The article examines India’s shift toward a cash‑light economy driven by UPI’s explosive growth. In December 2025 UPI recorded 21.6 billion transactions worth Rs 28 lakh crore, and in FY25 it accounted for over 83% of payment volume, pushing digital retail payments to 99% of non‑cash transactions. Despite this, cash circulation grew to 2.4% of total currency, underscoring its role as a safety net. The piece argues that readiness for a fully cashless future depends on resilient, inclusive infrastructure and policy, not just adoption rates.

Open banking is projected to generate £43 bn a year for the UK economy when fully mature. Research commissioned by Open Banking Limited and conducted by EY shows the sector has already delivered £8.2 bn in benefits, with an expected £7.4 bn annual...

Mastercard completed its first live, authenticated agentic payment in Singapore, partnering with DBS and UOB. An AI‑driven agent used Mastercard Agent Pay to book a hoppa ride to Changi Airport, leveraging tokenised credentials and Payment Passkey consent. The transaction moves...

Cashfree Payments, India’s leading payments gateway, has unveiled the “One of Your Kind” brand campaign, produced by Talented and At All Odds. The film showcases the distinct growth stories of partners such as BigBasket, Third Wave Coffee and Redbus, positioning...

Cybersecurity firm Kaspersky reported a 56 percent jump in Android banking trojan detections in 2025, accompanied by a 271 percent surge in unique malicious APKs, now exceeding 255,000. The report also found that supply‑chain attacks affected 31 percent of surveyed organizations, rising to...
Well I just learned that if you phone tap for payments it’s 1.3% surcharge but using your physical card is a flat rate of $0.30. Back to regular cards we go. Hate this stupid surcharge shit. Is it like that...

The money is the message and it’s one the industry can no longer ignore. Stablecoins are quietly embedding themselves across merchants, PSPs, acquirers, and fintechs, I shared how for January's edition of MPE Magazine: https://t.co/FOKaPjk2h6 @mpecosystem https://t.co/YMkiMaU790

Bahrain is launching a Wage Protection System (WPS) that obliges all employers to disburse salaries via licensed banks or Central Bank‑regulated payment providers, creating an electronic audit trail of wage payments. The reform replaces fragmented payment methods with a unified,...
Love seeing stuff like this make it to market Agentic commerce as a core feature of Ethereum
Blend Labs reported Q4 2021 revenue of $81 million, with its platform segment generating $37 million and Title365 $44 million. Despite a 35% drop in industry mortgage volumes, platform revenue rose 19% year‑over‑year and mortgage banking revenue grew 14%, while consumer‑banking revenue surged...
Intuit announced a multi‑year partnership with Anthropic to embed Claude AI agents into its ecosystem. The deal lets mid‑market firms build secure, customizable financial assistants while exposing Intuit services such as QuickBooks, TurboTax and Credit Karma within Anthropic’s products. It...
Axiom Trust is a regulated, vertically integrated trust company and technology platform that delivers precise, seamless administration for fiduciaries and private families. The firm emphasizes operational efficiency without competing for the client relationship. Backed by Lightspeed Venture Partners with a...
U.S. fintech is entering a third evolutionary phase where profitability, robust infrastructure, and AI‑driven efficiency eclipse the previous growth‑at‑all‑costs mindset. After two years of valuation compression, deal flow is reviving, with investors favoring companies that can demonstrate margin expansion. Stripe...

The WE BUILD consortium urges the EU to adopt a coordinated framework that embeds AI agents within the European Digital Identity (EUDI) and Business Wallet ecosystems. By leveraging verifiable credentials and cryptographic signatures, the proposal aims to secure agentic commerce—transactions...

Mastercard and Google have introduced Verifiable Intent, an open, standards‑based framework that records a cryptographic proof of a consumer’s authorization when an AI agent makes a purchase. The solution tackles the visibility gap created by autonomous AI‑driven shopping, linking identity,...
A new study by KAIST and George Washington University finds that modest, consistent use of earned‑wage access (EWA) lifts low‑income workers' savings frequency by 3.7%, boosts financial‑dashboard monitoring by 12%, and raises goal‑setting by 1.3%. The research, based on transaction...
Visa has launched its Intelligent Authorization platform for merchant acquirers across the Asia‑Pacific region. The solution offers a single‑API pathway that leverages Visa’s card‑network infrastructure, allowing banks to forego building dedicated processing stacks. Integrated AI routing selects the most cost‑effective,...

The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) has unveiled a Fast‑Track framework designed to streamline approvals for new banking and bank‑like activities in Canada. The new rules clarify capital, liquidity and supervisory expectations for deposit‑taking, credit‑card issuance, mortgages...

Payments infrastructure has moved from a back‑office function to a strategic growth lever, as platforms relying on legacy systems face higher friction, cost, and slower revenue realization. TSG and Payforge’s new whitepaper argues that modernizing payment stacks is essential to...
Microloans have become a key financing option for U.S. small businesses that cannot secure traditional bank loans. The SBA’s microloan program, administered through community development financial institutions, offers loans up to $50,000, with an average size of $13,000, and pairs...

Loandepot announced its return to the wholesale mortgage origination channel, a move it had abandoned in August 2022 after a $224 million Q2 loss. CEO Anthony Hsieh, now acting CEO, says the comeback leverages the joint‑venture shared‑services platform to drive profitable...

Fintech week pivots to the TradFi‑DeFi bridge as stablecoin platform Kast announced an $80 million financing round, signaling a move from back‑office infrastructure to mainstream financial services. Irish banks launched an in‑app instant payment service, while Visa introduced an AI‑driven intelligent...

Sonic Labs has launched USSD, a native stablecoin built on Frax’s frxUSD framework, to shore up liquidity after its TVL collapsed to $34 million—a 97% decline from its 2025 peak. The token is fully dollar‑pegged, fee‑free to mint, and backed by...

TransUnion announced a steep reduction of its VantageScore 4.0 mortgage‑origination fee to $0.99, down from $4. The move intensifies a price war sparked by the FHFA’s push for scoring‑model competition and comes as FICO and other bureaus raise their fees. TransUnion...
Amina, a Swiss‑regulated crypto bank, became the first fully regulated bank to join 21X, the EU’s pilot blockchain‑based securities trading and settlement venue. The partnership with Tokeny enables Amina to sponsor listings of tokenized securities on the platform, tackling interoperability...
Prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket let users trade on speculative events, from alien confirmations to geopolitical outcomes. While the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) oversees these platforms under the Commodity Exchange Act, the law explicitly bans contracts tied to...

Consumer credit expanded at a 1.9% annualized rate in January, with revolving balances rising 4.3% despite a modest slowdown. Premium‑fee cards, many charging over $600 annually, are witnessing heightened competition as fintechs like Robinhood and Revolut join incumbents. Research shows...
Littlepay, in partnership with Google, has enabled pre‑paid travel passes to be stored and activated in Google Wallet. Passengers can tap their phones on Brighton buses, replacing traditional paper tickets with a contactless, mobile solution. Go‑Ahead, a UK transport group, launched...

USD stablecoins guarantee a digital euro; now we have even more proof of this from Spain: “Europe needs a sovereign payment architecture,” and “the noticeable increase in US stablecoin-based financial intermediation increases the urgency.” Spain Pushes for 2028 Launch of...
Tokenized equities 24/7 coming “SOON” Via @TheGoldenAss “Fact-check: Nasdaq/Kraken is real but overhyped. Settlement still runs through DTCC. SEC approval needed. Launch target: 2027. Kraken distributes — Nasdaq stays in control. Evolution, not revolution.”

Aon, one of the world’s largest insurance brokers, completed a proof‑of‑concept using stablecoins to settle premium payments. The firm partnered with Coinbase and Paxos to move USDC on Ethereum and PayPal USD on Solana, marking the first known stablecoin settlement...
Virtual addresses solve having to do sweep transactions We're building @tempo around design partners feedback Come shape the future with us.

Apparently once you link an external bank account to @HeyBilt you **cannot** unlink it. That feels pretty UDAAP-y. https://t.co/nKf1Jn1So7
India’s securities regulator SEBI has created a high‑level expert working group to draft both short‑term and long‑term technology roadmaps for the market ecosystem. The group will address growing trading volumes, digital participation, and operational complexity, while SEBI simultaneously rolls out...
Claude can now execute portfolio rebalances at scale. Every RIA-focused AI middleware company just became a target. The advisory stack isn't being augmented — it's being bypassed. Agentic AI and Anthropic's Launch of Wealth Management AI Tools https://t.co/eJ7H2Bo1Ml

Digital handles routine needs. Branches should focus on complex conversations, community engagement, and relationship building. https://t.co/nOTg9IGJlt

Nasdaq announced a partnership with Kraken’s parent Payward to build a settlement layer for its new equity‑token design. The collaboration will connect Nasdaq’s infrastructure with Kraken’s xStocks platform, enabling tokenized stocks to move between regulated, permissioned markets and permissionless DeFi...
Wow three fintech/banking FUs in 7 days. Overactive fraud controls at @billcom @Chase and now @AmericanExpress. Apparently I need to upload a photo of my nanny’s SSN card to add her to my credit card. Is this 2026?
While no one wants to deal with credit card fraud, is it rational to worry about it, especially selectively? Here's why I think the answer is "no." https://t.co/YrRjx9Mdvr
Lisbon‑based Bison Bank has partnered with blockchain analytics leader Elliptic to embed the firm’s AI‑powered “copilot” into its digital‑asset subsidiary, Bison Digital Assets. The integration enables real‑time monitoring of more than 1,000 crypto tokens and automates data collection, fund‑flow analysis,...
When Morgan Stanley moves this fast on crypto, it tells you something The institutional window is closing First movers already positioned Second movers are scrambling Last movers will buy the top We're watching the second wave in real time

Kraken got fed up of waiting on TradFi so it built its own bank to access the Fed — and it just worked https://t.co/KXiaMBmASC https://t.co/TwTkLEnUYo
Point‑of‑sale systems are evolving from simple cash registers into real‑time, connected platforms that handle payments, inventory, and customer insights. Mobile payment leaders Square, SumUp, and Shopify now offer SMBs enterprise‑grade POS capabilities, blurring the line between payment processors and commerce...

Either rent/mortgage payments are via Bilt card (CARD Act, TILA apply) or they are not. I suspect some users' confusion is due to Bilt's communication of how housing payments work in "Bilt 2.0" https://t.co/vORPcpuwYe
Nasdaq: 52% of Institutions Expect Live Tokenized Collateral by Year-End Shift from "if" to "when": 78% of North American firms expect tokenized collateral to significantly impact their business. Catalyst = recent SEC + CFTC no-action positions allowing digital assets as margin...

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong warned that proposed UK stablecoin caps could erode the country’s fintech edge, while the United States has moved ahead with the GENIUS Act, establishing the first federal framework for payment stablecoins. The legislation mandates 100% reserve...

Mastercard has transformed into a digital‑payments leader, becoming the preferred method for online casino players. Its investments in tokenization, biometric verification, and real‑time fraud prevention deliver fast, secure transactions that meet regulatory and user expectations. Operators benefit from the card’s...
Hamachi.ai announced a deep integration with Fynancial, embedding its regulatory‑first AI orchestration layer into the digital client‑experience platform. The connection pulls household‑level data—relationships, goals, life events—and generates compliant, context‑aware communications and next‑best‑action recommendations. Advisor‑approved outputs flow back into the Fynancial...
Jump announced an AI Operating System for Advisors, bundling three new products—Meet, Grow and Operate—on a unified data and orchestration platform. The suite transforms meetings, emails and documents into structured, compliance‑ready intelligence and automates workflows across the client lifecycle. Over...

To thrive in the digital age, banks must rethink branch strategy. It’s not about supporting the branch. It’s about aligning branches with digital-first planning. Learn how: https://t.co/7yibAIVrHK https://t.co/47DCJWpqnf