Hello Fintech Friends,

Welcome to the 728 new readers who’ve joined us since last week. You’re joining 205,000+ other subscribers. Today's newsletter is brought to you by our good friends at Plaid.

This Week in Fintech turns six years old this month.

It's hard to believe how far fintech has come since this newsletter started in 2019. Robinhood wasn't a public company. Visa hadn't yet tried to acquire Plaid. Nobody knew the acronyms BaaS or BNPL. And a small corporate card issuer called Ramp had just launched to users.

We've been there every step of the way and we're excited to be there with you for the next six years and beyond.

Here's a screenshot of that first newsletter:

Thank you for being a part of our journey!

Onward 🚀

Please enjoy another week of fintech and banking news below.

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

Lenders who adopt cash flow underwriting today are setting the pace for tomorrow’s market. Plaid’s new lending guide shows you exactly how to get started—from why cash flow data matters to how to integrate it into your tech stack and measure its impact. Download the guide today and take the first step toward smarter, more inclusive lending.

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Financial Services & Banking

Product Launches

Mastercard and Zand launched a cross-border payments solution in the UAE using Mastercard Move’s platform to offer deposit and cash pickup services, supporting P2P payments, business payments, card, and mobile wallet payments.

Other News

Visa expanded its Click-to-Pay checkout service across the Asia-Pacific region through partnerships with 2C2P, Adyen, AsiaPay, and Worldpay.

Apollo Global Management and Motive Partners formed a new private-markets services firm by merging Alchelyst and Lyra Client Solutions to streamline fund administration for institutional investors and wealth advisers.

A North Dakota judge vacated the Federal Reserve’s 2011 cap on debit-card “swipe fees,” ruling the Fed had exceeded its authority, although the order was paused pending appeal.

Truist Financial Corporation announced a multi-year, multimarket investment that included building 100 new “insights-driven” branches and renovating over 300 more in high-growth U.S. markets.

Fintech

Product Launches

MetaMask partnered with M0 and Bridge to launch its own stablecoin, MetaMask USD ($mUSD), becoming the first self-custodial wallet to integrate a native stablecoin deeply across its ecosystem.

Kanye West.... yes, Kanye.... launched the YZY meme coin to bring his brand into the trending meme-coin culture. It spiked at $3B and crashed to $300M.

Wyoming launched the Frontier Stable Token (FRNT), the first state-issued stablecoin in the US. The state deployed FRNT across multiple blockchains including Ethereum, Solana, and Avalanche, with interest from its reserves earmarked for the state’s School Foundation Fund.

8am (formerly AffiniPay) relaunched to unify its solutions under a single platform for legal, accounting, and client-focused professionals.

Robinhood UK rolled out an AI-powered investing assistant to help users decode market movements with plain-English summaries.

Lenders who adopt cash flow underwriting today are setting the pace for tomorrow’s market. Plaid’s new lending guide shows you exactly how to get started—from why cash flow data matters to how to integrate it into your tech stack and measure its impact. Download the guide today and take the first step toward smarter, more inclusive lending.

Want to sponsor a newsletter? See our sponsorship information here.

Other News

Anchorage Digital Bank became the first federally chartered stablecoin issuer following the enactment of the GENIUS Act.

JPYC Inc. started planning to issue Japan’s first yen-denominated stablecoin, set to launch as early as this autumn.

Klarna reported a net loss of US $53 million in Q2 while outlining its expansion plans in the US and agreed to sell up to US $26 billion of its US Buy-Now-Pay-Later loans to student-loan giant Nelnet.

Partnership Corner

Payment provider Worldpay partnered with Trulioo, the identity platform, to introduce new safeguards for AI-powered agent-led commerce.

The Bad News

Adyen tumbled after it lowered its annual revenue forecast and cited US tariffs and a weak dollar as the cause.

One of the founders of lender service provider Blueacorn pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in a Paycheck Protection Program fraud scheme.

N26 investors negotiated to oust the co-CEO founders after watchdog BaFin identified risk-management failings.

Blueacorn’s co-founder pleaded guilty to wire-fraud in a scheme that fraudulently obtained PPP relief funds.