Finovate Global Peru: Digital Wallet Partnerships and Innovations in Payment Services

Finovate Global Peru: Digital Wallet Partnerships and Innovations in Payment Services

This week’s edition of Finovate Global looks at recent fintech headlines from the South American nation of Peru.


EBANX partners with Peruvian digital wallet Yape

Brazilian payments company EBANX announced a direct integration with Peruvian digital wallet, Yape. Designed for cross-border commerce and relying on an easy user enrollment process, Yape enables users to pay for purchases on international ecommerce websites using either their Yape wallet balance or a linked card. The wallet supports recurring, one-click and on-file payment solutions and, in 2024, was responsible for the largest share of the volume transacted online through a digital wallet in the country. This is according to research from Payments and Commerce Market Intelligence (PCMI).

“With over 14 million active Peruvian users, Yape empowers millions of consumers with reliable daily transactions,” Yape Head of Payments Claudia Silva said. “This direct integration with EBANX marks a significant step in expanding our reach to global merchants, allowing them to tap into the vast potential of the Peruvian market.”

Digital wallets are a major component of Peru’s payment ecosystem. The fourth most commonly used payment in the country, digital wallets represented 10% of all digital commerce transactions in Peru in 2024. PCMI anticipates a digital wallet annual growth rate of 17% by 2027 and much of this growth, according to Silva, can be credited to Yape. According to the firm’s own data, Yape’s digital wallet delivers a 93% approval rate on transactions, an especially valuable achievement as digital wallets are increasingly becoming the preferred payment method for recurring transactions.

“Through its partnership with Yape, EBANX enables merchants to access a seamless, secure, and high-conversion payment solution that drives immediate results for one-time purchases as well as for subscription-based services and recurring payments,” said Juliana Etcheverry, Director of LatAm Country Growth—South Cone at EBANX. “This partnership goes beyond payments; it’s about fostering scalable, long-term growth for merchants in a rapidly evolving market.”

Founded in 2016, Yape is headquartered in Lima, Peru. The company’s payment app has more than 20 million users and more than 2.5 million affiliated businesses. Yape expanded to Bolivia in 2023, reaching two million users (“Yaperos”) a year later.


Paysafe goes live with PagoEfective ewallet in Peru

As if to underscore the rising popularity of digital wallets in Peru, payments platform Paysafe announced that it is expanding its eCash brand, PagoEfectivo, into a digital wallet. As a brand, PagoEfectivo has been a major force in Latin America’s eCash payment ecosystem, supporting the transactions of millions of online consumers. As a digital wallet, the brand will enable users to load funds instantly, make online transactions, receive payouts from participating merchants, transfer funds to others, and more.

“Our recent survey with Peruvian consumers found that 81% would use a digital wallet from PagoEfectivo,” Paysafe Head of Latin America Estaban Sarubbi said. “With that strong sign, we’re launching a solution that meets consumers’ payment needs.” Paysafe CEO Bruce Lowthers added, “Consumers in Peru already trust PagoEfectivo for everything from iGaming and digital goods to travel and ecommerce. With the launch of our new digital wallet, we’re giving them a more convenient way to pay—one that reflects Paysafe’s commitment to powering the experiential economy.”

Headquartered in London, Paysafe processed $152 billion in annualized transactional volume in 2024. A leading payments platform, Paysafe empowers businesses and consumers to connect and transact through its capabilities in payment processing, digital wallets, and online cash solutions. Delivering services across 260 payment types in 48 currencies, Paysafe’s integrated platform is designed for mobile-initiated transactions, real-time analytics, and facilitating the convergence between in-store and online payments.


Do Payment launches pay-in service Do Pay in regional expansion

Peruvian paytech Do Payment has launched its own pay-in service, Do Pay. The new offering is designed bring greater speed, lower costs, and more flexibility to the payments process by enhancing liquidity for clients and reducing reliance on intermediate parties. Do Pay also creates a single provider for both pay-in and pay-out payment solutions thanks to leveraging its own proprietary infrastructure and direct connections with banks, acquirers, and local payment networks.

“In Latin America, companies face a critical challenge: the slowness of fund availability, with delays of 48 to 72 hours and even up to one week, directly impacting their liquidity,” Do Payment Chief Product Officer Valentina Brero said. “Against global solutions poorly adapted to the region, Do Pay emerges as a service specialized in payment collection with the fastest settlement in the market, ideal for operators who need to use the funds for daily operations.”

Do Payment’s new offering enables firms to better manage a range of problems faced by companies in Latin America when it comes to collecting and making payments. These challenges include having to work with multiple partners—often different providers for both collecting and disbursements—as well as multiple technologies, high fees, and long waiting times. Do Pay, in contrast, enables firms to leverage a single platform for both collection and dispersal, which enhances operational liquidity and ensures that funds are credit faster.

Founded in 2022 by CEO Cristian Valderrama, Do Payment is based in Lima, Peru. The company is already active in seven countries—Peru, Mexico, Ecuador, Chile, Colombia, Panama, and the US—with its pay-out service. In addition to Peru, Do Payment will go live with its Do Pay pay-in solution in Mexico and Ecuador, with the goal of expanding to both Chile and Colombia subsequently. Do Payment also noted that it plans to grow its footprint in Brazil in the second half of 2025.


Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Payments platform Paysafe launched its digital wallet, PagoEfectivo, in Peru.
  • Mexican fintech and edtech Mattilda partnered with payment orchestration platform Gr4vy to power its new white-label payments solution, Mattilda Pay.
  • Uruguay-based paytech dLocal announced plans to acquire Kenyan cross-border payments solutions provider AZA Finance.

Asia-Pacific

  • Revolut partnered with Ant International to enable its customers to send money to China.
  • Visa unveiled its Security Roadmap for New Zealand, featuring a three-year plan to leverage AI to fight fraud and other cyberthreats against consumers and businesses in the country.
  • Worldpay went live with domestic acquiring services in Thailand.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • Nigerian cryptocurrency exchange Roqqu acquired Kenyan crypto startup Flitaa as part of its expansion into East Africa.
  • Daily Investor profiled South African entrepreneur Lungisa Matshoba, co-founder of Yoco.
  • South African paytech Stitch acquired Efficacy Payments in order to offer card acquiring services directly to merchants.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Clarity AI acquired Berlin, Germany-based Sustainability-as-a-Service innovator ecolytiq.
  • Azerbaijan-based fintech PashaPay inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Mastercard.
  • German online bank N26 announced plans to offer stock trading to customers in Austria and Germany.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • Egypt’s Faisal Islamic Bank partnered with Intellect to launch its Shariah-compliant digital transformation.
  • According to research from Mordor Intelligence, the fintech market in the United Arab Emirates is expected to grow to more than $6.4 billion by 2030.
  • Egyptian digital investment platform Thndr raised $15.7 million in a round led by Prosus Ventures.

Central and Southern Asia

  • Pakistan-based ecommerce startup Bazaar Technologies announced that it is nearing profitability following its acquisition of Pakistani paytech Keenu.
  • Indian cross-border investing and financial management platform Belong is now available to non-resident Indians living in the UAE.
  • Central Asian digital banking ecosystem TBC Uzbekistan launched a new insurance vertical, TBC Insurance.

Photo by Aarom Ore on Unsplash

Bilt Raises $250 Million at $10+ Billion Valuation

Bilt Raises $250 Million at $10+ Billion Valuation
  • Bilt raised $250 million in new funding, boosting its total raised to $813 million and reaching a $10.75 billion valuation.
  • The company is expanding its rewards program to cover more housing categories like condos, HOAs, student housing, and even mortgage payments through a partnership with new investor United Wholesale Mortgage.
  • Bilt is also developing new credit card options, including a no-fee card and two premium tiers.

Loyalty platform Bilt received $250 million in new funding this week. The investment, which was led by General Catalyst and GID with additional funds coming from United Wholesale Mortgage, boosts the New York-based company’s total raised to $813 million.

Bilt was founded in 2021 to offer a loyalty rewards program and credit card that allows renters to earn points when they pay their rent, building credit with every payment. With no annual fee, the Bilt Mastercard credit card also allows cardholders to earn points on select dining experiences, rideshare purchases, and travel purchases. These points can be redeemed for travel, fitness classes, home decor, and even a down payment on a future home.

With today’s round, Bilt is also revealing its new valuation of $10.75 billion, representing more than a 3x increase in a single year. This new valuation reflects Bilt’s growth. The company anticipates it will surpass $1 billion in revenue by the first quarter of 2026 and will process over $100 billion annually in housing spend in the next six months. Additionally, the company’s network of homes has signed one in four US apartment buildings, partnering with 70% of the top 100 property managers. It has also added over 40,000 merchants across the US to its rewards network.

The company has expanded its network of merchant partnerships to make cardholders’ neighborhoods feel like their own members club. “Bilt represents the convergence of America’s largest spending categories—housing and local commerce—into a single, powerful network that benefits everyone involved,” said Bilt Chairman Ken Chenault. “What we’re building goes beyond the four walls of your apartment; we’re connecting you with your entire neighborhood and making every aspect of where you live more rewarding.”

Bilt is using the $250 million investment to grow the number of housing categories it is able to reward. The company is expanding into condo and HOA payments, student housing, and has also partnered with mortgage servicers–including today’s investor United Wholesale Mortgage–to expand into mortgage payments.

The company is also working on Bilt Card 2.0 in partnership with embedded credit card platform Cardless to offer a new, no-fee card option and two premium cards featuring $95 and $495 annual fees. Bilt didn’t offer additional details of the new card options, but teased the launch date of February 2026.


Photo by Tom Fisk

Clarity AI Acquires Sustainability Fintech ecolytiq

Clarity AI Acquires Sustainability Fintech ecolytiq
  • Clarity AI has announced its acquisition of Sustainability-as-a-Service fintech ecolytiq. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
  • The acquisition will add to Clarity AI’s suite of sustainability solutions and enhance the firm’s ability to embed sustainability intelligence into financial decision-making.
  • ecolytiq introduced itself to Finovate audiences in 2021 as part of our developers conference FinDEVr.

German Sustainability-as-a-Service innovator ecolytiq has agreed to be acquired by Clarity AI. The company helps financial institutions, public organizations, and individuals boost sustainability by calculating the environmental impacts of payment transactions. Terms of the acquisition were not immediately available. As part of the acquisition, Visa—which has had a longstanding strategic partnership with ecolytiq—has become an investor and strategic partner of Clarity AI.

“ecolytiq was founded with the idea that banking can be a powerful catalyst for climate action,” ecolytiq Co-Founder and Managing Director David Lais said. “The mission has always been to empower individuals to drive positive climate impact at scale through their everyday purchasing decisions. By joining forces with Clarity AI, we’re taking that vision to the next level—combining our behavioral science-based climate engagement technology with a world-class, AI-driven sustainability platform. Together, we’re accelerating the transition to a greener future—powered by the best available data and backed by purpose.”

The acquisition will bring additional climate engagement technology to Clarity AI’s platform, which is designed to embed sustainability intelligence into decision-making at scale, turning complex data into actionable insights that support responsible consumption and investment. ecolytiq’s technology leverages behavioral science to analyze transaction data in real-time and quantify environmental impacts. This information is delivered as high-impact sustainability content that has helped encourage climate-positive activity for millions of consumers and businesses throughout Europe and beyond.

Clarity AI Founder and CEO Rebeca Minguela called the acquisition “a declaration of intent,” noting that ecolytiq’s platform “aligns perfectly with our mission to embed sustainability intelligence into every decision—from multi-billion-dollar portfolios to everyday purchases. Together, we’re setting a new standard for how financial institutions engage customers with data that drives meaningful change.”

Recognized by Forrester as a Leading Provider in the field of sustainability intelligence, Clarity AI serves a network of clients managing a combined $70 trillion in assets. These clients include companies such as Invesco, Nordea, Lazard Asset Management, and Santander. From its inception in 2017, Clarity AI has put AI technology to work to support its suite of data solutions, analytics capabilities, and tools for portfolio management, corporate research and engagement, regulatory reporting, online banking, and more. Headquartered in New York, Clarity AI maintains offices in Europe and the Middle East, as well.

Headquartered in Berlin, Germany, and founded in 2020, ecolytiq has teamed up with the likes of Mashreq, HSBC, and Piraeus—as well as with fellow Finovate alums like Tink and TSYS—to provide solutions that help individuals and organizations understand the impact of their transactions on the environment and make adjustments to lower their carbon footprint. A Certified B Corporation, ecolytiq has approximately 14,500 financial institution clients worldwide.


Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Jumio and Prometeo Partner to Launch ID Verification Solution

Jumio and Prometeo Partner to Launch ID Verification Solution
  • Jumio and Prometeo have partnered to streamline identity and bank account verification across Latin America.
  • The integration combines biometric authentication, AI, and Prometeo’s banking network to improve security, reduce operational time, and enhance user experience for fintechs and digital platforms.
  • The two are aiming to help organizations meet regulatory requirements while scaling to meet growing demand for secure, digital financial services.

Digital identity solutions company Jumio announced this week that it has partnered with fintech infrastructure company Prometeo to create a solution for identity authentication and bank account validation across Latin America.

Integrating Jumio’s identity verification platform with Prometeo’s account validation will provide Prometeo’s clients with access to a single solution that simplifies processes including onboarding and payment reconciliation while reducing operational times, preventing fraud, and delivering a better user experience.

“This alliance allows us to offer stronger bank account validation, a key element in any authentication process. We’re no longer just confirming whether an account exists — we’re also verifying who’s behind it, which redefines how fintechs and digital companies build fast and efficient onboarding processes,” said Prometeo Commercial Director Roberto Gaudelli. “We’re proud to reach this milestone, which adds an extra layer of security and trust for our clients.”

Founded in 2018, Prometeo’s financial infrastructure allows businesses to integrate seamlessly with the financial system in Latin America and the US. The company offers an embedded banking platform and multi-banking solution to offer fintechs, digital banks, payment gateways, online gaming platforms, and e-commerce companies automated access to financial information and transactions through a single API. Prometeo’s network consists of more than 1,500 connections to 1,200 financial institutions across 11 countries.

Jumio’s platform offers an identity intelligence platform that uses biometric authentication, automation, and data-driven insights to help its clients know and trust their online users. The company was founded in 2010 and came close to collapse when it filed for bankruptcy in 2016. After restructuring, Jumio sold to Centana Venture Partners, which acquired the company for $850,000 two months after its bankruptcy filing. Since its acquisition, Jumio has processed over one billion transactions from over 200 countries and territories.

“Connecting our best-in-class biometric verification technology with the largest banking network in Latin America not only delivers a more complete solution to the market, it also raises the bar for security and efficiency,” said Jumio Strategic Alliances Manager for Latin America Pilar Pereira. “This alliance integrates advanced AI capabilities, data analytics, and user behavior interpretation, elements that truly make a difference and allow us to offer a robust, intelligent solution designed to tackle one of the region’s biggest challenges.”

Prometeo and Jumio anticipate that their alliance will improve verification in Latin America. By joining forces, they’re aiming to make digital onboarding smoother and more secure by helping organizations verify a person’s identity and bank account at the same time. Their integrated, modular solution tackles real pain points like fraud prevention, compliance with local and global regulations, and it is scalable for businesses of all sizes.


Photo by Alexandre Lima

Building Trust in Global Payments: 7 Questions with LiquidTrust Founder and CEO Saujin Yi

Building Trust in Global Payments: 7 Questions with LiquidTrust Founder and CEO Saujin Yi

Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) face big challenges when it comes to global payments. Opportunities to reach new markets across borders and overseas have never been greater. But unlike their larger competitors, SMBs are often stymied by both the complexity of international payments and the risks of dealing with new partners.

We caught up with Saujin Yi, Founder and CEO of LiquidTrust, a Los Angeles, California-based firm that offers a technology that reduces the risk and equalizes the power in business relationships to enable businesses of any size to partner, collaborate, and scale with flexibility, ease, and confidence. Earlier this year at FinovateSpring in San Diego, Yi and her co-presenter, Head of Business Development Sean Popock, demonstrated how LiquidTrust’s latest solution enables businesses to hold payments in third-party micro escrow accounts to guard against delays and defaults, as well as fraud.

In addition to LiquidTrust’s appearance at FinovateSpring in San Diego, the company also recently announced securing $4 million in seed funding. The round featured investments from Anthemis Female Innovators Lab Fund, Resolute Ventures, and Motivate Ventures, along with “strategic support” from BMO and JP Morgan. The capital infusion came at the same time that LiquidTrust announced the launch of Micro Escrow, its instant escrow payment solution for SMBs.

In our conversation, we discuss the current state of small business payments and the challenges SMBs face when conducting payments across borders. We learn about LiquidTrust’s solutions that provide fast, verified global payments for these firms and, importantly, the potential impact of the Trump administration’s tariff policy on SMBs when it comes to international payments.


Tell us about yourself and the company you founded. What problem does LiquidTrust solve and who does it solve it for?

Saujin Yi: I’m the founder and CEO of LiquidTrust. Before that, I spent over a decade working at the intersection of small and medium-sized businesses, fintech, and global payments. What we saw again and again, especially when working with these SMBs, is that trust remains a huge barrier to growth. Businesses want to work with new partners, especially across borders, but hesitate because they’re afraid they won’t get paid or that what they’ve paid for won’t arrive.

This is a real issue. SMBs in the US source goods and services from an average of nine different countries (1). And while many look to their bank or credit union for support, 75% of SMBs say they’re dissatisfied with current cross-border payment options. More than a quarter say they’re directly held back from global expansion because of the complexity and risks tied to current systems (2).

LiquidTrust exists to solve that. We partner with financial institutions and marketplaces to provide modern B2B payment solutions that make sending and receiving payments—especially across borders—safer and simpler for small and mid-sized businesses. Our flagship product, Protected Pay, is powered by our patent-pending Micro Escrow™ technology, which brings the kind of transaction protection that was once only available to large enterprises to the broader business world. Unfortunately, more than half of SMBs still believe that cross-border payment systems aren’t built for businesses of their size. We’re here to change that.

LiquidTrust offers two primary global payment methods. Can you outline these methods and explain the use cases for each?

Yi: Today, we partner with banks, credit unions, and B2B platforms to offer their SMB customers and members two ways to pay through one trusted platform: Simple Pay, for fast, verified global payments with no hassle, and Protected Pay, for escrow-style protection on higher-stakes transactions.

Simple Pay is ideal for repeat relationships where there’s already a baseline of trust, but both sides still want safeguards like payment validation or delivery confirmation. This is commonly used in ongoing vendor partnerships.

Protected Pay is for first-time, high-value, or higher-risk transactions where goods or services are being exchanged. This option uses our proprietary Micro Escrow technology to hold funds and release them only once specific milestones or conditions are met. It’s especially useful in cross-border deals, custom orders, or any situation that involves prepayment and delivery risk.

We’ve heard from financial institutions, marketplaces, and small business owners that this kind of flexibility—trust without unnecessary friction—is exactly what’s been missing. In fact, the fear of fraud is the number one reason over a quarter of SMBs say they’ve avoided trying to make or receive online cross-border payments altogether (3).

Can you tell us about a favorite implementation, deployment, or feature of your technology?

Yi: One of my favorites is a recent implementation with a logistics platform that serves SMB exporters and importers. Before LiquidTrust, many of their customers were wiring money upfront to overseas suppliers with no recourse if something went wrong. It was stressful and costly.

By integrating and offering our Protected Pay with Micro Escrow™ embedded, buyers now release funds only once documents are uploaded and verified. Sellers ship with confidence because they know the funds are secure. What I appreciate most is how seamless the experience is. The technology is fully embedded into the platform’s existing workflow, and the users don’t need to think about “escrow” as a separate process. It just works.

You recently wrote about the challenges that the proposed tariffs from the Trump Administration might represent for small business payments. What are these challenges and how are fintechs helping SMEs overcome them?

Yi: Tariff uncertainty creates chaos in two ways.

First, there’s  payment timing. We’ve seen businesses rush to send full payments ahead of a tariff deadline, only to have goods delayed or renegotiated mid-shipment. One business owner put it bluntly: “Our money is stuck in limbo, and we can’t do anything about it.” Second, there’s the impact on supply chain diversification.  Finding, vetting, and trusting one supplier in a country where you don’t know the language or local business culture is hard enough. When tariffs suddenly force SMBs to shift sourcing to an entirely new country, it’s more than just a logistics problem—it can be the difference between staying in business and not. And who’s to say they’ll be lucky enough to find another trustworthy partner?

This is where fintechs can help. We can build payment systems that match the real-world flexibility SMBs need—things like conditional release, milestone-based payments, and built-in dispute protection. When policies shift fast and unpredictably, businesses need tools that help them stay agile without putting their cash at risk.

Your company has a compelling origin story. What in your background gave you the confidence to tackle the challenge of small business global payments?

Yi: Our team was already working closely with SMB owners, and during the 2022 downturn, we kept hearing the same thing: payments were falling through. Some weren’t getting paid on time—or at all. Others were paying suppliers but never receiving what they ordered, with no real way to recover their losses. It became clear very quickly that the existing payment protections just weren’t built for them.

I’m a problem-solver at heart. My background is in engineering and finance, and what drives me isn’t building something flashy; it’s building something truly useful. I love simplifying complex systems, like escrow, and making them accessible. That, along with our experience in the space, gave me the confidence to build a solution that works for the people who need it most.

LiquidTrust recently secured $4 million in seed funding. What did this investment mean and what will it enable the company to do?

Yi: This investment allows us to scale thoughtfully. We’re using it to build more partnerships with financial institutions and B2B platforms, accelerate onboarding, and strengthen our compliance infrastructure so we can support more global markets. Just as importantly, it sends a strong signal to the market. When investors back a mission like ours—to make trust in payments accessible to everyone—it tells SMBs, “You’re not alone, and better tools are on their way.”

What can we expect from LiquidTrust in the months to come?

Yi: We’re focused on expanding our footprint with financial institutions and B2B platforms that want to offer trusted payments without having to rebuild everything from scratch. You’ll also see enhancements to our Micro Escrow™ technology, including more configurability, broader use-case support, and even simpler integrations.

And we’re continuing to listen. Most of our best features have come from conversations with business owners and bank partners who just want a better way to work. That’s what you can count on from us. We’ll keep building, quietly and thoughtfully, to make trust easier for everyone.


Notes:

  1. SMB Ambitions barometer 2024
  2. International B2B Payments: A Guide for Entrepreneurs and Digital Businesses
  3. Borderless Payments Report, Oct 2023

Photo by Gerson Repreza on Unsplash

Nymbus Partners with Bud Financial on AI-Powered PFM

Nymbus Partners with Bud Financial on AI-Powered PFM

A partnership between Nymbus and Bud Financial will make AI-powered personal financial management (PFM) solutions available to customers of community banks and members of credit unions.

A full-stack banking platform for banks and credit unions in the US, Nymbus will embed Bud Financial’s suite of personal financial management (PFM) widgets directly into its banking platform. This will give customers and members greater visibility into their finances and equip them with relevant content and financial tools to help them better manage their money. Bud Financial’s transaction data enrichment and AI-driven insights provides categorized, contextual data that enables banks and credit unions to offer more tailored, personalized experiences.

“We’re thrilled to be partnering with Nymbus as they continue to transform banking for community institutions across the US,” Bud Financial CEO Edward Maslaveckas said. “Together, we’re enabling their clients to move beyond legacy data into a new era of intelligent, insight-driven banking. This collaboration reflects our shared belief that better data leads to better outcomes—for financial institutions and their customers alike.”

Nymbus’ partnership with Bud comes in the wake of the firm’s launch of Nymbus Engage. Engage is a new customer engagement solution designed to help community banks and credit unions use data to build better long-term relationships with their customers and members. Integrating Bud’s PFM tools extends Nymbus’ strategy by empowering financial institutions to offer more personalized initiatives to build customer loyalty. In their partnership announcement, the companies noted that the first Nymbus client deployment powered by Bud Financial is already underway. A wider rollout is expected over the weeks and months to come.

“This integration supports our mission of providing banks and credit unions with the tools they need to grow, differentiate, and deliver modern, personalized banking experiences,” Nymbus CEO and Chairman Jeffrey Kendall said. “Bud’s AI-driven enrichment unlocks a new level of insight from transaction data, and we’re excited to bring this to our clients.”

Founded in 2015, Nymbus is headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida. The company has presented its technology at both Finovate’s developer conference, FinDEVr, as well as Finovate’s flagship series, most recently demoing at FinovateFall 2023 in New York. Nymbus offers financial institutions a single, scalable platform that delivers core banking, digital services, lending, onboarding, and analytics.

Bud Financial is the second Finovate alum Nymbus has partnered with this year. The company began 2025 announcing a strategic agreement with Digital Onboarding (FinovateFall 2018) to provide community banks and credit unions with better marketing and analytics capabilities to enhance customer and member engagement.

Making its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2023 in New York and returning a year later for FinovateFall 2024, Bud Financial enriches transactional data to provide actionable insights and readable inputs for large-language models (LLMs) in banking and financial services. The company, headquartered in London, has processed tens of billions of transactions since its launch in 2015.

In addition to its partnership with Nymbus, Bud Financial has also forged partnerships in recent weeks with financial empowerment platform Fruition and adaptive financial infrastructure (AFI) platform XYB. In February, the company introduced its Intelligent Search capability that enables retail banking customers to search their transaction data for insights on spending and proactive suggestions on better money management.


Photo by Wade Austin Ellis on Unsplash

Will the One Big Beautiful Bill Act Be a Boon (or a Bust) for Fintech?

Will the One Big Beautiful Bill Act Be a Boon (or a Bust) for Fintech?

Now that the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” is the law of the land, is there anything in there that fintechs and financial services companies need to be ready for?

There are two little-discussed items in the 900+ page statute may be of interest to the fintech and financial services industries One is a bit of a bankshot, the other represents a potential new hurdle for fintechs involved in payments, including cross-border transactions and micropayments.

Let’s start with the bankshot. The OBBBA includes a requirement that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) auction 600 MHz of spectrum behind 1.3-10 GHz by the year 2034. Why is this important? For one, the government stands to earn as much as $88 billion from the proceeds. At the same time, telecoms like T-Mobile and AT&T stand to gain bigly from greater access to a mid-band spectrum that represents the foundation of not just 5G but also future 6G networks, as well.

“Wireless spectrum acts as the invisible backbone for our digital economy,” Shane Tews, Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote last month. “Every smartphone call, streaming service, autonomous vehicle communication, and Internet of Things (IoT) device depends on this limited resource. As we approach widespread deployment of 5G and look ahead to 6G, the availability of commercial spectrum becomes increasingly vital to maintaining America’s competitive edge in the global technology race.”

While the biggest and most direct winners will be the telecoms who are able to buy the additional bandwidth, faster, low-latency connectivity will be a boon to fintechs and financial services companies when it comes to delivering current solutions faster, as well as offering new products and services that can take advantage of modern networks. Everything from account updating to more sophisticated anti-fraud technology to high-definition video banking could be positively affected by more robust 5G/6G connectivity. The broader network coverage could also support financial inclusion by making it easier for financial institutions, including regional and community-based financial institutions, to reach un- and underbanked communities in their vicinities.

The other aspect of the OBBBA that relates to fintech and financial services is the repeal of the de minimis tariff exemption. The de minimis tariff exemption allowed packages valued at less than $800 to enter the US duty-free and with less restrictive customs screening. The exemption came under fire from critics who feared a wave of low-value shipments from China and Hong Kong that would take advantage of the exemption.

Unlike much of what happens in Congress, there was actually bipartisan support for repealing the exemption; repeal also helped sync Senate and House versions of the legislation. The repeal is slated to take full effect by July 1, 2027—though partial implementation for Chinese imports has already begun.

How might this little-discussed feature of the OBBBA impact fintechs and financial services companies? Greater complexity in payments and cross-border transactions is one potential outcome as previously exempt transactions become subject to new tariff calculations. Along with this there are likely to be additional—and often more complex—compliance steps that firms will need to take including more extensive documentation, enhanced duty calculation functionality, and more. Companies will also have to explain and deal with the impact of higher prices on customers, who have become increasingly cost-conscious in recent years.

That said, there may be opportunity in this development for fintechs in the regtech space in particular. Firms with talent and technology in trade compliance, logistics, as well as tools to help automate new and complex regulatory requirements, will be ideal partners for fintechs, banks, and other companies as they navigate a world with far more dynamic trade and tariff policies than we’ve experienced in a long time.


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Anonybit Partners with SmartUp to Introduce Digital Identity Solution for AI Agents

Anonybit Partners with SmartUp to Introduce Digital Identity Solution for AI Agents
  • Decentralized biometrics solutions company Anonybit announced a partnership with AI-native no-code platform SmartUp.
  • Courtesy of the partnership, the two companies are introducing what they call the first privacy-preserving digital identity solution for AI agents.
  • Founded in 2018, Anonybit made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2025 in San Diego.

Decentralized biometrics solutions provider Anonybit has teamed up with AI-native no-code platform SmartUp to launch what the two companies are calling the first privacy-preserving digital identity solution for AI agents. The solution brings secure, identity-bound agentic automation to enterprise workflows in payments, supply chain, and order management, and marks a pioneering implementation of agentic commerce secured by decentralized biometrics.

“Agentic commerce holds incredible promise for efficiency and scale, but without identity, it also introduces serious risks around trust, fraud, and control,” Anonybit Co-Founder and CEO Frances Zelazny said. “We’re proud to be the first to bring a real-world solution to market that delivers secure, ethical, and scalable agentic workflows. With SmartUp, we’re proving that identity-bound agents can operate in production, not just in theory. Our decentralized biometric cloud, data vault, and token management system form the missing identity layer the enterprise needs to build trust, ensure accountability, and future-proof agent-driven automation.”

The partnership comes at a time when use of agentic systems has grown dramatically. According to research by Gartner, by 2026, 80% of digital workers will rely on AI agents in order to complete routine customer service operations. McKinsey anticipates that agent-driven automation could be a major boon to productivity in the enterprise.

But as agentic AI does more of the work, who (or what) is truly operating on behalf of the user and where does accountability actually lie? Anonybit answers this question with a decentralized infrastructure that binds identity to agents: authenticating users, authorizing actions, and providing cryptographically secure identity tokens across the lifecycle of the agentic flow.

Anonybit’s decentralized biometric cloud supports all major biometric modalities (face, voice, finger, iris, and palm) for both authentication and step-up verification. The solution avoids storing biometric data in a single location, and leverages its decentralized data vault to protect the sensitive data collected by agents and ensure data residency, compliance, and quantum-resistant security. Anonybit also features an identity token management system that enables agents to operate on behalf of users with precise authorization that is auditable and works across any workflow—online, in-person, or automated. Via the partnership with SmartUp, identity-bound agents are authenticating business users and customers, using biometrics and privacy-preserving credentials to bind agents to these identities, authorizing specific tasks by way of scoped identity tokens and integrations with orchestration platforms, and providing real-time auditability and zero-trust across workflows.

“SmartUp is pioneering agentic automation in core business functions like order management and supply chain management, and our customers are already seeing the benefits of secure, identity-bound agents,” SmartUp Co-Founder and Country Manager Moishe Shemtov said. “With Anonybit’s identity infrastructure, we ensure our agents are not only autonomous, but accountable. This is the foundation for the next generation of secure enterprise AI.”

Founded in 2018 and headquartered in New York, Anonybit made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2025 in San Diego. At the conference, the company showed how its technology integrates with Q2 and other digital banking platforms to enable passwordless login, step-up authentication, and account recovery with no requirement to download an app or use a dedicated device.


Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News

Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News

As the summer gets into full swing, we’re seeing no slowdown in the pace of financial and fintech news coming to our desk. We’ll keep you posted on the latest headlines here at Finovate’s Fintech Rundown!


Payments

KeyBank launches its unified solution for the invoice-to-cash process, KeyTotal AR, powered by Versapay.

Workforce payroll company Papaya Global teams up with Worksome to launch a fully integrated Freelance Management System to help companies manage payments for contingent workforces.

Payments company PayJunction integrates with customer engagement platform Twilio.

London-based paytech Redpin brings its payments platform to businesses in Spain.

Hospitality industry payments provider Katanox secures authorization from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to initiate payment services in the UK.

Business payments platform Exactly.com expands to Spain.

Crypto and DeFi

Spanish banking company BBVA introduces its new Bitcoin and Ether trading and custody service.

Australian cryptocurrency exchange Coinstash secures $4.7 million in funding.

Tokenized real estate investment platform MetaWealth announces distribution of one million USD in yield income to token holders.

Card issuing and ledger infrastructure provider Episode Six partners with xMoney to enable crypto and fiat payments.

Lending and credit

Fintech platform Adyen launches Capital to help businesses on its platform offer fast and flexible financing to the SMEs they serve.

UK-based digital credit marketplace LoanTube unveils its SME brokerage platform.

Data and analytics platform for lenders, Ocrolus, announces expansion of its Inspect underwriting solution to boost quality control in lending.

Agentic AI solution provider for financial services companies and lenders MOGOPLUS has raised AU$1.5 million in funding.

Japanese banking group SBI goes live on nCino with its Credit Guarantee solution.

Flexys partners with CU Share to help credit unions enhance debt management for members.

Identity management and fraud prevention

IDnow and Keyless announce strategic partnership to provide secure authentication throughout the entire digital identity lifecycle.

Biometric identity verification and authentication solutions provider authID forges strategic partnership with identity verification and authentication provider Prove.

Investing and wealth management

Online brokerage TradeStation integrates with retail investor research tool and data company TipRanks.

Accounting

Practice management software provider Ignition integrates with practice intelligence platform Karbon.

Embedded accounting startup Layer secures $6.6 million in seed funding in a round led by Emergence Capital.

Insurtech

Central Asian digital banking ecosystem TBC Uzbekistan launches new insurance vertical, TBC Insurance.


Photo by Kadir Celep on Unsplash

Stripe Partners with TrueLayer to Launch Pay by Bank in France and Germany

Stripe Partners with TrueLayer to Launch Pay by Bank in France and Germany
  • Stripe and TrueLayer are launching pay-by-bank in France and Germany, offering real-time, secure payments that bypass card networks to reduce fees and improve conversion for merchants.
  • The move signals growing momentum for open banking in Europe, where the number of pay-by-bank payments is expected to reach 30 billion by 2028.
  • TrueLayer notes that France and Germany are already two of its largest markets outside of the UK. Today’s deal will only enhance its presence in those regions.

Thanks to a new partnership with TrueLayer, Stripe is able to announce it is launching pay-by-bank in France and Germany. 

Stripe will use the pay-by-bank capabilities to streamline the checkout experience for French and German businesses. The company anticipates that merchants using pay-by-bank will be able to improve conversion rates and reduce transaction fees. That’s because merchants can avoid card processing fees, process transactions in real-time, and offer more secure transactions because they require bank-approved authentication.

On the consumer side, users will not need to enter card details, but will instead be able to authorize the payment directly from their bank accounts using biometrics.

“Having seen the success of Stripe’s TrueLayer integration in other markets, we are thrilled to bring this innovative payment solution to Germany and France,” said TrueLayer’s Country Manager for Germany, Sebastian Vetter. “By leveraging TrueLayer’s open banking infrastructure, we’re enabling German and French businesses to accept payments directly from bank accounts, making transactions faster, safer, and more affordable.”

Bringing pay-by-bank to two European nations is strategic, as the payment method within the EU is expected to reach 30 billion by 2028. Notably, Germany and France are expected to be key drivers of this growth. The two nations are also two of TrueLayer’s largest markets outside of the UK. TrueLayer currently processes $2.4 billion (€2 billion) in pay-by-bank transactions in France and $1.6 billion (€1.4 billion) in Germany each year, serving both local and international clients.

TrueLayer was founded in 2016 with an open banking payments network that connects banks across the globe and processes $40 billion across 120 million transactions annually. The company has 10 million users located among 21 European countries. In addition to its payments and payouts products, TrueLayer also offers Signup+, a streamlined onboarding tool, and VRP (variable recurring payment), a tool that enables flexible, bank-authorized recurring transactions.

Stripe’s move into pay-by-bank in France and Germany is a signal that open banking is moving from concept to competitive edge in the European region. It also reflects how Stripe and TrueLayer are positioning themselves for the future of bank-to-bank payments, especially as the EU is actively promoting open banking and instant payments. Stripe’s strategic alignment with these evolving preferences and regulations could help it get ahead in Europe.

However, while pay-by-bank has been cited as one of the top trends to watch in 2025, it has yet to gain similar traction in the U.S. market. American consumers tend to favor credit cards and are generally more hesitant to link their bank accounts directly for payments. Adoption could face additional headwinds if the CFPB reverses its open banking rule, which would leave access to consumer banking data unregulated and slow the development of account-to-account payment options.

AutoRek Unveils Reconciliation and Data Management Solution for Crypto, AutoRek Mion

AutoRek Unveils Reconciliation and Data Management Solution for Crypto, AutoRek Mion
  • Automated reconciliation and financial controls company AutoRek recently unveiled its AutoRek Mion platform.
  • AutoRek Mion provides data management and reconciliation capabilities for cryptocurrency and digital asset operations at a time when adoption of these assets is growing rapidly.
  • Headquartered in Glasgow, Scotland, AutoRek made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2013 in London. Chris Livesey is CEO.

Automated reconciliation and financial control solutions provider AutoRek has launched its AutoRek Mion solution. The new platform provides data management and reconciliation capabilities for cryptocurrency and digital asset operations. AutoRek Mion works where traditional reconciliation systems often fail by processing up to 20 digits before and 18 digits after the decimal point to provide accuracy and scale.

“The financial services industry is at an inflection point with cryptocurrency adoption,” AutoRek CEO Chris Livesey said. “When our client came to us with their challenge, it became clear that this wasn’t just one client’s problem—it was an industry-wide issue that needed solving. Traditional reconciliation systems cannot handle the precision requirements of these assets. AutoRek Mion solves this fundamental problem, enabling institutions to maintain the same rigorous financial controls for crypto that they’ve relied on for traditional assets for decades.”

With a digital asset like Ethereum, for example, which operates at 18 decimal places, existing reconciliation systems are simply not precise enough. AutoRek Mion, in contrast, can handle both high precision numbers and very large numbers at high precision. This comes as new regulatory frameworks on cryptocurrencies and digital assets from the Financial Conduct Authority and the European Union are putting additional compliance pressures on financial institutions. Specifically, both the FCA’s discussion paper DP 23/4 and the EU’s Market in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) underscore the importance of proper reconciliation controls for digital assets on behalf of clients.

“The challenge wasn’t just about displaying more decimal places—we had to create custom code to overcome fundamental database technology limitations,” AutoRek Chief Product, Technology and Operations Officer Jim Sadler said. “The platform features specialized proprietary functions that ensure mathematical calculations can be processed at these new levels of precision, enabling accurate valuations, currency calculations, and data aggregation for digital assets.”

Headquartered in Glasgow, Scotland, AutoRek made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2023 in London. At the conference, the company showed how its intuitive, configurable dashboards and machine intelligence monitor the reconciliations process—from categorizing outstanding transactions to highlighting escalation points—giving financial institutions more control and efficiency and less reliance on spreadsheets and manual processes. Founded in 1994, AutoRek partners with companies in banking, payments, asset management, insurance, and other sectors to help them leverage intelligent automation to better manage their data. The firm’s technology has been implemented by more than 100 companies.

Earlier this year, AutoRek announced a partnership with bank integration solutions provider AccessPay to help streamline the retrieval, reconciliation, and reporting of banking data. The company began the year with news that leading UK insurance, wealth, and retirement firm Aviva had selected AutoRek as its reconciliation and CASS tool.


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Streamly Snapshot: Modernizing KYB—Transforming Compliance into Opportunity

Streamly Snapshot: Modernizing KYB—Transforming Compliance into Opportunity

How does the shifting regulatory landscape impact the ability of financial institutions to securely engage new customers and members, protect themselves and their partners from fraud, and remain compliant? What technologies and processes are available to help them ensure that they are meeting their regulatory obligations in the most efficient and comprehensive way possible?

In this Streamly Series interview conducted at FinovateSpring in San Diego, Middesk Head of Marketing and Business Development Jackie Wylie talks about the importance of sound KYB (Know Your Business) processes and the potential advantages for firms that embrace dynamic onboarding flows. Wylie also talks about Middesk’s advances in fraud prevention, its acquisition of specialized data sets, and its work in forging key partnerships.

“Middesk is a business identity platform. We create business identities by aggregating, analyzing, and then surfacing insights about a business. We do that by collecting data from a number of sources like government organizations such as Secretary of State data. We scrape a company’s online presence and gather data from their website and we obtain information about the industry they are operating in, etc. We build this really robust profile about the business and then we bring that profile to our customers—financial services institutions, banks, fintechs, payments companies … and we help them use that data to make onboarding decisions so they can bring on as many of the best customers as possible, as quickly as possible.”

San Francisco, California-based Middesk offers solutions that help businesses access financial products, hire new talent, and transact with other businesses. The company offers an identity product that provides financial institutions with the accurate data they need to efficiently onboard new customers, and an agent product that supports employer filings with state and federal agencies. Founded in 2019, Middesk includes Affirm, Plaid, and Gusto among its customers. Kyle Mack (CEO) and Kurt Ruppel (CTO) are co-founders.

Head of Marketing and Business Development for Middesk, Jackie Wylie joined the company in the spring of 2024. Wylie has 15+ years of experience in driving pipeline and revenue growth via strategic marketing initiatives with technology firms such as Textio, Amino, and Smartsheet. She is also Seattle Chapter Co-Head and Executive Member of Pavilion, a 10,000-member private community for go-to-market leaders in B2B technology.


Photo by Justin Wolff on Unsplash