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Well folks, it doesn't get better than this.

🏦 MrBeast – one of the most influential (and controversial) influencers of all time – has reportedly filed a trademark for his own bank, Beast Financial.

There is probably a missed opportunity here not rebranding to MrBank. But the marketing opportunities are too plentiful to resist. It remains to be seen how this affects the company's partnership with neobank Current, or what features the bank will provide (credit cards? mobile app? giveaways? lottery-based savings?) Presumably every BaaS business development team is scrambling right now to reach out. Trademark attorney Josh Gerben dives in a bit more here.

🏠 On the other side of the fintech world, Bilt – the $10 billion company that famously lets users pay their rent on credit cards to earn rewards via a sweetheart deal with Wells Fargo – announced in 2026 it will let users earn rewards on mortgage payments through a new partnership with mortgage lender UWM. (The details of the program and rewards remain to be seen.)

🤝 Money2020 USA, the fintech world's Coachella, is only two weeks away! If you haven't bought your ticket yet, what's holding you back? The TWIF team will be all over the conference, conducting a few podcast intervierws and hosting a series of side events, starting with our Kickoff Party with Adyen. See the full list here:

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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

Visa launched a Trusted Agent Protocol to enable secure AI-agent commerce between buyers and merchants.

French banking giant ODDO BHF entered crypto by launching a euro-backed stablecoin called EUROD.

Mastercard unveiled a Payment Optimization Platform (POP) designed to boost merchants’ payment approval rates.

Mastercard Agent Pay launches without merchant acceptance, challenging Crone's Rule | Richard Crone posted on the topic | LinkedIn

Mastercard Agent Pay is the first new payment type in history that ‘can’ launch without merchant acceptance—going live in less than 70 days before Black Friday using agentic commerce screen scraping & Agent→Legacy API checkout, bypassing the multi-sided requirements between issuers, acquirers & merchants. In doing so Citi leapfrogs the 7 Early Warning® Paze℠ owner banks, unable for the past 3 years to secure large merchant integrations before the annual ‘retail freeze’ that locks ecommerce upgrades ahead of the holiday shopping. If successful, the launch will challenge Crone’s Rule that “All new payment types start with merchant acceptance.” But conspicuous by their absence are bot-blockers—Cloudflare, Akamai Technologies, PerimeterX (now HUMAN), Imperva—who hold the merchant acceptance keys to the #ecommerce kingdom, the gatekeepers to #AgenticPayments & autonomous #checkout. To scale, all stakeholder touchpoints must embrace Know Your Agent #KYA handshakes, where Agent↔Agent pings share intent signals, negotiate attribution, content rights & tender steering preferences in nanoseconds. This matters because whoever owns the #agentic start owns the monetization that comes with tokenizing intent with attribution audit trails—discovery, promotional offers, slotting fees, tender steering—plus muti-merchant aggregation of the shopping cart. Another Crone Rule applies: #TheOneWhoEnrollsIsTheOneWhoControls. Appending SKU-query-intent-level data directly into tokenized account credentials is the most lucrative monetization opportunity to legacy payment stakeholders. For merchants, the disintermediation opportunity cost of not being the starting point is high—eroding 8–13% of GMV within 24–36 months, equal to $84–126M lost per $1B in sales, reducing them to fulfillment nodes-see https://lnkd.in/gfRNBG2K. Banks, failing to support agentic payments inside their bank-branded apps is more existential: laggards not supporting #ApplePay, PayPal, Venmo, Zelle® suffered a 5–15% drop in new accts; 5–15% rise in closed/dormant accts; & 7–30% increase in natural age per acct. For both the #bankingindustry & #shoppingandtheretailindustry: doing nothing is a self-liquidating strategy that transfers franchise value directly to Visa #IntelligentCommerce, PayPal #AgenticToolkit, Google #ShopWithAI, Amazon #BuyForMe, Stripe, Skyfire & eventually Apple Pay & AI at Meta. Each is racing to be the starting point by embedding tender steering & data monetization that feathers their own nest—high interchange credit for Visa/Mastercard, prepaid balances for PayPal, CPA-driven recommendations for Google & Honey, Synchronized-multi-merchant-Payments for Amazon. Please critique the carousel analytics in Comments👇to receive a quantitative, bespoke analysis to your questions. Link in Comments👇to John Adams’ American Banker analysis with insights from Craig Vosburg, Jorn Lambert. Crone Consulting LLC independent estimates, no public disclosure by companies analyzed. | 33 comments on LinkedIn

LinkedInRichard Crone

Other News

Morgan Stanley dropped restrictions on which wealth clients could hold crypto funds. Advisors will be now able to pitch crypto funds to any client. Previously, the option was limited to those with an aggressive risk tolerance and at least $1.5 million in assets.

Banco Santander, Bank of America, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Citi, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, MUFG Bank Ltd, TD Bank Group and UBS are exploring issuing blockchain-based digital money backed 1:1 by fiat reserves.

Citi's Strata Elite cardholders say they were shut out of their accounts without explanation for weeks due to tech issues.

US bank deregulation has reportedly unlocked an estimated $2.6 trillion of Wall Street lending capacity.

Quote of the Week

“Money is infrastructure, not a product." - Luca Prosperi, M0

Fintech

Product Launches

Stripe launched stablecoins as a payment method for subscription payments.

Plaid launched LendScore, a novel credit risk score that uses real-time cash flow and network connection data to supplement traditional credit metrics.

BMONI* launched in Nigeria an AI-forward financial platform seeking to transform how Africans save, spend, and grow wealth using stablecoins.

Wayflyer launched Hosted Capital, a new embed-lending solution that enabled platforms to embed financing into their apps and unlock new revenue and retention levers.

EBC Financial launched Bitcoin CFDs (Contracts for Difference) to give eligible traders access to crypto exposure without owning the underlying asset.

Monzo rolled out a built-in tax filing tool (powered by Sage) that allowed sole traders and landlords to file directly to HMRC from their business account.

SPONSORED

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Learn more at newline53.com.

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Upcoming Events

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TWIF x Adyen: Kick-off Party Step beyond the usual conference grind and kick off the week with an unforgettable night. We’re bringing together the most…

This Week in Fintech

Job of the Week

Venn hiring Head of Growth in Toronto, Ontario, Canada | LinkedIn

Posted 2:10:57 PM. About VennVenn is transforming business banking for Canadian entrepreneurs. As the ONLY digital…See this and similar jobs on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn

Other News

Erebor secured conditional U.S. regulatory approval to open a tech- and crypto-oriented national bank backed by Silicon Valley founders.

Bilt announced plans to let homeowners earn Bilt Points by making mortgage payments starting in 2025, expanding its rewards beyond rent.

SoftBank negotiated a potential $5 billion margin loan secured by shares of its chip unit Arm to fund further AI and tech investments.

Wise obtained a retail payments and stored value licence from the UAE Central Bank, enabling it to operate money transfer and payments services in the UAE.

🌆 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗻 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗜𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗮’𝘀 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆! Earlier this week, we hosted the 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵 𝗛𝗮𝗽𝗽𝘆 𝗛𝗼𝘂𝗿 in Mumbai and it turned out to be one of… | Osborne Saldanha | 12 comments

🌆 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗻 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗜𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗮’𝘀 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆! Earlier this week, we hosted the 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵 𝗛𝗮𝗽𝗽𝘆 𝗛𝗼𝘂𝗿 in Mumbai and it turned out to be one of the most vibrant gatherings of the ecosystem we at This Week in Fintech hosted yet. Over 300+ founders, investors, unicorn builders, banking executives, and global fintech leaders came together for an evening of meaningful conversations, collaboration, and community. 🚀 It was incredible to see the energy in the room, from early-stage founders exchanging ideas to seasoned leaders sharing insights on where fintech is headed next. A huge thank you to our amazing partners who made this possible: 🤝 Assurekit Technologies, Bureau, Mixpanel, and Xflow ☁️ In partnership with Google Cloud and Mars Shot Ventures Your support helped create an evening where fintech minds connected, shared, and celebrated how far we’ve come and where we’re headed next. Here’s to building a stronger fintech ecosystem, one conversation at a time. 💫 Adarsh Chokhani, Ranjan R Reddy, Nikhil Jois, Rahi Bhattacharjee, Nishit Shah, Hariram Keerthivasan, Ashwin Bhatnagar, Anand Balaji, Deepakshi Dawar, Dhruv P., Karan Kumar, Arjit Johri, Vishnu Acharya, Harshil Mathur, Nik Milanović, Dennis Owusu-Sem | 12 comments on LinkedIn

LinkedInOsborne Saldanha

The Bad News

BondIT filed a lawsuit against JPMorgan for allegedly misappropriating its AI-powered fixed-income technology, breaching contract terms, and engaging in bad faith dealings after nearly two years of collaboration.