This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them. Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.
Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
Tomorrow is Election Day in the US, and there are a number of high-profile contests in places like New York, New Jersey, and Virginia—the results of which are likely to dominate headlines over the next several days. For now, here in the fintech world, we’re seeing plenty of news in the fraud prevention and mortgagetech fronts, with new products and new partnerships on offer. We are also noticing an uptick in activity in the insurtech space, where AI-powered solutions to continue to make inroads.
Be sure to follow Finovate’s Fintech Rundown all week long for the latest updates in fintech news!
Fraud prevention and digital identity
AI transaction monitoring platform Flagright to power real-time transaction monitoring for online investment platform Webull.
AI automation firm Unitarylaunches its Virtual Agents for Insurance.
Digital solutions provider for the life insurance and financial services industry iPipelineintroducesCHARLi, an AI foundation to enable L&A carriers and distributors to optimize workflows.
Saudi Arabian ATM provider Alhamrani UniversaldeploysAtombeam’sNeurpac SaaS solution to accelerate transmission of electronic payment transaction data.
Intelligent payout solutions company Verituityteams up with mortgage servicing modernization firm Sagent.
AI-powered mortgage loan provider Better.comlaunches a Wholesale HELOC and CES Platform to enable mortgage brokers to access their technology for the first time.
Loyalty and rewards
Digital banking experience platform Plumerylaunches its Cashback Management capability.
This week’s edition of Finovate Global features recent fintech news from Canada.
Wealthsimple secures $750 million at valuation of $10 billion
Canadian fintech Wealthsimple has raised CAD $750 million at a post-money valuation of CAD $10 billion. The funding round includes both a CAD $550 million primary offering and a secondary offering of up to CAD $200 million. Dragoneer Investment Group and GIC led the round, which also featured participation from new investor Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) as well as existing investors Power Corporation of Canada, IGM Financial Inc. ICONIQ, Greylock, and Meritech.
“This raise reflects deep confidence from new and returning investors in our mission and our role as a defining Canadian company,” Wealthsimple Co-Founder and CEO Michael Katchen said. “We were intentional in choosing partners committed to the long-term future of Wealthsimple. These are well-respected, global leaders with a proven track record (of) scaling category leaders, and who believe in our vision for the future of financial services.”
Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Wealthsimple offers a suite of low-cost financial solutions to help Canadians build wealth. The company’s platform features self-directed investing, managed portfolios, digital asset investing, tax filing, advisor services, and more in a single, integrated experience. Wealthsimple serves three million Canadians and has $100 billion in assets under administration.
“Few companies have achieved what Wealthsimple has in the last few years,” Dragoneer Investment Group Partner Christian Jensen said. “The Wealthsimple team has built an expansive financial platform that millions of Canadians trust. They’re not just participating in Canada’s financial services industry; they’re redefining it.”
Earlier this year, Wealthsimple unveiled a waitlist for its first credit card, which topped 300,000 Canadians in the first six months. The company’s fundraising news follows a profitable 2024 and current profitability in 2025, as well. The capital infusion will help Wealthsimple accelerate its product roadmap in investing, spending, and credit, as well as support the company’s efforts to expand its platform.
Fintech investment slows in H1 ahead of potential rebound in H2
Speaking of investment and Canadian fintech, KPMG’s Canada Fintech Investment Report is a great way to get up to speed on the investment trends that are supporting fintech innovation in Canada. The report was published in August, and focuses on investment trends from the first half of 2025.
While the report indicates that Canadian fintech investment fell significantly compared to international trends, the report authors suggest that the first half of 2025 represented a normalization in the wake of record high levels of investment in 2024. Areas of investor interest include AI, especially agentic AI, and digital assets, which represent a continuation of trends from 2024. A more positive regulatory tone toward cryptocurrencies—especially stablecoins—in the US has been credited for this rebound in interest in digital assets. The report also noted some interest in quantum computing among insurers.
“Last year was exceptionally strong for fintech investment, thanks to two major take-private deals,” Dubie Cunningham, a Partner in KPMG in Canada’s Banking and Capital Markets Practice, explained. “Since then, investment activity has dropped to more stable levels. In fact, when you consider the economic shifts such as tariffs affecting global trade, investment in the first half was quite robust compared to historical levels. There’s still a lot of dry powder ready to be deployed by investors, but they are demonstrating more selective behavior than in previous years. They’re looking for quality companies and we’re seeing longer tails for maturing mid-to-large stage private equity deals.”
Coming to Canada: Atlanta’s Rainforest and Lebanon’s Whish Money
This week reminds us of how attractive Canada is to a growing number of fintechs around the world. Rainforest, a embedded payments company based in Atlanta, Georgia, announced recently that it is looking to expand to Canada. The company, founded in 2022, secured $29 million in funding in September, taking its total capital raised to $57.5 million. The idea of expanding to Canada, as Rainforest Founder and CEO Joshua Silver explained to Global Atlanta, represents more than a regional expansion for the company itself. The move would also help Rainforest’s platform client expand their offerings in a new market.
Rainforest specializes in payments partnerships with software providers that target businesses in underserved industry sectors. These software providers themselves are an underserved segment of the industry—processing $50 million to $2 billion in annual payments. Rainforest offers an embedded payments solution that enables software platforms to provide a robust payments experience for their end merchants without having to register as a payment facilitator with card networks.
Hailing from even farther away than the Peach State where Rainforest resides is Whish Money. Headquartered in Beirut, Lebanon, and regulated by the country’s central bank, Whish Money announced this week that it had secured financial services licenses in Canada. The regulatory approvals are the first for the company outside of the MENA region, and is part of a global expansion that includes entering markets in the US, the UK, the EU, and Australia.
“Securing our Canadian license is a monumental step that validates our compliant, customer-focused model and sets the foundation for our international expansion,” Whish Money board chairman Toufic Koussa said. “This move is about more than just entering a new market; it’s about strategically connecting high-diaspora communities with reliable financial infrastructure, beginning with North America. We are committed to building a regulated, transparent global ecosystem that truly serves our users.”
Whish Money offers a range of digital financial services including payroll, fund transfers, and billpay. Founded in 2019, the company’s e-wallet, money remittance, and e-distribution platform has a user base of more than 1.5 million. The company’s global expansion is being supported by partnerships with companies such as Visa, Mastercard, Ria, and Terrapay.
Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.
Central and Southern Asia
Pakistan-based fintech startup ZAR raised $13 million for its technology that enables consumer to convert cash into stablecoins.
Indian fintech infrastructure company Falcon announced a partnership with technology consulting firm Tech Mahindra.
Alipay+ and HUMO, Uzebekistan’s national payment system, teamed up to facilitate cross-border payments.
Latin America and the Caribbean
Blockchain infrastructure and cryptocurrency provider Binance unveiled QR code payments in Argentina
Kueski and dLocal team up to bring Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) services to merchants in Mexico.
Nubank and OpenAI partnered to launchChatGPR Go in Brazil to give individuals greater access to ChatGPT’s advanced capabilties at a lower cost.
Asia-Pacific
Remittance provider Viamericas partnered with Dong Phuong Money Transfer to expand access to remittance services throughout Vietnam.
Japanese fintech JPYC launched the country’s first yen-denominated stablecoin.
Malaysian fintech Instapay earned a spot on CB Insights’ Global Fintech 100.
Sub-Saharan Africa
South African fintech SME Snapshot launched updated version of its business management dashboard.
Nigeria’s Flutterwave partnered with Polygon to launch a stablecoin payment network across 34 African countries.
Kenya’s Choice Bank teamed up with Safaricom to power cross-border money transfers.
Central and Eastern Europe
Coinbase and Tinkteamed up to bring Pay by Bank crypto payments to customers in Germany.
Lithuanian regtech IDenfy partnered with Australian remittance service provider J Forex Money Transfer.
Finlayer and Salt Edgeannnounced a partnership to bring open banking to small and medium-sized businesses in Romania.
Middle East and Northern Africa
Saudi Arabian Buy Now Pay Later firm Tabby boosted its valuation to more than $4.5 billion in the wake of a secondary share sale.
Israel-based Viola Credit closed its third credit fund at $2 billion, topping its original target of $1.5 billion.
Lebanon-based fintech Whish Money secured financial services licenses in Canada.
Capital markets software developer Devexperts launched its latest AI-powered data analysis solution, Acomotrade, this week.
The new offering is designed to help online trading platforms better engage new users, most of whom rarely become the kind of active traders these platforms rely on.
Headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, and founded in 2002, Devexperts demonstrated its technology at our developers conference, FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2016.
For all the excitement experienced when markets are soaring toward new highs, life for brokerage companies can actually be more complicated. While trading volumes are climbing, the fact of the matter is that many of the new traders and investors who decide to start participating in the market often don’t end up sticking around very long at all. The average new user lifetime on a trading platform is less than six months—to say nothing of those traders who abandon the platform shortly after registering, never even placing their first trade. New traders rarely become the kind of active traders that online trading platforms crave, which complicates the acquisition cost equation and makes it hard for platforms to recoup their investment in new users.
The new offering from capital markets software developer Devexperts, Acomotrade, is designed to help online trading platforms better manage these challenges. An AI-powered data analysis solution, Acomotrade leverages insights into user behavior to help brokers improve the return on acquisition via better engagement and lower early user churn.
Acomotrade features personal instrument recommendations, analyzing trader activity and behavioral patterns to suggest tools like watchlists that match the individual trader’s habits and preferences. The solution also includes disengagement detection, leveraging large-scale behavioral data to detect signs of user disengagement. At this point, brokers can intervene with personalized communications or incentives before the user leaves the platform entirely.
Acomotrade also relies on user representation to group traders together based on characteristics such as risk appetite, trading style, and engagement duration. This helps brokers personalize their engagement with different user groups. All of these features are designed to help platforms better understand, communicate with, and support their newest users when they are most vulnerable to becoming disenchanted with the online trading experience.
“Acomotrade gives brokers a practical way to strengthen user engagement and retention, directly improving profitability without additional acquisition spend,” Devexperts Data Science Team Lead Ivan Kunyankin said. “It will initially be offered as an opt-in feature within the DXtrade platform and we look forward to seeing our clients benefit from the advanced insights and functionalities Acomotrade has to offer, as well as working with our clients to develop these further over time.”
Dublin, Ireland-based Devexperts participated in our developers conference, FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2016. The company specializes in providing trading platforms and brokerage automation, complex software development products, and market data products. The company also provides consulting services for financial institutions, particularly in the areas of real-time transaction monitoring, trading automation, and risk management. Devexperts’ DXtrade platform is a multi-asset, broker-agnostic trading platform for brokers and prop firms that offer trading in stocks, derivatives, FX, CFDs, spread bets, and blockchain-based currencies. More than 20 million users rely on Devexperts’ technology every day. Nikolaj Mosejev is CEO.
From the latest innovations in the fight against fraud to leveraging AI to make it easier for small businesses to secure the financing they need to grow, FinovateFall 2025’s Best of Show winners help us see exactly where fintech is making the most impact for companies and communities.
In his most recent podcast interview, Greg Palmer talks with LemonadeLXP CEO John Findlay.
Findlay explains how the company evolved into a comprehensive all-in-one learning and knowledge platform for financial institutions. Findlay and Palmer discuss the shortcomings of traditional learning management systems that focus on compliance training rather than skill development that leads to business growth and more effective customer service.
Finovate Podcast host Greg Palmer catches up with Shivangi Khanna (CEO) and Sophie Jewsbury (COO) of Krida.
The three talk about how Krida leverages AI and workflow automation to transform the commercial lending process. Khanna and Jewsbury discuss the universal pain point of document collection and processing and explain how Krida’s technology automates the feedback loops between borrowers and loan officers to shorten the time between lead generation and a completed loan application.
Palmer and Vos discuss how Eko makes it possible for early-stage investors to get started building their wealth through the credit union or bank they already know and trust. Vos explains how enabling financial institutions—especially smaller ones—to offer investment services can help them compete with third-party investing apps, many of which are embarking upon offering banking services of their own.
Mitch Rutledge, CEO of Vertice AI, joins Greg Palmer on the Finovate Podcast.
In this conversation, Palmer and Rutledge talk about how Vertice AI enables smaller financial institutions to “punch above their weight” with AI-powered solutions that help them transform institutional data into actionable insights. Vertice AI helps community FIs deliver personalized customer engagement and measurable growth outcomes.
Greg Palmer chats with Tim Li, Co-founder and CEO of LendAPI.
Li explains how LendAPI serves as a “super orchestration platform” that enables users to build their own financial products via an intuitive browser interface. The platform includes a product studio in which FIs can build personal loans, mortgages, and other products with integrated rule studios, models studios, pricing engines, and third-party plugins.
Finovate Podcast host Greg Palmer interviews Casap Co-founder and CEO Shanthi Shanmugam.
Palmer and Shanmugam talk about the challenges of first-party fraud and how this form of fraud—in which customers falsely claim they did not make purchases they actually did make—has become the leading fraud attack vector around the world, even more than account takeovers and scams. Shanmugam explains how Casap leverages AI agents that function like expert investigators to determine when disputes are legitimate.
Morgan Stanley has agreed to acquire private company trading platform EquityZen. Terms of the transaction were not immediately available.
The acquisition will help Morgan Stanley offer a full suite of solutions for its private company and wealth management clients, including cap table solutions, tender and liquidity programs, direct and co-investment opportunities, and secondary trading.
EquityZen made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2016. The company is headquartered in New York.
One of the biggest challenges in the world of private company investing is dealing with the liquidity gap that can arise between private companies and their stakeholders when stakeholders seek access to cash before companies are ready to officially exit via public offering or acquisition. As more and more companies stay private longer, an opportunity has developed for innovators that can not only democratize access to private market investments, but can also serve the interests of employees seeking liquidity, companies requiring control over secondary transactions, and investors wanting access to high-growth private startups.
Tackling this challenge is EquityZen, a New York-based fintech founded in 2013 that made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2016 in San Francisco. This week, we learned Morgan Stanley has announced its acquisition of the company, which offers a proprietary platform that facilitates secondary transactions in private firms, and works directly with shareholders and issuers to provide a seamless experience for buyers, sellers, and companies alike.
“This announcement comes at a critical time in the development of the private markets ecosystem,” Jed Finn, Head of Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, said. “The combination of EquityZen with Morgan Stanley will uniquely address client needs as companies stay private much longer, such as delivering liquidity solutions for their employees and early investors in a seamless yet controlled process of their own design. With EquityZen, we combine our cap table management solutions with a private shares marketplace to deliver end-to-end solutions to our private market company clients.”
EquityZen enables accredited investors to explore investment offerings on its platform, review offering documents, and conduct research before reserving investments in live offerings, or indicating their interest in upcoming offerings. Investors can execute documents and provide payment information in order to complete the investment via ACH or wire, and actively manage their investments and receive personalized updates on their companies in their portfolio. Investors receive investment proceeds in the form of cash or shares if the company exits successfully or simply if the investor requires liquidity.
The acquisition follows news of Morgan Stanley’s expanded partnership with private capital software platform Carta. Morgan Stanley noted that its acquisition of EquityZen will enhance its private markets ecosystem, and enable the firm to offer a range of services to private companies and their shareholders including cap table solutions, tender and liquidity programs, direct and co-investment opportunities, and secondary trading. Morgan Stanley will benefit from EquityZen’s issuer-aligned model, which will help it enhance its relationship with private companies and offer its wealth management customers greater access to private shares.
“Our entire mission has been to bring ‘private markets to the public’ and by integrating into Morgan Stanley, we will reach more investors and shareholders than ever before,” EquityZen CEO Atish Davda said. “When our category-leading technology and welcoming marketplace are matched with Morgan Stanley’s comprehensive suite of products, services, and offerings focused on the private markets, we can create a value proposition together for issuers, shareholders, and investors that is unrivaled in our space.”
EquityZen has 800,000 registered users. To date, the company has processed more than 49,000 transactions across 450+ private companies.
Data intelligence platform GoodData has unveiled a suite of finance-focused applications for its recently launched composable AI platform.
The company’s new offering combines its AI Lake, AI Hub, and AI Apps into a single platform that will give financial institutions the tools they need in order to build and deploy AI agents.
Founded in 2007 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, GoodData most recently demoed its technology at FinovateFall 2017 in New York.
The challenge of managing unstructured and unorganized data across multiple platforms—let alone turning that data into actionable insights—is a difficult one for financial institutions. And for those firms looking to take advantage of AI to add personalization, greater efficiency, and agility to their operations, these data management challenges are all the more acute.
Add to this the unique regulatory and data governance demands in financial services, including transparency and auditability, and it is clear to see why a growing number of fintechs are working to create solutions that enable firms to deploy trusted AI technologies at scale that feature built-in governance, including semantic grounding and compliance controls.
One such innovator is full-stack data intelligence platform GoodData, which has just launched a set of new finance-focused applications for its recently unveiled composable AI platform. The new offering combines GoodData’s AI Lake, AI Hub, and AI Apps into a single platform for enterprise data intelligence, giving financial institutions the tools they need to build and deploy AI agents.
GoodData’s platform will bring trusted automation to banks, insurers, and other financial institutions via embeddable, compliant, and auditable AI agents. The agents detect and investigate fraud in seconds, providing the kind of audit trails that regulators can rely on and keeping portfolios compliant in real-time. This makes the compiling, checking, and disclosure submission processes of regulatory reporting easier, while still maintaining the high standards for compliance, governance, and security that are required in financial services.
“Financial institutions face some of the world’s strictest data governance rules, and our goal is to make compliance simpler,” GoodData CEO Roman Stanek said. “This platform lets them innovate with AI while ensuring transparency, trust, and regulatory alignment, modernizing client experiences and improving risk management without compromise.”
GoodData’s layered platform features AI Lake, which transforms structured and unstructured financial data into a governed semantic layer, ensuring AI agents are grounded in accurate, compliant, and context-aware data to enhance decision-making. The platform also includes AI Hub, which delivers orchestration and governance with built-in guardrails, escalation paths, and compliance workflows; and AI Apps, embeddable agents, copilots, and automations that add personalization to client-facing applications and enhance back-office operations, including regulatory reporting and fraud detection.
Headquartered in San Francisco, California and founded in 2007, GoodData last demoed its technology at FinovateFall 2017. The company’s composable platform empowers businesses to turn data into insights and insights into action, and integrates into any data environment across public, private, on-premises, or hybrid cloud. GoodData leverages no-code interfaces, SDKs, and APIs to support the full data analytics lifecycle from data modeling to AI-powered insights. Today, more than 140,000 organizations and 3+ million users including Visa, Travelodge, and Twilio rely on GoodData’s technology.
The initial agenda for FinovateEurope 2026—February 10 and February 11 at the Intercontinental O2 in London—has just been released. And while there are still plenty of elements to be added to the two-day event, we are already seeing the contours of a conference that will help attendees better understand the opportunities in emerging technologies like quantum computing, learn the latest strategies for fighting fraud and financial crime, and find the most effective use cases for both AI and digital assets like stablecoins.
There’s plenty to share in the weeks to come. For now, here are six of the early highlights from Days One and Two.
Day One: All About AI
Boom, bubble, or something else entirely, the AI revolution in technology continues to be one of the defining characteristics of innovation in our times. To this end, the first day of FinovateEurope 2026 will feature a number of sessions dedicated to the AI phenomenon and how banks and other financial institutions are putting this new technology to use to offer new products and services faster and better serve their corporate and retail customers.
On the afternoon of Day One, FinovateEurope will host an Executive Briefing titled The AI Competitive Imperative & Ten Solutions You Need to Know About Today. This session will discuss how firms can successfully integrate AI into core financial services operations. The briefing will cover strategies to deploy AI safely and compliantly, ensure that AI initiatives are aligned with the company’s business and change management strategy, and successfully scale their AI projects from pilot to production.
Later that afternoon, FinovateEurope will feature a Keynote Address: Agentic AI—A New Frontier in Banking, How Can FIs Harness it to Reimagine Enterprise Processes. Agentic AI is one of the most exciting developments in AI, with applications from cybersecurity to e-commerce. What needs to happen to ensure that Agentic AI delivers real value for both customers and banks? And what about the issues of trust and identity? How should banks operate in a brave new world in which bots are customers? Our keynote address on Agentic AI will cover all this and more.
FinovateEurope 2026 wraps up Day One with a Power Panel: AI, Everything, Everywhere, All at Once, Beyond the Hype—How Financial Institutions Can Use AI to Make Money or Save Money. This panel will showcase a variety of viewpoints on where we are in terms of AI, fintech, and financial services. Where are the greatest opportunities: product innovation or customer journeys? What are the best use cases for financial institutions and do we have the right KPIs to measure success? And what does it mean for financial institutions to “lean into” the opportunities in AI—where do the potential rewards most clearly outweigh the potential risks?
Day Two: Cyber Security, Quantum Computing, and Stablecoins
If Day One is dedicated to all things AI, Day Two offers a tour of many of the other enabling technologies and top challenges in fintech and financial services.
Wednesday morning, FinovateEurope will feature a Power Panel: Financial Crime & Cyber Security—How Banks & Fintechs Can Work Together to Meet the Challenges of the Digital Era. This session will look at some of the new tools and technologies that are available to help combat financial crime. The conversation will cover the role of digital identity and biometric authentication—as well as AI and machine learning—in the current fight against the fraudsters. The panel will also examine ways that fintechs and banks can partner to better defend customers from both contemporary and evolving threats.
AI is not the only advanced technology that fintechs and banks are exploring. Quantum computing, with processing power that dwarfs that of supercomputers, could have a major impact on industries from technology to communications to defense. FinovateEurope’s Quick Fire Keynote: How Quantum Computing Could Transform Banking—What Are the Use Cases for Banks? will provide insightful commentary on what bankers—and their technology partners—need to know about the promise and risks of quantum computing.
There are many areas where the UK and Europe are ahead of the US—sustainability, open banking and open finance, for example. But has the new clarity in stablecoins in the US courtesy of the Genius Act given the States an edge vis-à-vis the UK and Europe when it comes to these digital assets? FinovateEurope’s Fireside Chat: Stablecoins and Tokenized Deposits in the Real World—Hype vs Reality will look at the current regulatory status of digital assets like stablecoins in the EU and discuss what to look for in the next phase of cryptocurrency adoption in the region.
There’s plenty more conversation coming—from discussions about bank modernization and the power of platform banking partnerships to the growth of open banking, open data, and open finance. Be sure to check out our FinovateEurope 2026 hub—as well as our coverage here on the Finovate blog—for the latest updates.
Modern treasury solutions company Qolo has forged a “strategic alignment” with Huntington National Bank.
The alignment comes as the two companies unveiled a new virtual account management (VAM) platform, Connected Deposits, and follows a strategic investment Huntington made in Qolo earlier this year.
Headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Qolo made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2022 in New York.
There is a wide range of challenges facing banks when it comes to treasury management these days. Interest rate uncertainty, rising regulatory scrutiny and compliance costs, working capital optimization, and technology challenges—from modernization to cybersecurity—are all issues that have made treasury management that much more difficult for CFOs, treasury managers, and their teams.
Over the summer, PwC published its 2025 Global Treasury Survey which showed how “the role of treasury continues to evolve into a more strategic, innovative and data-driven partner” that is a fundamental part of value creation for businesses. Quantitatively, the survey noted that approximately 40% of its 350 respondents—treasurers from around the world—said that they were not leveraging an in-house banking or payment centralization model. 65% of organizations queried said that they are planning to expand API use in the next few years.
This is the context in which we learn that modern treasury solutions provider Qolo has announced a “strategic alignment” with Huntington National Bank. The alignment follows a minority strategic investment the financial institution made in the Fort Lauderdale-based fintech earlier this year, and comes as the two companies announced the launch of a new virtual account management (VAM) platform, Connected Deposits, for Huntington National Bank’s commercial customers.
“Our alignment with Huntington reflects a shared vision for the future of commercial banking,” Qolo Founder and CEO Patricia Montesi said. “Treasury management is getting more complex and dynamic across almost every industry, making Virtual Account Management tools like the one Huntington is launching with Qolo increasingly essential. Together, we’ve built a solution that empowers businesses to operate with greater agility, transparency, and control.”
Connected Deposits is a Virtual Account Management (VAM) platform, built on Qolo’s technology, that enables real-time cash visibility, automated reconciliation, and seamless fund segregation for multi-entity businesses—all within a single parent account. The new offering is designed to help the bank’s corporate customers better manage their complex operational needs—from payments to reporting—via an API-first architecture.
Qolo anticipates that Connected Deposits will show banks how technology can enhance treasury management by reducing account maintenance costs and eliminating manual payment reconciliations. Instead, Connected Deposits, with its real-time visibility into cash positions across all entities and projects, not only enhances compliance and risk controls, but also generates new fee income opportunities for banks via modern treasury services.
“With Qolo’s technology powering Connected Deposits, we’re able to offer enhanced efficiency across complex cash management needs for our commercial clients,” Huntington’s head of national deposits, Alex Tsarnas, said. “This platform strengthens our ability to serve clients with specialized requirements while reinforcing Huntington’s commitment to innovation and client-centric solutions.”
Founded in 2018 and headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Qolo made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2022 in New York. At the conference, the company demonstrated how its Companion Core provided banks with fintech functionality that worked in tandem with their current systems, enabling them to offer their customers a range of new services without the need to undergo a disruptive, wholesale core replacement.
This week’s edition of Finovate Global examines recent fintech news from Mexico.
Earlier this month, ResearchAndMarkets.com published its Mexico Embedded Finance Databook Report for 2025. The 230-page report noted that the embedded finance market in Mexico is expected to reach more than $18 billion this year and top $22 billion by the end of 2030. Among the key takeaways from the report is the increasing traction of embedded credit products such as Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL), and the growth of embedded payments in mobility, food delivery, and social commerce driven by growing smartphone use and government support for digital, real-time payments options. Embedded finance solutions such as lending are enabling non-fintech businesses in Mexico to leverage APIs and BaaS to expand their offerings, the report notes. This is helping bring more financial services to underserved communities in the country. It is also creating greater competition for companies in both the lending and payments spaces.
Mexican Fintech Plata Double Valuation on Latest $250 Million Fundraise
Mexican digital financial platform Plata has secured $250 million in new equity funding. The round, which includes both a primary equity raise and a secondary equity transaction, was led by Kora and featured participation from Moore Strategic Ventures, Audio Ventures, Spice Expeditions, Hedosophia, as well as several US and European family offices. The funding builds on an earlier investment by Televisa-Univision and boosts Plata’s valuation to $3.1 billion.
“The growth we have achieved in such a short time demonstrates a clear strategy and a shared conviction: build a strong institution from its foundations,” Plata CEO and Co-Founder Neri Tollardo said. “This transaction reflects investors’ confidence, the strength of our technological model, and the talent we have assembled. We set out to create a digital bank built on innovation, operational excellence, compliance, and efficiency—and today, we are seeing the results of that effort.”
Plata received its banking license in December 2024 and is waiting for authorization to begin banking operations. The company boasts its own technological and operational infrastructure, including a core banking system that enables a fully digital, branchless model with automated risk management and 24/7 personalized customer service. Over the past 30 months, Plata has topped the two million mark in terms of active credit customers, making it one of the fastest-growing digital financial platforms in Latin America. The company’s Plata Card gives users two months to pay without interest and up to 15% of cash back in real money.
“We believe Plata represents the new standard for digital banking in emerging markets,” Kora Co-Founder Nitin Saigal said. “In a very short time, the company has demonstrated impressive execution, combining technological innovation with a clear vision for financial inclusion. We are excited to continue strengthening our partnership and to support Plata in this new phase of growth.”
Revolut obtains Mexican banking license; SumUp goes live
This week we learned that two Finovate alums—Revolut and SumUp—are actively exploring opportunities in Mexico. Revolut announced this week that it has received final regulatory approval to initiate banking operations in Mexico. The authorization came from the National Banking and Securities Commission (CNBV), with approval of the Bank of Mexico. Now a Multiple Banking Institution in Mexico, Revolut is the first independent digital bank to directly apply for and complete the full licensing and approval process in the country.
“We are exceptionally proud of our team and the bank we have built here in Mexico,” Revolut Bank S.A., Institución de Banca Múltiple CEO Juan Miguel Guerra said. “We are very grateful to the authorities for this vote of confidence and their commitment to fostering competition in the industry, and we are confident that our offering will benefit millions of people across the country.”
Revolut is a digital banking and financial services platform that offers a wide range of solutions, including multi-currency accounts with real-time exchange rates; stock, cryptocurrency, commodity, and ETF investing and trading; as well as business accounts, corporate cards, and expense management tools. Founded in 2015, Revolut serves as a financial services “super app” for more than 65 million customers around the world.
Meanwhile, payments platform SumUp announced its official launch in Mexico this week. The company has introduced its SumUp Go card reader to the Mexican market, enabling merchants to accept payments anytime, anywhere, with no monthly fixed costs. The card reader is compatible with all major credit and debit cards and features both exceptional battery life and unlimited 4G cellular connectivity due to its built-in SIM.
“Expanding into Mexico marks a pivotal step in SumUp’s strategic growth across Latin America,” SumUp North America CEO Andrew Helms said. “We see remarkable potential in the region and recognize a strong demand for accessible, user-friendly payment solutions that streamline business operations. At SumUp, our mission is to simplify business for our merchants and we’re delighted to bring this commitment to Mexico.”
Founded in 2012, SumUp counts more than four million merchants in 37 markets as users of its payment processing solutions and business management tools. These include mobile card readers and point-of-sale (POS) systems, as well as solutions for sales tracking and inventory management, customer loyalty programs, and financial reporting and analytics.
Revolut has been a Finovate alum since its debut at FinovateEurope 2015. SumUp won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2013. Both companies are headquartered in London.
Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.
Middle East and Northern Africa
Oman’s BankDhofar launched its new braille debit card.
The Cooperative Bank of Oromia, a regional bank based in Ethiopia, partnered with digital transformation company JMR Infotech to go live with Oracle Financial Services Crime and Compliance Studio.
Saudi National Bank subsidiary Samba Bank unveiled its new fraud detection system powered by BPC’s SmartVista Fraud Management.
Central and Southern Asia
Mongolian fintech AND Global raised $21.4 million in Series B funding in a round led by the International Finance Corporation and AEON Financial Service.
Karandaaz Pakistan and Walee Financial Services forged a strategic partnership to launch Pakistan’s first Shariah-compliant, digital asset financing solution for female entrepreneurs.
Three of Japan’s largest banks—MUFG Bank, Sumitomo Mitsuio Banking Corp, and Mizuho Bank—announced plans to collaborate on the launch of a unified stablemcoin.
Tracxn’s recently released Southeast Asia FinTech Reportnoted that fintech startups in the region raised $839 million in the first nine months of 2025, a decline from previous years.
African all-in-one financial platform Moniepoint secured more than $200 million in Series C funding.
Sanlam teamed up with TymeBank to build a co-branded fintech super app for consumers in South Africa.
Capitec Bank partnered with accounting software company Stub to provide South African small and micro-sized businesses with direct access to their transactional data.
Central and Eastern Europe
German fintech Aifinyo AG announced that it was converting its balance sheet to bitcoin, becoming the first German firm to adopt a full bitcoin treasury model.
SoftPOS solutions company MineSec inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU with Turkish digital payments company Paymore.
Latvian fintech Eleving Group raised €275 million ($319.5 million) via a public bond issue.
Deepfake detection company Neural Defend and India’s Zee News have teamed up to launch the country’s first AI-powered, deepfake verification system for news media.
The partnership will enable Zee News consumers to upload suspicious videos, audio clips, or images and have Neural Defend’s technology determine within seconds whether or not the material has been artificially manipulated.
Founded in 2024 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, Neural Defend made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2025 in London. Piyush Verma is CEO.
Deepfake detection specialist Neural Defend has teamed up with Mumbai-based Zee News to launch India’s first deepfake verification system for news media—powered by AI. The new solution empowers individuals with direct access to advanced verification technology, enabling them to authenticate videos, images, and audio files in real time.
“Our goal was to ensure deepfake detection is fast, accurate, and simple for every citizen,” ZMCL Chief Technology Officer Vijayant Kumar said. “By integrating Neural Defend’s advanced AI with Zee News’ platforms, we’ve created a solution that can detect even the most sophisticated manipulations within seconds. This is not only an innovation for today, but a future-proof safeguard for tomorrow’s information ecosystem.”
The partnership will enable individuals to upload suspicious videos, images, or audio clips and have Neural Defend’s technology analyze the files and confirm their authenticity—or identify the files as artificially manipulated—within seconds. At a time when the average viewer is struggling to differentiate increasingly sophisticated manipulated content, including video, from non-manipulated content, the collaboration between Neural Defend and Zee News gives media consumers new tools to help them “separate fact from fiction in an age where misinformation spreads fast,” said ZMCL Marketing Head Anindya Khare.
“While Gen Z and younger viewers are particularly vulnerable to being misled by fake videos and audio, this initiative ensures a safe and credible space for everyone,” Khare added. “For advertisers and partners, it creates the most reliable environment to engage with audiences—where advanced technology and authenticity come together. This is the future of brand-safe and responsible media.”
Mumbai-based Zee News is one of the leading Hindi news channels in India with more than 52 million viewers. The company is owned by Indian media conglomerate Essel Group and is the flagship channel of Zee Media Corporation. Zee News is publicly traded on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and the National Stock Exchange (NSE), and has a market capitalization of $75 million.
Founded in 2024 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, Neural Defend made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2025 in London. At the conference, the company demonstrated its agentic AI-powered deepfake detection solution that can be integrated into any video, audio, or image verification platform to offer real-time identity verification to EKYC firms, verification companies, banks, payments service providers, fintechs, and more. Neural Defend’s technology leverages proprietary, multi-layered AI to spot even subtle alterations and manipulations with precision. The solution also boosts security for video and audio calls by instantly detecting and mitigating deepfakes in real time.
What is supplier enablement and why does it offer businesses a way to optimize vendor payments to maximize cash flow or another business outcome? How does the revolution in data management help businesses deal with the challenge of important data that is sequestered in accounting systems? And, finally, what role do automation and AI have in opening up access to that data?
Last month at FinovateFall, I interviewed Peter Zhou, Co-Founder and CEO of Rutter. Founded in 2021 and headquartered in New York City, the company offers a unified API to help companies add accounting, commerce, and payment integrations into their B2B product workflows. A trusted integration partner for companies such as Airwallex, Mercury, and Ramp, Rutter empowers businesses to build and launch products in lending, expense management, AP/AR automation, and more.
“In the same way that companies like Plaid offer a unified API for banking data, Rutter aims to be the unified API for small business financial data. Our core systems of record that we are unifying for companies are commerce, payments, accounting, and ads data … We basically help them provide customer-facing integrations into those systems of record that their customers use.”
Rutter introduced its Supplier Enablement solution earlier this year. The new offering leverages unified ERP and payment intelligence to help businesses unlock card revenue. Supplier Enablement allows Rutter to provide support for fetching vendor data from 30+ additional mid-market and enterprise ERPs, a new intelligent file import workflow, advanced OCR enrichment that uses bill attachments to improve vendor match, and integration of Visa card acceptance data to enhance vendor scoring.
Peter Zhou is a graduate of Yale University, with both Bachelor’s and Master of Science degrees in Computer Science. Before co-founding Rutter, Zhou was a software engineer with San Francisco, California-based professional services company Atrium.
Netherlands-based digital banking experience platform Plumery introduced its Cashback Management capability this week.
The solution will help financial institutions build and launch their own cashback programs in weeks, providing real-time, personalized rewards that boost customer engagement and loyalty.
Founded in 2016, Plumery made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2025 in London. Ben Goldin is Founder and CEO.
Digital banking experience platform Plumerylaunched its Cashback Management capability this week. The new offering will empower institutions to build and run personalized, real-time rewards in weeks. The cashback management capability helps firms boost engagement, NPS, and revenue.
Many financial institutions would like to offer cashback—insofar as cashback is one of the most universally recognized and appreciated loyalty schemes. Yet many legacy core systems are unable to provide it, leaving some institutions stuck with outdated rewards programs that lack both personalization and real-time responsiveness. To help institutions manage this challenge, Plumery’s Cashback Management enables them to launch modern cashback programs—from instant or scheduled credits to AI-driven reward groups—while maintaining control of compliance, costs, and the customer experience.
The new Cashback Management offering features ready-to-use cashback journeys for transaction processing, rules engine, settlement, customer user experience, and analytics. The technology’s AI module reviews purchase history and category preferences to create monthly cashback groups based on spending habits—all fully configurable to ensure regulatory compliance. And as a SaaS-first, API-driven solution, Plumery’s Cashback Management integrates with core infrastructures, card processors, and KYC/AML providers to ensure that institutions can modernize and enhance their rewards offerings over time.
“Financial institutions tell us they want to increase engagement with cashback and rewards but are blocked by legacy infrastructure,” Plumery Founder and CEO Ben Goldin said. “Our Cashback Management capability changes this. With pre-built APIs, configurable rules, and an AI personalization module all designed to be transparent, compliant, and under the institution’s full control, banks and other financial institutions can move from design to live cashback in weeks. That means stronger retention, higher spend per customer, and new revenue opportunities from merchant-funded offers—and without the vendor lock-in.”
Plumery’s Cashback Management news comes days after the company reported that it had been included as a Sample Vendor in the 2025 Gartner Market Guide for Digital Banking Platforms. Plumery also announced earlier this month that it was expanding its digital banking platform to support credit unions in Canada. The company partnered with Aequilibrium, a digital transformation consultancy and implementation services firm based in Vancouver, British Columbia, to help ensure that its platform meets the specific needs of Canadian credit union members.
“Canadian institutions have a rare opportunity to modernize on their own terms, rather than being tied to outdated systems,” Goldin said. “Our platform provides an immediate, future-ready option that puts control back in the hands of credit unions.”
Founded in 2016 and headquartered in the Netherlands, Plumery made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2025 in London. At the conference, the company demonstrated its Super App Accelerator, which enables financial institutions to build and launch their own comprehensive Super App in weeks rather than years.
To learn more about Plumery, check out my interview with Ben Goldin from earlier this year.
