Vegas Energy, FinTech Voices, and How to Stay Visible All Year
Hey FinTech Fanatic!
I’m writing this one straight from Money20/20 in Las Vegas, where the week kicked off with great energy and even better company.
Day one already delivered some memorable happy hours (special thanks to my friend Harvey Hudes for hosting such a great one 🍻).
And it was amazing to connect with so many familiar faces at the “Thought Leader Gathering” organized by Julio Gomez. A big thanks to Julio for bringing everyone together!
It reminded me of the LinkedIn post where I listed 200 FinTech thought leaders worth following.
These are the voices that keep the industry moving, sparking the conversations that shape what’s next in FinTech.
If you want to stay ahead, follow them all, and if you’re a brand, collaborate with them. They’re the bridge between the industry and its audience.
Because events like Money20/20 are incredible for meeting people face-to-face, but imagine if your brand could have that same visibility every single day.
That’s exactly what I’m building: a new way to connect your brand with the FinTech community through creators, storytelling, and thought leadership that keeps you front and center long after the conference lights dim.
👉 Sign up here if you want to explore how your brand can join that daily conversation, and I'll get back to you soon!
Now let’s dive into today’s biggest FinTech stories 👇
Cheers,
FEATURED NEWS
📊 The new FinTech Top 100 just dropped! 👇
Do you agree? Which companies would you include (or take out)?
FINTECH NEWS
🇬🇧 London’s FRC Chapter is Back on Track! After a two-month pause, FRC London returns with a brand-new route and a new host: Tobi John Oluwafemi! 🏃♂️ Join us on Nov 15th to run & connect!🧡
🇺🇸 Plynk launches Plynk Serve, an investing tool for service members and veterans. The customized onboarding experience offers a tailored pathway to learn, practice, and build confidence in investing. It allows users to self-guide through foundational concepts using familiar language, relatable imagery, and interactive modules.
PAYMENTS NEWS
🇬🇧 Ecommpay recognized for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Harrington Starr Top 1% Employer Awards. Key initiatives recognized by the award include the delivery of a range of training programs for colleagues and merchants, which enable them to operate with inclusivity at the forefront. This includes Neurodiversity awareness training and unconscious bias and inclusive recruitment training.
🇨🇴 The Ministry of Finance proposes a 1.5% withholding tax on digital payments and raises concerns about the future of Bre-B. The measure, which, according to the office, seeks to equalize the tax treatment of cards with other payment methods, has sparked concern among experts, unions, and merchants.
🇨🇴 Thunes enables instant payment access to and from Colombia with the new real-time payment system Bre-B. Adding Bre-B capabilities to its Direct Global Network is an example of Thunes’ support for central banks and regulators modernising national payment systems and expanding access to financial products.
🇮🇳 UPI introduces ‘Pay With Mutual Fund’ for instant transactions. This allows users to make real-time transactions directly from their liquid mutual fund holdings, eliminating the need to transfer funds to a bank account first. The feature marks a global first in retail financial technology innovation.
🇺🇸 CardFlight and Worldpay bring tap-to-pay on iPhone to SwipeSimple merchants. With Tap to Pay on iPhone, at checkout, merchants will simply prompt the customer to hold their contactless payment method near the merchant’s iPhone, and the payment will be securely completed using NFC technology.
🇺🇸 PayNearMe enhances PayXM™ with rollout of AI-powered Intelligent Virtual Agent (IVA). Fully integrated into the PayXM™ platform, IVA extends PayNearMe’s vision of Payment Experience Management by enabling organizations to automate and personalize inbound and outbound communication across voice, text, and chat.
REGTECH NEWS
🇲🇹 Blockchain.com secures MiCA license, hires Malta insider, Fiorentina D’Amore, to head EU expansion. With the permit, Blockchain.com is enabled to provide custody and wallet services in 30 European Economic Area (EEA) countries and plans to roll out institutional services, including treasury management.
🇨🇦 Canadian watchdog fines crypto firm Cryptomus C$177 million. Xeltox Enterprises was fined after Fintrac found that Cryptomus failed to submit suspicious transaction reports on more than 1,000 occasions. It also failed to report over 1,500 transactions in which it received $10,000 or more in virtual currency in the course of a single transaction.
🇺🇸 Persona launches Connect at Money20/20 USA. The new solution enables organizations to securely share and reuse verified identity and business data across their own ecosystems. Persona Connect acts as the rails for PII and KYC data exchange, reducing friction for users, unlocking growth for companies, and helping compliance teams stay ahead of regulatory demands.
🇬🇧 FCA sues HTX for allegedly unlawfully promoting cryptoasset services to UK consumers. HTX facilitates digital asset trading, derivatives, and blockchain financial services for over 45 million registered users across 160+ countries. The FCA spokesperson says the action is part of its commitment to protect consumers and uphold the integrity of UK financial markets.
DIGITAL BANKING NEWS
🇺🇸 SoFi expands in Charlotte. The San Francisco-based firm will create 225 jobs and invest $3 million in the new regional hub in exchange for millions in incentives. SoFi's Charlotte hub will employ loan officers, loan processors, underwriters, chief experience analysts, and sales and management teams.
🇳🇬 FinTech startup Lidya shuts down after nine years. The closure brings an end to one of Nigeria’s early FinTech pioneers that once sought to redefine how small businesses accessed credit. Keep reading
🇺🇸 nbkc bank expands banking-as-a-service suite with Interchecks to deliver faster and more flexible payments. This collaboration enhances nbkc's BaaS platform by integrating Interchecks' instant payment technology, enabling FinTechs and non-bank innovators to deliver seamless "push-to-card" disbursements, sending funds directly to customers' debit cards in real-time.
🇸🇰 Revolut surpasses 500,000 users in Slovakia. Since the beginning of the year, it has gained 230,000 new customers. The number of transactions has increased 60% year-over-year, while payment volumes have grown 67%. Read more
BLOCKCHAIN/CRYPTO NEWS
🇺🇸 Paxos to allow employees to be paid in USDG. Paxos’ integration with Toku will let employees opt to receive their paychecks in stablecoins. The integration will utilize the same payroll platforms, ADP and Workday, but allows employees to receive USDG straight to their wallets.
🇺🇸 U.S. Bancorp launches digital assets division to boost blockchain innovation. It will also support custody and settlement services for cryptocurrencies, allowing the bank to serve both institutional and corporate clients looking for compliant digital-asset exposure.
🇦🇪 UPay to leverage Tencent Cloud to enhance its global crypto payments network. The deal is primarily about enhancing the user experience on its payment networks, UPay shared in a press release, but it also hints at the company’s intentions to scale adoption of its crypto cards globally.
🇺🇸 JP Morgan set to loosen crypto rules, allowing Bitcoin as collateral. The new scheme will work with a third party to safeguard the crypto assets and follows the banking giant’s delving deeper into the world of digital assets. Continue reading
🇦🇿 m10 and Binance maintain direct crypto-fiat operations in Azerbaijan. The updated integration allows users to deposit and withdraw funds in Azerbaijani manat directly between their m10 and Binance accounts, ensuring full transparency, security, and the elimination of intermediaries.
PARTNERSHIPS
🇺🇸 Affirm expands partnership with Worldpay for Platforms with embedded payment integration. With this integration, platforms will now have the ability to offer Affirm as a payment method to their merchants, giving eligible end customers more flexible, transparent ways to pay.
🇧🇷 Juspay integrates Mastercard’s click-to-pay in Brazil, bringing faster and safer one-click checkouts to millions of consumers. Click to Pay enables online shoppers to link their cards to their Mastercard account once and enjoy seamless one-click checkout across merchants without repeatedly entering card details or passwords.
🇬🇧 Standard Chartered partners with Dandelion to enhance real-time cross-border payments. This collaboration will enable the Bank to provide clients with a broader range of destination currencies, reaching both bank account and digital wallet endpoints.
🇺🇸 Zip US expands partnership with Stripe to accelerate merchant growth. With a no-code setup, merchants can easily enable Zip directly from their Stripe Dashboard, streamlining integration and enabling Zip’s pay-in-installments payment method in their Stripe checkout experience.
🇺🇸 Proof collaborates with Visa to enable verified identities to help secure transactions across high-value or high-risk payments, digital commerce, agreements, and banking. The collaboration will combine the power of Visa’s payment network with Proof’s identity authorization network.
🇬🇧 Clay selects GoCardless to streamline loan disbursements and repayments at scale. Clay now uses GoCardless to unify its entire payment process onto a single, scalable platform, leveraging GoCardless’s Direct Debit capability to collect repayments and Outbound Payments, the FinTech’s newly launched disbursement product, to pay out loans.
DONEDEAL FUNDING NEWS
🇺🇸 Clerq secures $21M in funding to power the future of high-ticket payments. The Series A will support Clerq’s continued investment in expanding product capabilities and addressing additional verticals, strengthening the company’s position as a driving force behind the adoption of account-to-account payments in the U.S.
🇨🇳 Hong Kong FinTech firm Riverchain raises $5M to expand across SEA. The company provides working capital solutions to subcontractors in the construction sector across Hong Kong and Southeast Asia. Read more
M&A
🇮🇳 Aussie FinTech Findi to acquire climate tech start-up Sphere for up to $2.93M. The acquisition supports Findi's broader growth strategy as the company prepares for a planned IPO on the Bombay Stock Exchange in FY27 and works toward obtaining Payments Bank status in India.
🇺🇸 Modern Treasury acquires Beam to expand instant payments leadership with stablecoins. The acquisition adds important capabilities and leadership to Modern Treasury. Beam’s stablecoin orchestration technology accelerates Modern Treasury’s roadmap for real-time, global payments.
MOVERS AND SHAKERS
🇬🇧 Corpay names Matt Hanks as Vice President Marketing for UK Fleet. The creation of this leadership role signals a stronger focus on marketing within Corpay’s UK operations, ensuring that brand, customer engagement, and market growth are at the center of the company’s strategy.
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