Finovate Global

Finovate Global India: Raising Capital, Fighting Fraud, and Innovating in Payments

Finovate Global India: Raising Capital, Fighting Fraud, and Innovating in Payments
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global, Payoneer

This week’s edition of Finovate Global looks at recent fintech headlines from India.

CRED raises $900 million in round led by Meta

CRED, a membership-based, credit rewards platform that offers solutions across payments, lending, insurance, wealth, and lifestyle, has secured $900 million in Series H funding. The round was led by Meta, and will be structured through a combination of primary and secondary share purchases. Meta will join the CRED cap table as a minority investor; CRED will earn a post-money valuation of $4.5 billion.

With 1.7 million members engaging with its platform every month, CRED processes more than 40% of credit card bill payments in India, and has seen its lending business grow to more than $2.5 billion in managed assets. The investment will enable the company to accelerate growth, build “institutional muscle,” and extend its leadership across verticals. The company announced that its founder, Kunal Shah, will transition from his operating role as CEO to head WhatsApp internationally. India is WhatsApp’s largest market, with more than 500 million users. Miten Sampat, who has led strategy and finance for CRED since 2020, will take the helm as interim CEO.

“I started CRED in 2018 with a belief that creditworthiness deserves to be rewarded,” Shah said. “In under eight years, that belief has turned into a new category: millions of members, $325 million in revenue, profitability, a full stack of licenses, and a strong brand. On this foundation, with additional capital and an extraordinarily talented team, CRED is poised to become an enduring institution for decades to come.”

CRED is headquartered in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India. The company’s investment announcement comes as the firm launches a new AI-powered credit coaching solution for CRED members. The AI credit coach provides personalized, real-time guidance based on the user’s credit profile to help them better understand their credit status and improve their credit health.

Navi UPI enhances fraud protection capabilities

Navi UPI, a popular UPI app, has unveiled Navi Secure, a new unified framework that combines the platform’s existing fraud prevention, risk monitoring, and user protection capabilities. The offering is designed to help merchants and users deal with the proliferation of increasingly sophisticated fraud attacks that leverage social engineering, compromised devices, false merchants, and more.

With intelligent risk signals, contextual alerts, and preventive safeguards embedded in the customer journey, Navi Secure helps firms reduce risk across a range of fraud scenarios, including scam-driven payments and manipulation-based fraud; compromised devices and apps; unsafe networks and environments; and high-risk entities and transaction behavior.

“Given digital payments have become central to everyday life, fraud prevention needs to be real time and contextual. Navi Secure reflects our commitment to building trust-first financial infrastructure, where safety is embedded into every transaction, not added as an afterthought,” Navi Limited MD and CEO Rajiv Naresh said. “By combining advanced risk intelligence with user-friendly safeguards, we are ensuring that customers can use UPI with confidence, knowing that Navi is actively working in the background to protect their money.”

Navi UPI is among the fastest growing financial services companies in India. The company’s UPI transaction volumes grew from more than 709 million to more than 824 million between January and May 2026. The company currently has 3.6% of India’s UPI market share; a market dominated by PhonePe (46.2%) and Google Pay (32.7%).

Bengaluru-based Navi is a financial services company that provides personal and home loans, insurance, mutual funds, and gold investing, as well as UPI, India’s flagship instant real-time payments system (Unified Payments Interface). Navi UPI is the company’s money transfer solution, which leverages UPI to deliver money transfers anytime, anywhere. Navi was founded in 2018.

Indian paytech Skydo expands to Canada

Payments platform Skydo has won its first regulatory approval outside of its native India. The Bengaluru-based company has secured an international payment license in Canada that will enable the company to offer two-way payment flows, including local collections and payouts, between India and Canada.

“Securing our first international license marks Skydo’s evolution from an India-focused cross-border payments platform to a multi-country payments operator,” Skydo CEO and Co-Founder Srivatsan Sridhar said. “With Canada, we are expanding beyond collections to enable seamless two-way payment flows and support growing India-Canada commerce.”

Founded in 2022, Skydo is a cross-border B2B payments specialist, reducing foreign exchange charges for businesses by more than 50%. The company partners with leading banks around the world, providing businesses with their own foreign virtual accounts to enable them to receive payments without tax or compliance complications. Supporting more than 150 countries, Skydo’s platform processes more than 200,000 payments a year and is used by 40,000+ Indian exporters.

Skydo has referred to Canada as a strategic market, given the scale of trade activity between India and Canada. In 2025, India and Canada reached $10.9 billion in bilateral merchandise trade. Both countries have indicated that they would like to more than double two-way trade, currently at just over $30 billion annually, to $70 billion by 2030.

“Our ambition is to build for the world, from India,” Skydo Co-Founder Movin Jain said. “Canada strengthens our global footprint, enables local collections and payouts, and creates a strong foundation for future expansion across North America.”

Skydo’s regulatory win in Canada comes just a month after the company received in-principle approval to operate as a Payment Service Provider (PSP) in the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) at Gujarat International Finance Tec-City.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Asia-Pacific

  • Japanese financial giant SBI Holdings agreed to acquire crypto exchange Bitbank for $298 million.
  • Singapore-based fintech platform Airwallex earned a valuation of $11 billion after securing $320 million in Series H funding.
  • Mynt, the parent company Philippine mobile payments and finance superapp GCash, has filed for an $1.5 billion IPO on the Philippine Stock Exchange.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • Nigerian fintech Daya secured $2.4 million in pre-seed funding to expand its stablecoin payments technology for African businesses.
  • Kenya-based fintech WapiPay received a Money Services Business license from Canada’s Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Center (FINTRAC).
  • Pan-African fintech DigiPay and French fintech Belmoney launched DigiTransfer, a mobile app that enables money transfers between France, Belgium, the Republic of the Congo, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Albania launched its first fully digital bank, Jet Bank.
  • Mastercard and PrivatBank announced completion of Ukraine’s first payment executed by AI agent.
  • Austrian-Swiss global payout infrastructure startup Talentir raised €4 million in seed funding in a round led by Redstone.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • Egyptian fintech MNT-Halan announced plans for an IPO that could give the company a valuation of $1 billion.
  • Lean Technologies and Ziina teamed up to launch the UAE’s first One-Tap Pay by Bank experience.
  • Israeli fintech Payoneer agreed to be sold to Canadian firm Nuvei for $2.7 billion.

Central and Southern Asia

  • Indian fintech Cred secured $900 million in Series H funding in a round led by Meta.
  • Karachi-based easypaisa digital bank inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Binance to “explore innovative opportunities” in fintech, digital savings, and investment solutions.
  • Indian UPI app Navi UPI, unveiled a new unified safety framework, Navi Secure.

Latin American and the Caribbean

  • CSU Digital, the largest independent card processor in Latin America, has embarked upon its US expansion.
  • Iupana looked at how new governments in Colombia and Peru are seeking to bolster the fintech sectors of their respective countries.
  • Payward, financial infrastructure platform and parent company of Kraken, secured a Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) registrations from the British Virgin Islands Financial Services Commission (BVI FSC).

Photo by Shiv Prasad on Unsplash

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Finovate Global Egypt: Investing in Unicorns and Point of Sale Financing Startups

Finovate Global Egypt: Investing in Unicorns and Point of Sale Financing Startups
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global

This week’s edition of Finovate Global features recent fintech developments from Egypt.

MNT-Halan Achieves $1.4 Billion Valuation with Latest Investment

An investment from Al Ahly Capital, the investment arm of the National Bank of Egypt, has boosted the valuation of Egyptian fintech MNT-Halan to $1.4 billion. The investment represents the first closing of a new round for the firm; a second closing is expected as part of the ongoing funding. Reports indicate that the company has received an initial infusion of $30 million out of what will be a $70 million-plus funding round. In any event, MNT-Halan noted that the capital will help the company expand its operations in Egypt, as well as support growth in the region.

Currently operating in Egypt, Turkey, and the UAE, as well as in Pakistan, where it owns a bank that serves micro and small businesses, MNT-Halan offers a range of digital financial services including both consumer and business lending, payments, e-wallets, savings, investments, and e-commerce tools. The company achieved unicorn status in 2023, becoming the first Egyptian fintech to earn a valuation above $1 billion.

“While we have partnered with more than 30 Egyptian banks and financial institutions, this is the first time a commercial bank has become an equity partner in our journey, making this a particularly important milestone for us,” MNT-Halan Founder and Chairman Mounir Nakhla said. “Together, we will redefine access to financial services for small and micro businesses, as well as people living in remote towns and villages across Egypt who have historically been underserved.”

Headquartered in Giza, MNT-Halan has more than 1.5 million quarterly active users. The firm has disbursed more than $15.5 billion in loans and served more than eight million customers globally since its founding in 2018.

Telda and Mastercard Team Up on New Integrated Payments Offering

A partnership between Mastercard and Cairo-based financial brand Telda will bring a new integrated financial services solution to consumers in Egypt. The new offering will seamlessly connect everyday payments and investment wallets within the Telda app for an experience that is inclusive, accessible, and integrated.

“By embedding Mastercard’s digital capabilities within Telda’s platform, we are creating a seamless bridge between everyday payments and investment opportunities, empowering users to manage, grow, and access their wealth instantly,” Mastercard Country Manager for Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria Mohamed Assem said. “Together, we are redefining financial inclusion and supporting Egypt’s vision for a fully digital, unified financial ecosystem.”

Designed for Millennials and GenZ consumers, Telda offers an app that enables users to send and request money as easily as sending a text message. The company’s Telda Mastercard can be used online or in-store, as well as to withdraw cash from any ATM worldwide. Telda offers instant payment notifications to keep users apprised of transactions, and spend categorization functionality to help users understand their spending habits better.

“Telda was founded with a bold vision to redefine the financial services experience,” Telda CEO Ahmed Sabbah said. “Today, the integration of daily payments and the investment wallet within a single app through our collaboration with Mastercard marks a significant leap forward, giving individuals immediate control over their money.”

Blnk Secures $37 Million in Funding

Egyptian Buy Now, Pay Later outfit Blnk has raised $37 million in combined debt and equity. The equity component, led by Algebra Ventures and featuring participation from SANAD Fund for MSME, Endeavor Catalyst, and Emirates International Investment Company, amounted to $12.5 million. Debt facilities from local banks, totaling $24.6 million, completed the round.

“This new round of funding positions us to strengthen our profitability—expanding our reach, diversifying our offerings and doubling down on our commitment to unlocking financial access for millions of consumers in Egypt and beyond,” Blnk Co-founder and CEO Amr Sultan said.

Blnk offers inclusive financing programs for all Egyptians, less than 4% of whom have access to credit cards. This means that many Egyptians can only afford to buy products with cash or after borrowing money from hard money lenders at high interest rates. In response to this, Blnk’s point-of-sale financing options offer instant approvals in minutes and allow borrowers to apply with just their National ID and mobile phone number at the stores they are already shopping at.

“Since our seed round in 2022,” the company noted on its LinkedIn page earlier this week, “Blnk has grown to serve more than one million customers, built a loan portfolio exceeding EGP 1 billion, and reached profitability in 2025. Today, 75% of our customers were previously unbanked or underserved, while more than 35% are women.”

Blnk’s approach to financial risk assessment relies on dynamic, data-driven risk maps. The company’s proprietary AI analyzes hyper-local variables to identify patterns that guide precise credit decisioning. Blnk also leverages specialized machine learning models to provide real-time, precise Probability of Default (PD) predictions which support instant credit decisions with risk-based pricing.

Founded in 2020, Blnk is headquartered in Giza.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Montevideo, Uruguay-based cross-border payment company Bamboo teamed up with Swedish payment network Centiglobe to streamline cross-border B2B and B2C payments throughout Latin America.
  • Mexican fintech Clip unveiled its digital wallet ecosystem Mi Clip.
  • The Fintech Times looked at the current fintech landscape in Costa Rica.

Asia-Pacific

  • Singapore-based payments and treasury management platform Sunrate introduced Sunrate.AI, a new category of AI-native global payment infrastructure for complex enterprise workflows.
  • Three Japanese banks—MUFC, Mizuho, and Sumitomo Mitsui Bank—announced plans to issue a Yen-backed stablecoin in 2026.
  • XTransfer, a cross-border financial and risk management service company based in Shanghai, inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Societe Generale.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • South Africa-based payments service provider (PSP) Kwik Payments has gone live on the ACI Payments Orchestration Platform.
  • MTN Group Fintech, the fintech arm of African telecom MTN Group, announced a strategic partnership with Ant International to enhance mobile money services.
  • A new proposal from Kenya’s legislature, Finance Bill 2026, could bring additional tax reporting and compliance requirements for virtual asset providers and digital payment platforms.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Estonian white-label banking platform Wallester has been granted a license from the FCA to enable the firm to expand to the UK.
  • Lloyds Banking Group secured approval from the Bank of Lithuania to acquire electronic money institution Curve Europe.
  • The Fintech Latvia Association signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the UK’s Innovate Finance to foster knowledge exchange and joint business initiatives.

Middle East and Northern Africa

Central and Southern Asia

Photo by Roaming Pictures on Unsplash

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Finovate Global Eastern Europe: Funding Payments, Modernizing Banks, and More!

Finovate Global Eastern Europe: Funding Payments, Modernizing Banks, and More!
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Backbase, Finovate Global, MasterCard, PayPal, Ripple

This week’s edition of Finovate Global looks at recent fintech headlines from the Eastern European nations of Bulgaria, Albania, and Hungary.

Bulgarian Fintech Paypercut Raises €5M

Paypercut, a fintech based in Sofia, Bulgaria, has secured €5 million in seed funding. The round was co-led by Concentric, Passion Capital, and Araya Ventures, and featured participation from additional investors including SMOK Ventures, Portfolio Ventures, BrightCap Ventures, BlackWood, SABAH.fund, MFG Invest, Main Set, and Matt Doka, a payment entrepreneur. Paypercut’s total funding now stands at €7 million.

Founded in response to the fragmentation of payments in Central and Eastern Europe, Paypercut has grown from a Buy Now, Pay Later aggregator into a more comprehensive payments platform. The company offers merchants access to card payments, local payment options, Buy Now Pay Later products, payment links, QR code payments, multi-currency settlement, and billing tools via a single integration. Paypercut raised €2 million in pre-seed funding in July 2025 and has onboarded more than 200 merchants in eight CEE markets since that time.

This week’s investment will help fuel Paypercut’s continued expansion across Central and Eastern Europe. The funding will also enable the firm to meet the capital requirements for an EMI license with the Central Bank of Ireland.

“CEE has always been treated as an afterthought by the payments industry, seen as too fragmented, too many local specifics, too complicated,” Paypercut Co-Founder and CEO Stoil Vasilev said. “We built Paypercut to fix that. This round gives us the resources to go further and faster: more markets, more payment options for merchants, and the infrastructure to move money in the way it should have always worked, instantly and at a fraction of the cost.”

In addition to its merchant payments operation, Paypercut is also developing stablecoin-based infrastructure for cross-border transfers in the region. The company will initially target high-volume corridors such as those between the Euro and the Polish Zloty (EUR-to-PLN) and the Euro and the Romanian Leu (EUR-to-RON).

Albania’s Tirana Bank Goes Live with Backbase

Tirana Bank, named “Best Bank in Albania” in 2025 by Euromoney, has gone live with a “complete omnichannel retail banking experience” built on the Backbase AI-native Banking OS. The launch covers accounts, deposits, online loan and credit card applications, internal and outgoing transfers, card management, billpay, and financial insights. Tirana Bank will also enable Digital Assist in the employee app.

“This launch marks a significant step in our digital transformation journey, as we continue to invest in solutions that bring real, everyday value to our customers. TiBank+ is designed to deliver a seamless and intuitive banking experience, combining convenience with the trust and human connection that define our model,” Tirana Bank Chief Retail Business Officer Lila Canaj said. “Through our partnership with Backbase, we have accelerated this transformation, bringing to market a modern and scalable platform built to evolve with our customers’ needs.”

One feature that Tirana Bank anticipates its customers will appreciate is real-time spending insights, courtesy of Backbase’s personal finance management capabilities. Offering customers these insights is not a common occurrence in the region and will help Tirana Bank differentiate itself from its competitors. The institution is also going live with Apple Pay, becoming one of the few Albanian banks to offer the service via a mobile app.

“Albania is on its path to EU membership, its government has made digitalization a national priority,” Backbase Regional Vice President for South East Europe Robert Mihaljek said. “Tirana Bank looked at that moment and decided to lead it. They came to us with a clear ambition. Twelve months later, they are live with not only an MVP but a full retail APP. This is a first for Albania, and a reference for the Balkans.”

A four-time Finovate Best of Show winner, Backbase has been a Finovate alum since 2009. The Amsterdam-based fintech offers an AI-native banking operating system that converts fragmented banking operations into a unified frontline for the benefit of customers and employees alike. Founded in 2003, Backbase counts more than 150 leading banks and financial institutions around the world as users of its solutions for retail, small business, commercial, and private banking, as well as wealth management. Riddhi Dutta is CEO.

Can Crypto Make a Comeback in Hungary?

For many observers, liberal democracy was one of the big winners in the recent Hungarian election that saw the end of the Orbán regime. But could the victory of Péter Magyar and his pro-EU Tisza Party also be a good sign for crypto and digital assets in the country?

In 2025, Hungary announced an amended Crypto Act that criminalized unauthorized exchange services and established a validation regime on all crypto-to-fiat and crypto-to-crypto transactions. This incentivized some firms, such as Revolut, to withdraw from the Hungarian market entirely, while others suspended services due to regulatory uncertainty.

This also set off a confrontation with the EU, with the European Commission initiating infringement proceedings against Hungary’s validation regime, saying that it was in conflict with the EU’s MiCA framework. Interestingly, Orbán had previously been relatively pro-crypto, with his regime offering some of the lowest tax rates on crypto in Central Europe. This made Hungary—at least before 2025—an attractive jurisdiction for retail crypto investors in the region.

There are many reasons offered to explain the shift toward a more restrictive attitude in recent years—from the influence of MiCA and its mandates to the regime’s well-known preference for state control and supervision of key financial and industrial activities. But the question now is whether or not new politics will result in new policy? The correct answer, at this point, is that no one knows. What some observers have noted, however, is Magyar’s relatively more pro-EU stance on other issues and his general interest in re-aligning with European institutions more broadly. To this end, even something as straightforward as revising the country’s crypto policy to match MiCA’s mandates—and remove or revise current criminal penalties for policy violations— might be an initial positive sign toward restoring crypto’s status in Hungary.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Central and Southern Asia

  • India travel fintech Scapia, which combines co-branded cards with travel booking, secured $63 million in funding in a round led by General Catalyst.
  • Raqami Islamic Digital Bank Limited (RIDBL) has been granted a Retail Banking License by the State Bank of Pakistan.
  • The Eurasian Development Bank inked a $70 million loan agreement with IT company Uzum to support the fintech industry in Uzbekistan.

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Via its Alipay+ gateway, Singapore’s Ant International announced the launch of cross-border mobile payment services in Latin America.
  • ACI Worldwide looked at the impact of real-time payments on growth in Peru, Chile, and Argentina.
  • Tearsheet profiled Brazilian digital financial institution Agibank.

Asia-Pacific

  • Singapore-based Crypto payments network Moonpay and controlling shareholder Seoryong Electronics announced a joint investment in Korean fintech Finger.
  • Vietnam Bank OCB selected Backbase AI lead Chris Shayan as its Acting CEO.
  • Visa launched Germin Pay in the Philippines.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • African financial infrastructure company Anchor launched its Anchor MCP Server, becoming the first Nigerian fintech to make. its API documentation natively available to AI systems.
  • The Africa Report reported on the rise of mobile money in Ghana and how it is challenging the country’s incumbent banks.
  • Business Insider Africa looks at the fate of small business banking platform Brass which announced that it will be migrating its customers to Paystack Microfinance Bank.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • PayPal introduced a pair of Buy Now, Pay Later products for its customers in Austria.
  • Ripple launched its RLUSD stablecoin in Turkey courtesy of partnerships with local platforms BiLira, Bitexen, and Bitlo.
  • Equifax UK forged a partnership with Polish credit bureau BIK to boost access to identity verification and fraud prevention technology.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • Saudi Arabia-based fintech Stitch announced a pivot to focus on infrastructure and offering a financial operating system for banks.
  • UAE-based fintech Comfi AI secured pre-Series A funding from Yango Group’s Yango Ventures.
  • Mastercard renews its partnership with CIB, Egypt’s largest private-sector bank.

Photo by Viktor Kiryanov on Unsplash

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Meet the International Alums of FinovateSpring 2026!

Meet the International Alums of FinovateSpring 2026!
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global, Ripple

With FinovateSpring 2026 right around the corner—May 5-7—we wanted to take a moment here at Finovate Global to highlight the international companies that will be demoing their latest fintech innovations live on stage next week.

While both our European conference FinovateEurope and our flagship event FinovateFall tend to showcase the lion’s share of our international alums, we are thrilled to host these eight fintech innovators from Greece, India, Israel, Italy, Singapore, and Switzerland this year at FinovateSpring!

Join us next week—May 5-7—at the Sheraton San Diego Resort for FinovateSpring 2026. 1200+ senior-level fintech attendees. 600+ attendees from banks and financial institutions. 50+ live fintech demos. Save your spot. Book your room. And we’ll see you in sunny San Diego!

BankUniverse—Greece

BankUniverse delivers a privacy-first ‘intent engine’ that identifies high-value prospects and automates conversion, increasing digital sales by 20%+ without sharing sensitive customer PII. Headquartered in Greece, the company was founded in 2024.

Cobalt—Tel Aviv, Israel

Cobalt automatically maps real system dependencies across complex banking environments, enabling agentic AI, real-time visibility, safer changes, reduced risk, and confident operations. Headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel, the company was founded in 2025.

ContexQ — Singapore

ContexQ is forensic Graph AI that detects fraud, money laundering, and hidden beneficial ownership by seeing the relationships every other AI misses. Headquartered in Singapore, the company was founded in 2024.

CRIF—Italy

CRIF is a global technology company delivering credit bureau services, business intelligence, advanced analytics, decisioning platforms, and digital solutions that power smarter lending and risk management worldwide. Headquartered in Italy, the company was founded in 1988.

Holdyn—Tel Aviv, Israel

Holdyn is a trust-first fintech platform enabling secure, structured transactions, and conditional payments. In addition to moving funds instantly, Holdyn also allows users to define how and when funds are released, reducing counterparty risk in both local and cross-border transactions. Headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel, the company was founded in 2025.

Nextvestment — Singapore

Nextvestment enables safe, self-service exploration while guiding advisors to intervene at the right moments, improving client engagement and advisor productivity without changing advisory models. Headquartered in Singapore, the company was founded in 2024.

uncharted group—Zurich, Switzerland

uncharted group’s operating system turns commoditized AI into a proprietary, compounding advantage for investment firms. Headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, the company was founded in 2024.

Yubi—Chennai, India

Yubi is India’s AI-powered debt marketplace—connecting 17,000+ enterprises with 6,200+ lenders, having facilitated over $36 billion in financing. Now they’re bringing this breakthrough technology to the U.S. Headquartered in Chennai, India and Delaware, the company was founded in 2020.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • Saudi Arabian financial app barq introduced international cross-border QR payments in partnership with Alipay+.
  • Dubai-based, B2B embedded finance platform Comfi raised $65 million in funding.
  • Blockchain-based enterprise solutions company Ripple opened the doors on a new regional headquarters in the UAE this week.

Central and Southern Asia

  • India-based fintech Pine Labs announced the acquisition of next-generation online checkout optimization platform Shopflo.
  • Central Asian digital banking ecosystem TBC Uzbekistan launched its AI assistant Lola.
  • Indian fintech Mobikwik secured approval from the Reserve Bank of India to initiate lending operations.

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Cross-border payment infrastructure company TerraPay forged a strategic partnership with Nicaraguan remittance payout services company Banco de la Producción S.A (Banpro Grupo Promerica).
  • Argentina-based fintech belo secured $14 million in Series A funding in a round led by Tether.
  • The IMARC Group predicted that Mexico’s fintech market size will reach $67.2 billion by 2034.

Asia-Pacific

  • South Korea-based fintech RiskX secured seed funding for its technology that will enhance the pricing, risk analysis, and investor communication for structured derivatives.
  • Commonwealth Bank of Australia deployed an agentic AI system designed to detect emerging fraud and scam patterns in payments and transaction data.
  • Crypto payments network MoonPay joined Sungho Electronics and Seoryong Electronics in an investment in Soutk Korean fintech Finger as part of an effort to support a Korean won stablecoin ecosystem.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • South African bank Absa Group Limited improved its self-solve cases of digital and card fraud by 47% by using WhatsApp to instantly confirm suspected fraud transactions with customers.
  • Nairobi, Kenya-based cross border payments company WapiPay secured approval from the Bank of Jamaica to begin operations in the country.
  • PitchBook looked at the state of VC funding for African fintechs.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • European paytech Nexi integrated new digital payment option, Wero, bringing it into Germany’s ecommerce system via its German subsidiary, Nexi Germany.
  • Austrian cooperative banking group Raiffeisenbankengruppe Oesterreich partnered with nCino for its unified corporate lending platform
  • Finom unveiled a new, standalone version of its accounting solution for freelancers and small businesses in Germany.

Photo by Andrew Stutesman on Unsplash

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Finovate Global Libya: Chatbots, Payments, and Expanding E-Wallet Access

Finovate Global Libya: Chatbots, Payments, and Expanding E-Wallet Access
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global

This week’s edition of Finovate Global features recent fintech news from the north African nation of Libya.

Tadhamun Bank Libya partners with JMR Infotech for AI Chatbot and Voicebot

Tadhamun Bank Libya has turned to JMR Infotech, a digital transformation and banking technology solutions provider, to assist in the implementation of its AI-powered Smart Social Banking Chatbot and Voicebot. The announcement expands the relationship between the two entities; JMR Infotech has been a strategic technology partner to Tadhamun Bank since providing the financial institution with transformation programs such as Oracle FLEXCUBE, Oracle Banking Digital Experience (OBDX), and Oracle Financial Services Analytical Applications (OFSAA), as well as ongoing managed services support.

The new Chatbot and Voicebot will automate customer onboarding and enable instant interactions, boosting customer engagement while simultaneously reducing reliance on traditional support channels. The technology will be deployed across the web, WhatsApp, and Messenger channels, enabling customers to interact with the bank for onboarding, fund transfers, real-time query resolution, and more. The bank believes that the new offering will improve response times, optimize service delivery, and reduce both call center volumes and operational costs.

“Our focus is on continuously enhancing customer experience while improving operational efficiency,” Tadhamun Bank General Manager Osam Alabearsh said. “JMR Infotech’s AI-powered Smart Social Banking Chatbot and Voicebot stood out for its practical use cases, flexibility, and ability to integrate seamlessly with our existing platforms. This initiative will play a key role in simplifying onboarding and enabling more accessible, always-on banking services for our customers.”

Founded in 2007 and headquartered in Bangalore, India, JMR Infotech is an information technology solution provider that specializes in helping financial institutions and other businesses better interact with their customer and extended eco-systems. An Oracle Platinum Partner, JMR has been part of multiple core transformations and includes core and digital banking modernization, regulatory compliance, customer experience platforms, enterprise planning solutions, advanced analytics, and AI-powered engagement among its areas of expertise. Jayafar Moidu is Founder and CEO.

“We are delighted to extend our partnership with Tadhanum Bank through the introduction of our AI-powered Smart Social Banking Chatbot and Voicebot,” JMR Infotech Head of Global Sales and Business Development, Naman Jain, said. “This engagement reflects the trust we have built over the years and our shared vision of driving meaningful digital transformation. Our solution is designed to combine intelligence, scalability, and flexibility, enabling banks to deliver superior customer experiences while achieving measurable business outcomes.”

With $421 million in total assets, Tadhamun Bank was founded in 1998. Headquartered in Tripoli, the institution is known for its emphasis on innovation and customer service relative to its larger, state-owned rivals.

Network International teams up with Al Seraj Islamic Bank

Speaking of fintech and bank partnerships, UAE-based Network International has partnered with Libya’s Al Seraj Islamic Bank. The company will provide the bank with an end-to-end system to facilitate digital payment processing in a bid to help boost financial inclusion.

“Al Seraj Islamic Bank’s decision to partner with us reflects our leadership in the MEA region and our ability to deliver innovative, dependable solutions that transform payment ecosystems,” Mohamed Abu Gebba, Network International Regional Managing Director in charge of processing for North Africa, said. “Together we aim to advance financial inclusion, support the bank’s growth ambitions, and empower communities with secure, modern payment services.”

The partnership will deliver a range of digital payment processing solutions to the Libyan bank. These solutions include Visa sponsorship, prepaid issuing capabilities, as well as a suite of value-added services. Combined, the technology will empower Al Seraj Islamic Bank to streamline operations and expand access to digital payment options throughout the country.

“Partnering with Network International was a strategic decision driven by their proven service excellence, strong market reputation, and deep understanding of Libya’s banking landscape,” Al Seraj Islamic Bank CEO Foze Ghaith said. “Their end-to-end processing capabilities will enable us to launch advanced digital products, enhance customer experience, and accelerate our growth trajectory. This partnership reinforces our commitment to delivering world-class, Sharia-compliant digital banking solutions across Libya.”

Headquartered in Benghazi, Al Seraj Islamic Bank is a relatively new financial institution, founded in 2024. The bank is focused on delivering optimized banking services based on Sharia principles.

Founded in 1994 and headquartered in the UAE, Network International helps simplify commerce and payments for businesses throughout the Middle East and Africa. The company offers in-person, e-commerce, and payment gateway solutions; business payment and processing solutions; and value-added services for both merchants and processors. Network International operates in more than 50 countries and serves more than 130,000 merchants, as well as 250 financial institutions and fintech customers, while managing more than 16 million customer credentials.

Libyan Central Bank OKs E-Wallets for Foreign Residents

The Central Bank of Libya has announced new regulations that will allow non-Libyan legal residents in the country to access electronic wallet services.

The new policy enables licensed financial service providers to issue e-wallets to foreign residents who pass modest verification requirements including a valid passport or residency document issued by official Libyan authorities as well as a registered mobile phone number linked to their identity. Expanded access comes with new fund transfer limits, which have been implemented to manage the flow of digital funds and help ensure financial stability. Libyan citizens will face transfer limits of up to 100,000 dinars between individuals, 500,000 dinars from individuals to companies, and up to two million dinars between companies. Non-Libyan residents will have transfer limits of up to 50,000 dinars between individuals and up to 100,000 dinars from individuals to companies.

The new regulations are designed to expand access to formal financial services and reduce reliance on cash transactions in a country that is largely cash-based. Introducing e-wallet services will help support the development of Libya’s electronic payments ecosystem, and send a signal to investors and entrepreneurs that the country is increasingly committed to establishing a more formal and modern financial system.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Lithuanian regtech IDenfy launched an identity verification app for WooCommerce merchants.
  • Italian paytech Nexi teamed up with Visa to modernize card issuance in Germany.
  • Polish fintech PragmaGo has brought its Merchant Cash Advance (MCA) model to the Croatian market.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • Libya’s Tadhamun Bank announced that it would deploy JMR Infotech’s social chatbots.
  • GCC-based wealth management firm, The Family Office, launched its AI-powered assistant, Wealth Mermaid, fully integrated into its Client app.
  • Payment orchestration platform MoneyHash teams up with Oman-based Thawani Pay.

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • South African fintech Ozow teamed up with SME funding provider Lula to expand access to business financing for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across South Africa.
  • UK-based cross-border payments company LemFi expanded its remittance services to Kenya.
  • A new report from Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Beyond Payments: Unlocking Africa’s Second FinTech Wave, suggested that revenues from African fintechs will grow 13x to $65 billion by 2030.

Photo by Moayad Zaghdani on Unsplash

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Finovate Global Central America and the Caribbean: Credit, Stablecoins, and Wallets

Finovate Global Central America and the Caribbean: Credit, Stablecoins, and Wallets
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: eToro, Finastra, Finovate Global, Nubank

This week’s edition of Finovate Global looks at recent fintech headlines from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Aruba.

Credit Assessment Platform CreditYa Launched in Guatemala

Colombia-based financial services company YUMIVI S.A.S has brought its AI-powered credit assessment platform, CreditYa, to Guatemala. CreditYa is a digital microcredit platform designed to provide small, fast, accessible, and reliable financing to individuals and small business owners. Founded by Wingston Oswaldo González Reyes, CreditYa’s entry into the Guatemalan market is the company’s first expansion beyond its native Colombia. The company’s Regional Operations Lead María Gabriela noted in a statement that the launch was “the first step in (the company’s) long-term commitment” toward making financial services more accessible to “every hard-working Guatemalan with a digital footprint.”

Gabriela added: “In Guatemala, business opportunities are often fleeting. Whether it is purchasing materials in advance to meet a sudden surge in orders or repairing store equipment that fails unexpectedly, entrepreneurs need timely access to fast and flexible financial support—not an endless approval process. Our goal is to eliminate delays through technology. Users only need to download the app, complete identity verification, and authorize data access within minutes to receive a preliminary credit assessment and, in most cases, gain access to financial support within 24 hours.”

Using advanced data analytics and AI intelligence, CreditYa delivers fast and convenient digital financial services to individuals and microenterprises in Latin America. The company has established partnerships with local payment gateways and data processing providers to ensure that its operations are compliant with local regulations. CreditYa will also work with community organizations to deliver financial education and boost financial inclusion in the Guatemalan market.

“We are not just a financial app,” Gabriela said. “We aspire to be a trusted partner for users as they pursue a better life and grow their businesses.”

Tether Introduces New Stablecoin Wallet

Digital asset company and issuer of the USDT stablecoin, Tether launched tether.wallet, the People’s Wallet, this week. Tether.wallet is a self-custodial digital wallet that puts the company’s international financial infrastructure directly into the hands of its users.

“Tether has achieved, without any doubts, the widest financial inclusion success story in the history of humanity,” Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino boasted. “With more than 570 million people already using Tether’s technology, the next step is making that digital infrastructure even more accessible and usable by the end users. The objective is to remove the complexity that has prevented broader adoption while preserving the properties that make the digital assets technology valuable.”

Until now, Tether operated primarily as part of the underlying layer of the digital economy, enabling liquidity, settlement, and payments across more than 160 countries, with its USDT stablecoin becoming among the most popular digital representations of the US dollar. The launch of tether.wallet puts this entire infrastructure in the hands of end users, enabling them to transact in digital dollars by way of USDT and USAT, gold by way of XAUT, and via Bitcoin. The wallet is built to remove the complexity that tends to limit broader embrace of digital assets, for example, enabling users to send funds with simple, straightforward, human-readable identifiers such as “[email protected]” rather than long, error-prone wallet addresses.

The solution is 100% self-custodial. All transactions are signed locally on the user’s device before being broadcast to the network, and private keys and recovery phrases remain under exclusive control of the end user.

“Tether.wallet is ‘the People’s Wallet’ because it truly reflects the natural evolution of Tether’s role, from building the foundation of the digital asset economy to making it directly usable by anyone, ready for a future in which tens of billions of humans, machines, and trillions of AI agents will transact seamlessly at the speed of light,” Ardoino said.

Founded in 2014, Tether named El Salvador as its formal headquarters last year after securing a license under the country’s Digital Asset Issuance Law. The goal was to capitalize on El Salvador’s status as an emerging crypto currency hub and its embrace of Bitcoin. The move gave Tether its first physical headquarters. The firm was previously incorporated in the British Virgin Islands.

Aruba-based AIB Bank Partners with Finastra for Digital Banking

AIB Bank, an Aruba-based financial institution with nearly $2 billion in assets, has inked a deal with Finastra to deploy its Finastra Essence core banking solution. The deployment is part of AIB Bank’s goal of establishing the first fully digital bank in the country. Finastra Essence will deliver an enhanced core solution that blends broad and deep digital banking functionality with advanced technology to empower banks to offer customers faster transactions, greater reliability and security, and the kind of modern, personalized digital experiences that customers have come to expect.

“Choosing Finastra Essence allows us to position ourselves at the forefront of full-service digital banking innovation in Aruba and across the Caribbean,” AIB Managing Director Frendsel Giel said. “This transformation of our recently acquired commercial bank will not only enhance the way we serve our customers but also establish a solid foundation for accelerated growth and long-term success in Aruba and the region.”

Founded in 1987, AIB Bank is a privately owned financial institution based in Oranjestad, Aruba. The company specializes in loan syndication, agency services, corporate lending, program and project management, as well as advisory services, and has structured large and complex financing through Aruba and the region.

Formed via a merger between D+H Corporation and Finovate alum Misys in 2017, Finastra works with banks and other financial institutions to help them deliver secure and trusted mission-critical financial services technology. Headquartered in the UK, Finastra has more than 7,000 customers around the world using its financial services software, including 80% of the top 50 global banks, and moves $7 trillion in transactions every day. Chris Walters is Finastra’s CEO.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • PitchBook looked at the current state of venture capital funding for fintechs in Africa.
  • South African bank Capitec partnered with Wise Platform, Wise’s international payments infrastructure for banks and enterprises.
  • Visa Africa Fintech Accelerator reached 100 startups since inception with its fifth cohort.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Germany’s Deutsche Börse purchased a 1.%% fully diluted stake in crypto platform Kraken.
  • Polish fintech PragmaGO, which provides financial services for small and medium-sized businesses, expanded to Croatia.
  • Cryptonews examined how the recent election in Hungary could rekindle debate on crypto policy and regulation.

Middle East and Northern Africa

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Nu Mexico, the Mexican subsidiary of Brazil’s Nubank, topped the 15 million customer milestone, establishing itself as one of Mexico’s three largest financial institutions by customer base.
  • Uruguay-based cross-border payment platform dLocal partnered with Italy’s NEC to power international remittance payouts.
  • Aruba’s AIB Bank teamed up with Finastra and will deploy the fintech’s core banking solution Finastra Essence.

Asia-Pacific

  • Japan’s largest bank, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, expanded its partnership with Finastra to support ACH payments in the US.
  • Indonesian bank CIMB Niaga, Google Cloud, and Artefact unveiled enterprise AI agents to bring greater personalization to the banking experience for customers.
  • Australian Trade and Investment Commission sent a delegation to Vietnam to support deepening fintech ties with the country.

Photo by Rodrigo Escalante on Unsplash

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Finovate Global Thailand: Digital Assets, Agentic Transactions, and Moving Money

Finovate Global Thailand: Digital Assets, Agentic Transactions, and Moving Money
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global, MasterCard

This week’s edition of Finovate Global reviews recent fintech news and headlines from Thailand.

DV8 Public Company to Acquire Rakkar Digital

Pending regulatory approvals, DV8 Public Company has announced plans to acquire Rakkar Digital, a digital asset custody provider, and invest up to $3 million (THB100 million) in the firm. DV8 has inked a share sale and purchase agreement to buy Rakkar’s ordinary shares from its existing shareholders. The transaction marks DV8’s latest entry into regulated digital asset operations. The company invested in Korean digital asset treasury platform Bitplanet in 2025.

Rakkar Digital was established in 2022 as a joint project between SCBX, the parent company of Siam Commercial Bank, and Fireblocks, a global digital asset infrastructure provider. Headquartered in Singapore, Rakkar Digital provides institutional-grade digital asset and cryptocurrency custodian services and has more than $700 million in assets under custody. In a statement, DV8 noted that Rakkar Digital’s regulatory standing, operational framework, and trust among institutional customers made the company a wise acquisition and will help DV8 compete in Asia’s rapidly growing digital asset ecosystem.

Founded in 1978, DV8 Public Company is a media and advertising agency based in Bangkok, Thailand. Formerly known as Demeter Corporation Public Company Limited, the company rebranded in 2020 and is currently transforming itself into a builder of regulated digital asset infrastructure. DV8 announced this pivot last summer, appointing Thai business leader Chatchaval Jiaravanon as its new Chairman and raising approximately $7.4 million (THB 241 million) in funding.

Mastercard and Krungthai Complete Agentic Transaction in Thailand

Mastercard announced that it has completed a pilot project in Thailand to deliver its first authenticated agentic transaction in partnership with Krungthai Card Public Company Limited (KTC). The project featured Mastercard Agent Pay and was initiated by AI agents in a secure, transparent pilot environment with full consumer control. The transaction used tokenized credentials, authenticated by Mastercard Payment Passkeys, to provide customer verification and data protection.

“AI-driven innovation in payments marks a significant step forward for the financial industry,” Krungthai Card President and CEO Pittaya Vorapanyasakul said. “Our collaboration with Mastercard reflects our strategic commitment to integrating agentic commerce into KTC’s ecosystem—enabling smarter, more secure, and intuitive experiences for consumers. This milestone reinforces our role in advancing payment innovation in Thailand.”

The pilot project demonstrated how AI can complete everyday tasks for consumers safely and efficiently. In this instance, an AI agent booked transportation from Suvarnabhumi airport to Central Chidlom via global mobility provider Elife. Both the booking and the agentic transaction were facilitated by the AI agent, which was connected to Elife’s services network.

Thailand is the latest country where Mastercard has tested its innovations in agentic commerce. So far in 2026, the company has completed authenticated agentic transactions in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, India, South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

“Thailand continues to be one of the region’s most attractive travel destinations, and its dynamic travel environment provides an ideal, real-world testbed for agentic commerce,” Mastercard Country Manager for Thailand and Myanmar Winnie Wong said. “Through this collaboration with Krungthai Card (KTC), Mastercard’s first partner in Thailand to test agentic AI transactions, consumer-authorized AI agents can help make travel experiences more seamless, while embedding trust, authentication, and security directly into payments.”

KTC is a major Thai financial services provider that specializes in credit cards, personal loans, and other payment services. Founded in 1996, the company is headquartered in Bangkok.

Wise Secures Licenses for Wallet and Card Services in Thailand

International money transfer innovator Wise (formerly TransferWise) has obtained five licenses that will enable the firm to offer banking and financial services in Thailand. The UK-based company is the first non-bank to secure five licenses in the country: an electronic money service license, an electronic fund transfer license, an authorized money transfer agent license, an authorized electronic money business operator license (also known as an FX e-Money License), and a foreign business license.

These licenses reflect the relatively complex nature of Thailand as a market for international payments. However, the effort is likely to prove worthwhile. Thailand one of the most internationally connected economies in Southeast Asia, and the APAC region is an especially important one for Wise, accounting for 20% of the fintech’s global revenue.

“Thailand’s cross-border payments market has long been dominated by traditional banks, and Wise is bringing a faster, more transparent alternative,” Wise Head of Banking and Expansion for APAC SK Saraogi said. “With these licenses, customers will soon be able to manage money seamlessly whether they are sending it abroad or using it locally. Beyond Thailand, we see strong demand for our products across APAC and will continue to increase our regulatory footprint to bring our products to even more customers.”

A Finovate alum since 2013, Wise is an international fintech specializing in global money movement and management. Launched in 2011 as “TransferWise” by Kristo Käärmann and Taavet Hinrikus and headquartered in the UK, Wise supported more than 15 million individuals and businesses with its fund transfer services in fiscal 2025. The company processes £9 billion in cross-border transactions every month, saving customers around £1.5 billion a year.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Asia-Pacific

  • Mastercard completed a pilot project that delivered the first authenticated agentic transaction in Thailand with Krungthai Card Public Company Limited.
  • Australian Payments Plus agreed to sell its payments app Beem to Bolt Group.
  • StraitsX and KBank established real-time payments between Singapore and Thailand.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • African fintech Moniepoint acquired Sumac Microfinance Bank, accelerating its entry into the Kenyan market.
  • Paytech Flutterwave announced plans to establish a regional hub in Anambra, in the southeast part of Nigeria, to help target small businesses.
  • The Fintech Times reviewed Ghana’s fintech ecosystem.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Polish fintech ZEN.COM launched in Ukraine.
  • Fintech analyst Chris Skinner took a look at the “State of Fintech in Germany.”
  • Latvia announced a new type of banking license in a bid to encourage new market entrants.

Middle East and Northern Africa

Central and Southern Asia

  • Indian lending platform KreditBee achieved a valuation of $1.5 billion after raising $280 million in new funding.
  • A merger between CityPay and Chhito Paisa is expected to bolster Nepal’s fintech sector.
  • Glaas, an India-based embedded credit infrastructure company, raised $5 million in funding from Devesh Sachdev, who joined the company as co-founder and managing director.

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Stablecoin issuer and infrastructure company Balboa Corporation launched in Panama.
  • Mexican retail bank BanCoppel announced a partnership with payment solutions provider BPC.
  • TikTok has applied for EMI and credit licenses in Brazil.

Photo by DUYTRG TRUONG

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Finovate Global Africa: Stablecoins, Digital Payments, and Funding Infrastructure

Finovate Global Africa: Stablecoins, Digital Payments, and Funding Infrastructure
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global, MasterCard, Revolut

This week’s edition of Finovate Global highlights recent fintech headlines from Saharan and sub-Saharan Africa.

Circle and Sasai Fintech team up to boost adoption of USDC

Digital asset platform Circle announced a new partnership between one of its affiliates and Sasai Fintech, a business of Cassava Technologies. The partnership is designed to boost adoption of Circle’s USDC stablecoin and expand internet-native financial infrastructure across Africa.

“Africa’s digital economy is entering a new era, propelled by entrepreneurship, a mobile-first generation, and the acceleration of intra-regional trade,” Cassava Technologies Founder and Executive Chairman Strive Masiyiwa said. “By integrating with the trusted and widely adopted USDC network, we can drive financial inclusion and open transformative opportunities for businesses and consumers alike.”

Stablecoin adoption in Africa is accelerating due to increases in the number of mobile-first consumers, the growth of cross-border commerce, and the overall expansion of the digital economy. USDC is a fully-reserved, transparent payment stablecoin redeemable 1:1 for US dollars. The stablecoin has been used to power programmable payments and financial applications around the world. This week’s partnership announcement between Circle and Sasai Fintech calls for further exploration into practical applications for USDC. The two companies will also investigate ways that Circle’s full stack platform can lower costs, friction, and settlement time for Sasai’s enterprise and retail customers.

“Emerging markets are at the forefront of stablecoin adoption, and Africa represents a significant opportunity for internet-native innovation,” Circle Co-Founder, Chairman, and CEO Jeremy Allaire said. “Working with Cassava, we can extend the benefits of USDC and on-chain infrastructure into high-growth payment corridors to deliver always-on global connectivity.”

Sasai Fintech is a pan-African digital payment solutions provider. Headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa, and founded in 2021, Sasai Fintech has enabled more than 250 million wallets and more than 85,000 POS terminals. A division of Cassava Technologies, Sasai Fintech has 20+ enterprise partners and is active in 30+ cross-border markets.

IFC Partners with Cashi to expand digital payments infrastructure

International Finance Corporation (IFC) has teamed up with digital payment infrastructure company Cashi. The fintech offers a digital payment platform that allows users to send and receive money via mobile phones, point-of-sale devices, and SMS-based tools. Cashi’s platform links users with banks, telecoms, and other financial institutions in a single interoperable ecosystem that makes everyday transactions easier in an economy that still relies heavily on cash and faces significant obstacles to accessing comprehensive banking services.

“IFC’s upstream support allows us to adapt our proven, crisis-tested platform to the realities of central Africa,” Cashi CEO Tarneem Saeed said. “This partnership enables us to work closely with regulators and ecosystem partners, build trust with local merchants, and deliver practical financial tools that people can use in their daily lives, even in low-connectivity environments.”

Cashi’s platform helps address and alleviate digital infrastructure bottlenecks in economies that are cash-dependent and underbanked. The company offers a range of financial products and services that enable businesses and individuals to send, receive, and spend money. Cashi offers instant settlement, reliable uptime, and dedicated support for both merchants and users. Founded in 2022 and headquartered in Khartoum, Sudan, Cashi operates as part of Alsoug.com, the country’s largest digital classifieds and marketplace.

Financial infrastructure startup Littlefish raises $9.4 million

A South African fintech infrastructure startup, littlefish, has scored $9.4 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Partech, and featured participation from TLcom Capital, Flourish Ventures, and Proparco. The investment is the latest fundraising for the company since its 2021 seed round, and the firm expects to use the new capital to grow its team, advance product development, and enter new markets such as Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Zambia.

“This raise is a validation of our belief that the best way to serve Africa’s small businesses is to work with the institutions they already trust, not around them,” Brandon Roberts, Co-Founder and CEO of littlefish, said. “We’ve proven the model in South Africa, and this capital gives us the runway to deepen those relationships and bring what we’ve built to millions more merchants across the continent. The little guys deserve world-class financial infrastructure, too, and we’re building it.”

Littlefish offers a merchant operating system that empowers banks to deliver fintech products and services to small businesses by integrating payments, POS software, CRMs, APIs, and more into a unified layer. This enables banks and other financial institutions to offer modern, digital services to merchants without disrupting their existing relationships with customers. Littlefish helps banks deliver more services to their business customers more efficiently, and gives small businesses the opportunity to gradually modernize and digitize their operations.

Littlefish counts institutions such as Standard Bank, First National Bank, and Absa among its clients. The company was co-founded in 2021 by Roberts and Miod Davith Kahwa.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Mexico-based digital commerce platform, Clip, introduced Tap to Pay functionality on the iPhone.
  • Mastercard executed a series of live, end-to-end agentic payment transactions across Latin America and the Caribbean.
  • Cross-border payments technology company Reap obtained a Money Transmitter Registry in Mexico.

Asia-Pacific

  • Singapore-based fintech Fingular unveiled Shariah-first digital financing brand in Malaysia, Tazee.
  • Enterprise on-chain settlement infrastructure company Capital Layer forged a distribution partnership with Taiwan-based domestic system integrator Stark Technology Inc.
  • Vienamese police dismantle fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme that cost investors billions of dollars.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • Operating system for African banks and merchants, Littlefish, raised $9.5 million in Series A funding.
  • Western Union partnered with Sasai Fintech to bring digital remittance access to South African consumers.
  • African financial ecosystem platform Moniepoint acquired cloud-based restaurant management platform Orda Africa.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Georgia-based TBC Bank partnered with GDS Link to power credit decisioning for retail lending.
  • German fintech Solaris announced plans to become an “AI-native bank,” cut 20% of its workforce.
  • PA Turkey looked at the strength of fintech investment in Turkey in 2025.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • Saudi Arabia’s central bank issued its first Major Payment Institution license for open banking services to Lean Technologies.
  • Vault22 announced plans to launch its Islamic finance platform Hafiq in the UAE by the middle of 2026.
  • Banque Misr inked a Memorandum of Understanding with Microsoft Egypt to launch an open fintech innovation program for the Egyptian market.

Central and Southern Asia

  • Sri Lanka-based commercial bank Hatton National Bank enabled its debit cards to be added to Google Wallet.
  • Indian employee health and insurance platform Plum raised $20.6 million in Series B funding.
  • Revolut announced plans to boost its India-based workforce by 5,500 by the end of 2026.

Photo by Adrien Olichon

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Finovate Global Canada: Mortgagetech, Real-Time Payments, and Top Investment Trends

Finovate Global Canada: Mortgagetech, Real-Time Payments, and Top Investment Trends
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global, NCR Corporation, Ripple

This week’s edition of Finovate Global showcases recent fintech news from Canada.

Royal Bank of Canada acquires mortgagetech Pinch Financial

The Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) has acquired Toronto-based mortgagetech Pinch Financial. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed, but the move is designed to accelerate the decisioning process for mortgage borrowers throughout the country.

“This acquisition helps us deliver on our commitment to bring the best solutions to clients on their path to home ownership,” RBC SVP of Home Equity Financing Janet Boyle said in a statement. “Pinch’s technology will help us accelerate our digital roadmap to deliver a quicker, more streamlined mortgage experience for Canadians.”

Founded in 2016, Pinch Financial offers banks, lenders, and other financial services providers a platform that allows them to verify data and automate mortgage applications. The company’s technology verifies identity, income, assets, liabilities, source of the down payment, and creditworthiness to establish whether a borrower meets the requirements—from TDS and FICO to LTV and net worth—for rate and underwriting eligibility.

RBC already plays a major role in Canada’s mortgage market. The acquisition of Pinch Financial will help the bank serve customers who prefer to apply for home loans online instead of in-person at a branch.

“We started Pinch to make mortgages more relevant and familiar for digital-first consumers—making the qualification process faster, simpler, and more transparent for borrowers,” Pinch Financial CEO Andrew Wells said. “This acquisition gives us the opportunity to bring our technology to more Canadians while being part of a team that shares our vision for innovation in financial services.”

Canada’s largest bank by market capitalization and assets—and one of the largest banks in the world—RBC serves more than 19 million clients in Canada, the US, and 27 other countries. Headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, and boasting more than 101,000 employees, RBC reported total assets of $1.9 trillion CAD as of October 31, 2025. Dave McKay is President and CEO.

Wealthsimple becomes first Canadian fintech to join SWIFT

Canadian fintech Wealthsimple has secured a big “first” and a big “second” this week. The firm became the first Canadian fintech and the second non-bank fintech in the world to become a member of the SWIFT global financial messaging network. The company is currently completing final technical integration and security certification ahead of a full launch with clients expected later this spring.

“Many Canadians rely on international wire transfers, and yet to date, the experience has been clunky and expensive. We want to fix that,” Wealthsimple VP of Payment Strategy Hanna Zaidi said. “Our SWIFT membership is going to unlock faster, simpler, and more transparent international money transfers for the more than three million Canadians who trust Wealthsimple.”

SWIFT’s international messaging network serves 11,000 financial institutions around the world, facilitating trillions of dollars in payment volume. SWIFT makes the sending and receiving of international money transfers more seamless and efficient, while also providing end-to-end tracking visibility with real-time status updates.

Wealthsimple’s SWIFT membership is part of the company’s overall strategy to lower costs and boost efficiency for money movement in Canada. Wealthsimple also announced that it will be an early adopter of the country’s pending Real-Time Rail (RTR) payment system, making its clients among the first to benefit from instant money movement between institutions.

Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Toronto, Canada, Wealthsimple offers a wide range of financial products and services, including managed investing, do-it-yourself trading, cryptocurrency, tax filing, spending, and saving. The company serves more than three million Canadians and has more than $100 billion in assets under administration. Co-founder Michael Katchen is CEO.

KPMG: Canada fintech investment “moderated” in 2025

The bad news is that investment in Canadian fintech slowed in 2025. The good news is that this moderating pace comes on the heels of record highs notched in 2024.

KPMG International recently unveiled its Pulse of Fintech H2’25 and FY25 report. The document depicts a fintech investment landscape in Canada that has returned to more historic levels, with “sustained interest in later-stage companies, platform acquisitions, and strategically important fintech subsectors such as artificial intelligence and digital assets.”

Specifically, the comparison is $2.4 billion across 113 deals in 2025 versus $9.9 billion across 161 deals in 2024. The report notes that much of the deal value in 2024 came from two sizable transactions: Nuvei’s $6.3 billion public-to-private buyout and Plusgrade’s $1 billion private equity deal. In 2025, the two largest investments in Canadian fintech were the $898 million private equity buyout of Converge Technology Solutions and Wealthsimple’s $536 million equity raise.

The report notes that investment activity in the sector picked up in the second half of 2025, especially with regard to gains in average deal value. Dubie Cunningham, a partner in KPMG Canada’s Banking and Capital Markets Practice specializing in fintech, indicated that she believed the strength in the second half of 2025 augured well for strength in 2026. “The investment appetite for Canadian fintechs will continue to grow in 2026, as investors prioritize quality, scale, and strategic fit, signaling a market that is maturing and aligning more closely with long-term value creation,” Cunningham said.

Read the full KPMG report for much more.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Central and Southern Asia

  • Pakistan-based digital banking platform Zindigi unveiled what it is billing as the country’s first “fintech credit card.”
  • Indian fintech Cred secured approval from the country’s central bank to operate as a payment aggregator.
  • IBS Intelligence looked at how fintech innovation in India is evolving from transaction rails to financial data rails.

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

  • Cross-border payments platform Neema forged a partnership with China’s Alipay.
  • NCR Voyix agreed to sell its bank technology business in Japan to NTT Data.
  • An analysis of the Australian fintech sector by Deloitte Access Economics and FinTech Australia reported that the sector could grow to $71 billion in value by 2035.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • Kenya and Rwanda inked an agreement that could enable digital payments companies licensed in one country to operate in the other.
  • South African fintech PayInc and First Capital Bank Botswana teamed up to launch instant cross-border payments.
  • The Fintech Times analyzed the fintech ecosystem of West African country, Burkina Faso.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Part of Estonia’s Iute Group, IuteBank has begun operating as a regulated bank in Ukraine.
  • Lithuanian fintech PAYSTRAX announced an major expansion to its team, adding up to 150 new specialists.
  • Czech fintech Flowpay acquired Berlin, Germany-based SME financing firm Tapline.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • Israel-based fintech Datarails launched a new solution to help companies reduce contract and subscription waste.
  • Kaspersky and UAE fintech Codebase teamed up to enhance digital banking security.
  • Moroccan fintech WafR secured $4 million in seed funding in a round co-led by LoftyInc Capital.

Photo by Guillaume Jaillet on Unsplash

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Finovate Global Scotland: Innovations in Regtech, Accounting, and Insurtech

Finovate Global Scotland: Innovations in Regtech, Accounting, and Insurtech
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global

This week’s edition of Finovate Global looks at recent fintech headlines from Scotland.

AutoRek Launches RegToolKit

Automated reconciliation and financial control solutions provider AutoRek has launched its AutoRek RegToolKit. The new offering will help financial services companies simplify, track, and demonstrate their compliance with complex regulations.

AutoRek RegToolKit maps client products and services against regulatory requirements to ensure that companies can become compliant as well as prove their compliance with regulatory authorities. The solution features an applicability matrix across regulatory requirements, business risks, and mitigating controls, providing a comprehensive overview for all legal entities and product lines and reducing the audit burden. AutoRek RegToolKit uses an in-built breach register to identify compliance breaches, assign ownership, and track the process through to remediation, avoiding reliance on both spreadsheets and manual audits. The new offering complements the company’s data management, reconciliation, and reporting platform providing a consolidated data, governance, and oversight solution.

“Firms are required to not only control their data, but also evidence that their processes align with regulatory rules,” AutoRek Chief Product, Technology, and Operations Officer Jim Sadler said. “RegToolKit takes the complexity out of compliance by mapping rules to controls, tracking non-conformity, and providing a complete audit trail. Combined with our reconciliation platform, it allows firms to achieve full end-to-end financial control and compliance.”

Founded in 1994, AutoRek made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2023. At the conference, the Glasgow, Scotland-based regtech demonstrated how its intuitive, configurable dashboards help firms manage the pain points in the reconciliation process. The company’s machine learning-based technology monitors the performance of reconciliations, disaggregating and categorizing outstanding balances, highlighting escalation points, and more. AutoRek helps institutions transition away from spreadsheets and manual processes toward greater control and efficiency.

FreeAgent Integrates with Sodium Software, Active | UK

Edinburgh, Scotland-based fintech FreeAgent has announced a handful of integrations in recent days. First, the company reported that it had integrated with cloud-first workpapers and accounts platform Active | UK. Active works with core accounting systems to boost accuracy and standardize workflows. The partnership will enable users to automatically import data from FreeAgent into Active Workpapers, reducing the potential for human error and enabling faster, more consistent reporting.

Second, just this week FreeAgent reported that it has integrated with accounting practice management platform Sodium Software. The partnership is designed to help accounting professionals and teams in the UK streamline CRM, proposals, workflows, invoicing, and more. Connecting FreeAgent accounts to Sodium will enable accountants and teams to sync client data instantly and directly monitor the status of clients. In a LinkedIn post, FreeAgent added that further functionality, including automated billing and bookkeeping insights, is “coming soon.”

Founded in 2001, Active | UK is celebrating its 25th year as a technology partner for accounting firms. A division of Active by Business Australia, Active | UK helps companies standardize processes and workflows to ensure that all team members are working in the same way. Active | UK offers automated accounting workflows to seamlessly populate and sync data, and an intuitive Excel split pane that gives users greater control and transparency over figures and calculations.

Officially in public beta, Sodium Software was launched in late 2025 as a practice management platform for UK accountants. While seeing practice management as “the foundation,” the company has noted that its roadmap extends beyond this to include AML, payments, accounts production, and more. Sodium Software recently unveiled new features including unlimited custom fields, pricing tiers, and the ability to make both client and bulk updates.

FreeAgent made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2013 in London. Founded in 2007, the company today has more than 200,000 small businesses, accountants, and bookkeepers using its accounting software

Insurtech Wrisk Acquires Atto, formerly DirectID

Here’s some M&A news from last month that slipped under our radar: Independent embedded insurtech platform for the automotive OEM sector Wrisk has acquired real-time financial intelligence platform Atto. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Atto enables companies to make context-aware credit and risk decisions within live customer journeys. Leveraging open banking to securely access and analyze transaction-level data, Atto’s technology transforms it into actionable insights that can be embedded into regulated, enterprise-grade customer experiences. Wrisk, which partners with automotive OEMs to embed insurance directly into the consumer journey, will use Atto’s financial intelligence solution to offer greater flexibility in how financing and protection products are designed and delivered.

The acquisition will also enable Atto to take advantage of Wrisk’s OEM relationships, delivery capability, and regulated operating framework to deploy its capabilities across a broader range of markets and use cases.

“Atto has built a credible financial intelligence and credit scoring platform with real-world enterprise use,” Wrisk Chief Executive Officer Nimesh Patel said. “Joining Wrisk allows us to combine that intelligence with a delivery layer that serves brands and other partners at scale.”

Edinburgh, Scotland-based Atto rebranded from DirectID in 2024. DirectID was launched in 2016 as the flagship product of James Varga’s The ID Company (which itself was a rebrand of Varga’s miiCard, a digital verification company and Finovate alum founded in 2011).

“Joining Wrisk represents a natural next phase in Atto’s growth,” Atto Strategic Programme Advisor Rob Knight said. “We have proven the value of open banking-driven credit intelligence with enterprise clients, and Wrisk brings the regulated operating framework and delivery capability required to deploy that intelligence at scale. Together we can embed credit decisioning, affordability, and actionable insights directly into live finance and protection journeys.”

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • We Are Tech Africa profiled Algerian fintech platform Gifty, which offers a single app for shopping, billpay, mobile top-ups, and digital gift cards.
  • MENA-based fintech Network International and ADCB Egypt went live with FICO Falcon Fraud Manager.
  • The Times of Israel looked at how momentum from 2025 will drive the Israeli fintech industry in 2026.

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Santander teamed up with Visa to test agentic payments in markets in Latin America.
  • DriveWealth announced a partnership with Latin American neobank Banco Ualá to help it launch a new stock investing service for customers in Mexico.
  • Jamaica Observers profiled financial wellness app Quatta which goes live this month.

Asia-Pacific

  • Mizuho Financial Group chose FIS’ Balance Sheet Manager to help it navigate new regulatory reporting requirements in Japan.
  • Indonesia-based digital credit unicorn Kredivo acquired Vietnamese digital bank Timo.
  • Mastercard announced a collaboration between its money movement platform, Mastercard Move, and Bank of Shanghai.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • UK-based international credit information and risk management service provider Creditinfo announced its entry into the Uganda market.
  • African Islamic neobank Nyla partnered with Mambu as it goes live in Ghana and readies for West African expansion.
  • Nigerian fintech Thrifto launched a platform to help digitize traditional group savings scheme such as Ajo and Esusu,

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Commerzbank and Berlin, Germany’s Hawk announced a collaboration to leverage AI to optimize internal banking processes such as fighting money laundering.
  • Berlin-based AAZZUR forged a partnership with Estonian electronic money institution Wallester.
  • Romanian P2P lending platform Fagura secured investment from Bravva Angels, named “FinTech of the Year” at 2026 Romanian Startup Awards.

Photo by Jure Tufekcic on Unsplash

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Finovate Global Malaysia: Agentic Commerce, Embedded Finance, and Shariah-Compliance

Finovate Global Malaysia: Agentic Commerce, Embedded Finance, and Shariah-Compliance
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global

This week’s edition of Finovate Global looks at recent fintech news and headlines from Malaysia.

Agentic Commerce: Mastercard Completes Pilot Project

One of the biggest stories in payments in 2026 is the rise of agentic commerce. This week, Mastercard announced that it had completed an AI-powered commerce pilot project in partnership with Kuala Lumpur-based CIMB Group Holdings Berhad (CIMB), Malayan Banking Berhad (Maybank), and RHB Banking Group (RHB). The project involved using Mastercard Agent Pay to show how AI can help consumers complete common tasks such as coordinating transportation. Specifically, as part of the pilot, an AI agent booked a ride from Kuala Lumpur International Airport to KL Sentral via hoppa, an international mobility provider. The transaction was facilitated by CardInfoLink’s AI agent connected to hoppa’s taxi and airport limousine service.

“This milestone underscores how AI can simplify everyday interactions without compromising customer control,” CIMB Bank Berhad and CIMB Malaysia CEO Gurdip Singh Sidhu said. “It reflects our vision of banking that is intuitive and seamlessly woven into life. Our collaboration with Mastercard enables us to deliver secure and responsible AI-powered experiences to our customers.”

The transaction leveraged tokenized credentials that were authenticated with Mastercard Payment Passkeys to ensure strong customer verification and data protection. This pilot project was designed to confirm the feasibility of agentic transactions in Malaysia. Commercial deployment of the technology will be introduced in phases with Mastercard working with issuing banks and partners to educate consumers on agentic commerce and the safe use of AI-powered payments.

“Mastercard’s first live agentic transaction in Malaysia demonstrates how AI can engage in commerce responsibly,” Mastercard Country Manager Malaysia, Beena Pothen said. “With Agent Pay, we’re embedding trust, authentication, and transparency directly into AI-driven payments. In collaboration with CIMB, Maybank, and RHB, we’re meeting the highest standards of tokenization, enhancing security and consumer protection.”

This week’s news is the latest example of Mastercard’s involvement in bringing agentic commerce to the Asia Pacific region. It follows authenticated agentic transactions completed previously in Australia, New Zealand, and India.

Embedded Finance: Boost Bank Unveils Insurance Offering

Customers of Malaysia’s Boost Bank can now access insurance plans directly from their banking app. Courtesy of a partnership with Great Eastern General Insurance Malaysia, Boost Bank will offer three protection plans for travel (TravelProtect), personal accidents (CoreProtect PA), and daily commutes (CommuteProtect).

Priced at RM15 ($3.30) annually, TravelProtect offers coverage of up to RM250,000 ($55,000). CoreProtect PA provides personal accident coverage, including accidental death and permanent disablement benefits, of up to RM50,000 ($11,000). CommuteProtect specifically covers personal accidents of up to RM25,000 ($5,500) during daily commutes. Both CoreProtect and CommuteProtect will be available for RM25 ($5.50) a year. The average monthly income in Malaysia is between RM3,000 ($660) and RM4,000 ($880).

Purchasing any of the three plans will unlock the new Protect Jar feature under the Special Jars section of the Boost Bank app. The Protect Jar offers 3.3% per year in daily compounding interest. Customers who make deposits into the Protect Jar will get a complimentary TravelProtect Lite PA plan. The plan provides coverage for personal accidents and travel disruptions such as flight delays.

Headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, Boost Bank began operations in January 2024 as Malaysia’s first fully digital bank. A joint venture between Axiata’s Boost and RHB Banking Group, and licensed by Bank Negara Malaysia, Boost Bank offers digital banking services, including lending, savings, and e-wallet solutions.

Compliance: Regulating Islamic Fintech and a Look at the Malaysian Model

There are countries in the Asia-Pacific that have higher Muslim populations than Malaysia. Indonesia, for example, has the largest Muslim population in the world with more than 230 million Muslims (87% of its population). Bangladesh has about 150 million Muslims who represent approximately 91% of its population.

By comparison, Malaysia’s 20 million Muslims might seem small. Yet Muslims do represent the majority of the country’s population at 63%. This creates a significant opportunity to provide financial services, specifically Islamic and shariah-compliant financial services, to customers throughout the country.

We discussed the challenges and opportunities in Islamic finance in a Finovate Global interview a little over a year ago. A recent essay in Salaam Gateway took a more focused look at innovation and Islamic finance, highlighting the approach taken by Malaysia’s Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), which oversees and establishes standards for Islamic banking and Shariah-compliance for financial institutions, and Securities Commission Malaysia (SC), which regulates capital markets, digital asset exchanges, and peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms.

The article discusses not only the internal operations of BNM and SC—and the institutions’ partnerships with entities such as the Islamic Development Bank—but also notes that Malaysia’s Shariah governing system has positively influenced regulators and policy advisors in Muslim-majority markets in Southeast Asia. Indonesia was highlighted specifically for its recent efforts to expand its fintech regulatory sandbox, and pursue stronger coordination between financial regulators and those committees and boards providing Shariah certification.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Lithuanian P2P lending platform Finbee secured an investment of €5 million from venture builder Tesonet.
  • Estonian fintech group lute Group to establish its first fully digital bank in Ukraine.
  • Latvia unveiled a new specialized credit institution license to empower new financial service providers and fintechs.

Middle East and Northern Africa

Central and Southern Asia

  • Mongol iD, Mongolia’s largest payment infrastructure firm, has joined RTGS.global’s liquidity network.
  • FinHarbor completed the core deployment of a hybrid neobank platform for Asterium, a fintech project based in Uzbekistan.
  • India’s Pine Labs announced plans to launch stablecoin payments outside of the country.

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

  • China announced that it will provide state banks with $44 billion to support technology investments.
  • Malaysian financial institution Boost Bank partnered with Great Eastern General Insurance Malaysia to offer three protection plans via its app.
  • Southeast fintech platform Fiuu issued a report highlighting recent developments in the Philippine fintech industry.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • Kenya’s Capital Markets Authority (CMA) announced plans to bring robo-advisors and digital investment platforms into its licensing framework.
  • Western Union and Sasai Fintech partner to launch a new international money transfer mobile app for consumers in South Africa.
  • Ghana-based digital lender Fido Ghana raised $5.5 million in debt financing.

Photo by Mohd Jon Ramlan on Unsplash

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Finovate Global East Africa: Investing in Digital Banks, Delivering on Instant Payments, and More!

Finovate Global East Africa: Investing in Digital Banks, Delivering on Instant Payments, and More!
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global, Salt Edge, Temenos, VISA

This week’s edition of Finovate Global focuses on fintech developments in countries located in and around East Africa.

Digital banking secures investment in Zambia

Zambian digital banking platform Lupiya has raised $11.25 million in Series A funding. The round—nearly two years in the making—was led by IDF Capital’s Alitheia IDF Fund, and featured participation from INOKS Capital and KfW DEG, a German development finance institution. Lupiya will use the capital to bolster the digital bank’s technology infrastructure, grow its product range, and enter southern and east African markets beyond Zambia’s borders.

Founded by Evelyn Chilomo Kaingu (CEO) and Muchu Kaingu (CTO) in 2016, Lupiya serves unbanked and underbanked communities in Zambia with credit products and digital payment services via its Lupiya Pay offering. The company has partnered with Mastercard to access payment rails to enable digital transactions and is part of the card network’s financial inclusion strategy. Previous investors in the firm include Enygma Ventures, which contributed $1 million to the company’s coffers. Lupiya has opened an additional funding round this year—alongside its Series A—dedicated to scaling its lending business, enhancing its embedded finance offerings, and bringing Lupiya Pay to new markets.

Lupiya was one of the first companies to earn approval from the Security Exchange Commission in Zambia to offer investments through peer-to-peer lending. Launching this service in-country in 2022, Lupiya expanded operations to Tanzania the following year. Lupiya offers personal loans including collateral-backed loans and salary advances, as well as business financing, invoice discounting, and agriloans. Customers can use Lupiya to send and receive funds via mobile money, P2P, or bank accounts.

According to the World Bank, Zambia’s financial inclusion rate has improved significantly in recent years, climbing from 59.3% in 2015 to 69.4% in 2020. Regional disparities are significant, however, with Lusaka Province, home to the capital city, Lusaka, having a financial inclusion rate of more than 87%, with more rural areas having inclusion rates of approximately 40%. The landlocked country shares borders with the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, and Tanzania.

Ethiopia goes live with instant payments

Instant payments are sweeping the globe—and now businesses, communities, and banks throughout Ethiopia will be able to leverage the technology to provide centralized automated reconciliation, new card and e-wallet services, and more.

In partnership with the National Bank of Ethiopia, the country’s national switch EthSwitch has launched Ethiopia’s National Instant Payment System. Powered by BPC’s SmartVista platform, the system was officially introduced in December 2025, and now connects 32 banks, 12 MFIs, three PSOs, and three PIIs. The unveiling of EthioPay-IPS will enable EthSwitch to offer banks and other financial institutions modern payment rails capable of delivering faster and more economical payment transactions. These include account-to-account and wallet-to-wallet transfers, payments with interoperable QR codes, as well as requests-to-pay and alias-based payments that allow users to transfer funds using a simple identifier.

BPC’s SmartVista suite is a modular payment processing solution for banks, financial institutions, payment service providers, and fintechs. The technology combines banking, commerce, and mobility platforms to facilitate digital banking, payment processing, ATM and switching, fraud management, financial inclusion, and more. Founded in 1996 and headquartered in Switzerland, BPC has more than 500 customers across 140 countries.

Established in 2011, EthSwitch is a share company owned by Ethiopia’s private and public banks, as well as the National Bank of Ethiopia, MFIs, PIIs, and PSOs. The organization has a mandate to support the modernization of Ethiopia’s payment system and to enhance financial inclusion throughout the country. This includes EthSwitch’s 2016 initiative to enable the interoperability of ATMs and POS terminals operated by the nation’s banks.

“Our goal is to provide simple, affordable, secure, and efficient digital payment infrastructure to every retail payment provider and through them, to every Ethiopian,” EthSwitch Chief Portfolio Officer Abeneazer Wondwossen said. “With SmartVista, we have built an interoperable nationwide ecosystem for instant payments that is locally governed, future-ready, and open to innovation. This launch is a point of pride for Ethiopia and a milestone for our financial sector.”

Kayko Raises $1.2 million to help SMEs in Rwanda

Kayko, which offers a small business financial management platform for companies in Rwanda, has secured $1.2 million in seed funding. Participating in the investment were Burrow Capital, the Luxembourg Development Agency, and Hanga Ignite by BRD and develoPPP Ventures. The company, founded in 2021 by brothers Crepin and Kevin Kayisire, will use the capital to fortify its infrastructure, expand its data capabilities, and build credit scoring and lending tools based on real transaction data.

Kayko serves more than 8,500 Rwandan SMEs with bookkeeping, inventory, and tax support. The fintech helps boost SME access to credit in a country in which many businesses have incomplete or informal financial records that make it difficult to secure financing or to scale operations. For these and other small businesses, Kayko provides a point-of-sale and business management system that helps them process sales, track expenses, and accept payments, while turning everyday business activity into structured financial data for analysis and insights.

Kayko’s funding news coincides with the Kigali-based fintech securing an Electronic Money Issuer (EMI) license from the National Bank of Rwanda (NBR). “With this license, we move from planning to execution,” Crepin Kayisire said in a statement on the company’s LinkedIn page. “We can now operate regulated payments, merchant wallets, and data-driven financial services that improve access to financing for small businesses.”

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • South African crypto platform Luno introduced crypto and tokenized stock bundle.
  • Blockchain infrastructure provider Binance and African mobile network operator Africell announced a collaboration to boost blockchain education and digital asset literacy across Africa.
  • Ethiopia’s national switch, EthSwitch, launched the country’s National Instant Payment System, in partnership with the National Bank of Ethiopia and powered by BPC’s SmartVista platform.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • The Bank of Lithuania supplemented the electronic money institution (EMI) license for TransferGo Lithuania, enabling the fintech to expand beyond money transfers and payment account services.
  • Open banking solutions provider Salt Edge and financial management platform NoCFO teamed up to bring Pay by Bank to SMEs in Germany and Finland.
  • UK-based fintech Unlimit opened a new global research and development center in Belgrade, Serbia.

Middle East and Northern Africa

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Uruguayan fintech dLocal partnered with online English-language platform Open English to introduce a new payment method, Bre-B, for students in Colombia
  • Visa inked a deal to acquire Argentinian payment companies Prisma Medios de Pago and Newpay from private equity firm Advent International.
  • Peru’s Banco de la Microempresa selected Temenos SaaS to modernize its core banking infrastructure.

Asia-Pacific

Photo by Aron Marinelli on Unsplash

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