Hello Fintech Friends,

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This headline doesn't feel like an overstatement, in a week where Mastercard, Modern Treasury, Citibank, JP Morgan, Mipay, and Meta all made announcements around stablecoins.

We'll have a lot to talk about in two weeks at Stablecon...

Speakers — Stablecon

Stablecon

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Please enjoy another week of fintech and banking news below.

(👍👎 Have feedback for us? Let us know. Find me at @nikmilanovic, @twifintech, and @ndm)

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🏦 Financial Services & Banking

🚀 Product Launches

Citi and SDX announced a joint plan for the bank to let customers tokenize, settle and safekeep assets on SDX's digital central securities depositary platform.

📰 Other News

New Hampshire became the first U.S. state to establish a strategic Bitcoin reserve. The state legislature passed a bill authorizing the purchase of $10 million worth of Bitcoin for its treasury.

JPMorgan Chase partnered with Kinexys, Ondo, and Chainlink to settle a transaction on a public blockchain – outside of its own Onyx blockchain – for the first time.

Mastercard and MoonPay joined forces on stablecoin payment solutions. The partnership leveraged Mastercard's global payment network alongside MoonPay's cryptocurrency infrastructure to facilitate transactions using stablecoins.

The Trump Administration is considering an executive order that could increase scrutiny of the explosion in payments to college athletes since 2021.

And speaking of stablecoisn and payments...

💬 Quote of the Week

💻 Fintech

🚀 Product Launches

Modern Treasury partnered with Brale* to launch Stablecoin Payment Accounts (SPAs). SPAs enable companies moving money on behalf of others to send and receive USD over traditional rails and stablecoin networks, offering a flexible alternative to traditional FBO setups.

The future of finance isn't fiat or stablecoins; it's both. Introducing… | Ben Milne

The future of finance isn't fiat or stablecoins; it's both. Introducing Stablecoin Payment Accounts. We are grateful to work with our friends at Modern Treasury to bring the next generation of protocols alongside leading fintech and bank integrations in record time. Programmable money is now a product feature.

LinkedInBen Milne

Public launched Generated Assets, allowing investors to transform ideas into investable indices.

Extend released an open-source AI toolkit designed to streamline finance workflows.

Square introduced a new handheld point-of-sale device for merchants. The payment company's portable terminal offered enhanced mobility and functionality for businesses seeking flexible transaction processing solutions.

Plaid implemented machine learning to improve identity verification and counter generative AI threats with improved identity verification features.

Monzo launched a payment reversal tool that allowed customers to undo transactions.

EverC unveiled an AI-powered marketplace risk assessment solution for businesses. The company's technology evaluated potential threats and vulnerabilities for online marketplaces through advanced artificial intelligence analysis.

Nubank launched Tap-to-Pay PIX functionality for its customers.

MiPay made its stablecoin wallet available as a standalone app.

Want to be a Fintech thought leader? Start with Youtube.

If your brand isn’t on YouTube, you’re missing a major opportunity to connect with your audience where they’re already watching.

At Pod People, we help brands turn interviews and podcasts into powerful video content - boosting visibility, building trust, and growing engagement. Our clients have reached millions of views by developing a consistent, strategic YouTube presence - and you can too.

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This Week in Fintech

📰 Other News

Robinhood is planning to launch a blockchain platform for trading U.S. assets in Europe.

Global Dollar Network reached a milestone of 25 member institutions.

Meta is investigating using stablecoins for its payment systems to facilitate faster and more efficient payouts for users.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said the company's goal is to become the world's number one financial service app within 10 years. Coinbase also became the first crypto firm to join the S&P 500 index.

Zoho entered the U.S. payments market with a new suite of financial services. The software company launched payment processing tools for American businesses.

Google integrated its LLM Gemini Nano to combat evolving scams.

Dave Inc. exceeded Q1 2025 earnings forecasts, surpassing analyst expectations with a significant jump in both earnings and revenue.

🤝 Partnership Corner

XAI and Palantir teamed up to promote the use of AI in financial services. The partnership will combine XAI's advanced language models with Palantir's data integration platform to create more effective AI solutions for financial institutions.

Perplexity partnered with PayPal to enable in-chat AI shopping capabilities. The collaboration integrates PayPal's payment processing directly into Perplexity's AI chat interface, allowing users to make purchases without leaving conversations.

👎 The Bad News

Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky received a 12-year prison sentence; the court found Mashinsky guilty of misleading investors about Celsius' financial health.

Klarna turned away from AI in favor of customer service with real people. The fintech company shifted its strategy after discovering that human representatives delivered higher satisfaction rates and better addressed complex customer issues than their AI systems.

Coinbase revealed that criminals bribed employees for customer data in a major security breach. The exchange disclosed that corrupt workers provided unauthorized access to sensitive account information, with potential damages estimated at $400 million.

Not everyone is a fan of Basic Capital's newly-announced leveraged 401ks: