Hello Fintech Friends,
Welcome to the new readers who’ve joined us since last week. You’re joining 172,000+ other subscribers who love fintech. Cover image by Yasuto Inagaki. Today's newsletter is brought to you by Lithic.
The stablecoin industry is ramping up faster than a stablecoin payment can cross a border.
A huge thank you to everyone who joined us this week in Amsterdam for our Inaugural Stablecon EMEA. We had a fantastic show and it was thanks to the great caliber of attendees who joined. As the Fintech Times wrote, “if you were still wondering whether stablecoins are becoming part of mainstream financial infrastructure, Stablecon gave a fairly clear answer.” (Check out the full article here)
A lot of big announcements were made at the conference! Congrats to Qivalis on securing 37 bank backers for its Euro stablecoin project, congrats to Mesh on joining the Global Dollar Network, congrats to Modern Treasury on launching its payments APIs in 90 countries, and congrats to Checker on the $8M fundraise. There were too many more launches and fundraise announcements to share — but you can check out the recap in photos here.
@thestablecon “Fun. Intentional. Unique.” Stablecon EMEA 2026 brought together the people building the future of money across stablecoins, payments, AI,... See more
I got back just in time for Effects, the inaugural summit on the future of intelligent finance, hosted by our parent company Plaid. At the event, Plaid announced the launch of two foundational AI models focused on Transaction Classification and Sequential Analysis, a guaranteed ACH payments product, a new framework to identify coordinated fraud across devices, an OpenAI integration for Pro Subscribers, and more. Our writer Mary Ann Azevedo detailed the full launch list in her newest article:
And it wasn’t exactly a slow week outside of the conference circuit!
Neobank Mercury* raised a new $200 million Series D at a $5.2 billion valuation.
Blockchain.com filed for a US IPO — the company was last valued at $7 billion but reached a peak valuation of $14 billion in 2022.
And the US presidential administration cleared a path for fintech companies to directly access Federal Reserve master accounts, which could significantly reshape the way financial products are built in the US.
Revolut is getting into the crypto card industry? More on that below.
Please enjoy another week of fintech and banking news below.
Have feedback for us? Let us know. Find me at @nikmilanovic, @twifintech, and @ndm
SPONSORED
When Mercury's 3DS-authenticated transactions became a concentrated source of fraud risk, they needed a solution built into the authorization flow, not layered on top of it. By expanding their partnership with Lithic, Mercury gained programmable, real-time controls that cut total card fraud losses tied to 3DS transactions by 40%, without compromising the cardholder experience. See how they did it. Read the case study.
Want to sponsor a newsletter? See our sponsorship information here.
Financial Services & Banking
Product Launches
FICO partnered with Plaid* to launch an upgraded UltraFICO Score that folds real-time cashflow data into credit assessments — a move that could lift scores for nearly 80% of non-prime applicants with positive account histories.
Chase entered the German market with a fee-free digital savings account offering a market-leading 4% rate for the first four months, marking JPMorganChase's second European expansion after its 2021 UK debut.
Other News
President Trump signed an executive order directing federal financial regulators to identify barriers to fintech innovation and instructing the Federal Reserve to evaluate whether non-bank fintechs and uninsured depository institutions should gain direct access to Fed payment accounts and services.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz became the first U.S. governor to ban prediction markets, signing legislation that makes it a felony to host or advertise platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket — a move the CFTC immediately challenged in federal court, arguing the industry falls under federal, not state, jurisdiction.
HSBC became the first lender to automate remortgage cases using LMS's DART technology, routing straightforward applications through a fully automated process to reduce delays and protect borrowers from inadvertently rolling onto higher variable rates. Swiss digital asset bank Sygnum became the first regulated Swiss bank to execute live AI agent-driven blockchain transactions, using a "human-in-the-loop" model that kept clients in control of their private keys at every step.
Standard Chartered announced plans to cut roughly 7,800 back-office jobs — over 15% of those roles — by 2030 as AI and automation take over functions across its global hubs in India, Malaysia, Poland, and China.
Quote of the Week
“Leaving Stablecon EMEA energized 🚀 (and slightly running on conference adrenaline) Stop thinking about stablecoins as a product. Start thinking about them as infrastructure. The opportunity is about building rails that can help money move faster, with more flexibility, and across more places.” - Maike Hornung, Head of Crypto Europe at Visa
Fintech
Product Launches
Neobank Revolut launched its first physical crypto debit card—a Dogecoin-themed card featuring an LED display that lights up during contactless transactions—across the UK and Europe.
Offshore banking platform nsave announced financial services providing underbanked Syrians both inside the country and abroad with trusted, international US dollar accounts.
Institutional crypto custodian BitGo unveiled a modular, bank-ready digital asset operating model allowing traditional financial institutions to integrate features like qualified custody, staking, and token settlement.
Financial operations platform Modern Treasury launched Global USD Accounts: named U.S. accounts with personal routing and account numbers, available to individuals and businesses worldwide.
Digital asset security provider Fireblocks introduced its new Agentic Payments Suite and joined the governing x402 Foundation to establish secure infrastructure for stablecoin payments initiated directly by AI agents.
Dakota launched its Self-Serve platform, which completely opens up its financial infrastructure to any development team without requiring a sales call or a demo gate.
Tokenization alliance AllUnity prepared a fully compliant, Swedish krona-backed stablecoin.
Global payroll provider Deel expanded its cross-border capabilities by launching stablecoin salary payouts for international contractors alongside appointing a new dedicated head of crypto.
SPONSORED
When Mercury's 3DS-authenticated transactions became a concentrated source of fraud risk, they needed a solution built into the authorization flow, not layered on top of it. By expanding their partnership with Lithic, Mercury gained programmable, real-time controls that cut total card fraud losses tied to 3DS transactions by 40%, without compromising the cardholder experience. See how they did it. Read the case study.
Want to sponsor a newsletter? See our sponsorship information here.
Other News
Swedish buy-now-pay-later pioneer Klarna integrated its network of 500,000 retail partners into OpenAI's ChatGPT, allowing users to receive personalized product recommendations.
Partnership Corner
Crypto payments network Mesh* joined the Global Dollar Network as an interoperability layer.
Payments giant MoneyGram partnered with Stripe-backed blockchain network Tempo to serve as an anchor remittance validator, integrating stablecoin infrastructure directly into real-world cross-border money transfers.
The Bad News
California regulators fined fintech startup Yotta $1 million for misleading thousands of customers into believing their funds were FDIC-insured before transferring them to Synapse Brokerage LLC, a middleware firm that later went bankrupt and froze millions in deposits.
Authorities in the United States arrested Marcin P, the fugitive founder of prominent Polish currency-exchange fintech Cinkciarz, who now faces extradition to Poland under an Interpol Red Notice for allegedly laundering money and defrauding over 7,000 customers.
Intuit announced plans to lay off roughly 3,000 employees—amounting to 17% of its global workforce—in a sweeping structural reorganization aimed at cutting down corporate complexity and redirecting resources heavily into artificial intelligence.
