Hello Fintech Friends,
Welcome to the new readers who’ve joined us since last week. You’re joining 200,000+ other subscribers. Today's newsletter is brought to you by our friends at Alloy.
We’re excited to begin the next chapter in This Week in Fintech.
In our continued pursuit to build the front page of fintech, we’re thrilled to share that Plaid is acquiring TWIF. You can read the Axios article here.
At TWIF, what started out as a single fintech newsletter 6 ½ years ago has grown over time into the largest global fintech community, with 200k+ subscribers, 75k+ event attendees, and 10k+ members of our online channels.
Plaid has been a big part of that story: we’ve profiled them to our readers and interviewed CEO Zach Perret on the podcast. We’ve been long-time admirers of the fintech-first platform they’ve built to scale financial innovation.
In my 2019 TechCrunch article, Who will the winners be in the future of fintech?, Plaid was the first example I picked. At the time, I wrote, “It’s possible in 2020 to build a range of powerful financial products because fintechs can pull in robust data through aggregator services like Plaid, so a bet on the fintech industry is, in a sense, a derivative bet on Plaid.”
That has only become more true over the past 6 years.
That is why we are excited to join them to continue building the largest global fintech community and the front page of fintech. Our thesis remains the same as it has been: A better informed and more connected ecosystem moves the category forward. It helps founders move faster, build better products, and make informed decisions. That’s good for consumers, and good for fintech.
We think this is a moment when the industry needs more great content, more thoughtful conversation, and more places for people to learn from each other
We share a belief that fintech is still early, and that the best ideas need a place to be surfaced, challenged, and improved, working across fintech, banks, and consumers.
Our north star mission statement remains the same: Be the most trusted voice in the global fintech community and provide a way for people to easily digest everything happening in fintech.
Even with this new partnership, we retain our commitment to truly independent journalism and editorial coverage. TWIF will operate as an independent subsidiary of Plaid, with its own goals and mission. We want to build the best product for you, the people in TWIF’s community, and the question we will keep asking ourselves is what will drive fintech forward.
We couldn’t be more excited for this next chapter.
(Importantly: Stablecon and The Fintech Fund will remain entirely independent.)
Want to get involved? Have questions? Reach out!
You can find Zach’s writeup about this on his linkedin and you can join the conversation in the TWIF online community here.
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 an enhanced subscription management tool that provided consumers with better visibility and control over their recurring digital payments.
BMO partnered with MSN Holding Limited to integrate the DollarGPS application, making it the first bank to utilize the technology for financial innovation.
Bank of Montreal planned the development of a tokenized cash platform to modernize its digital asset capabilities and streamline institutional transactions.
JPMorgan piloted new software designed to track the working hours of junior bankers to ensure compliance with labor policies.
Other News
Visa is overcoming legacy infrastructure challenges by implementing a single API to streamline and enhance its intelligent authorization process and joined the Canton Network as a "super validator," to support interoperability across decentralized financial networks.
JPMorgan offered institutional clients a new credit default swap basket specifically designed to hedge against risks associated with AI-related debt.
New York State moved to mandate that retail stores accept physical cash, aiming to protect unbanked consumers from the rise of cashless-only establishments.
The SEC approved a proposal by Nasdaq to allow the trading of tokenized securities, marking a significant regulatory milestone for digital assets on traditional exchanges.
U.S. Senators struck a deal with the White House to resolve a long-standing legislative clash over how banks handle cryptocurrency custody.
HSBC explored new applications for quantum computing to improve its risk management modeling and fraud detection capabilities.
Quote of the Week
"Our collective failure to paint a better picture of the future is a huge risk for our ecosystem. But it’s also an incredible opportunity for startup founders who see the world differently and dare to lean into this moment." - Ashley Mayer
Fintech
Product Launches
Finix partnered with Plaid* to enhance bank account verification and streamline money movement for its merchant customers.
Starling Bank rolled out an agentic AI money manager to provide customers with automated, personalized financial insights and budgeting tools.
Dravo launched a new AI-driven investing app developed by a hedge fund veteran known for outperforming the S&P 500.
Yahoo Finance introduced the "Builders Hub," featuring original programming and a personalized news experience for entrepreneurs and investors.
Aviva released a specialized insurance application on ChatGPT to assist users with policy inquiries and claims processing through conversational AI.
Feedzai unveiled RiskFM, a foundational AI risk model designed to improve the speed and accuracy of fraud detection for financial institutions.
SPONSORED
Manual investigations slow growth. Alloy’s AI Assistant analyzes open cases, summarizes risk signals, and recommends next steps aligned to your policies — directly inside your system of record. The result? Move faster. Stay compliant. Scale growth.
Want to sponsor a newsletter? See our sponsorship information here.
Upcoming Events
Jobs of the Week
Other News
Revolut reported record-breaking annual profits for 2025, driven by massive user growth and a successful expansion into credit products.
Solana secured partnerships with Mastercard, Western Union, and Worldpay to power its new high-speed stablecoin settlement platform.
Venmo enabled its users to send money directly to PayPal accounts globally, bridging the gap between the two payment ecosystems for international transfers.
British lender-turned-neobank Zopa announced 2x annual profit before tax of £65 million and almost 2 million users.
Partnership Corner
Facebook tapped Stripe to power a new one-click checkout feature designed specifically for agentic commerce and AI-driven shopping experiences.
The New York Stock Exchange and Securitize signed a memorandum of understanding to collaborate on the infrastructure required to support tokenized securities.
Invesco entered the tokenization race by taking over Superstate’s $900 million on-chain fund, significantly expanding its digital asset footprint.
The Bad News
YC-backed compliance startup Delve has been accused of systematically faking SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, and GDPR compliance reports for hundreds of clients
Crypto.com axed 12% of its workforce, citing the increased adoption of AI and automation as the primary driver for the staff reductions.
Balancer Labs announced it would shut down as a corporate entity after a $110 million exploit rendered the legal structure a significant liability.
The Bank of London received a £2 million fine from regulators for making misleading claims regarding its capital position and financial strength.
