Monzo Posts 44% Profit Surge and Announces Spanish Launch
Monzo reported a 44% jump in pre‑tax profit to £87.3 million ($111 million) for the year to March 2026 and announced its first foray into Spain as part of a broader EU expansion. The earnings boost came from higher lending income, a surge in paid‑subscription users and a 55% rise in customer deposits.
Plaid’s Payment Assurance and Other Digital Transactions News Briefs From 5/20/26
Plaid introduced Plaid Guaranteed Payments, a real‑time bank payment service that approves transactions in milliseconds and backs settlement, covering losses on failures. Devenex launched a platform to govern AI agents in online commerce, while Fireblocks unveiled an Agentic Payments Suite...
Embedded Payments Are Becoming Core to Vertical SaaS
In this episode, host Rima Katz talks with Brad Penneke of Worldpay and Don Apgar of Javelin Strategy about how vertical SaaS platforms are evolving from niche tools into core operating systems for SMBs, with embedded payments becoming a natural...
Digital Wallet Infrastructure in the US: What Sits Behind Apple Pay, Google Wallet and the Next Layer of Fintechs
The article dissects the layered infrastructure behind US digital wallets, highlighting tokenisation, secure elements, and network token services as the core security engine. It notes rapid adoption—Apple Pay, Google Wallet and PayPal now dominate point‑of‑sale and e‑commerce transactions, with under‑45...
Ex-CFTC Head Says Digital Dollar Is Inevitable in US
Former CFTC chairman Timothy Massad told CoinDesk at the Digital Money Summit that global market forces make a US digital dollar inevitable, despite President Trump’s public pledge to block any central bank digital currency (CBDC). He highlighted that the Federal...
Trump Order Puts Kraken, Ripple, Coinbase and Circle in Line for Fed Payment Rails
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on May 19 directing the Federal Reserve to review its policies on granting payment‑account access to non‑bank financial firms, including crypto and fintech companies. The order asks agencies to identify rules that may...
Binance Unveils X402: HTTP-Native Payments for AI Agents
NEW: Binance launched x402, a new HTTP-native programmable payment system on BNB Chain for AI agents and automated commerce https://t.co/U2Ar85E2cs
Singapore Leads Emerging Race to Become World’s First «Trusted AI Financial Hub»
DBS Group Research released a report defining the “Trusted AI Financial Hub” and introduced the Global AI Financial Hub Index (GAIFHI) to rank 15 financial centres on AI integration, governance, digital infrastructure, talent and market outcomes. Singapore emerged as the...
Cash App Will Be Financial ‘Protector,’ Dorsey Says
Jack Dorsey said Cash App will evolve into an AI‑powered "financial protector," continuously monitoring users' cash inflows and outflows. He highlighted voice‑AI as the future primary interface, enabling real‑time, predictive assistance. Dorsey also discussed Block's internal credit‑scoring system built on...
Klarna Launches ChatGPT Shopping App With Live Prices
Klarna unveiled the Klarna Shopping Search app inside ChatGPT, letting users ask natural‑language queries and receive visual product results with live prices and stock levels. The service pulls from over 100 million products and 400 million merchant listings across 13 markets, then...
Euro-Pegged Stablecoin Wins Support From Three Dozen Banks
Qivalis, a euro‑pegged stablecoin project, has added 25 new banks, bringing its backing to 37 European lenders and making it the continent’s largest stablecoin initiative. The expansion reflects growing concern among policymakers and executives about the dollar’s dominance in crypto...
Razorpay Elevates Apuarv Sethi to CMO to Accelerate SME Growth in India and Southeast Asia
Razorpay has promoted Apuarv Sethi to chief marketing officer, tasking him with driving AI‑powered marketing and SME expansion across India and Southeast Asia. The move underscores the fintech’s push to deepen brand relevance and capture a larger share of the...
SoFi Technologies Posts Wider Q1 Losses as Digital Banking Growth Slows
SoFi Technologies reported a larger-than‑expected first‑quarter loss, widening its deficit even as revenue jumped 43%. The digital‑banking firm’s stock fell 3% on the day, extending a 41% year‑to‑date decline, as investors worry about slowing loan growth, soaring Treasury yields and...
Press Release: G20 Goals for Enhancing Cross-Border Payments
The G20, together with the Financial Stability Board, has set a 2027 roadmap to overhaul cross‑border payments, aiming for faster settlement, lower costs, greater transparency, and broader access. By the end of 2027, 75% of payments should reach recipients within...
OpenAI Wants Your Bank-Account Data; Can You Trust Them with It?
OpenAI has teamed with Plaid to let ChatGPT Pro users upload bank‑account data directly into the chatbot, a move that promises personalized finance assistance but raises privacy concerns. The article likens the trust required for such data sharing to the...
NMI Acquires Dwolla, Adding $700 Billion in Transaction Volume to Embedded Payments Platform
Payments infrastructure firm NMI announced the acquisition of A2A specialist Dwolla, bringing roughly $700 billion in annual transaction volume and over 400 customers into its white‑label platform. The deal adds real‑time, FedNow and open‑banking capabilities, positioning NMI to serve a broader...
The Friendly-Fraud Frontier: Why Regulated Verticals Are Setting the Bar for Agentic Defences
Friendly fraud is evolving as AI tools enable both attackers and defenders, prompting regulated sectors such as banking and online gambling to adopt agentic payment defenses. These systems act before settlement, compiling cross‑platform behavioral evidence to block illegitimate chargebacks instantly....
How Can Stablecoins Drive Modern-Day Digital Assets & Innovation
Stablecoins have moved from niche crypto tools to core financial infrastructure across Africa, processing over $54 billion in transactions between July 2023 and June 2024. The volume represents 43% of the region’s crypto activity and is driven by small businesses, freelancers, and remittance...
Skydo Secures GIFT City PSP Licence and RBI Outward Payments License
Skydo has received in‑principle approval to operate as a Payment Service Provider at the GIFT City International Financial Services Centre, making it one of the first cross‑border fintechs with a licence there. The firm also secured RBI approval to handle...
Cloud-Native Infrastructure Reshapes the Future of Payment Processing
The payments ecosystem is moving away from legacy, batch‑based processing toward cloud‑native, API‑driven platforms. Modern infrastructures deliver real‑time transaction visibility, unified access to card networks, tokenisation, and fraud tools. Financial institutions and PSPs are adopting these scalable solutions to reduce...
Rewiring Wires: Modernizing CHIPS and Fedwire® for a New Era of Demand
Wire payments underpin trillions of dollars in daily high‑value transactions, but rising client expectations for speed, transparency, and data richness are straining the legacy CHIPS and Fedwire infrastructures. The industry faces added pressure from ISO 20022 migration, higher transaction limits, and...
Chargebacks911, Acceptcards Partner to Strengthen Chargeback Prevention for UK Merchants
Chargebacks911 has teamed up with UK payments broker acceptcards to deliver a joint chargeback‑prevention platform for British merchants. The partnership arrives as UK card‑based payments reached roughly $1.25 trillion across 31.4 billion transactions in 2024, with friendly fraud now representing 45% of...
Predictive Fraud Modeling: Analytical Techniques for Anticipating Future Fraud Trends
Predictive fraud modeling leverages machine learning to anticipate emerging fraud types, techniques, and trends. Core techniques include logistic regression for binary probability estimates, decision trees for rule‑based hierarchical classification, and neural networks that capture complex transaction patterns. Ensemble methods such...
Best Payment Processing Providers in Africa
Africa’s payment landscape is fragmented, with mobile money dominant in some regions and card payments prevalent in others. Choosing a payment service provider (PSP) therefore hinges on regional preferences, regulatory exposure, and transaction volume. The guide highlights AvadaPay for Central...
Open Banking Meets AI: Policy Innovation at Toronto Symposium
Excited to be in Toronto at the Canada FinTech Symposium 2026 today speaking on 'Open Banking & Policy Innovation in the Age of AI' with my @chyppings hat on! @CanadaSymp70327 #AgenticAI #OpenBanking #Fintech https://t.co/dgaNbjaSLS
NCUA Moves to Block Illinois Swipe Fee Law
The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) has submitted a rule to preempt Illinois' Interchange Fee Prohibition Act, which would ban credit‑card operators from charging interchange fees on taxes and tips. The rule, sent to the OMB’s Office of Information and...
XP Fintech Posts 21% Asset Surge to BRL 2.1 Trillion in Q1 2026
XP Holdings announced a 21% year‑over‑year increase in total client assets to BRL 2.1 trillion ($420 bn) and gross revenue of $4.9 bn for Q1 2026. The growth was driven by retail inflows, higher trading volumes and a new fee‑model shift, even as credit‑market...
New Agentic Commerce Standards Enable Secure AI Payments
Yup we've got updates on #AgenticCommerce at @Google 's #GoogleIO We've got the expansion of UCP, an open standard co-developed with major tech companies like Amazon and Microsoft, and its application in various sectors. The Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) ensures...
Apple Launches AirPods Pro 3 Bonus for New Apple Card Users
Apple has rolled out a new Apple Card promotion tied to the AirPods Pro 3, offering up to $250 in Bonus Daily Cash. To qualify, customers must open a new Apple Card, buy the AirPods Pro 3 by June 15, 2026, and then make at least...
WEX Shares Drop 16% After 13D Management Sells $4.6 Million Stake
On May 15, 2026, 13D Management sold its entire 29,350‑share holding in WEX for an estimated $4.59 million. The transaction sparked a 16% plunge in WEX’s share price, underscoring the volatility that fintech stocks face amid heightened investor scrutiny.
Chime CEO: Pursuing Bank Charter Is ‘a when, Not If’
Chime’s CEO Chris Britt told investors that obtaining a U.S. bank charter is a matter of "when," not "if," as the fintech re‑evaluates timing amid a regulator‑friendly climate. The company currently serves about 10.2 million monthly active members and partners with...
Eye on Fraud: Mastercard Merchant Trust Services Debuts; Darwinium Takes on Remote Access Scams
Mastercard introduced Merchant Trust Services, a new fraud‑prevention offering that leverages its network‑wide intelligence to screen merchants during onboarding and ongoing monitoring. The program obliges acquirers and payment facilitators to investigate any risk indicator within 72 hours and block confirmed...
Taurus to Expand Across EU
Taurus, a Swiss‑regulated digital‑asset infrastructure firm, secured a MiFID investment‑firm licence from Cyprus in May, granting it a fully regulated presence across all 27 EU markets. The licence enables Taurus to offer tokenized DLT instruments and support EU‑based institutions under...
Klarna Q1 2026 Revenue Jumps 44% to $1.01B, BNPL Gains Momentum
Klarna reported first‑quarter 2026 revenue of $1.012 billion, up 44% year‑over‑year, with GMV reaching $33.7 billion. The Swedish BNPL leader highlighted operating leverage, a surge in Fair Financing, and fresh payment‑processor deals as the engine of its growth.
PayPal Pays $30 Million to Settle DOJ DEI Probe
PayPal has agreed to a $30 million settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice to resolve an investigation into its Economic Opportunity Fund, a DEI‑focused program for Black and minority‑owned businesses. The deal requires the payments giant to waive fees for...
Introducing Hotstuff Invest - 24/7 Spot Trading for Tokenized Stocks, ETFs & Crypto Assets
Hotstuff has launched Hotstuff Invest, a 24/7 spot market for tokenized U.S. stocks, ETFs and crypto assets built on its DracoBFT consensus and xStocks integration. Each token is fully backed 1:1 by real shares held with Alpaca’s Instant Tokenisation Network...
One API Powers All Neobank Functions
Imagine how easy it would be for neobanks to get every capability from a single open stack. Wallets, ramps, crosschain routing, compliance, settlement in one API. That is what we are building. Reach out.
Beyond Access: When Does Digital Finance Actually Empower Women?
Recent research across South Asia and sub‑Saharan Africa shows that digital financial services can meaningfully empower women, but only when products mirror how women already manage money. Features such as labelled sub‑accounts for earmarking, early‑wage withdrawals, and staged insurance payouts...
Affirm Bets on Banks, Bots, and Shopify to Reach $100 Billion in GMV
Affirm outlined a three‑pronged growth plan at its investor day, targeting $100 billion in annual gross merchandise volume. The plan hinges on expanding core BNPL offerings, launching "Affirm Edge" to embed buy‑now‑pay‑later in bank and credit‑union apps, and deepening its Shopify...
The Fast-Moving Future of Digital Payments – Iana Dimitrova, OpenPayd
OpenPayd CEO Iana Dimitrova told the UKTN podcast that AI agents will soon conduct payments without human input. She noted the Bank of England governor’s warning that stablecoins may threaten the nature of money. Dimitrova also announced OpenPayd’s plan to...
Where Stablecoin Use Is Growing
Analyst reports from S&P Global and Moody’s show stablecoins gaining traction in cross‑border payments, offering settlement costs of 0.1%‑0.5% versus the typical 6% remittance fee. The market holds about $269 billion today, projected to rise to $434 billion by 2028, with 99%...
The Real Problem with African Payments Isn’t Technology – Ehi Ijewere, Senior Product Manager at KoraPay
Senior Product Manager Ehi Ijewere at Kora argues that Africa’s payment challenges stem from fragmentation, not technology. He emphasizes that understanding local market nuances—bank transfers in Nigeria, mobile money in Kenya, card payments in Egypt—is essential before scaling fintech solutions....
Klarna's Stock Slides 62% From IPO Peak as Profit Turns Positive
Klarna's shares have fallen 62% from their first‑day closing price a year after the 2025 IPO, while the Swedish BNPL leader posted its first net profit in Q1 2026, driven by higher merchant fees, a booming Fair Financing product and...
Monzo Profits Soar Amid European Expansion
Monzo announced a record £1 billion (≈$1.27 billion) gross profit, marking its third straight year of profitability. Adjusted profit before tax jumped 20% to £172.6 million (≈$219 million) while revenue rose 39%, with four core streams each topping £300 million (≈$381 million). The bank added 3 million...
OpenAI Launches Account‑Linking Finance Tools for ChatGPT Pro, Targeting 200 Million Users
OpenAI unveiled personal‑finance tools for ChatGPT Pro on May 15, 2026, letting subscribers link bank, credit‑card and investment accounts through Plaid. The read‑only feature, priced at $100‑$200 a month, puts AI‑driven budgeting and portfolio dashboards within reach of its 200 million...
Stablecoin Market Could Hit $3 Trillion by 2030, Says Treasury Official
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned that the stablecoin industry, now valued at $300 billion, may swell to $3 trillion by the end of 2030. The projection fuels heightened activity from payment giants, banks and issuers seeking to lock in a share of...
Monzo Reports Revenue and Profits Leap
Monzo announced FY2026 revenue of £1.7 bn (≈$2.2 bn), up 39% year‑over‑year, and pre‑tax profit of £87.3 m (≈$111 m), a 44% increase. The digital bank added three million customers, bringing its total to 15.2 million, and grew customer deposits to £25.7 bn (≈$32.6 bn), a 55% rise....
Why the FCA’s Open Finance Roadmap Won’t Fix SME Finance Unless It Fixes Cash Flow Too
On 14 April 2026 the FCA unveiled its Open Finance roadmap, extending data‑sharing beyond Open Banking to cover lending, savings and mortgages. The initiative promises faster, data‑driven credit decisions for SMEs, especially those lacking traditional credit histories. However, the article argues that...
Fintech Awards London Evaluates High-Growth Innovators as Capital Reclaims Investment Mojo
Fintech Awards London has entered a three‑day evaluation phase, narrowing nearly 300 applications to 90 finalists and conducting the first round of 30 face‑to‑face interviews. The new human‑centric format lets judges assess founders directly, moving beyond paper metrics. Industry leaders...
E‑commerce Credit‑card Spend Matches POS, UPI Leads
Credit cards: Ecommerce has really picked up and is now equal to pos terminal transactions by value. UPI of course is a massive scale larger (next tweet) https://t.co/LKkJOfz8QL