Author: Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz)

Mastercard Acquires Stablecoin Infrastructure BVNK for $1.8 Billion

Mastercard Acquires Stablecoin Infrastructure BVNK for $1.8 Billion
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, MasterCard, Mergers & Acquisitions
  • Mastercard is acquiring stablecoin infrastructure provider BVNK for up to $1.8 billion to bridge fiat and on-chain payments within a single network.
  • The deal positions Mastercard to connect cards, bank rails, stablecoins, and tokenized deposits to create a unified, multi-rail payments ecosystem.
  • While competitor Visa relies on a partnership-led approach to stablecoin integration, Mastercard is seeking to own the infrastructure layer outright.

Mastercard is making a move to own the rails that bridge stablecoins and fiat this week. The payments giant is acquiring stablecoin infrastructure provider BVNK for up to $1.8 billion, including $300 million in contingent payments. 

The announcement comes at a time when the current stablecoin market capitalization exceeds $316 billion, a figure that is up 2.5x from 2023. It also comes as users across the globe are increasingly open to holding stablecoins. In a recent survey of over 4,000 stablecoin and crypto holders, BVNK found that 56% of participants expressed plans to acquire more stablecoins within the next 12 months.

This increased utility of stablecoins is creating a need in the traditional financial space as users require a bridge between fiat and stablecoins. As a result, banks and fintechs need to offer their customers payment options enabled by stablecoins and tokenized deposits.

Mastercard anticipates that acquiring BVNK’s stablecoin infrastructure will allow it to become the bridge between fiat and stablecoins. The company will connect stablecoin rails to its own network to offer consumers the accessibility and interoperability they have come to expect in the traditional finance realm.

“We expect that most financial institutions and fintechs will in time provide digital currency services, be it with stablecoins or tokenized deposits. We want to support them and their customers with a best-in-class, highly compliant, interoperable offering that brings the benefits of tokenized money to the real world,” said Mastercard Chief Product Officer Jorn Lambert. “This acquisition reinforces what we have always done, using innovation and technology to power economies and empower people. Adding on-chain rails to our network will support speed and programmability for virtually every type of transaction.”

Mastercard isn’t the first traditional card network making a move to establish a foothold in the stablecoin space. Visa has formed partnerships with Circle and Bridge to support USDC payments and enable on-chain settlement flows. Mastercard, however, is taking things a step further. Instead of relying on a partnership-led approach, the network giant is acquiring the stablecoin infrastructure outright. Bringing the infrastructure in-house will allow Mastercard to connect traditional finance, on-chain assets, and enterprise payment flows within a single network.

BVNK was founded in 2021 and currently processes over $25 billion each year on behalf of enterprises and payment service providers. The UK-based company leverages stablecoins to enable businesses to move value instantly across borders and networks. Through its partnerships with global licensing bodies and Tier 1 banks, BVNK serves clients such as Worldpay, Deel, and dLocal.

“This partnership is about complementary strengths: Mastercard brings 200+ countries and territories, institutional trust and settlement rails. BVNK brings proven stablecoin infrastructure, deep expertise and an enterprise customer base,” said BVNK Co-founder and CEO Jesse Hemson-Struthers in a post on LinkedIn. “More trust attracts more users. More users attract more businesses. More businesses attract more developers. And suddenly, moving money on stablecoin rails becomes as routine as moving money on traditional rails—accessible to everyone.”

Once the acquisition is finalized later this year, Mastercard will be able to offer a single network to connect cards, bank rails, stablecoins, and tokenized deposits. The new, multi-rail approach will let customers choose the solutions that work best for them without tying them down to a single platform.

“This deal brings together complementary capabilities to define and deliver the future of money,” said Hemson-Struthers. “Together, we’re able to deliver an unprecedented infrastructure for digital currency-based financial services.”

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What BVNK’s Report Reveals About How Consumers Are Using Stablecoins

What BVNK’s Report Reveals About How Consumers Are Using Stablecoins
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Report series

Multi-rail payments infrastructure platform BVNK recently published a report on stablecoin utility that examines how consumers actually use stablecoins. The report found that consumers’ desire to obtain stablecoins is rising, and that stablecoins are becoming a fixture of consumers’ savings portfolios.

Published in partnership with YouGov, Coinbase, and Artemis, the report is the result of a survey of 4,658 crypto and stablecoin holders across 15 countries. Here are four major findings from the survey:

Stablecoin holdings increasing

Of the stablecoin holders surveyed, almost half (49%) increased their holdings within the past 12 months, while only 7% of people decreased their holdings. More than half (56%) of crypto or stablecoin holders expressed plans to acquire more stablecoins in the next 12 months. This shows that stablecoins are transitioning from a niche tool into a mainstream asset.

Crypto owners are diversifying

The report also surveyed crypto holders who do not yet own stablecoins. Among this subset of non-owners, 13% said that they intend to acquire stablecoins in the next 12 months. In low and middle income economies such as Africa, consumers showed a higher interest in acquiring stablecoins for the first time. In fact, in Africa in particular, 76% of respondents said that they plan to acquire stablecoins in the next 12 months. This is a reflection of the utility of stablecoins in lower income regions.

Stablecoins and crypto are becoming a core element of savings

The stablecoin and crypto holders surveyed reported allocating around one-third (34%) of their savings to crypto and stablecoins. Almost half (48%) of respondents allocate up to a quarter of their savings to stablecoins and crypto. This shows that many consumers are beginning to treat digital assets not as speculative, but as a meaningful component of their long-term savings strategies.

Stablecoin holders are relatively young

Not surprisingly, more than half (54%) of those surveyed who own stablecoins are aged 18 to 34 years old. Of the respondents in the older age bracket of 55+, only 8% said that they currently hold stablecoins, while 17% of people in that age range said that they plan to acquire crypto within the next 12 months. This shows that stablecoin adoption is being driven largely by younger consumers who are more comfortable incorporating new financial technologies into their everyday financial lives.

Overall, the findings suggest that stablecoins are evolving beyond their early role as a trading tool within crypto markets and are beginning to function as a practical financial instrument for everyday users. As access to digital wallets and crypto infrastructure improves, stablecoins are increasingly positioned to bridge traditional finance and digital assets by offering consumers a way to store value, move money globally, and participate in global markets with lower barriers than traditional finance.

Photo by DS stories

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Ramp Acquires Guest and Travel Expense Company Juno

Ramp Acquires Guest and Travel Expense Company Juno
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions
  • Ramp is acquiring travel and expense startup Juno to expand its capabilities in managing complex travel spending, particularly for non-employees.
  • Integrating Juno’s platform will help Ramp coordinate booking, payments, reimbursements, and reconciliation for guest travel alongside employee expenses within a single platform.
  • The new capabilities will help Ramp compete with other business finance software tools like Brex.

Corporate card and expense management platform Ramp is buying Colorado-based Juno, a travel and expense management company. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Founded in 2024, Juno helps businesses coordinate complex travel and expenses. Organizations can book travel, reimburse out-of-pocket expenses, and reconcile travel payments quickly. Juno’s platform is particularly helpful for organizations that pay for travel for non-employees.

“We’ve spent the better part of a decade working on the guest travel problem,” said Devon Tivona, co-CEO and founder of Juno. “These aren’t anonymous business travelers. They’re candidates, customers, partners. The trip is part of the impression. Ramp has the platform, the customers, and the ambition. That’s why we’re here.”

Ramp will use Juno to expand its travel and expense capabilities, especially for companies that manage travel for contractors, partners, and other non-employees. Integrating Juno’s technology into its platform will allow Ramp to streamline the coordination, payment, and reconciliation of guest travel alongside employee expenses. These new capabilities give Ramp a more comprehensive travel solution that will help businesses manage a wider range of travel-related spending within a single financial operations platform.

“Guest travel is a hard problem. It’s messy, operationally heavy, and has real business consequences,” said Ramp co-founder and CTO Karim Atiyeh. “A bad candidate travel experience can cost you a hire. Juno built something strong in a category that matters. Our job now is to give them leverage and stay out of the way.”

Business finance software heated up earlier this decade, receiving hundreds of millions in VC investment during a time when the rest of fintech was in a funding downturn. To keep competitive, corporate card and expense platforms such as Ramp and Brex have increasingly added travel capabilities, while travel-focused companies like Navan have expanded into expense management. By adding guest travel capabilities through Juno, Ramp is positioning itself to manage an even broader category of corporate travel spending.

Ramp was founded in 2019 and has experienced notable growth, most recently fueled by a $300 million financing round that valued it at $32 billion. The company powers over $100 billion in purchases annually for its more than 50,000 customers, which range from family farms to space startups.

Photo by Gustavo Fring

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Ualá Taps DriveWealth to Launch of US Stock Investing in Mexico

Ualá Taps DriveWealth to Launch of US Stock Investing in Mexico
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, DriveWealth
  • Mexican neobank Ualá has tapped DriveWealth’s fractional investing infrastructure to launch “Acciones,” enabling Mexican customers to invest in US stocks.
  • The offering aims to expand investment access in Mexico, where only 4.4% of the population currently invests in financial instruments.
  • For DriveWealth, the partnership continues to expand the reach of its brokerage infrastructure across Latin America.

Latin American neobank Banco Ualá has selected digital trading and brokerage company DriveWealth for its new launch called Acciones (Stocks) that will enable Mexican consumes to invest in US equities.

Leveraging DriveWealth’s brokerage-as-service platform that allows for fractional investing, Ualá allows users to invest in corporate shares starting at $1.12 ($20 MXN), enabling Mexican investors to own shares of companies like Apple, Amazon, and Tesla.

This new accessibility is a big deal in Mexico, a region in which only 4.4% of the population currently invests in any financial instrument. This low participation rate is partly due to the perceived complexity of investing and the assumption that investing is only available to those with significant capital. However, thanks to DriveWealth’s fractional investing infrastructure, Ualá can now allow customers to purchase fractions of US equities. This not only lowers barriers-to-entry, but it also allows investors to build diversified portfolios with smaller amounts of capital.

For DriveWealth, the launch is evidence of global demand for investment access to new markets. By powering fractional US stock investing for Ualá in Mexico, the company continues to expand the reach of its brokerage infrastructure across Latin America.

“DriveWealth was built to democratize access to financial independence and expand access to financial markets through trusted, regulated brokerage infrastructure,” said DriveWealth CEO Naureen Hassan. “Partnering with Ualá allows us to bring US equities to a broader population of investors in Mexico through a secure, fractional investing experience. We’re committed to working together to offer innovative investment solutions to Ualá customers, and helping make investing simple and inclusive, while maintaining the highest standards of execution, custody, and investor protection.”

Ualá’s Acciones (Stocks) onboards users after they answer a series of questions to determine their risk profile and receive portfolio recommendations. Investors will have the choice of three portfolio options, including US stocks and ETFs. To make investing even more approachable, the neobank will not charge any account opening or transaction fees.

“With the launch of Acciones, we are opening the doors of the global market to millions of Mexicans who previously saw these opportunities as unattainable,” said Ualá Regional Director of Wealth Management  Pablo Savoldelli. “Now, starting from 20 pesos and with just a couple of clicks, our clients will be able to protect their savings, obtain dividends, and participate in the growth of the world’s largest companies.”

Ualá’s move is an example of how digital banks are expanding beyond payments and into broader financial tools such as lending and wealth-building. As more neobanks seek to deepen customer relationships and increase engagement, offering investment access is a natural next step.

DriveWealth was founded in 2012 to allow third parties to enable access to US equities, fixed income, and other asset classes through scalable, compliant solutions via its suite of APIs. Last year, the New York-based company teamed up with Moment Technology to make fixed-income investing more accessible to a broader range of investors, and partnered with Walmart’s OnePay to power the neobank’s embedded investing tool.

Photo by Erol Ahmed on Unsplash

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Squarespace Launches Balance to Bring Business Banking In-House

Squarespace Launches Balance to Bring Business Banking In-House
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news
  • Squarespace is launching Squarespace Balance, a new financial account that lets merchants manage earnings, spending, and cash flow directly within Squarespace Payments.
  • Balance builds on Squarespace’s growing suite of financial tools that help entrepreneurs run and scale their businesses online.
  • Bringing business banking capabilities into its platform helps Squarespace compete with companies like Ramp and Shopify.

Website building and hosting platform Squarespace unveiled its latest tool to help entrepreneurs run their businesses online. The New York-based company is debuting Squarespace Balance this week, a new account designed to help merchants manage business finances and earn rewards.

Balance sits within Squarespace Payments, the company’s payment solution that integrates with a business’ online store, allowing merchants to accept payments through Squarespace. With Balance, merchants can access funds within hours, earn rewards on their balances, and spend using their Squarespace Visa Commercial card. Balance offers a unified view of a business’ earnings, spending, and cash flow management on the same platform as the rest of the business.

“Squarespace Balance rounds out our suite of financial tools by offering a native financial account that helps merchants manage their business finances and earn rewards, all in one place,” said company SVP of Commercial Dan Chandre. “It reflects our belief that financial services should feel like a natural extension of running a business, not another system entrepreneurs have to manage.”

Because it brings banking capabilities in-house, Balance allows merchants to receive and spend their money in the same platform where they run their business, without needing external banking integrations. The move will help Squarespace compete with other software platforms that are embedding financial services directly into their products. Companies such as Ramp, Shopify, and Stripe have all expanded into financial accounts, corporate cards, and cash management tools that keep businesses operating inside their ecosystems.

Offering a native financial account alongside payments and financing tools like Squarespace Capital, Squarespace is positioning itself to capture more of the financial activity of its existing customers while simplifying financial management for small businesses that would otherwise rely on multiple providers.

Squarespace Balance is currently available to new users in the US and will be expanded to the company’s existing users in the coming months.

Squarespace launched Payments in 2023, and has since been focused on growing its financial tools available to support small businesses. As part of this expansion, the company launched Squarespace Capital in 2025 to offer merchants flexible financing to help them grow their business. Additionally, Squarespace offers tools such as Pay Links, which helps merchants accept payments via links; Tap to Pay, which allows merchants to accept in-person payments without additional hardware, as well as shipping tools, invoicing capabilities, and more.

Originally founded in 2003, Squarespace’s platform has helped millions of customers across more than 200 countries build and run their businesses online. In addition to payments capabilities, the company also offers websites, domains, marketing tools, and appointment scheduling.

Photo by MART PRODUCTION

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Bilt Acquires Travel Commission Management Platform Sion for $30 Million

Bilt Acquires Travel Commission Management Platform Sion for $30 Million
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions
  • Bilt is acquiring travel commission platform Sion for $30 million, marking the company’s second acquisition in less than a year.
  • Bilt expects that the deal will strengthen its travel rewards offering.
  • Integrating Sion’s technology will help Bilt connect travel advisors to its hospitality platform, helping members book travel experiences while creating a more differentiated rewards program.

Loyalty platform Bilt has acquired commission management platform Sion for $30 million to strengthen its travel rewards. Today’s acquisition marks Bilt’s second acquisition in under a year.

Founded in 2018, Sion offers commission reconciliation for travel agencies. The New Jersey-based company manages more than $7 billion in travel booking revenue, helping more than 8,000 travel advisors get paid faster and operate more efficiently.

“Travel businesses don’t need another intermediary trying to compete with them,” said Sion Co-Founder Irving Betesh. “They need modern infrastructure and software that solves real operational problems. Sion has built a best-in-class experience around one of the biggest pain points in travel, commissions. We’re excited to join the Bilt team, allowing us to further accelerate what we can deliver for travel businesses and advisors serving travelers around the world.”

Bilt will leverage Sion’s technology and team to further extend its hospitality platform to travel advisors which will be used to build a network of advisors who can deliver travel experiences for Bilt Members. The company said that buying the commission reconciliation platform helps Bilt build a hospitality platform that offers a more robust rewards experience for cardholders. What started with housing payments and neighborhood services now extends to travel.

Through Sion, travel advisors will be able to leverage Bilt’s platform to manage their workflows, serve clients, and grow their businesses. Advisors will also have access to commission reconciliation and tracking, invoice follow-up automation, and new tools for managing bookings and payments more efficiently.

“Bilt’s hospitality platform already helps properties and merchants deliver their best customer experience, and with Sion, we’re extending that to travel advisors,” said Bilt Founder and CEO Ankur Jain. “By giving travel advisors the tools to run their entire business more effectively, we’re building a network of the world’s best travel advisors, and our members benefit from that. This is what building a membership truly centered around where you live looks like.”

As the popularity of embedded banking rises, so does competitive pressure in the space. Loyalty platforms are evolving beyond simple credit card points programs into robust ecosystems that influence how consumers book, shop, and experience services. By bringing travel advisor infrastructure into its platform, Bilt is positioning itself to play a larger role in how its members plan for and purchase travel, which ultimately creates a more differentiated and sticky rewards experience.

Once the acquisition closes, Sion will operate independently under the leadership of its co-founders. The company will maintain its existing clients and services.

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.

Photo by Jessica Bryant

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Five AI Platforms Reimagining Banking Operations and Intelligence

Five AI Platforms Reimagining Banking Operations and Intelligence
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: FinovateSpring 2026, FinovateSpring 2026 Demo Companies, List series

In 2026, financial services have jumped well beyond the AI experimentation phase. At this point, firms are no longer considering whether or not to adopt AI, and are instead thinking about deployment strategies that will improve operations, decision-making, and internal productivity.

When organizations apply AI to their everyday processes, they can analyze data more effectively, automate workflows, glean insights, and help teams make better decisions with less manual effort. Regardless of the subsector, AI-driven platforms are becoming essential to creating modern banking infrastructure.

At FinovateSpring 2026, a fresh group of five companies will demonstrate their newest technologies that help banks turn AI from a buzzword into a practical tool for operational intelligence and efficiency.

Ventus AI

Founded in 2025, Ventus AI transforms raw banking transaction data into semantic customer intelligence to enable personalized experiences, smarter analytics, and human-centered digital banking without changing core infrastructure.

The Delaware-based company helps banks and wealth managers turn transactions into dynamic personas, proactively detect customer life events, and offer plug-in intelligence for any core banking system.

Zengines

Zengines addresses data transformation challenges to modernize mainframes without losing logic. The platform helps organizations work with legacy code to seamlessly migrate data into modern systems. The company offers two products: Data Lineage, which offers critical and easy-to-understand insights into firms’ legacy systems; and Data Migration, which empowers business analysts to drive the entire process without coding expertise.

Headquartered in Bedford, Massachusetts, Zengines’ modern approach makes legacy systems searchable, which helps firms satisfy auditors faster so transformation and compliance don’t stall.

Lyzr AI

Lyzr Architect is an enterprise AI platform that converts natural language into governed, production-ready agentic applications. Founded in 2023, the company offers a platform that enables secure, compliant deployment across banking, financial services, and insurance enterprises.

The New Jersey-based company helps convert natural language into production-grade multi-agent applications, provides deterministic validation with governance and audit logging, and offers full-stack apps, exportable code, and GPU-optimized model execution.

Saris AI

Founded in 2024 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, Saris AI is an agentic AI solution that builds and launches AI agents to automate back-office workflows. The company helps banks and credit unions scale their operations without adding headcount by automating 90% of their tasks with zero change management.

Saris AI securely integrates with core banking platforms, loan origination systems, document repositories, and communication tools to help organizations lower workflow costs.

Syntex

Syntex’s digital onboarding software helps banks and credit unions verify documents, track approvals, and reduce small-business onboarding to a matter of days.

Founded in 2025, the company offers a self-serve client intake with document verification; provides real-time tracking of documents, approvals, and ownership; and reduces onboarding from weeks to days with a Reg B audit trail.

Why banks should care

For financial institutions, the promise of AI extends well beyond simply delivering a better customer experience. In 2026, fintechs are bringing great opportunities to help firms modernize legacy operations without dramatically increasing costs or headcount.

Banks face mounting pressure to process more data, respond faster to customers, and maintain compliance in today’s increasingly complex regulatory environment. AI platforms that can surface insights from transaction data, automate internal workflows, and help teams navigate complex systems bring a practical way to improve productivity and decision-making.

FinovateSpring 2026 will take place at The Sheraton San Diego on May 5 through 7. Register today using this link and save 20%. Finovate attracts 600 bankers from across the spectrum—afrom the largest US banks to regional banks, community banks, and credit unions.

Photo by Google DeepMind

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JP Morgan Payments Taps Mirakl to Enable Agentic Commerce

JP Morgan Payments Taps Mirakl to Enable Agentic Commerce
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news, JP Morgan Chase
  • JP Morgan Payments and Mirakl are partnering up to offer agentic commerce to JP Morgan Payments’ merchant customers.
  • The companies are integrating Mirakl’s Nexus platform with JP Morgan Payments’ infrastructure to enable secure transactions when AI agents shop on behalf of consumers.
  • Mirakl will manage product discovery, order lifecycle, and marketplace orchestration, while JP Morgan Payments provides payment processing, tokenization, and fraud protection for autonomous purchases.

JP Morgan Payments is teaming up with intelligent commerce operating system Mirakl to enable agentic commerce for merchants. The new infrastructure is designed to support autonomous transactions for consumers seeking to use AI agents to execute purchases on their behalf.

Specifically, JP Morgan Payments will integrate Mirakl Nexus into its payments infrastructure to power secure transactions when AI agents shop on consumers’ behalf. Mirakl’s AI commerce engine Nexus connects shoppers and merchants to agentic platforms, facilitates autonomous discovery, and enables transactions and post-sales management.

“Agentic commerce requires both intelligent commerce infrastructure and trusted payment infrastructure working in concert,” said Mirakl Co-founder and Co-CEO Adrien Nussenbaum. “Mirakl Nexus is key to unlocking agentic commerce—optimizing product catalogs for AI discovery and enabling merchants to sell directly through LLM channels like Gemini, Copilot, and Perplexity, and JP Morgan Payments brings the payment and risk management capabilities that enable AI agents to support user-verified purchases securely and at enterprise scale.”

Mirakl and JP Morgan Payments are partnering to support agentic commerce by enabling AI agents to autonomously discover, evaluate, and purchase products. Mirakl’s Nexus platform will manage commerce orchestration and the full order lifecycle, while JP Morgan Payments will provide secure payment processing, fraud protection, and global payment infrastructure. Together, the companies aim to deliver a unified solution that allows merchants to integrate agentic commerce capabilities at scale, combining eCommerce management with reliable payment and risk systems across markets and channels.

Mirakl was founded in 2012 and helps brands such as Macy’s, Decathlon, Carrefour, Asos, and Airbus Helicopters compete in the platform economy. Mirakl’s operating system enables 450+ marketplaces and a network of over 100,000 third-party marketplace sellers to launch, scale, and operate marketplaces. The company also offers AI-powered multichannel selling tools, as well as retail media products.

JP Morgan Payments anticipates that combining these capabilities with its own infrastructure will make agentic commerce more approachable for merchants. This infrastructure includes secure payment processing, tokenization for AI agent transactions, and fraud protection to ensure consumer safety, merchant control, and brand integrity.

Merchants using JP Morgan Payments will be able to create differentiated shopping experiences. By serving AI agents and Model Context Protocol Apps, offering richer product information, more sophisticated recommendation capabilities, and seamless autonomous purchasing flows, retailers will stand out to both AI agents and their end customers.

“We are entering an era where AI agents won’t just assist with shopping, they will transact,” said JP Morgan Payments Global Head of Merchant Services Mike Lozanoff. “As agents move from browsing to buying, the differentiator won’t be ‘AI’—it will be governance: identity, consent, limits, and interoperability at global scale. Our job is to make that autonomy safe and auditable, with verified agent identity, user-controlled permissions, and bank-grade risk management built into every payment. We are working in earnest to guide our merchants as they engage with agentic commerce, help agents create a scalable experience, and work with the industry to define standards.”

Agentic commerce is on the rise and there is no doubt that it will reshape how consumers shop online. As AI agents begin to handle product discovery, research, and purchasing on behalf of consumers, merchants will need new systems designed for both consumers as well as agent-driven interactions. With Mirakl’s commerce orchestration tools, JP Morgan Payments will help provide the infrastructure for this new frontier of commerce. The company is currently working with select retailers and merchants in a closed beta program, and plans to offer broader availability later this year.

Photo by www.kaboompics.com

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Mastercard Launches Virtual C-Suite to Offer Small Businesses Executive-Level Insight

Mastercard Launches Virtual C-Suite to Offer Small Businesses Executive-Level Insight
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Daily news, MasterCard

Mastercard is launching a Virtual C-Suite for small business customers this week, introducing agentic AI agents that act as digital executives to provide strategic insights and decision-making support.

The new Virtual C‑Suite is a set of agentic AI-powered tools that are specifically focused on small and medium-sized businesses, which represent roughly 90% of enterprises across the globe and more than half of global employment. By introducing AI agents that mimic executive roles such as CFO, Mastercard is aiming to close the gap between the resources available to large enterprises and those accessible to small businesses.

Mastercard is using its vast experience in payments, data, and security to bring a deeper understanding of how a customer’s money moves. Virtual C-Suite brings intelligence into small businesses’ accounting systems, business software, and banking applications to analyze business performance, identify risks and opportunities, predict likely outcomes, and recommend actions. The tool relies on insights from the billions of transactions processed on Mastercard’s network annually, combined with a business’ financial activity to provide relevant, trusted recommendations on how businesses pay, get paid, and manage working capital.

“Small businesses are the cornerstones of communities, but it’s easy for owners to lose sight of the passions that inspired them when they’re buried in spreadsheets and stretched across multiple roles,” said Mastercard Global Head of Small and Medium Enterprises Mark Barnett. “We hear these pressures from entrepreneurs every day. With Virtual C-Suite, we are bringing the innovative technology, quality data at scale, and strategic expertise usually available to large enterprises to small business owners. Our goal is to turn operational complexity into clarity—helping entrepreneurs regain time, make smarter decisions, and translate their ambition into measurable growth.”

After integrating the new tool, business users and their teams will have access to dashboards and natural language conversational platforms through which they can ask agents direct questions about their accounts, trends, or recommended actions.

Virtual C-Suite will initially launch with a Virtual CFO capability. Mastercard will make additional executive-function roles over time, delivered through financial institutions, accounting platforms, and software providers.

The launch is part of Mastercard’s broader push into agentic AI. The company’s Virtual C-Suite is an advancement beyond basic analytical capabilities, recommending and executing actions across the commerce lifecycle. The new offering highlights how payments networks are adding value by bringing AI intelligence layers to small businesses, combining transaction data with agentic AI to deliver financial insights that traditionally required dedicated finance teams.

Virtual C-Suite’s small business focus is among a series of Mastercard’s recent initiatives aimed at SMEs. In 2024, the company introduced Biz360, a platform designed to help entrepreneurs consolidate and manage the digital tools they rely on to run their operations. Mastercard also rolled out Small Business Navigator to connect business owners with productivity services and remote talent resources, and introduced an SME credit card with built-in cybersecurity protections to help small businesses defend against growing digital threats.

Photo by Pavel Danilyuk

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Airwallex Launches Yield in the US

Airwallex Launches Yield in the US
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news
  • Airwallex launched its Yield treasury product for US businesses that allows customers to move idle balances into money market funds to generate higher returns.
  • First introduced in Australia in 2023, Yield has expanded to multiple regions and has now surpassed $1 billion in assets under administration.
  • By embedding treasury yield directly into its financial platform, Airwallex is competing with fintech treasury tools from companies like Stripe, Brex, and Wise that help businesses earn returns on operational cash.

Business financial management tool Airwallex unveiled that it is bringing its treasury management tool called Yield to the US after testing the product in the region in early January.

Originally debuted in Australia in 2023, Yield gives customers an alternative to traditional savings accounts, which notoriously offer a low APR. The product allows customers to move funds from their Airwallex cash balances into a money market fund that yields a higher return than funds held in traditional savings accounts.

Unlike traditional interest-bearing accounts, Yield functions more like a treasury management tool that allows businesses to sweep idle balances into money market funds while maintaining operational liquidity within the same platform.

The product was initially available to wholesale customers, then expanded to all Australian businesses after Airwallex obtained an Australian Financial Services License in July 2024. Since then, Airwallex expanded Yield to Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, and to businesses registered in the European Economic Area (EEA), surpassing $1 billion in assets under administration.

“Topping $1 billion is a testament to the demand for a new kind of banking experience–one that is global, digital-first, and institutional-grade,” said Airwallex Co-founder and CEO Jack Zhang. “With the launch of Yield in the US, we are closing the gap in the market for a unified platform. We are giving US businesses a seamless way to operate across currencies, while ensuring their working capital is actively generating value, not sitting in an idle account.”

Funds held in Yield are invested through a J.P. Morgan US Government Money Market Fund, which helps customers put their idle balances to work. The offering gives businesses access to yields comparable to those available in institutional money market funds.

In addition to offering higher yields, Airwallex allows small businesses to shift their cash balances in and out of high-yield accounts overnight, with no minimum lock-up periods. This helps customers maximize their return on idle cash while retaining the ability to shift funds to meet financial obligations like payroll. Additionally, Airwallex brings a business’ money movement to a single dashboard, allowing customers to move funds between payments, payouts, corporate cards, and Yield accounts.

Airwallex’s Yield helps the company compete with fintech treasury platforms such as Stripe, Brex, and Wise, which have introduced similar products designed to help businesses earn returns on idle operating cash. As interest rates have risen over the past several years, traditional banks have also become competitors as banks turn operational accounts into yield-generating treasury tools.

Founded in 2015, Airwallex holds 80 licenses and permits that enable customers to operate in 200+ countries and regions and support multi-currency checkout at scale. In 2025 alone, the company extended its regulated and local capabilities across 12 new markets, securing licenses and launching products in France, the Netherlands, Israel, Canada, Korea, Japan, New Zealand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Brazil, Mexico, and the UAE.

In January, Airwallex acquired Paynuri, an entity that holds payment gateway and prepaid electronic payment instrument licenses, in order to expand into South Korea.  

Photo by www.kaboompics.com

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Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News

Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Fintech Rundown

After last week’s news of new bank charter announcements across the globe, this week’s top topic shifts back to the TradFi-DeFi bridge, as stablecoin platform Kast raises $80 million. Check out more on this, plus take a look at other fintech news highlights below. We’ll continue to add more announcements as the week progresses.

Stablecoins

KAST raises $80 million as stablecoins move from infrastructure into mainstream financial services.

Payments

Irish banks launch in-app instant payment service.

Visa launches intelligent authorisation tool for acquirers.

NjiaPay secures $2.1 million seed funding led by Newion to scale payment performance across Africa.

Business financial management

Sage to power SumUp’s new digital tax product.

Tide taps Gigs to offer mobile plans to small business clients.

Fraud and security

Evervault raises $25 million in Series B financing to deliver end-to-end encryption for highly sensitive data.

Photo by Gije Cho

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Ripple Payments Now Handles More of the Payments Lifecycle

Ripple Payments Now Handles More of the Payments Lifecycle
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Ripple

Digital asset company Ripple is expanding its digital payments platform, Ripple Payments, to create a single, end-to-end platform that consolidates the payments stack.

The California-based company aims to speed up settlement and reduce friction with a full payments infrastructure platform that allows fintechs to operate in the onchain economy by supporting payments made on both fiat and onchain rails. Using the new platform, organizations can collect money, hold it, convert it from fiat to stablecoin and back, manage liquidity, and pay it out.

Bringing all of these capabilities into a single place allows fintechs to manage their entire payments operation. Instead of using one provider for wallets, another for custody, another for FX, and another for payouts, fintechs can now do all of this through Ripple Payments.

Prompting this change are two acquisitions made in 2025. In November of last year, Ripple acquired digital asset custody company Palisade for an undisclosed amount. In August, the company purchased stablecoin-powered global payments platform Rail for $200 million. The added capabilities offer the ability to provision named virtual accounts and wallets, automate collection flows, and exchange and settle funds into operational accounts. Overall, Ripple Payments has processed more than $100 billion in total volume, with Rail adding another $10 billion annually.

“For the global financial system to evolve, fintechs and financial institutions need infrastructure that treats digital assets with the same rigor as traditional finance,” said Ripple President Monica Long. “Success in this space requires enterprise-grade infrastructure, extensive licensing, and deep liquidity—capabilities few can match. Ripple has built the blueprint for blockchain-based enterprise solutions designed to operate at global scale for regulated finance.”

By adding these new capabilities, Ripple can now handle the entire payment lifecycle. The company is positioning itself as more of a regulated global payments infrastructure provider that supports both fiat and stablecoins instead of simply a crypto rails provider. This new role places Ripple in competition with traditional cross-border payment processors and infrastructure vendors such as SWIFT, Visa Direct, Mastercard Cross-Border Services, and large correspondent banking networks, as well as fintech infrastructure players like Stripe, Adyen, and Airwallex.

By combining custody, liquidity management, FX, and payout orchestration into a single platform that supports both fiat and stablecoins, Ripple is positioning itself as a direct challenger to well-established incumbents.

Founded under the name OpenCoin in 2012, Ripple debuted at FinovateSpring the following year. The company provides blockchain-based solutions across traditional and digital finance. Its solutions span global payments, custody, liquidity, prime brokerage, and treasury management tools for banks, fintechs, payment service providers, and crypto businesses.

Ripple offers a stablecoin, RLUSD, that is designed to be used for settlement, liquidity management, and digital dollar transactions within its platform. RLUSD has surpassed $1 billion in market cap since launching in December 2024. Ripple’s cryptocurrency, XRP, is often used as a bridge asset to move value between currencies in cross-border payments.

Photo by Dan Cristian Pădureț

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