👋 Welcome to the new readers who’ve joined us since last week. You’re joining 176,000+ other subscribers who love fintech.
Presented by:
Hello fintech friends,
This week, Canada launched its long-awaited Real-Time Rail (RTR) for payments.
What it does: Around-the-clock operation to let money clear and settle within seconds.
Fraud controls: RTR is embedded with mandatory centralized fraud services, which sit on top of each participant’s own security tools.
Reach: Coverage of !90% of Canadian bank accounts is the goal for Q3 2027.
Participants: The big banks (RBC, TD, BMO, CIBC, Scotiabank, National Bank) are joined by fintechs such as Wealthsimple, KOHO and Shakepay, plus credit unions including Desjardins, Central 1 and Meridian.
Meanwhile in the US, Senator Elizabeth Warren expressed an interest in working with the Trump Administration on a 10% credit card rate cap….
Industry groups including the American Bankers Association and Consumer Bankers Association came out in opposition of the measure, which they said would likely reduce credit access to the most economically-disadvantaged borrowers — those with thinner files, less credit history, and fewer banking options. Chase’s Jamie Dimon has warned a cap could sharply shrink the card business and introduce more punitive fees elsewhere in consumer banking, as issuers try to recap revenue that they’re unable to make through credit.
Price control legislation is always rife with unintended consequences. Time will tell if the populist support for this perennial proposal gets off the ground this time.
Fintech’s annnual black tie gala, the Fintech Formal, is back in action in New York on December 11th.
This year, we’ll be at 48 Wall Street, the former headquarters of the Bank of New York, chartered and founded by Alexander Hamilton in 1784.
Tickets are limited and will be by application only — grab yours at fintechformal.com/#RSVP
- Nik
The Rundown
🏦 Financial Services & Banking
Deutsche Bank launched crypto custody for institutional and corporate clients in Europe, supporting bitcoin, ether, USDC, EURC, and EURAU.
Goldman Sachs, Citi, and other banks committed about $270 million to Project Faro, their joint dollar stablecoin venture, covering five years of operating costs.
HSBC UK launched Tap to Pay with Stripe, letting small businesses accept contactless payments on a smartphone without a card reader.
OpenAI formed a strategic partnership to supply JPMorganChase with AI services, including its cybersecurity-focused models.
Crédit Agricole proposed merging its Italian unit with Banco BPM to create Italy’s third-largest bank, offering shareholders a 20% premium and a €1 billion special dividend.
Chase UK partnered with PayPoint, letting customers deposit cash into their current accounts.
🚀 Product Launches
Rain introduced Agent Vaults, giving AI agents a pre-funded balance they can spend, within owner-set rules, through single-use scoped cards.
Anthropic launched Personal Finance in Claude, a beta that connects bank and card accounts through Plaid for read-only spend analysis.
Venmo rolled out receipt scanning, which itemizes a bill from a photo and calculates each person’s share, tax and tip included.
Acorns launched Invest My Tips, which gives barbers, stylists and other tip earners a QR code that routes every tip straight into a diversified portfolio, with a 1% match.
Axway introduced its Amplify Platform, which governs a company’s AI models, APIs and agents in one place and logs which model answered, what data it used and who asked.
Revolut brought Revolut Mobile to Ireland with Gigs, offering unlimited 5G-ready eSIM plans from €9.99 a month that customers can pay down with RevPoints.
73 Strings unveiled Extraction Agent, a multi-agent tool that pulls and maps financial data from portfolio company reports for private markets investors.
Wise added Wise Interest and Stocks in the US, letting customers earn returns on USD balances through a money market fund or an S&P 500 index fund while keeping instant access to their money.
💸 Other News
Coinbase won a full national trust charter from the OCC, upgrading the conditional approval it received in April and following Ripple’s full charter last month.
Plaid (our parent company) brought Perplexity’s Personal CFO to 17 European countries, letting users connect their bank accounts read-only and ask AI about their own spending.
Payward, the parent of Kraken, tokenized 200 UK- and EU-listed stocks through xStocks, pushing the framework past 1,500 assets and $1.1 billion in AUM. OKXICE, the joint venture between OKX and Intercontinental Exchange, set a November 23 launch date for users to trade 70 digital securities under the SEC’s Innovation Exemption. Circle, Coinbase, Robinhood, Strategy, BitGo and Better signed on as launch issuers.
Smaller banks are giving AI agents access to customer accounts, even as giants like JPMorgan restricted it.
🤝 Partnership Corner
PNC piloted stablecoin payments with Coinbase, letting corporate and institutional clients receive USDC that converts automatically to dollars.
Plaid (our parent) launched a direct integration with DoorDash Crimson, letting Dashers connect their accounts to the 9,000+ apps on Plaid’s network.
FrankieOne partnered with Trulioo to bring its KYC, KYB, and beneficial-ownership checks, covering 700 million business entities across 100 markets, into FrankieOne’s platform.
