Hello Fintech Friends,

Welcome to the 622 new readers who’ve joined us since last week. You’re joining 234,000+ other subscribers who aren't too worried about the impact that AI will have on financial services tech. Today's newsletter is brought to you by our friends at Global Dollar Network.

I'm writing this update while crammed into a middle seat on a delayed flight out of LGA, which is always a good opportunity to think a bit more deeply about the current moment in fintech.

One Big Thought: The SaaS-death of the universe

Markets continued their massive software selloff this week, as investor anxiety about the impact of AI coding on software product moats deepened.

I am of the opinion that legacy software businesses like Salesforce, Adobe, and Dropbox have much more important medium-term moats than product development. Investors underrate the importance of human inertia, edge-case aversion, procurement processes, and the desire to minimize service providers. Yes, there are teams that will vibe-code point solutions that help them replace expensive legacy SaaS products, but for now, these are the exception and not the rule. Consider SAP and Oracle, probably the two most unloved enterprise SaaS businesses, but giants in the field – ripping and replacing an ERP is about a lot more than just the tech, and if companies with 1,000-person engineering teams did not rip the bandaid before Claude Code, it's not likely that they'll do it after either.

With that said, for SaaS, it's time to wake up and hear the message: Innovate or die. A new generation of AI-native users and heads of procurement will be here sooner than you think, with less patience for providers that don't use AI.

What does this mean for fintech?

I strongly believe that core SaaS in heavily-regulated areas is not going anywhere soon. Electronic medical records, paymetns providers, government data platforms, benefits managers, insurance systems, etc... There is real pain that goes into building a regulated product, and much of the moat comes from the arcane patchwork of licenses and tests required to legally operate. Enterprise customers are not going to trust customer payments to a vibe-coded solution, whether internal or external, and it only takes one big data loss or security issue for individuals to pause.

With that said, fintech can't rest on its laurels forever.

Yes, a battle-tested product with up-to-date compliance and licenses is an important head-start for a payments, lending, banking, or investing business. And yes, "zero switching-cost" is usually a mirage (behavior is sticky).

But AI-native competitors will catch up. And the question every integrated fintech provider should be asking itself is "can I revamp my product before they can recreate it?"

Elsewhere, the FT published a great article this week on stablecoins, The WhatsApp moment for money is here. "This is the year that stablecoins are becoming part of the mainstream for online and international payments – Just as chat apps like WhatsApp collapsed the cost of international messaging from, say, 30 cents per text to zero, stablecoins are doing the same in financial transactions."

Don't miss out on stablecoins – your competitors won't.

We'll see you at Stablecon 2026:

One company that is definitely not missing out on the opportunities provided by stablecoins is Coinbase.

I sat down yesterday with Coinbase CFO Alesia Haas to discuss Coinbase's annual 2025 earnings, in which she shared that the company's USDC holdings grew to $18 billion by EOY and stablecoin revenues jumped to $1.4 billion by year-end. Interestingly, the exchange is seeing usage of stablecoins outside of just conventional trading and investing.

As Alesia noted, "We're building business accounts to enable people to transact in USDC just as they would USD for a lot of their business payment needs. We think it's an important growth driver and has had significant product market fit and we see a lot of demand for stablecoin usage across our platform."

Listen to the full conversation here on Spotify.

Coinbase 2025 Earnings, with CFO Alesia Haas

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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 introduced a dedicated digital platform to support U.S. small businesses, offering a suite of tools, resources, and financial services aimed at helping entrepreneurs scale their operations and improve their digital payment capabilities.

Fiserv unveiled INDX, a real-time cash settlement platform specifically for digital asset companies, allowing them to move and store U.S. dollars 24/7.

The Vatican Bank launched a new series of stock indexes designed to align with Catholic moral and social teachings.

Other News

Finastra revealed in its "State of the Nation 2026" report that only 2% of financial institutions globally reported no use of artificial intelligence.

Goldman Sachs deployed autonomous AI agents powered by Anthropic’s Claude model to automate complex, rule-based tasks in trade accounting and compliance.

BlackRock is exploring a potential strategic move into decentralized finance (DeFi) by considering the integration of Uniswap's protocol, signaling a major step toward bringing institutional-grade liquidity and traditional financial assets to the blockchain.

Ethiopia activated its new National Instant Payment System (IPS), a 24/7 interoperable gateway designed to enable immediate account-to-account transfers.

The European Payments Initiative and several regional providers wrote a Memorandum of Understanding to create a sovereign, pan-European payment network.

Quote of the Week

Fintech

Product Launches

Ramp launched a specialized AI "Accounting Agent" designed to automate manual bookkeeping and month-end close processes by auto-coding transactions with over 90% accuracy.

Feedzai and Neterium partnered to integrate advanced screening infrastructure into Feedzai's RiskOps platform.

Dispatch announced upcoming early access to an industry-first automated API for Schwab account onboarding.

Altruist introduced new AI-powered tax planning features within its Hazel platform, allowing financial advisors to analyze client tax returns and generate personalized wealth-building strategies in a matter of minutes.

Provenir launched a comprehensive decision intelligence platform to help financial services providers automate complex risk-based decisions.

LayerZero announced the development of "Zero," a new blockchain aimed at building global market infrastructure in collaboration with Citadel Securities, the DTCC, and Intercontinental Exchange.

Coinbase launched "Agentic Wallets," to provide AI agents with autonomous spending and trading capabilities through the x402 protocol.

Stripe similarly introduced its machine payments system, integrating the x402 protocol to allow businesses to programmatically charge autonomous agents using USDC on the Base network for API and model usage.

Amazon rolled out a "Pay by Bank" checkout option for its UK customers.

Square unveiled a new generative AI data assistant designed to help sellers gain instant insights into their business performance.

SPONSORED

Global Dollar Network is built on a simple idea: stablecoin rewards should go to those who drive adoption, rather than the issuer. Powered by USDG, a regulated US dollar stablecoin, the Network enables partners to earn a share of the economic upside for helping grow the asset. Join the network →

Join the network

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

Jobs of the Week

Stablecoin infrastructure provider ZeroHash is hiring a Director of Enterprise Sales, Brokerage and a Senior Relationship Manager.

Other News

Stripe deployed "Minions," a fleet of homegrown, autonomous AI coding agents that now generate over 1,000 pull requests per week.

Revolut commited $400 million to expand its Australian operations over the next five years.

Partnership Corner

Deel partnered with MoonPay to allow contractors and employees globally to receive their salaries in stablecoins.

Aviva Investors collaborated with Ripple to tokenize its money market funds on the XRP Ledger.

The Bad News

Tomocredit is once again in hot water for offering a $1,000-a-year credit-boosting product that frequently fails to improve consumer credit scores despite charging high fees; a pattern of taking money from vulnerable users without delivering promised results.

BlockFills suspended client withdrawals as the digital asset liquidity provider faces a liquidity crunch.

Betterment disclosed a data breach impacting 1.4 million accounts after a social engineering attack on a third-party communication system.

Gemini exited the UK, EU, and Australian markets while cutting 25% of its workforce.

Synergy World filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, abruptly shutting down its gift and loyalty card program.

The Financial Conduct Authority sued the crypto exchange HTX for repeatedly issuing illegal financial promotions to UK consumers.