Know What's Happening in FinTech
Know What's Happening in FinTech
FinTech Pulse
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Daily
Every morning
Weekly
Tuesday recap
Ironlight Group, an Austin‑based fintech, announced a $21 million Series A round. The round was backed by Greg Braca, the Sei Development Foundation and Laidlaw Private Equity. The capital will be used to scale Ironlight Markets’ alternative trading system and its tokenized securities platform. CEO Rob McGrath aims to build infrastructure for a global market in digital and traditional securities.
Duplo, a Nigerian B2B payments platform, secured Systems Integrator and Access Point Provider licences from the Nigeria Revenue Service. The dual licences let the company generate NRS‑compliant e‑invoices, transmit them automatically, and settle payments within its platform. Nigeria’s digital tax...
The Money Motion 2026 fintech conference in Zagreb highlighted that the technology to digitize finance is mature, yet adoption bottlenecks remain in institutions and legacy systems. In wealth management, 69% of institutional investors now favor firms with sophisticated digital platforms...
Founded in 2014, smartKYC automates KYC and due‑diligence for financial institutions using AI, multilingual NLP and federated search. The platform creates unified entity profiles that combine identity, risk, network and opportunity data, enabling faster onboarding, continuous monitoring and reduced manual...
Hana Financial Group has signed a strategic agreement with Standard Chartered to cooperate across global finance and digital‑asset services, including investment banking, money markets, foreign exchange and crypto‑related offerings. The deal builds on Hana’s recent collaborations with Circle and Crypto.com...
Safaricom will roll out a phone‑number masking feature for M‑PESA transaction alerts at the end of March 2026. Alerts will replace full numbers with a partially hidden format such as 0722*000**, while still displaying the sender’s first and second names....
Fino Payments Bank’s shares tumbled 17% to a 52‑week low after a report that the Directorate General of GST Intelligence may recommend an Enforcement Directorate probe into online‑gaming related transactions. The bank refuted the claim, labeling it speculative, while its...
Willis, through its GB Affinity unit, has partnered with European insurtech Qover to create an embedded insurance ecosystem for UK businesses. The joint offering combines Willis’ broking expertise and Radar analytics with Qover’s API‑driven platform, enabling rapid, product‑agnostic insurance programs...
Recent advances in natural language processing, especially transformer models like BERT, are reshaping how systematic traders extract alpha from text data. LSEG Data & Analytics reports double‑digit performance gains on GLUE benchmarks and highlights BERT’s ease of fine‑tuning with limited...
WealthAi, an AI-driven operating system for wealth managers, has partnered with Stratiphy to embed its managed portfolio services into the WealthAi platform. The integration delivers Stratiphy’s AI‑built portfolios via bank‑issued synthetic certificates, giving firms a single interface for construction, execution,...
Visa and Fiserv have broadened their European partnership by integrating the Visa Acceptance Platform into Fiserv’s merchant acquiring and processing solutions. The API‑first, cloud‑based acceptance layer consolidates multiple connections into a single integration, aiming to boost authorization rates, cut fraud...
Hotstuff has launched a 14‑day Volume Championship starting March 16, rewarding the top 25 traders with a shared pool of up to $16,000 in USDC. The competition features two tiers—Tier 1 for volumes over $150 million and Tier 2 for volumes over $300 million—with the...
I have been working on the concept of $ROBOTMONEY since 2009, when I founded my first fintech company, a roboadvisor called @NestEggWealth, thereafter became @AdvisorEngine In 2015, I wrote this piece, which you can see still rhymes with how the future...
The branch is no longer the center of gravity. Smartphones and the Internet define where banking lives today. Adapt or become irrelevant. https://t.co/13Zq2pzn3j
On 12 March 2026 the Australian Treasury released tranche 1 exposure drafts to overhaul the regulatory framework for payment service providers. The package replaces the purchased payment facility regime with Australian Financial Services licensing for stored‑value facilities and grants APRA prudential powers over...
Community bankers are warning that the Federal Reserve’s request for information on the future of its check‑clearing services could lead to an abrupt shutdown of the system, harming elderly, rural customers and small businesses that still rely on paper checks....
The fintech digest highlights a new Islamic neobank preparing to launch across Africa, promising Sharia‑compliant digital banking services. Europe sees payment‑industry turbulence as Mastercard strengthens China ties and Airwallex scales its European footprint, while a freelancer‑focused platform secures a $35 million...
Experian has partnered with OpenAI to embed its credit‑score benchmark tool inside ChatGPT for UK consumers. The integration lets users query average credit scores by postcode and age group, presenting anonymized, aggregate data in natural language. By avoiding personal data...
Lithuanian fintech Chaseit.ai has entered live production with AI agents that automate loan‑servicing calls. The agents manage inbound and outbound interactions, verifying identities, reminding borrowers, negotiating repayment plans, and escalating complex issues to human staff. Within seven months of founding,...
Butter Payments CEO Charles Rosenblatt argues that in volatile markets, subscription firms must shift focus from acquisition to data‑driven retention. Machine‑learning models can analyze vast anonymized data to pinpoint churn drivers, payment failures, and high‑LTV prospects. By operationalising these insights,...
The article highlights that payment system downtime costs extend far beyond immediate lost sales, affecting customer trust, brand reputation, cash flow, and employee productivity. It details how outages force teams into crisis mode, create communication gaps, and expose operational weaknesses...
PhonePe, one of India’s largest digital‑payments platforms, has temporarily halted its planned initial public offering due to heightened geopolitical tensions involving Iran, Israel and the United States. The company cited volatility in global capital markets and said it will resume...
KCM Trade, a global CFD broker, has introduced KCM Trade Copy, a mobile copy‑trading platform now available on iOS and Android. The app lets clients automatically mirror the trades of vetted Master Traders in real time, with adjustable lot sizes,...
Algeria’s fintech ecosystem in 2026 remains modest, with roughly 30‑35 startups focused on payments, digital banking and crypto services. Recent policy moves, including the Fintech Strategy 2024‑2030 and the Bank of Algeria’s entry into the Pan‑African Payment and Settlement System,...
The Philippine Senate approved Senate Bill No. 1917, the Overseas Filipino Workers’ Remittance Protection Act, on its third and final reading. The law mandates remittance providers to disclose fees and foreign‑exchange rates, and it caps unreasonable charges. It also introduces...
Visa warns that check fraud now accounts for roughly 30% of U.S. fraud losses in 2024, with checks being 31 times more likely to be fraudulent than real‑time transactions. Criminals are leveraging both traditional methods such as check washing and...
Optasia, the AI‑driven fintech, posted R4.4 billion revenue for 2025, a 76% year‑on‑year increase, surpassing its IPO guidance. Adjusted EBITDA rose 52% to R1.9 billion, delivering a 43.2% margin, while normalized net income grew 57% to R973 million. The company expanded its user...
StoneX Group, the Nasdaq‑listed financial services firm behind FOREX.com and City Index, has submitted an all‑cash offer to acquire CAB Payments at 95 pence per share. The bid represents a 32% premium to CAB’s undisturbed price of 72 pence and...
UK banks have lost at least a third of market share to fintechs - https://t.co/Rr47lI3LqE
PawaPay has partnered with online trading platform Deriv to enable mobile‑money deposits in eight African countries, with plans to broaden coverage across the continent. The integration gives Deriv users a single, compliant connection to local mobile operators, allowing instant funding...
On March 16, 2026, the Financial Action Task Force issued a report that expands stablecoin oversight to include secondary‑market transactions and peer‑to‑peer wallet activity. The new guidance requires issuers and virtual‑asset service providers to deploy advanced multi‑hop tracing tools and...
Yellow announced the launch of its proprietary, non‑custodial cross‑chain trading platform, accompanied by the native $YELLOW utility token. The platform leverages state‑channel technology to execute orders off‑chain with instant peer‑to‑peer matching, while settlement occurs on‑chain for finality. Collateral is cryptographically...
DTCC’s National Securities Clearing Corporation (NSCC) is adding a Universal Trade Capture (UTC) reporting enhancement that delivers direct trade‑capture data tied to a firm’s MPID. The service is optional for full‑service NSCC members that clear or introduce broker‑dealers through another...
Qomply, a regulatory‑technology firm specializing in transaction reporting, has opened a new office in Hong Kong, extending its footprint in the Asia‑Pacific region. The expansion comes as Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong roll out extensive OTC derivatives reporting reforms, marking...
The latest semi‑monthly column by Sabrina I. Pacifici surveys AI’s rapid penetration of finance, highlighting six research strands. It examines how large language models influence bargaining games, maps AI‑driven fiscal actions across 64 countries, and cites Anthropic’s warning that hedge‑fund...
Bank Negara Malaysia has issued a new Technology Risk Management Policy for payment service providers, consolidating existing tech‑related requirements into a single framework. The policy introduces a tiered, proportional approach that aligns security and resilience obligations with the size and...
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South African Airways (SAA) has become the first major African carrier to embed Bitcoin payments directly into its booking platform, partnering with fintech Ozow and crypto‑bridge MoneyBadger. The checkout generates a Lightning Network QR code, instantly converting the digital asset...
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reports that most of the six licensed digital banks are still unprofitable, with only Maya Bank and OF Bank posting net income. Despite early losses, the sector shows strong asset growth, with deposits reaching...
Chase has opened registration for the Q2 2026 bonus categories on its Freedom Flex credit card, allowing members to earn 5x points on Amazon, Chase Travel and Feeding America donations, each capped at $1,500 of spend. The travel category stacks with...
Robinhood has launched an invite‑only Platinum Credit Card priced at $695 per year, positioning it below the Amex Platinum ($895) and Chase Sapphire Reserve ($795) fees. The new card, issued by Coastal Community Bank, follows the 2024 Gold Card and...
I keep seeing Airwallex's logo everywhere lately. McLaren F1 cars. Arsenal kits. Now the SF Giants jerseys. Had to look them up. Turns out they're a payments company worth $12B that most people have never heard of. And instead of running ads...
Fintech in 2026 is defined by a flood of AI tools such as Gemini, ChatGPT, and Claude, creating a crowded analytical landscape. Facebook’s entry with the AI‑driven platform Manus signals a new wave of tech giants targeting financial services. An...
Macro: crypto and trad markets converge—PrimeXBT launches PXTrader 2.0. Key: crypto funding, TradingView, up to 1:1000 leverage. Risk: leverage magnifies losses. Trade: limit position size. — Viktor Kopylov, PhD, CFA. More insights: t.me/si14Kopylov
Every DeFi primitive makes sense for AI companies: AMMs = instant liquidity for agent trades Lending = programmatic capital allocation Oracles = real-time data feeds Smart contracts = trustless execution It's the perfect financial stack for entities that never sleep
The week’s highlights cover Coinbase’s x402 payment protocol, AWS’s banking‑on‑the‑cloud report, the U.S. Treasury’s smart‑regulation guidance for digital assets, the industry’s shift toward branchless, cashless banking, and the use of crypto to evade sanctions. x402 promises internet‑speed, open payments that...
New writeup: Shift4 Payments: A Fintech Compounder Trading Like a Melting Ice Cube 7x free cash flow for a business compounding at 20%+ $FOUR Link in bio https://t.co/R6SWOw4hoQ
Digitally enabled challengers meet customers in real time with relevant offers. Traditional institutions must rethink how and where they show up. https://t.co/SiOwf3NiXx
The second part of SimplySfdc’s guide tackles real‑world hurdles when linking Salesforce payment workflows with QuickBooks and Stripe. It outlines six common integration pain points—record matching, field‑mapping gaps, timestamp drift, API throttling, security misconfigurations, and unreliable Stripe webhooks. For each...
Oobit, an open payments platform backed by Tether and Solana, has named Katashe Group as its strategy, research, and ecosystem‑innovation partner. The alliance will generate market insights and experience frameworks to help Asian Web 2 platforms integrate digital‑asset wallets with traditional...
On March 5, a U.S. District Court in Illinois denied a fintech’s motion to dismiss a class action alleging its earned‑wage‑access (EWA) product violates the Truth in Lending Act and the Military Lending Act. The court held that EWA advances can...
