials.
🌍 Phone-to-phone euro transfers from Spain to Poland, BLIK tests interoperability with additional European payment systems. This means the ability to make seamless, instant phone-number-based transfers between users of different mobile payment systems in Europe, without the need to install additional applications.
🌍 Binance Pay brings crypto payments to 650,000 SA merchants through a strategic partnership with Scan To Pay. Through Scan to Pay’s integration with Moneybadger, Binance Pay users can now pay with over 100 cryptocurrencies at participating merchants, ranging from fashion retailers to essential bill payments, using the familiar QR-code payment experience.
FINTECH RUNNING CLUB
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DIGITAL BANKING NEWS
🇰🇷 Kbank seeks IPO for 3rd time as it lowers offering price by 20%, in a move to lock in investor demand after two failed listings, the internet-only lender said. The highly conservative pricing prioritizes market acceptance over ambition, reflecting challenging capital market conditions.
🇲🇽 Naranja X, part of Grupo Financiero Galicia, applies for a banking license in Mexico, to be authorized to operate as a multiple banking institution under the Credit Institution Law. With its launch in the country, Galicia´s unit would join other virtual wallets and neobanks of Argentine origin, such as MercadoLibre and Uala.
🇬🇧 Revolut is boosting the team that runs share sales without Wall Street. The FinTech is looking to bolster its corporate development team in London, where it’s headquartered. It’s working to recruit an investment banker, asset manager, or person with venture capital experience to oversee transactions, including potential mergers and acquisitions, as it stays private for longer.
BLOCKCHAIN/CRYPTO NEWS
🇦🇺 Coinbase escalates fight with Australian banks over crypto bans. Coinbase has filed a formal complaint with Australia’s House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics, accusing major banks of routinely blocking or closing accounts for legitimate crypto firms.
🇺🇸 Bank of America finally discloses XRP exposure. A recent SEC Form 13F filing suggests Bank of America has indirect exposure to XRP through shares in a Volatility Shares product labeled as an “XRP ETF.” While it does not show direct XRP custody, the disclosure highlights institutional involvement via regulated exchange-traded instruments.
🇦🇪 Swiss Bank Maerki Baumann gets regulatory nod to support crypto firms in the UAE. Maerki Baumann seeks to be the financial partner for tech and blockchain ventures, as well as crypto companies and entrepreneurs. The Middle East branch will operate under the ARCHIP Brand.
PARTNERSHIPS
🇬🇧 Noah and Sumsub partner to deliver the fastest, most scalable compliance and verification engine for modern money. Through the partnership, any client using Noah’s high-speed rails and accounts can now onboard users in seconds, with greater accuracy, fraud protection, and success rates, thanks to Sumsub’s automated verification.
🇻🇳 Mastercard and Shopee Vietnam announce strategic collaboration, with the launch of the VPBank S Rewards Mastercard Card. The cooperation aims to promote cashless payments, contributing to the development of the digital economy and improving the online shopping experience. Additionally, UWallet and Mastercard strengthen their collaboration to advance digital financial inclusion in Jordan. By combining Mastercard’s global technology with UWallet’s local market expertise, the initiative seeks to drive lasting impact across both consumer and business markets.
🇺🇸 Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach says the company is shifting from pilot to real-world execution with Ripple, expanding blockchain-based settlement capabilities. Well, this signals Mastercard’s rising confidence in blockchain as a real payment infrastructure.
🌍 BrightCHAMPS and Triple-A partner to enable stablecoin payments for global learners. As part of this collaboration, BrightCHAMPS will now accept all major stablecoins such as USDT and USDC as fee payment options across all 30+ countries, including the US, Canada, the UK, the UAE, and Southeast Asia.
🇬🇧 Ecommpay announces strategic partnership with Payrails to revolutionise global payments for enterprises. The collaboration aims to directly impact top-line growth and bottom-line costs. By leveraging the combined strengths of both platforms, enterprises can aim to expect improved acceptance and conversion rates, reduced costs, and accelerated speed to market for their services.
🇬🇧 myTU taps Intrepid Fox to automate business onboarding. The integration is designed to enable small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and FinTech clients to open fully operational accounts within minutes, rather than days. Keep reading
🇧🇷 Tencent Cloud and Treeal partnership brings next-gen PalmAI service to Brazil. Designed to outperform traditional biometric methods, including fingerprint and facial recognition, the new system offers a secure, contactless, and highly accurate alternative for payment processing and access control.
🇺🇸 Circle and Polymarket partner to strengthen on-chain financial markets. As part of this partnership, Polymarket will transition to native USDC in the coming months. Native USDC is issued by Circle’s regulated affiliates and is redeemable 1:1 for US dollars, providing a more capital-efficient, scalable, and institutionally aligned settlement standard as Polymarket’s platform continues to grow.
DONEDEAL FUNDING NEWS
🇬🇧 Apexx Global raises $10m for payments orchestration platform. By intelligently routing transactions across the global payments ecosystem, Apexx says it materially increases acceptance rates, reduces processing costs, and improves unit economics.
🇩🇪 Stripe alumni raise €30M Series A for Duna, backed by Stripe and Adyen execs. Backed by prominent angel investors from Stripe and rivals like Adyen, the company aims to build a reusable digital passport system that allows businesses to share verified identity information across multiple platforms.
🇩🇰 Synthesia and Flatpay founders back Pluto.markets in $6M raise. Joakim Bruchmann, founder of Pluto.markets, said the funds will be used to move into new markets and launch new products. Pluto.markets offers users commission-free trading in fractional stocks, ETFs, and cryptocurrencies.
🇬🇧 UK FinTech Sidekick raises £7.8m as it expands operations in Wales and opens Cardiff Hub. The funding will be used to grow Sidekick’s team, accelerate product development, and support continued customer growth. Continue reading
🇬🇧 Bound has secured a $24.5m (£18m) Series A funding round. The UK FinTech will use its new funding to pursue expansion in Europe, first by seeking regulatory authorisation in the European Union. Using Bound, finance teams can set up best-practice hedging strategies that automatically manage exposure to market volatility with no manual intervention required.
🇧🇷 Clara renews $150 million debt facility with Goldman Sachs to scale payments products in Mexico, bringing total debt capacity to over $250 million. The funding from Goldman Sachs will enable Clara to scale its payment solutions, including corporate credit cards, bill pay, and cross-border transactions, as well as Clara TravelPay.
🇺🇸 EnFi’s $15 million fundraise pushes agentic AI into bank credit decisions, promising enhanced operational efficiency and competitive positioning for smaller institutions against larger national banks. The company will focus on broader rollout to transform credit workflows at its target institutions in the coming months.
🇸🇬 Singapore-based crypto firm Penguin Securities completes approximately $18 million Pre-A round funding. This round of financing will be used to expand its products and services for qualified and institutional investors, strengthen its platform and organizational structure, explore new business areas, and advance strategic partnerships.
🇪🇸 Valeria lands $2M to fix payroll for the frontline economy. With the new capital, Valeria plans to grow its team, deepen automation across the product, and expand into additional markets where labour-intensive businesses face similar challenges. Read more
M&A
🇺🇸 Corpay announces agreement to sell non-core vehicle payments asset, PayByPhone, a mobile parking payments business, to Lightyear Capital. The transaction is not expected to have a material impact on Corpay’s 2026 Cash EPS outlook. Continue reading
MOVERS AND SHAKERS
🇬🇧 Tandem Bank announces Ryan Heaps as New Finance Chief. Ryan, a chartered accountant with over 15 years’ experience in senior finance roles. The appointment is a testament to Tandem’s focus on nurturing internal talent and its investment in developing a strong pipeline of future leaders from within the bank.
🇬🇧 ClearBank hires Visa's Neil Drennan as CTO. He brings over 15 years of experience across the media and financial services industry, including roles at 10x Future Technologies and Amazon. At ClearBank, Drennan will lead the evolution and enhancement of the company's cloud-based API and payments infrastructure.
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