Gusto Acquires Mosey to Add Compliance Capabilities

Gusto Acquires Mosey to Add Compliance Capabilities
  • Gusto acquired compliance platform Mosey to embed small business compliance tools into its payroll and HR platform.
  • The purchase allows Gusto to integrate state and local business registration, filings, and ongoing compliance directly into its platform that serves 400,000 small businesses.
  • Mosey will help Gusto attract compliance-first customers while adding value via new upsell opportunities.

Payroll, benefits, and HR management solutions company Gusto has acquired business compliance platform Mosey. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Gusto plans to leverage Mosey to help its customers manage their compliance obligations.

Mosey was founded in 2021 to help small business owners avoid common compliance pitfalls such as hiring without the right legal setup, configuring payroll incorrectly, and missing tax deadlines. “I started Mosey because I’d made every compliance mistake myself, and then I watched thousands of other businesses make the same ones,” said Mosey Founder Alex Kehayias. “The problem isn’t that small business owners don’t care about compliance, it’s that they shouldn’t have to become experts in it. Joining Gusto means we can bring that vision to the millions of small businesses that need it most.”

“Building a business is hard enough without compliance getting in the way,” said Gusto Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer Tomer London. “With Mosey now part of Gusto, we can do what Gusto has always done: take complexity off the plate of small business owners so they can focus on what they actually started their business to do. This is a natural extension of our vision to be the platform that helps small businesses start, hire, and grow.”

Acquiring Mosey will allow Gusto to offer state and local registration, filings, renewal, and ongoing compliance management directly within its own platform. Once integrated, Gusto’s 400,000+ small business clients will be able to hire, pay their teams, and manage their compliance obligations from a single place.

Specifically, Gusto will add:

  • State and local business registrations
  • Entity management, ongoing filings and renewals
  • Resolving agency mail
  • Real-time surfacing of new compliance obligations as businesses grow or expand to new states

Strategically, Gusto will be able to use Mosey’s technologies to attract clients seeking compliance strategies, but not necessarily HR capabilities. Additionally, it will allow Gusto to cross-sell Mosey’s compliance capabilities to its existing customer base.

This is another case of “rebundling” fintech, in which fintech platforms are piling on more capabilities to their long-standing platforms in order to add value and create a broader, more encompassing ecosystem for clients. The deal comes eight months after Gusto acquired retirement specialist Guideline to offer 401(k) retirement plans through its platform.

Gusto, originally known as ZenPayroll, was founded in 2011 and provides a cloud-based payroll, benefits, HR management, and business financial management solution. If the San Francisco-based company continues down its current path of expansion, it may eventually offer corporate credit cards and business banking tools.


Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya

OnePay Partners with Workday Wellness to Expand Distribution

OnePay Partners with Workday Wellness to Expand Distribution
  • OnePay is partnering with Workday Wellness to embed banking, investing, and credit tools directly into employer HR and benefits platforms.
  • The integration shifts financial wellness from a passive benefit to an in-workflow experience, helping employers drive engagement and usage.
  • The partnership will also bring Enhanced Direct Deposit Switching (EDDS) to simplify payroll routing while helping OnePay acquire new customers and capture more deposits.

Walmart-owned digital banking platform OnePay is reaching more customers through its new partnership with Workday Wellness

The New York-based company has become a Workday Wellness partner for financial benefits. Under the agreement, Workday Wellness will integrate OnePay services with Workday Wellness to allow employers to bring OnePay’s banking, investing, credit building and other financial tools into the Workday experience.

Workday Wellness is owned by Workday, an enterprise AI platform for managing people, money, and AI agents. The company’s tools are used by more than 11,500 organizations across the globe, including more than 65% of the Fortune 500.

Workday Wellness offers employers a real-time view of which benefits their employees actually use and advises them on how to improve their offerings. Bringing OnePay’s financial tools into that experience will move financial wellness from a passive benefit to an embedded part of the employee experience, making it easier for workers to take action in real time and for employers to drive measurable engagement.

“Financial stress doesn’t disappear at the office door. Employers today know that when their employees stress about their finances, it directly affects their business. We’re partnering with Workday to bring comprehensive money tools into the systems employees already use every day,” said OnePay Chief Commercial Officer Thomas Hoare. “These tools are designed for simple rollout by employers and ease of use by employees, with the goal of helping people reduce stress and make real progress.”

For OnePay, embedding its financial tools within Workday Wellness will offer an advantage because it will meet end consumers where they already are within payroll, benefits, and HR. For employers, the integration helps close the gap between offering financial wellness benefits and actually driving usage by making financial wellness tools more visible, accessible, and actionable.

The partnership will also bring Enhanced Direct Deposit Switching (EDDS), a tool that allows employees to instantly set up or change payroll deposits within their employer’s platform. EDDS eliminates the need to manually add routing account numbers, accelerates financial onboarding, improves security, and enables instant switching of paycheck destinations.

On the surface, Workday Wellness and OnePay are offering EDDS to provide a smoother sign-up and paycheck allocation process. For OnePay, however, facilitating the process of direct deposit switching will help it onboard new customers and increase the amount of deposits of its existing clients.

“Financial wellbeing has become a strategic priority for employers,” said Workday Global Vice President, Partner Strategy & Growth Saqib Sheikh. “Welcoming OnePay into Enhanced Direct Deposit and Workday Wellness helps our customers provide a more holistic financial journey for their employees. Our upcoming direct deposit tools cut through the red tape, aiming to make it easier for employees to send their paychecks where they need them to go to help build a more secure financial future.”

Four Fintechs Driving Payments, Infrastructure, and Embedded Finance

Four Fintechs Driving Payments, Infrastructure, and Embedded Finance

Financial infrastructure is becoming increasingly valuable as it powers payments and financial products. Instead of operating within closed systems, banks are now operating within broader ecosystems in which customers expect seamless integrations, faster money movement, and financial services experiences that become invisible within the customer journey.

Fintechs are working to satisfy the demand for this infrastructure using API-driven tools that can support real-time payments, cross-border transactions, and embedded finance use cases. At FinovateSpring 2026, we’re hosting a group of fresh fintechs that will showcase their solutions designed to simplify payments, modernize infrastructure, and unlock new revenue opportunities. From digital asset infrastructure to cross-border payments and operational platforms, these four companies leading the way.


AlphaPoint

AlphaPoint enables smaller financial institutions to adopt stablecoin payments and treasury capabilities without the cost and complexity of building in-house infrastructure. Its platform provides the tools banks need to support digital asset transactions, helping them modernize payments and compete with larger, more technologically advanced players.

Founded in 2013 and headquartered in New York, AlphaPoint gives banks a faster path to integrating blockchain-based financial services, positioning them to participate in real-time, programmable money.


Quanto

Quanto helps businesses reduce operational friction across financial workflows by streamlining back-office processes, allowing companies to focus on growth.

Founded in 2025 and headquartered in Chicago, Quanto helps organizations scale more efficiently, reduce complexity, and accelerate time to scale.


Reativ

Reativ’s cloud-based treasury management system offers financial institutions real-time visibility into cash positions, liquidity, and risk. Its platform combines automation and AI-driven insights to help banks optimize cash usage, reduce operational costs, and improve decision-making.

Designed for regional and community banks as well as credit unions, Reativ can reduce operational expenses by up to 50% while enhancing regulatory readiness. Founded in 2026 and headquartered in Portland, Oregon, the company offers a modern, centralized approach to treasury management.


Clockout

Clockout helps financial institutions drive deposit growth and customer engagement through embedded financial wellness tools. Its platform is designed to increase direct deposits, boost per-user revenue, and differentiate banks and credit unions in competitive markets.

Founded in 2022 and headquartered in Tennessee, Clockout enables institutions to deepen relationships with their customers while creating new revenue opportunities tied to everyday financial activity.

Why banks should care

Banks are under pressure to offer faster money movement, integrate with third-party platforms, and meet rising customer expectations. At the same time, firms need to manage costs and are constrained by legacy systems.

Fintechs are helping bridge this gap with solutions that simplify treasury management, enable stablecoin and real-time payments, and streamline operational workflows that allow institutions to modernize without large-scale overhauls. At the same time, embedded finance and deposit-driving tools create new opportunities to grow balances, increase revenue per customer, and stay competitive in an increasingly platform-driven financial ecosystem.


Photo by Artur Łuczka on Unsplash

BetaNXT Wants to Move Wealth Management AI from Pilot to Production

BetaNXT Wants to Move Wealth Management AI from Pilot to Production
  • BetaNXT has launched InsightX, an enterprise AI platform that embeds automation, analytics, and insights directly into wealth management workflows via API and integrated tools.
  • InsightX is built for regulated environments and combines domain-specific data models with built-in governance, transparency, and auditability to support compliant AI adoption.
  • BetaNXT also announced its new Innovation Lab that will help firms deploy production-ready solutions in as little as three months.

Wealth management solutions company BetaNXT announced the launch of InsightX, its enterprise AI platform that power automation, analytics, and insights across enterprises.

InsightX will leverage BetaNXT’s deep expertise in wealth management to deliver solutions designed around how clients actually think and behave. The platform is built on data models developed by domain experts and incorporates embedded governance and metadata to ensure full traceability and auditability.

By integrating BetaNXT’s institutional knowledge of how operations teams and advisors work in practice, InsightX enhances real-world workflows rather than disrupting them. The platform also provides full transparency into its methodology and data sources, fostering user trust while creating a clear, auditable data trail.

InsightX is available as an API for use in a firm’s existing tools, or through three of BetaNXT’s products: Data Studio, a self-service tool for creating custom dashboards and data visualizations; Compass, an AI assistant that enables natural-language prompting for operational intelligence; and Solutions Hub, a central hub for production-ready AI solutions.

“The launch of InsightX is a major leap forward for firms at every stage of AI maturity,” said BetaNXT Chief Product Officer Jonathan Reeve. “From boutique asset managers looking to optimize distribution, to large broker-dealers seeking to enhance advisor support, to corporate issuers focusing on investor engagement, our AI platform provides the infrastructure and tools they need. Whether a firm wants to deploy pre-built AI solutions today or build their own AI capabilities for tomorrow, having BetaNXT as a partner can significantly accelerate their journey.”

The New York-based company also unveiled its new BetaNXT AI Innovation Lab, an accelerator designed to fast-track the delivery of AI solutions. Participants can use the new Innovation Lab to quickly move AI initiatives from concept to production, with a process that can deliver production-ready solutions in as little as three months.

“We are hearing from our clients that they’re focused on scaling AI’s transformative impact beyond their data and technology teams,” said BetaNXT CEO Bob Santella. “Figuring out how to integrate AI smoothly into day-to-day operations, advisor interactions, and leadership decisions is the key to unlocking AI’s full potential. Our vision is to break down the barriers to AI adoption in order to bring intelligence and insights to every user in our industry, regardless of their technical background.”

Wealth management is a green field for AI applications. Embedding AI tools into advisor workflows, operations, and decision-making can make solutions more powerful, explainable, and compliant.

Instead of using standalone tools or generic models, firms are looking for platforms built on domain-specific data, with governance and auditability baked in from the start. Combining usability and control in this way can help turn AI from a concept into a scalable tool. BetaNXT’s InsightX is another example of how AI in wealth management is becoming infrastructure.

Founded in 2022, BetaNXT helps wealth managers differentiate their wealth management platforms while reducing backend costs and operational inefficiencies. The company serves broker dealers, advisors, wealth managers, issuers, and asset managers.


Photo by Jakub Zerdzicki

Robinhood to Build Brokerage Platform for Trump Accounts

Robinhood to Build Brokerage Platform for Trump Accounts
  • The US Treasury tapped Robinhood and BNY to power and manage Trump Accounts, the new government-backed, tax-deferred investment program for children seeded with $1,000 at birth.
  • The platform will be fully white-labeled and operated by the Treasury, with Robinhood providing the technology, UX, education, and customer support behind the scenes.
  • The deal marks a strategic shift for Robinhood from consumer brokerage to infrastructure provider.

The United States Treasury Department announced today that digital stock brokerage app Robinhood will build the brokerage platform and serve as the initial trustee for Trump Accounts, the new custodial-style Individual Retirement Accounts for children under 18.

The department selected BNY as the financial agent for the Trump Account program. BNY will be responsible for managing the initial accounts and has selected Robinhood to help develop the new Trump Accounts app. The new standalone Trump Accounts app will be fully white-labeled with no Robinhood branding and will offer an intuitive user interface and user experience that will help families to view and manage their Trump Accounts.

Along with building the front-end experience, Robinhood will also create educational resources and manage customer support for Trump Accounts.

“We are proud to power Trump Accounts with Robinhood’s technology and to work alongside a historic and trusted institution like BNY,” said Robinhood Markets CEO Vlad Tenev. “Our task is clear: to provide the next generation of Americans with a world-class, intuitive platform to jumpstart their financial future.”

Trump Accounts launch on July 4 and will serve as tax-deferred investing accounts for children. Babies born between 2025 and 2028 receive a one-time $1,000 deposit from the Treasury to seed their retirement. Currently, more than four million children have been signed up for a Trump Account. As part of its efforts, Robinhood said it plans to match the Treasury’s $1,000 contribution to Trump Accounts for eligible children of its employees.

Once the app is built, the US Treasury will retain control over the app and the operations for all accounts. The Treasury did not disclose any financial details around the agreement.

“We continue to believe that the American stock market remains the greatest wealth creation vehicle of our time,” the company said in a statement. “…by providing young Americans with a dedicated platform to engage with the markets early, Trump Accounts will help millions of citizens maximize the power of compounding and build a lasting financial legacy.”

The move positions Robinhood as an infrastructure provider. By powering a federally backed investing program at scale, the company is moving beyond consumer brokerage and into the realm of embedded financial services.

Even without branding, this partnership gives Robinhood access to one of the largest distribution channels in retail investing and demonstrates its ability to operate as a trusted backend provider for government-led initiatives. While Robinhood still values owning the customer relationship, it is now expanding its scope to own the rails, as well.


Photo by Aliaksei Smalenski

Categories Unveiled for 2026 Finovate Awards

Categories Unveiled for 2026 Finovate Awards

The Finovate Awards are back, which means nominations for 2026 are officially open! Each year, the Finovate Awards recognize the companies, financial institutions, and individuals pushing the boundaries of financial services. The program highlights the newest tools, solutions, and ideas shaping how money moves, grows, and is managed.

Today, we’re unveiling the full list of 31 award categories for 2026, including several new additions.

Whether you’re building, partnering, or leading in fintech, there’s a category designed to recognize your impact. Check out the full list below:

Awards for Banks and Financial Institutions

These categories spotlight banks and financial institutions delivering standout innovation and customer value:

  • Best Anti-Fraud/AML Solution
  • Best Banking as a Service Provider
  • Best Consumer Lending Solution
  • Best Customer Experience Solution
  • Best Digital Bank
  • Best Financial Mobile App
  • Best Marketing/Customer Acquisition Solution
  • Best Wealth Management Solution
  • Excellence in Open Banking/Open Finance
  • Top Fintech VC

Why it matters:
In today’s era of increasing competition and elevated customer expectations, banks must now compete on experience, infrastructure, and ecosystem participation. These categories recognize institutions that are evolving beyond traditional models to meet modern expectations.

Awards for Banks, FIs, and Fintechs

These categories highlight collaboration, infrastructure, and breakthrough innovation across the ecosystem:

  • Best Consumer-Facing Payments Solution
  • Best Corporate Payments Solution
  • Best Cryptocurrency Application for FIs
  • Best Enterprise Payments Solution
  • Best Fintech Partnership
  • Best Generative AI Solution
  • Best ID Management/KYC Solution
  • Best Insurtech Solution
  • Best RegTech Solution
  • Best SMB/SME Banking Solution
  • Excellence in Financial Inclusion
  • Excellence in Sustainability
  • Most Impactful AI-Based Solution
  • Excellence in Stablecoins, Tokenized Deposits, or Tokenized Assets
  • Excellence in Risk Management

Why it matters:
AI is moving from pilot and into production, tokenization is altering infrastructure, and partnerships are becoming the default path to innovation. These categories show the industry’s shift from standalone tools to a more connected financial ecosystem.

Awards for Fintechs and Technology Firms

These categories focus on the builders powering the next generation of financial services:

  • Best Alternative Investments Solution
  • Best Back-Office/Core Services Solution
  • Best Embedded Finance Solution
  • Top Emerging Fintech Company

Why it matters:
The most important fintech innovations today are often invisible to the end user because they are embedded into workflows, infrastructure, and platforms. These awards recognize the companies building the infrastructure behind modern finance.

Awards for Individuals

These categories celebrate the people driving the industry forward:

  • Executive of the Year
  • Innovator of the Year

Why it matters:
Behind every breakthrough product or platform is leadership and vision. These awards recognize the individuals shaping the direction of fintech.

Submit Your Nomination

If you’re building, scaling, or leading in fintech, now is the time to put your work forward. Submit your nomination today and save when you apply before the early-bird deadline of April 24, 2026.

The Finovate Awards are designed to spotlight what’s new and what’s working. And in 2026, when the industry is moving from experimentation to execution using a range of new technologies, we’re excited to help differentiate between the solutions that show promise and the ones delivering real, measurable impact.

SoFi Enters the Enterprise Banking World with Crypto-Native Infrastructure

SoFi Enters the Enterprise Banking World with Crypto-Native Infrastructure
  • SoFi is entering commercial banking with a 24/7 model that combines fiat accounts, crypto rails, and its own tokenized deposit, SoFiUSD, to enable real-time money movement.
  • The company is taking a “stablecoin sandwich” approach, converting fiat to SoFiUSD and back again to enable instant settlement while keeping deposits on its balance sheet.
  • SoFi is positioning itself between banks and fintechs, aiming to deliver the speed of crypto-native players and the trust of a regulated bank in a single platform.

Lending and wealth management fintech SoFi is joining the commercial banking world with the launch of SoFi Big Business Banking, its new set of enterprise banking tools. The new offering comes with both fiat and crypto-native infrastructure that allows for 24/7 money movement.

The launch comes as part of SoFi’s new focus on integrating into the blockchain. Most recently, the company launched its own tokenized deposit, SoFiUSD, to settle its crypto trading business, offer faster settlement around the clock, power international remittances, and more.

“To be competitive businesses today must operate in a global, always-on environment 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, while legacy banks typically still operate 9 to 5, Monday to Friday,” said SoFi CEO Anthony Noto. “SoFi Big Business Banking is changing that by combining the strength and regulatory foundation of a nationally chartered bank with the speed, scale, and flexibility companies need to move and manage money or digital assets in real time.”

SoFi’s new business offering will help companies make payments, access funds, and operate in real time with a fully chartered bank. At launch, SoFi’s Big Business Banking comes with deposit accounts, fiat, crypto, and SoFiUSD payments. By leveraging digital currencies, SoFi is enabling businesses to transact outside of traditional banking hours. The company is taking the “stablecoin sandwich” approach, allowing businesses to convert from fiat to SoFiUSD, then back to fiat, enabling real-time settlement without relying on external rails, while ensuring deposits remain on SoFi’s balance sheet.

By combining fiat accounts, payments, and digital asset infrastructure into a single regulated platform, SoFi is positioning itself as the bank for a world where money moves 24/7 and across formats. While fintechs like Ramp are building the operating systems for how companies spend money, SoFi is making a play to own where that money lives—and increasingly, how it moves between traditional and on-chain systems.

SoFi’s Big Business Banking is already live. Initial clients include Cumberland, Bullish, BitGo, B2C2, Fireblocks, Wintermute, Galaxy, Jupiter, Mesh Payments, and Mastercard

Competition in the business banking space has been steadily rising for the past six years, and the use of blockchain rails is intensifying the pressure. Banks are piloting tokenized deposits and blockchain-based settlement, while payments firms like Stripe and Checkout.com are adding stablecoin capabilities to support faster global commerce. Crypto-native players, such as Circle and Coinbase, continue to offer 24/7 settlement outside the banking system entirely. SoFi is attempting to bring these models into a single offering that delivers the speed of stablecoins with the trust of a regulated bank. And because it has its own stablecoin, it doesn’t rely on external infrastructure.


Photo by DS stories

How Raiffeisen Bank International is Thinking About Digital Catch-Up

How Raiffeisen Bank International is Thinking About Digital Catch-Up

As the push into AI continues, many banks are still struggling to modernize their digital foundations without simply recreating their existing platforms. For institutions operating across multiple markets, that challenge becomes even more complex, as firms need to balance local autonomy with the need for standardization, speed, and scalability.

In a recent conversation with Vanja Tokic of Raiffeisen Bank International, Tokic explained that the real work of transformation is happening in how banks rethink processes, align teams, and prepare their data and systems for what comes next. He also talked about what it takes to actually get started.

“There is still a lot of overhype on the GenAI topic. Banks and people in general are underestimating what it takes to put those things into real processes, into real production… It looks really simple when you start prompting, but when you actually have to do it in a regulated environment, then it’s really difficult to get it done.”

Tokic serves as Head of Digital Channels and Conversational AI and previously led retail digital transformation strategy at Raiffeisen Bank International. With more than two decades of experience in digital banking, he focuses on translating high-level strategy into execution by aligning teams across markets, driving adoption of reusable platforms, and building what he describes as a “digital bank with a human touch.”

Raiffeisen Bank International is an Austria-based banking group that operates across Central and Eastern Europe, serving millions of customers through a network of subsidiary banks. The organization functions as both a central institution for the Raiffeisen Banking Group and a holding company for its international operations, offering retail and corporate banking services across the region.


Photo by Ron Lach

Five Companies Powering Financial Wellness and Consumer Engagement

Five Companies Powering Financial Wellness and Consumer Engagement

For financial institutions, growth involves deepening relationships with existing customers. At a time when switching financial institutions comes at a low cost and fintechs offer many of the same benefits as traditional banks, customer engagement and financial wellness have become strategic priorities.

For traditional financial institutions whose offerings can seem static, providing personalized experiences that help customers save smarter, build better financial habits, and feel more in control of their financial lives can help retain and win over clients. The banks that succeed will be those that can embed themselves into customers’ day-to-day financial decisions.

At FinovateSpring 2026, five companies are focused on helping banks do exactly that. From savings and financial wellness tools to engagement platforms and next-generation consumer experiences, these solutions are designed to drive loyalty, increase product adoption, and deliver measurable value to both customers and institutions.


Plinqit

Business HYS by Plinqit helps banks compete for deposits while giving small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) more effective ways to manage their cash. The platform is designed to drive deposit growth by offering high-yield savings experiences tailored to business customers, an area where many traditional banks have struggled to differentiate.

Headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan and founded in 2015, Plinqit enables financial institutions to attract and retain SMB deposits without overhauling their existing infrastructure which ultimately helps level the playing field to compete against larger competitors and digital-first challengers.


Goodfin

Goodfin is expanding access to alternative investments by opening institutional-grade opportunities to a broader range of investors. Its platform is designed to help financial institutions and fintechs offer differentiated wealth-building tools such as private equity, venture capital, and pre-IPO deals that go beyond traditional stocks and bonds.

Founded in 2022 and headquartered in San Francisco, Goodfin enables banks to meet growing customer demand for access to alternative assets, while positioning themselves as gateways to more sophisticated investment opportunities.


Level

Level helps auto lenders reduce losses by identifying and recovering missed value in total loss insurance claims. Its AI-powered claims management platform centralizes workflows into a single portal, enabling lenders to detect undervalued claims and dispute them at scale.

Backed by licensed claims experts, Level combines automation with human oversight to increase recoveries, reduce deficiency balances, and accelerate time to payment. Headquartered in New York and founded in 2023, the company offers banks, credit unions, and lenders a way to improve operational efficiency while directly impacting the bottom line.


BankUniverse

BankUniverse delivers a privacy-first intent engine that helps financial institutions identify and convert high-value prospects without relying on sensitive personal data. By analyzing user intent signals rather than personal identifiers, the platform enables banks to drive digital sales while maintaining strong data privacy standards.

Founded in 2024 and headquartered in Greece, BankUniverse helps institutions increase conversion rates while navigating growing regulatory and consumer expectations around data protection.


Bluum Finance

Bluum Finance provides a unified platform for embedded investing, combining brokerage, custody, and reporting into a single API. Its infrastructure allows financial institutions and fintechs to launch fully compliant investment offerings quickly, without the complexity and cost typically associated with building these capabilities in-house.

Founded in 2025 and headquartered in Los Angeles, Bluum enhances its offering with AI-powered advisory tools that deliver personalized investment experiences. The platform is built for a wide range of providers looking to bring investing into their existing customer journeys.

Why banks should care

Financial wellness and engagement are quickly becoming primary drivers of growth instead of nice-to-have features. Banks are under pressure to increase deposits, deepen relationships, and create new revenue streams while competing with fintechs that are often more agile and user-focused. Platforms that help customers save more effectively, access new investment opportunities, or receive more personalized financial guidance can translate directly into higher balances, stronger loyalty, and increased product usage.

At the same time, these tools enable banks to expand their role in customers’ financial lives without significantly increasing operational complexity. Whether it’s embedding investing capabilities, improving digital acquisition, or unlocking overlooked sources of value in existing portfolios, financial wellness platforms offer a practical way for institutions to drive both customer outcomes and business performance.


Photo by www.kaboompics.com

Tempo’s Payments Infrastructure and Protocol Goes Live

Tempo’s Payments Infrastructure and Protocol Goes Live
  • Tempo has launched its Mainnet and Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) to support AI-driven commerce, combining blockchain infrastructure with a standardized way for agents to initiate and manage payments across rails.
  • The protocol also introduces “session-based” transactions that remove the need for traditional checkout flows and enable real-time, pay-per-use models.
  • As agentic commerce and stablecoin adoption grow, Tempo is positioning itself at the forefront of development.

Payments blockchain Tempo unveiled its Mainnet this week, alongside a new payments standard designed for AI-driven commerce. Tempo Mainnet focuses on serving needs specifically in the payments space, offering instant settlement, low fees, and high throughput for transactions across the globe.

In addition to the Tempo Mainnet infrastructure, the company also released its Machine Payments Protocol (MPP), an open standard for agentic payments. MPP is payment agnostic and is able to work with stablecoins, cards, Affirm, Klarna, and other payment methods. While Tempo Mainnet provides the underlying blockchain infrastructure for settlement, MPP acts as the coordination layer that enables agents to initiate and manage payments across different networks and payment methods.

“We decided to launch MPP as an open standard so that machine payments can work consistently across services and payment rails,” the company said in a blog post announcement.

MPP provides a standardized way for AI agents and services to initiate, authorize, and settle payments programmatically. While traditional platforms build their own billing and checkout flow, MPP allows a service to request payment from an agent, which can then approve the transaction and complete it instantly from its wallet.

The protocol also introduces “sessions,” which enable continuous, streaming payments that allow agents to pay incrementally for usage (such as in an API call) without requiring a separate transaction each time. Because it brings the payment logic into a shared standard, MPP enables agents to transact across different services and payment methods.

Creating a standardized approach to agent-led payments is increasingly important as developments and interest in agentic payments, combined with the increased use of stablecoins, skyrocket. Traditional checkout flows and billing systems are too slow and fragmented to handle a future in which AI agents purchase services, access data, and execute workflows autonomously. Tempo’s standardized way of enabling machines to request and settle payments across rails positions the company on the leading edge of agentic commerce.

Tempo, which has been trialing MPP since December of 2025, leverages partnerships with Anthropic, DoorDash, Mastercard, Nubank, OpenAI, Ramp, Revolut, Shopify, Standard Chartered, and Visa to bring global payments, cross-border remittances, embedded finance, and tokenized deposits use cases.

The California-based company also revealed plans to introduce more features designed to support enterprise payment workloads, and disclosed it will have “more to share” in the coming months.


Photo by KATRIN BOLOVTSOVA

How Gradient Labs is Thinking About the Shift to Agentic Banking

How Gradient Labs is Thinking About the Shift to Agentic Banking

The agentic banking future brings a lot of uncertainty. While some experts predict the user interface will be visual, others imagine a screen-free, voice-based user experience.

At FinovateEurope 2026, we sat down with Dimitri Masin, CEO of Gradient Labs, to discuss the evolution from mobile-first banking to agentic banking, as well as how banks should think about the build vs. buy decision in the age of AI.

Masin contends that while banks have spent the last decade perfecting digital interfaces, a major operational challenge still remains: the complexity of customer operations.

“Even though fintechs have created amazing apps, the second half of the problem remains unsolved. These companies still require gigantic human organizations to power those accounts… and that’s the source of many bad customer experiences today,” said Masin.

According to Masin, we are now entering a second major transformation in banking in which AI agents can take on complex, nuanced workflows that traditional automation couldn’t handle.

“With traditional automation, you just can’t automate many of the things banks need to do—they require judgment and nuance…. Now, with advances in AI, you can automate those messy processes that were only doable by humans before,” he added.

Dimitri Masin has spent more than a decade in fintech and banking, including early experience at Monzo, where he helped scale customer operations. His work focuses on applying AI to automate complex financial workflows and improve operational efficiency.

Founded in 2023, London-based Gradient Labs enables banks to embed AI agents directly into their systems to automate customer operations and complex workflows. By moving beyond rule-based automation, the company helps financial institutions reduce operational burden, improve customer experience, and prepare for an AI-first future.

Robinhood Ventures Invests in Stripe and ElevenLabs

Robinhood Ventures Invests in Stripe and ElevenLabs
  • Robinhood Ventures Fund I made early investments in Stripe and ElevenLabs, expanding its portfolio of private fintech and AI companies.
  • The fund, which began trading earlier this month on the New York Stock Exchange, gives retail investors access to private market opportunities traditionally reserved for institutional and accredited investors.
  • As part of its push to become a financial super app, Robinhood is building infrastructure to package and distribute private assets.

Robinhood Ventures’ first fund, Robinhood Ventures Fund I (RVI), announced it has closed investments in Stripe and ElevenLabs, just days after the fund began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol RVI.

Last week, RVI purchased $14.6 million of Class B common stock of Stripe in secondary transactions, and days later bought $20 million of Series D preferred stock of ElevenLabs in a primary transaction. Founded in 2010, Stripe enables businesses to accept payments, manage billing, and embed financial services into digital platforms. UK-based ElevenLabs is an AI research and product company focused on audio, voice, and realistic speech.

Robinhood launched Robinhood Ventures to enable its users to invest in private companies. The portfolio now includes Airwallex, Boom, Databricks, ElevenLabs, Mercor, Oura, Ramp, Revolut, and Stripe. Robinhood plans to add more private companies in the future.

“We’re excited to add Stripe and ElevenLabs to Robinhood Ventures Fund I and are proud to offer retail investors access to these frontier companies,” said Robinhood Ventures Fund I President Sarah Pinto. “They are helping shape the future of fintech and AI, and reflect RVI’s focus on investing in innovative companies operating at the forefront of their industries.”

In an era when valuable tech companies are staying private for longer, it is difficult for everyday investors to tap into that value. Instead, access has traditionally been limited to wealthy and institutional investors. But because Robinhood doesn’t require investors to be accredited or charge performance fees like traditional venture funds do, a wider variety of investors are able to participate.

Expanding its investment infrastructure is a key piece for Robinhood, which has recently disclosed its goal of becoming a financial super app. The California-based company is offering more than just investment access. It is building the rails to package, price, and distribute traditionally illiquid assets to everyday investors. If this infrastructure model proves successful, Robinhood could expand beyond venture equity into other private market categories such as credit, real estate, and tokenized assets.


Photo by Magda Ehlers