Business Payments Unite: Mollie to Acquire GoCardless

Business Payments Unite: Mollie to Acquire GoCardless
  • Mollie plans to acquire GoCardless in a move that creates a unified European payments platform that combines card payments, bank-to-bank transfers, and local payment methods for more than 350,000 businesses.
  • GoCardless strengthens Mollie’s recurring payments and open banking capabilities, helping merchants reduce failed payments, customer churn, and cross-border complexity.
  • The deal reflects a broader shift in payments, as merchants increasingly favor full-stack platforms that integrate payments, fraud, financing, and analytics while making bank payments and open banking rails core infrastructure rather than optional add-ons.

Payments platform Mollie unveiled this week that it plans to acquire business payments platform GoCardless. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Combined, the two providers will serve over 350,000 businesses with a holistic solution that offers card payments, local payment methods, and bank payments into a single solution.  

“We’re incredibly excited to join forces with Mollie,” said GoCardless Co-Founder and CEO Hiroki Takeuchi. “This deal brings together two highly complementary businesses that have built best-in-class products across Europe and beyond.  By combining our expertise in card, bank and hyperlocal payments into one provider, we can better serve our customers, accelerate growth and raise the bar for the industry. It’s a win for European fintech and we’re confident that the new company will be greater than the sum of its parts.”

GoCardless, which won Best Enterprise Payments Solution at the 2021 Finovate Awards, was founded in 2011. The UK-based company’s technology helps merchants collect recurring and one-off payments from customers via ACH transfers. GoCardless’ APIs help businesses automate payment collection and reconciliation billing for subscription and invoice payments. Last year, the company acquired NuPay, which helped expand GoCardless’ services through partners and intermediaries, including Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and Payment Service Providers (PSPs). 

Mollie’s platform powers online and in-person payments, reconciliation, fraud prevention, and working capital loans with flexible repayment options across 30+ European markets and the UK. Founded in 2004, Mollie has raised $928 million.

“Mollie’s mission has always been to make money management effortless,” said Mollie CEO Koen Köppen. “We were founded on the vision to eliminate financial bureaucracy for every business. We see that bureaucracy creates challenges, especially for businesses with recurring revenue. A card-only approach has its limits, leading to high costs due to failed payments and customer churn. GoCardless built the definitive solution to optimize this process with its global bank payment network. By bringing them into Mollie, we take a huge step towards fulfilling our vision and creating one complete platform for sustainable growth.”

Mollie anticipates that the deal will give businesses access to a broad suite of tools that will offer financing, fraud monitoring, and analytics from a single place. The integration will also allow Mollie to offer recurring revenue management, more options for SaaS and vertical software vendors, local onboarding and reporting, and an easier on-ramp to international expansion.

Mollie’s acquisition of GoCardless marks a major consolidation in Europe’s payments landscape as unified platforms that combine cards, bank payments, and hyper-local payment options become more popular. As card failure rates, churn, and cross-border complexity continue to challenge merchants, Mollie is positioning itself as a full-stack alternative to fragmented payment tooling. The added capabilities offer merchants fewer integrations, stronger recurring revenue management, and a single provider for payments, fraud, financing, and analytics across Europe and the UK. The move also shows that bank-to-bank payments and open banking rails are becoming a core necessity for high-growth digital businesses.

The deal is expected to close by mid-2026.


Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko

Enova to Acquire Grasshopper Bank for $369 Million

Enova to Acquire Grasshopper Bank for $369 Million
  • Enova is acquiring Grasshopper Bank for $369 million, creating a full-stack digital financial services provider that blends online lending with modern API-driven banking.
  • Grasshopper brings $1.4 billion in assets, $3 billion in deposits, and a growing sponsor-bank portfolio, strengthening Enova’s infrastructure, deposit base, and fintech capabilities.
  • The deal show the benefits of digital lenders that move up-market by acquiring bank charters to stabilize funding, expand product suites, and compete in the next phase of fintech.

It may be mid-December, but that doesn’t mean it’s too late to announce a bank acquisition. Online financial services company Enova International revealed that Grasshopper Bancorp has agreed to be acquired in a cash and stock transaction valued at approximately $369 million.

Grasshopper Bank, which offers small business banking and lending tools, as well as embedded finance and BaaS, was founded in 2019 and currently holds more than $1.4 billion in total assets as of September 2025. In addition to small business banking, the digital-first bank focuses on startup banking, venture and tech-forward SMB tools, digital treasury management, and high yield business checking and savings products. Grasshopper Bank is also a sponsor bank, working with fintechs such as Pocketbook, Manifest, and Sydecar. The bank, through its direct banking and BaaS product offerings, holds $3 billion in total deposits.

“We’re thrilled to join forces with Enova, a market leader in digital lending and a true innovator in the use of technology and analytics in the financial services sector,” said Grasshopper CEO Mike Butler. “This combination of enhanced digital lending and banking will enable us to serve an even broader set of customers while expanding and strengthening the product offerings for our current clients.”

Enova anticipates that this transaction will combine its consumer and small business online lending capabilities with Grasshopper’s digital banking infrastructure to help it become a stronger, more diversified financial services provider. With more than 13 million customers, Enova’s portfolio has seven brands, including OnDeck, Headway Capital, The Business Backer, CashNetUSA, NetCredit, Simplic, and Pangea.

“Acquiring and partnering with Grasshopper creates a powerful digital bank that positions us to offer a more comprehensive suite of financial solutions across more states to empower consumers and small businesses with the products they need to succeed,” said Enova Chairman and CEO David Fisher. “Our complementary capabilities and shared customer-first mindset mean we can grow and innovate faster, together. We’re excited to welcome the Grasshopper team to Enova.”

Once the deal is finalized, Enova will be formed as a bank holding company with Grasshopper Bank as its subsidiary. Butler will stay on as President of Grasshopper Bank, reporting to Steve Cunningham, who will be appointed CEO of Grasshopper Bank and will assume the role of Enova CEO on January 1, 2026.

The deal creates a vertically integrated fintech–bank hybrid that combines Enova’s scale in online consumer and SMB lending with Grasshopper’s modern, API-driven banking infrastructure, giving Enova a foothold in embedded finance. The announcement also offers a clue of how digital lenders and digital banks are converging to compete in the next phase of financial services. We may see other digital lenders move up-market by acquiring bank charters to stabilize funding and expand their product sets.


Photo by Roberto Carlos Blanc Angulo

Chimney’s Blueprint for Financial Wellness: How Chase Neinken Is Reimagining the Digital Banking Experience

Chimney’s Blueprint for Financial Wellness: How Chase Neinken Is Reimagining the Digital Banking Experience

Today’s financial landscape is steered by rising consumer expectations, requiring banks to search for ways to deliver more personalized, actionable guidance to their customers. While fintech has always discussed financial wellness, it is not always easy to deliver it in a way that is embedded, intuitive, and with low friction. The banks that will take the lead in the customer journey in 2026 are the ones that will turn complex financial decisions into simple, interactive experiences that help users understand their options in real time.

Today, we’re highlighting a conversation with Chase Neinken, CRO and co-founder of Chimney, which offers banks personalized tools to help them improve the customer experience and ultimately improve their financial wellness. Recorded at FinovateFall 2025, this interview features Neinken’s thoughts on how banks can use interactive tools to deepen engagement, increase transparency, and empower consumers to make smarter financial decisions within their trusted banking channels.

But I think over the next few years, what you’re going to see, especially with AI and automation and some of the intelligence tools that are coming out, is that the winners are going to separate themselves by moving from the application layer to the infrastructure layer. So owning that data and being able and prepared to take advantage and act on it. So [consider] how you take advantage of all of the accountholder data that you have within your existing systems, not relying on third parties to do that, and then analyze that data, act on that data, and give that to the accountholders in a very convenient experience that helps your teams be more efficient and helps you grow the balance sheet in a meaningful way.

As a co-founder of Chimney, Chase Neinken brings a commercial mindset shaped by years of working with banks and fintechs to solve real consumer pain points. Neinken’s focus is on transforming static, outdated digital banking experiences into dynamic tools that guide users toward financial wellness.

Founded in 2021, Chimney is helping banks change the role they play in consumers’ financial lives by providing interactive financial tools that power more personalized, data-driven experiences within the banks’ existing channels. Chimney’s tools help users explore scenarios such as mortgage affordability and home-equity planning. For financial institutions, the New York-based company offers a plug-and-play way to increase engagement, build trust, and drive conversions without overhauling their core.


Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya

Fifth Third Bank Embeds Brex’s Payments Infrastructure

Fifth Third Bank Embeds Brex’s Payments Infrastructure
  • Brex and Fifth Third Bank have entered a multiyear partnership that uses Brex Embedded to power the bank’s new commercial card, bringing modern spend management and AI-driven automation to Fifth Third’s commercial clients.
  • The integration gives businesses access to Brex’s finance platform, enabling real-time payments, automated expense workflows, corporate card issuance, and AI agents that streamline closing the books and controlling spend.
  • The partnership is strategically significant for both sides. It expands Brex’s reach into established commercial banking while helping Fifth Third differentiate itself with an AI-powered alternative to legacy expense management tools.

Corporate card and expense management fintech Brex announced a new partnership with Fifth Third Bank this week. In the multiyear agreement, Fifth Third will leverage Brex Embedded, Brex’s API-driven payments infrastructure to power the Fifth Third Commercial Card.

Through the integration, Fifth Third’s commercial clients will gain access to Brex’s finance software platform that will enable them to issue corporate cards, automate expense management, and make secure, real-time payments. Customers can also use Brex’s AI agents that automate complex workflows to close the books faster, reduce manual review, and control spending.

“The future of business demands financial platforms that do more than process payments—they must power growth,” said Fifth Third Chairman, CEO, and President Tim Spence. “Our partnership with Brex is a commitment to redefine how companies leverage financial technology. By combining the strength of a leading bank with Brex’s AI-driven innovation, we’re creating intelligent solutions that simplify complexity, drive efficiency, and enable businesses to scale globally with confidence.”

For a long-standing, traditional financial institution like Fifth Third, this partnership will bring modern, AI-powered technology into its commercial banking business. The new commercial card will become the default commercial card solution for the bank’s commercial clients.

“This partnership changes everything. By combining Fifth Third Bank’s financial strength with Brex’s AI-driven technology, we’re delivering an intelligent platform that automates workflows, enhances visibility and eliminates manual processes,” said Fifth Third’s Head of Commercial Payments Bridgit Chayt. “Businesses gain real-time insights, global scalability and finance tools that work proactively on their behalf—freeing teams to focus on strategy, not spreadsheets. We’re introducing a new standard for speed, accuracy and control in commercial finance.”

Brex was founded in 2017 to create a digital-first business banking solution. The company offers business bank accounts with credit cards that have built-in rewards, spend controls, and expense tracking. The accounts provide businesses access to their online revenue, billpay tools, and integration with popular accounting tools.

Brex quickly rose to prominence in the fintech space after positioning itself as a digital bank account and card offering for startups. The company sought to solve pain points that often come with corporate cards, including lengthy approval processes and restrictive credit limits. Within just two years, Brex managed to raise billions of dollars in funding and achieve unicorn status.

In 2022, however, as Brex sought to expand its client base from small businesses to larger, venture-backed firms, the company experienced a downward shift. In pivoting toward this target market, Brex discontinued some of its services geared toward small businesses, many of which were the fintech’s original customers. This pivot required some of Brex’s original small business clients to leave to seek alternative solutions.

Despite the dip, Brex remains a major player in the fintech space, serving “tens of thousands of businesses” ranging from small private companies to large public brands, including Airbnb and ClassPass.

For Brex, the partnership is strategically significant. After years of repositioning toward larger, venture-backed firms, embedding its technology inside a major US bank gives the company a new distribution channel and a path to reach established commercial clients. For Fifth Third, the partnership serves as a differentiating factor from peers that still rely on dated expense management tools and manual workflows. Overall, the partnership raises expectations across the commercial banking category.


Photo by Karola G

Showcase Your Tech on Fintech’s Most Influential Stage: Apply to Demo at FinovateEurope 2026

Showcase Your Tech on Fintech’s Most Influential Stage: Apply to Demo at FinovateEurope 2026

FinovateEurope returns to London on March 10 through 11, 2026. Taking place at the O2 Intercontinental in London, the event brings together 1,000+ senior-level attendees (including an impressive 600+ from banks and other financial institutions), decision-makers, investors, and creators shaping the future of financial services. If your organization is building technology that can transform banking, payments, wealth management, fraud prevention, or the broader digital finance ecosystem, now is the time to put it in front of the industry’s most powerful audience.

For more than 15 years, Finovate’s demo format has earned its reputation as the launchpad for the next generation of fintech solutions. No slides. No long pitches. Just seven minutes to show the world what your technology can do. It’s fast, high-impact, and built specifically to elevate companies that are ready for growth.

Why demo? Visibility, credibility, and real business outcomes

FinovateEurope is attended by senior leaders from top banks, tier-one investors, and global fintech brands looking for the ideas, partnerships, and capabilities that will define the next wave of financial innovation. Demos routinely lead to commercial deals, strategic investments, media exposure, and accelerated market traction.

Whether you are an early-stage startup seeking your breakthrough moment or an established provider launching your latest product, Finovate offers unmatched visibility.

Experience the Finovate effect

Previous demoing companies have leveraged the stage to enter new markets, secure funding, and close deals with some of Europe’s largest financial institutions. Past participants are now among the top names making waves in fintech. Here’s what some of our alumni demo companies have been up to recently:

Locking in capital

LeapXpert kicked off the year by raising $20 million in Series B funding to revolutionize business communications.
FISPAN followed suit midyear, securing $30 million in Series B funding to expand its embedded ERP banking solutions.
Scalable Capital made headlines with a record-breaking €155 million funding round to enhance its digital wealth management and investing platform.
Forging big bank partnerships

Taulia partnered with Lloyds in Q1 to issue Visa-enabled virtual cards for SAP Business Suite solutions.
Personetics joined forces with KeyBank in Q2 to deliver personalized financial insights to customers.
Wio Bank PJSC and Xero teamed up in Q3 to simplify accounting operations for SMEs in the UAE.
Leading fintech innovation

News heated up in June when Fiserv announced plans to launch its own stablecoin, FIUSD, further advancing the payments landscape.
By July, AutoRek unveiled a new platform to streamline data management and reconciliation for cryptocurrency and digital assets.
And fintech pioneer PayPal unveiled PayPal World, a new platform connecting global payment systems and digital wallets.

Be part of fintech’s next big moment

Applications to demo at FinovateEurope 2026 are now open. The earlier you submit, the more visibility you’ll have with our selection committee and also the fintech community once the first wave of companies is announced.

Don’t wait to introduce your innovation to the people who can help you scale it. Apply now and take your place on Europe’s most trusted fintech stage.


Photo by Fox

eToro Brings Stock Lending to the UK

eToro Brings Stock Lending to the UK

Social trading and investment network eToro unveiled that it will begin rolling out its stock lending program in the UK. The capability, which is available in Europe and the UK, enables eligible users to lend out their stocks.

Stock lending isn’t new. In fact, it has long been a passive revenue generator for large brokers and hedge funds. Bringing this capability to an alternative platform like eToro gives the fintech a competitive edge as it brings more transparent, value-added services to the retail trading market. As investor expectations increase, platforms that provide passive-income engines, improved liquidity, and greater control over their portfolios may gain more interest in an ever-crowded market.

Facilitating the launch are global financial services company BNY and stock lending program EquiLend. Under these partnerships, BNY is acting as custodian and clearing provider, while EquiLend identifies borrowers and facilitates the lending process. eToro anticipates that the new program will allow its investors to put their portfolios to work while retaining their investments.

As with most stock lending programs, borrowers post collateral, and investors can still sell their positions at any time. By partnering with institutions such as BNY and EquiLend, eToro aims to ensure operational safeguards that offer retail users institutional-grade risk management.

“Launching stock lending in the UK is a key step in our mission to make passive income opportunities available to every investor,” said eToro VP of Execution Services Yossi Brandes. “With the ability to lend not just US but also global stocks, we are maximizing the potential for our clients to generate additional revenues, and this rollout sets the stage for further expansion into new markets.” 

Launching in the UK expands eToro’s partnership with BNY, which it leverages for clearing and custody services for its stock and ETF offering across 19 global exchanges.

“We are delighted to extend our relationship with eToro, delivering an integrated solution encompassing clearing, settlement, custody, foreign exchange and cash management to UK investors,” said BNY Executive Platform Owner of Global Clearing Victor O’Laughlen. “By combining the capabilities of eToro and EquiLend with the scale and deep expertise of BNY’s leading Global Clearing platform, this initiative aims to equip retail investors with an institutional-grade solution to support their investing journey.”

Israel-based eToro said that the move marks the next step in the company’s plan to expand stock lending access to retail investors worldwide.

For eToro, today’s launch is more than a feature. The expansion is a signal of the company’s strategic move into deeper monetization and institutional-grade services. Leveraging BNY’s clearing and custody infrastructure places eToro closer to the operational standards of traditional brokers while maintaining its core social-trading product. Adding features like these in partnerships with traditional financial institutions could help eToro attract more sophisticated retail investors looking for passive-income tools and greater flexibility.

Founded in 2007, eToro has since raised $693 million in funding. With more than 35 million registered users and investors on its trading and investing platform, the company offers trading and investing tools that are more accessible and collaborative. eToro launched in the US market in 2019, entering a space where Robinhood had already established a six-year presence.

eToro began 2025 with its public debut in May. The company is now listed on Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker ETOR. eToro has a current market capitalization of $3.5 billion.


Photo by John Angel on Unsplash

Business Financial Management Heats Up as Airwallex Brings in $330 Million

Business Financial Management Heats Up as Airwallex Brings in $330 Million
  • Airwallex has raised $330 million at an $8 billion valuation, boosting its total funding to $1.5 billion and setting up a major US expansion with a new San Francisco headquarters.
  • The company’s business performance is rising, with annualized revenue surpassing $1 billion, transaction volume doubling to $235 billion, and half of its customers using multiple Airwallex products.
  • The company is positioning itself as the backbone of global, AI-powered finance, expanding regulatory coverage to 80 licenses worldwide.

Global commercial payments and financial platform Airwallex has captured fintech’s attention with its new funding round today. The Singapore-based company closed a $330 million Series G round at an $8 billion valuation, which is 30% higher than its valuation six months ago at its Series F round.

Led by Addition with participation from T. Rowe Price, Activant, Lingotto, Robinhood Ventures, and TIAA Ventures, the round boosts Airwallex’s total funding to $1.5 billion and will allow the company to create AI agents and fuel product development. The company will also use the investment to fuel its global growth, including in the US.

As part of this, Airwallex has established a second headquarters location in San Francisco and will invest $1 billion from 2026 to 2029 to scale its US operations, attract new employees, and expand its physical footprint and brand awareness.

“We believe the future of global banking will be borderless, real-time, and intelligent,” said Airwallex CEO and co-founder Jack Zhang. “Legacy providers are fundamentally incompatible with how modern businesses operate, and our investors understand that we’re pulling ahead in the race to define this category. We’re building a modern alternative, a single platform that powers global banking, payments, billing, treasury, and spend on top of proprietary financial infrastructure. This capital will accelerate our growth, extend our technical leadership, and strengthen our position in the U S and across key markets worldwide.”

Airwallex’s new round comes during a time of not only geographical expansion, but also significant growth in business performance and platform adoption. The company’s annualized revenue surpassed $1 billion in October, marking 90% year-over-year growth, while its annualized transaction volume doubled to more than $235 billion. Product depth is also increasing, with approximately half of all customers now using multiple Airwallex products, a sign of expanding product-market fit and stickiness.

Airwallex has also strengthened its global regulatory footprint, holding 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, the UAE, and more.

As Airwallex scales its infrastructure, footprint, and product suite, investors see the company as a foundational layer for the next era of global business banking. Addition’s Lee Fixel captured this shift, noting that “Airwallex is reshaping the global business banking landscape. The traditional financial system wasn’t built for borderless businesses, and Airwallex is uniquely equipped to solve this challenge. With its global financial infrastructure, software and AI capabilities, the company is exceptionally well positioned to lead the future of global business banking.”

As mentioned earlier, part of today’s investment will help Airwallex build a team of AI agents for financial workflows to eventually create a fully autonomous finance department. The agents will leverage behavioral and transactional data to automate multi-step operations such as expense approvals, policy checks, and end-to-end task orchestration. The company estimates that it will employ hundreds of agents across its platform.

“As AI lowers software costs, infrastructure and data become the ultimate differentiator,” Zhang added. “Airwallex connects the full spectrum of a customer’s financial operations – money in, money out, and everything in between, giving our agents the contextual data to execute with precision. This proprietary visibility, built on our scalable financial infrastructure, is what powers agentic finance.”


Photo by Mikhail Nilov

Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News

Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News

The year may be winding down, but fintech is still winding up. This morning brings news of Airwallex’s $333 million round, valuing the company at $8 billion. Grab yourself a warm cup of cheer and settle in for this week’s top fintech news. We’ll continue to add more announcements as the week progresses.

Business financial management

Airwallex raises $330M Series G at $8B valuation.

Digits launches Ask Digits, a 24/7 AI assistant for real-time financial answers and actions.

Vroozi named to 2025/26 ProcureTech100 list of top digital procurement solutions.

Agentic AI

BNY collaborates with Google Cloud to advance its Eliza AI platform with Gemini Enterprise.

Mortgages

Cross River achieves milestone with $288 million commercial mortgage-backed securities transaction.

Fraud, compliance, and identity

Socure acquires BNPL consumer credit database Qlarifi.

ID-Pal and MBS join forces to streamline compliance for trust or corporate service providers.

SEON joins group of AWS partners with three earned competencies.

Credit Unions

Nuuvia’s CUSO secures $4 million investment from VyStar and Desert Financial Credit Unions.

Payments

TenPay Global broadens integration of international wallets to Weixin Pay.

FuturHealth selects Gr4vy to power smarter payment orchestration and boost authorization rates.

DLocal and Yuno expand partnership to simplify global expansion for modern enterprises in emerging markets.

DeFi

Coinbase and PNC partner to expand direct bitcoin access for clients.

Digital banking

10x Banking partners with audax to accelerate digital banking modernization across APAC and Europe, and Middle East.


Photo by Connor McManus

Trulioo Joins Google’s Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) to Secure Agent-Led Payments

Trulioo Joins Google’s Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) to Secure Agent-Led Payments
  • Trulioo has joined Google’s Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) to provide its Digital Agent Passport and Know Your Agent (KYA) framework, creating a trusted identity layer for AI-driven, agent-led payments.
  • AP2 establishes a common standard for how AI agents transact, and Trulioo ensures every agent interacting in the ecosystem is authenticated, authorized, and accountable before executing a payment.
  • Agentic payments remain early but are poised to scale quickly as identity layers like KYA mature and combine with programmable settlement rails such as stablecoins and tokenized deposits, enabling safe, real-time autonomous transactions.

Agentic payments are on the rise this season, and digital identity platform Trulioo is stepping up to help protect agent-led transactions. The Canada-based company has joined Google’s Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) initiative.

With the launch, Trulioo is deepening its long-standing ties with Google, which leverages Trulioo’s Global Identity Platform for Know Your Customer (KYC) verification.

Google launched AP2 in September 2025 to provide an open, standardized framework for digital payments. AP2 connects banks, fintechs, and merchants with its protocol that creates a common language for how AI agents can transact on behalf of users.

Trulioo will bring its Digital Agent Passport and KYA framework to AP2. Together with Trulioo’s KYA framework, the Digital Agent Passport creates a verifiable trust layer within AP2, ensuring every digital agent is authenticated, authorized, and accountable before transacting.

“The future of commerce belongs to agents that can think, act, and transact independently, but only if they can be trusted,” said Trulioo CEO Vicky Bindra. “By joining AP2, we’re helping define the identity backbone for autonomous payments, where verified agents transact transparently, responsibly, and at machine speed. This is the architecture, and the future, of trusted agentic commerce. We’re proud to be working with Google to bring verified identity to agentic payments.”

Headquartered in Canada and founded in 2011, Trulioo has raised $475 million. The company offers global verification for both businesses and customers in 195 countries and with the ability to verify more than 14,000 ID documents and 700 million business entities while checking against more than 6,000 watchlists. Trulioo has demoed at 10 Finovate events, most recently showcasing its identity platform at FinovateEurope 2023.

Trulioo launched its Know Your Agent (KYA) solution in August 2025. “KYA is a new identity layer designed for agent-led digital interactions, bringing trust and compliance to agentic commerce without compromising speed or user experience,” the company said. “This isn’t just technical infrastructure—it’s a real-time trust layer that quietly safeguards the ecosystem while letting everything move at machine speed.”

Agentic payments are still in their early stages, largely because true autonomy requires more than intelligent agents. For the ecosystem to work, agentic payments require a secure, verifiable system for authorizing transactions without human intervention. As identity layers like KYA mature, consumers and businesses will become more comfortable allowing AI agents to initiate payments, execute purchases, manage subscriptions, or even negotiate transactions on their behalf.

The shift becomes even more notable as agentic payments intersect with programmable settlement rails such as stablecoins and tokenized deposits. These payment methods enable real-time, programmable, and low-cost transactions that will help autonomous agents operate safely at scale. When combined, trusted agent identity plus programmable money could bring agent-led commerce into mainstream markets rapidly, especially if security layers like Trulioo’s are already in place.


Photo by Czapp Árpád

Finovate Global Sweden: Tap to Pay, Pay by Bank, and Investments in Nordic Fintech

Finovate Global Sweden: Tap to Pay, Pay by Bank, and Investments in Nordic Fintech

This week’s edition of Finovate Global features news from fintechs headquartered in Sweden.


Klarna Brings Tap to Pay to 14 Markets in Europe

Swedish digital bank and payment provider Klarna has introduced Tap to Pay across 14 markets in Europe. The new features bring flexible payments to the brick-and-mortar retail world at scale, and help to transform Klarna’s app into a contactless wallet ready for everyday use.

“Tap to Pay brings us closer to our vision of Klarna being everywhere for everything,” Klarna Chief Product & Design Officer David Fock said. “Now you can set up a flexible payment plan and tap to pay in seconds, all inside the Klarna app. It makes everyday shopping moments significantly smoother for our Klarna customers across Europe, giving them even more flexibility and choice at checkout.”

At a time when 80% of shopping in Europe is still conducted in physical stores, Klarna’s Tap to Pay solution offers consumers the seamless experience of online commerce when shopping at brick and mortar retailers. Tap to Pay is currently live for Klarna customers in Germany, Italy, Spain, France, the Netherlands, Finland, Belgium, Austria, Ireland, Portugal, Norway, Poland, Denmark, and Sweden.

Klarna’s Tap to Pay announcement follows the introduction of the company’s stablecoin, KlarnaUSD, in late November. Klarna is the first bank to launch a stablecoin on Tempo, the new independent blockchain purpose-built for payments, that was started by Stripe and Paradigm. Currently live on Tempo’s testnet, KlarnaUSD is scheduled to launch on Tempo’s mainnet in 2026.

“With 114 million customers and $118 billion in annual GMV, Klarna has the scale to change payments globally: with Klarna’s scale and Tempo’s infrastructure, we can challenge old networks and make payments faster and cheaper for everyone,” Klarna Co-Founder and CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said. “Crypto is finally at a stage where it is fast, low-cost, secure, and built for scale. This is the beginning of Klarna in crypto, and I’m excited to work with Stripe and Tempo to continue to shape the future of payments.”

A Finovate alum since 2012, Klarna is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden.


Tink Brings Pay by Bank Top-Ups to Fidelity International Investors

As Senior Analyst Julie Muhn reported earlier this week, Fidelity International has partnered with Sweden-based open banking platform Tink. The partnership will enable Fidelity to offer account top-ups via Pay by Bank, making it easier for investors to fund their ISAs, SIPPs, cash management, and general investment accounts.

A two-time Finovate Best of Show winner that was acquired by Visa in 2021, Tink enables financial institutions, fintechs, and merchants to leverage financial data to design and create personalized financial management tools, products, and services. With a single API, Tink empowers its customers to access aggregated financial data, use smart financial services, including risk insights and account verification, and build personal financial management tools.

Pay by Bank is one of the fastest-growing use cases for open banking. With analysts anticipating that total open banking users will top 645 million worldwide in 2029—a 3.5x increase from 2025’s 183 million users—options such as Pay by Bank are likely to become increasingly widespread as a modern, secure payment alternative with reduced friction.

“Pay by Bank represents the next evolution of open banking payments, delivering a fast, secure way to pay directly from your bank account,” Tink Head of Payments Ian Morrin said. “As adoption accelerates, we’re thrilled to see leading institutions like Fidelity put open banking at the heart of their payment experiences to make topping up investment accounts more seamless.”

Founded in 2012, Tink is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. The fintech offers 3,000+ connections to the major banks across Europe, processes more than 10 billion transactions a year, and boasts 10,000 developers using its platform. Co-Founder Daniel Kjellén is CEO.


Swedish VC Incore Invest Secures €15 Million Second Closing

Incore Invest, an investment firm based in Stockholm, has raised €15 million in a second closing of its Incore Invest II fund. The fundraising brings the fund’s total capital to €40 million to help SaaS and fintech companies throughout Europe grow.

“Incore Invest’s strategy has always been to back proven tech companies with strong growth potential,” Incore Invest Founder and CEO Nicolai Chamizo said in a statement. “Investors’ continued confidence in Incore Invest is very encouraging and with this second close, the round is fully equipped with capital to back the most promising European technology companies. It allows us to continue identifying and supporting the next generation of category-defining technology companies shaping the future of the industry.”

Incore Invest’s successful fundraising comes at a time when a number of European venture capital firms, especially those that have targeted growth-stage or early-stage technology companies, are raising or closing new funds. For example, four funds alone—Backed VC, Notion Capital, Armilar Venture Partners, and henQ—have raised more than €300 million in capital combined this year.

Among the companies in Incore Invest’s portfolio are several of innovative fintechs including Brite, a Swedish payments platform that leverages open banking to process instant payments; Mynt, a Swedish fintech that simplifies expense management via smart company cards; and Froda, a Swedish fintech and embedded finance company.


Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • Kenyan fintech Jahazii raised $400,000 to provide earned wage access and payroll infrastructure technology for Africa’s informal economy.
  • Wise secured conditional regulatory approval to go live in South Africa.
  • Business AM looked at how Nigeria’s FairMoney Microfinance Bank expanded beyond digital lending into a full-service bank.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Embedded finance infrastructure company YouLend announced a strategic partnership with digital financial management solution Qonto to help the firm enter the German market.
  • Salt Edge teamed up with Romanian financial management platform, Finlayer, to bring open banking to small businesses in the country.
  • Former Polish President Andrzej Duda joined the board of fintech firm ZEN.COM.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • Developed in partnership with Mawarid Finance, UAE-based fintech platform Huru launched its microfinance solution, Quick Cash.
  • Egypt’s Money Fellows topped $1.5 billion in transactions.
  • Israel’s Haaretz profiled Matan Bar, CEO of Israel-based fintech Melio.

Central and Southern Asia

  • Financial Times interviewed Amrish Rau, CEO of Pine Labs, on the rise of Indian fintech.
  • The Express Tribune looked at the current state of fintech innovation in Pakistan.
  • India’s Paytm launched a new AI-powered travel app, Paytm Checkin.

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Episode Six forged a strategic partnership with Mexico’s Xepelin to launch digital financial products in the country.
  • São Paulo, Brazil-based fintech Cumbuca launched this week to help international companies participate in the Brazilian payments market.
  • Colombian fintech Movii entered the Peruvian market this week.

Asia-Pacific

  • Vietnamese neobank Circle Asia Technologies launched its AI-powered PayLater card, in partnership with Pismo and Visa.
  • South Korea’s NH NongHyup Bank conducted a blockchain-based cross-border payments pilot project.
  • Thunes secured In-Principle Approval (IPA) for a variation on its Major Payment Institution license (MPI) from the Monetary Authority of Singapore.

Photo by CARTIST on Unsplash

MoneyGram Teams with Fireblocks to Upgrade its Rails with Stablecoins

MoneyGram Teams with Fireblocks to Upgrade its Rails with Stablecoins
  • MoneyGram is partnering with Fireblocks to introduce stablecoin-based settlement across its global payments network, enabling faster, lower-cost transactions and real-time liquidity management.
  • Fireblocks’ blockchain infrastructure will power a programmable settlement layer that streamlines reconciliation, reduces pre-funding needs, enhances treasury operations, and supports large-scale stablecoin flows.
  • As a legacy payments giant adopts digital-asset rails, fiat-backed stablecoins are becoming core infrastructure for cross-border payments and corporate treasury.

Cross-border payments network MoneyGram is taking a step toward modernizing its global settlement infrastructure by partnering with Fireblocks to bring stablecoin-based settlement into its core treasury processes. The collaboration aims to enable faster payments, lower costs, and real-time liquidity across MoneyGram’s worldwide network.

Fireblocks is a blockchain infrastructure and security platform designed for storing, transferring, and issuing digital assets. Founded in 2018 and headquartered in New York, the company’s suite of digital asset tools includes treasury management, wallets-as-a-service, payments, and tokenization. Fireblocks also offers stablecoin infrastructure that enables institutions to seamlessly move, hold, manage, and issue stablecoins with enterprise-grade security.

Founded in 1940, MoneyGram serves 50 million clients annually with its payment network that connects over 200 countries and territories, 20,000 corridors, and close to 500,000 retail locations.

“We are leading the next era of money movement by enabling money to move instantly across any channel—fiat or stablecoin,” said MoneyGram Chairman and CEO Anthony Soohoo. “Fireblocks accelerates this vision by giving us the secure, programmable infrastructure to transform global payments at scale.”

The company will use Fireblocks’ stablecoin infrastructure to create a programmable settlement layer to help reduce capital requirements with pre-funding partners through continuous funding, receive stablecoin payments at scale from its partners, improve access to liquidity pools across global entities, streamline reconciliation and financial reporting for stablecoin operations, and improve treasury operations. MoneyGram will also use Fireblocks to help introduce programmable money and more resilient liquidity pathways.

“MoneyGram is rebuilding the rails of cross-border settlement in real time,” said Fireblocks Co-Founder and CEO Michael Shaulov. “By moving to a multi-chain, programmable infrastructure, it’s upgrading the speed and reliability of global payments at the foundation layer—where it matters most for the people who rely on these payments every day.”

For a long-standing, traditional player like MoneyGram, teaming up with Fireblocks pivots the company from traditional correspondent-bank rails toward a modern, agile payments infrastructure. Today’s partnership is an example of how fiat-backed stablecoins are becoming core plumbing for global payments and corporate treasury operations. It shows that stablecoins could provide instant, reliable, low-cost cross-border value movement at scale, while bypassing legacy banking delays and costs.


Photo by David Dibert

Plaid Partners with ClearBank; Announces AI-Enabled Transaction Categorization

Plaid Partners with ClearBank; Announces AI-Enabled Transaction Categorization
  • Financial data network Plaid and real-time clearing and embedded banking enabler ClearBank announced a new partnership this week.
  • The partnership will enable Plaid to leverage ClearBank’s virtual accounts and UK Faster Payments Service (FPS) access to enhance the sending, receiving, and reconciling of open banking payments.
  • Founded in 2013, Plaid has been a Finovate alum since its debut at our developers conference, FinDeVR Silicon Valley 2014.

A new partnership between ClearBank and Plaid will deliver faster, more secure, and friction-free Pay by Bank experiences for both businesses and customers throughout the UK. Courtesy of the collaboration, ClearBank‘s virtual accounts and direct access to the UK Faster Payments Service (FPS) will enable Plaid to enhance the sending, receiving, and reconciling of open banking payments. This includes making it easier for companies to match incoming payments to specific users or transactions, enhancing the reconciliation process and reducing reliance on manual effort.

“ClearBank and Plaid share a commitment to modernizing financial services through transparency, security, and innovation,” ClearBank Group Chief Executive Officer Mark Fairless said. “By combining ClearBank’s cloud-native infrastructure with Plaid’s open banking connectivity, we’re unlocking potential for businesses to deliver faster, more reliable, and secure payment experiences.”

An enabler of real-time clearing and embedded banking, ClearBank will provide a regulated, real-time, cloud-native infrastructure that will benefit consumers with faster, more predictable bank payments. The partnership will enable Plaid to offer faster, more reliable pay-ins and payouts that will empower companies to provide better customer experiences at checkout and during account funding.

“Pay by Bank is no longer a niche option,” Plaid Head of Product, Europe, Zak Lambert said. “Adoption is rising quickly, especially among younger consumers who expect instant, secure, and low-friction ways to pay. To meet that demand, businesses need reliable real-time payment infrastructure. ClearBank’s technology helps Plaid deliver instant, secure, and cost-efficient bank payments so companies can better serve their customers’ needs.”

Plaid’s partnership announcement with ClearBank comes as Plaid announced a new AI-enhanced transaction categorization capability that delivers up to 10% greater accuracy on primary categories and 20% greater accuracy on detailed sub-categories. The result is fewer missed transactions and more accurate data labeling. In addition to AI-assisted label generation and targeted human review, Plaid also noted that it would deploy an expanded category taxonomy with more than a dozen new subcategories to help differentiate income types, repayments, disbursements, bank fees, and transfers.

A Finovate alum for more than a decade, Plaid made its Finovate debut at FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2014. Today, the San Francisco-based fintech offers a data network that covers more than 12,000 financial institutions across the US, Canada, the UK, and Europe, making it easier for people to connect their financial accounts to the products and services they want. Plaid works with thousands of companies, including Fortune 500 firms and many of the world’s largest banks.

Plaid was founded in 2013. Co-founder Zack Perret is CEO.


Photo by Tim Bish on Unsplash