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Bluevine Agrees to $340 Million Acquisition by Valley National Bank

Bluevine Agrees to $340 Million Acquisition by Valley National Bank
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: BlueVine, Mergers & Acquisitions
  • SME digital banking platform Bluevine has agreed to be acquired by Valley National Bank for $340 million in cash and stock.
  • The acquisition will help Valley expand its small business franchise and accelerate its digital and AI strategy.
  • Bluevine was founded in 2013. Headquartered in Jersey City, New Jersey, the company made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2014.

Small business digital banking platform Bluevine has agreed to be acquired by Valley National Bank (“Valley”). The approximately $340 million transaction will consist of approximately 75% cash and 25% Valley common stock.

Bluevine serves 175,000 small business customers and has served more than 415,000 businesses since inception. The company offers an integrated suite of digital banking, payments, lending, and financial management solutions—including high-yield business checking, accounts payable, debit and credit cards, loans, and lines of credit—all tailored for small and medium-sized businesses. The acquisition by Valley will enhance the financial institution’s funding base, expand its small business franchise, and accelerate its digital and AI strategy.

“Bluevine was founded to give small business owners the financial tools and digital experience they need to manage and grow their businesses,” Bluevine Co-Founder and CEO Eyal Lifshitz said. “Valley shares that commitment and brings the balance sheet capacity, relationship banking expertise, and broader capabilities necessary to support our customers through every stage of their journey. Together, we will be able to expand our impact while preserving the technology, customer focus, and entrepreneurial culture that have driven Bluevine’s success. We look forward to joining Valley and continuing to enhance our small business banking platform.”

The acquisition is expected to close in early 2027, subject to standard regulatory approvals. Lifshitz will join Valley as Head of Small Business Banking.

In acquiring Bluevine, Valley National Bank gains a scaled digital small business platform and more than $2 billion in low-cost, digitally-sourced deposits. Valley will also benefit from access to a suite of integrated banking, payments, lending, and financial management solutions designed specifically for small businesses. Additionally, Bluevine’s engineering, product, data science, and AI talent will be valuable in boosting the bank’s longer-term technology strategy. At the same time, access to Valley’s branch network and treasury management, credit, insurance, wealth, and capital markets solutions will give Bluevine customers a more comprehensive value proposition.

“The acquisition of Bluevine directly advances the strategic priorities we have previously communicated to our shareholders,” Ira Robbins, Valley National Bank Chairman, President, and CEO, said. “It is expected to enhance our core funding capabilities, add a proven small business growth platform, and meaningfully accelerate our digital and AI capabilities. Bluevine has built an impressive franchise which has generated a diversified base of small business operating deposit relationships, a highly engaged customer community, and a modern technology platform purpose-built for the needs of small businesses.”

Valley National Bank is a regional financial institution with more than $66 billion in assets. The principal subsidiary of Valley National Bancorp (NASDAQ: VLY), Valley has more than 220 branch locations and commercial offices across New Jersey, New York, Florida, Alabama, California, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Arizona. The bank was founded in 1927.

Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Jersey City, New Jersey, Bluevine made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2014. Since inception, the company has delivered more than $14 billion in loans and has more than $1 billion in managed customer deposits.

Photo by Ambre Estève on Unsplash

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Plumery Offers DBP Rescue Plan to Help Banks Transition to New Platforms

Plumery Offers DBP Rescue Plan to Help Banks Transition to New Platforms
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Plumery
  • Digital banking development platform Plumery launched its DBP Rescue Plan this week to help banks and other financial institutions migrate away from banking platforms that no longer serve their needs.
  • The offering includes a specialist migration team, migration tooling and playbooks, as well as a Proof of Migration framework that allows institutions to test the migration before committing to it.
  • Headquartered in Amsterdam, Plumery made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2025 in London.

Digital banking development platform Plumery unveiled its DBP Rescue Plan this week. The new offering is an international program designed to help banks and other financial institutions transition away from digital banking platforms that no longer serve their needs.

Plumery’s DBP Rescue Plan removes the primary barriers to migration, providing financial institutions with a defined path away from their current platform that doesn’t require them to take on the full risk and expense of switching platforms. Plumery is making the offering available to 10 financial institutions on a first-come, first-served basis. Participating banks will receive a specialist migration team, migration tooling and playbooks, as well as a Proof of Migration framework that enables them to test the migration against their own systems and environment before committing to the program.

Plumery notes that after the transition, banks and other financial institutions will be able to move beyond vendor dependency and create new products and services with greater flexibility and speed. This will ultimately give development teams more control over the kind of digital banking experiences they can provide to customers. Plumery aims to complete all ten migrations within 12 months.

The DBP Rescue Plan arrives at a time when a growing share of bank IT budgets are being dedicated toward maintaining technical debt. Banking trends research from Accenture noted that in 2026, 70% of bank IT budgets were devoted to these costs. At the same time, software costs have outpaced banking revenue growth, growing by 8% annually since 2017. In this context, in some cases, upgrading an existing platform can be more expensive than building a new platform from scratch. This problem is all the more acute when the bank believes that their current platform is no longer meeting their needs.

“Too many financial institutions stay with digital banking platforms that are no longer working for them because leaving feels riskier than staying,” Plumery CEO Ben Gold said. “The DBP Rescue Plan is designed to remove some of that risk. By combining migration expertise, proven tooling, and a commercial model that removes software licensing costs for up to two years during the transition, we’re giving (financial) institutions a practical way to move forward and take back control over their digital future. Now the real risk is staying.”

Founded in 2016, Plumery made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2025 in London. The company helps banks and other financial institutions modernize their tech stacks and assemble new digital and AI-native banking experiences for their customers.

Photo by Javier M. on Unsplash

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Finastra Introduces Supply Chain Finance, Repair Recommendations

Finastra Introduces Supply Chain Finance, Repair Recommendations
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni profile, Finastra

Financial services software provider Finastra announced a pair of new offerings this week.

Finastra Supply Chain Finance (SCF) will help banks scale working capital programs faster and stimulate growth. SCF is integrated with Finastra’s Trade Innovation and Loan IQ platforms via the Nexus API suite and allows banks to offer connected trade, lending, and supply chain finance services.

SCF supports buyer and supplier acquisition, onboarding, fulfillment, servicing, risk management, and secondary market distribution. The technology provides straight-through processing and connects with ERP systems and trade ecosystem partners through the Nexus API suite. SCF also offers a rich data foundation for decisioning and portfolio management. The solution is built on a cloud-native architecture and is available via a variety of deployment models, from on-premises to SaaS.

“Banks are looking for ways to bring new working capital solutions to market faster to capture new revenue streams delivered through STP journeys, and lower costs, while addressing operational risks and regulatory complexity,” Vinay Mendonca, Finastra’s Head of Product, Trade Supply Chain Finance and Corporate Channels, said. “By combining new supply chain finance capabilities with Trade Innovation and Loan IQ, we’re enabling banks to take a more connected approach to working capital. This launch marks an important milestone in the evolution of our Trade Innovation platform as we look to bring more API, AI, and cloud-led innovation to the market, leveraging our deep expertise in the trade domain, to help institutions innovate and grow.”

SCF will help banks accelerate product launches, provide holistic working capital management, automate risk distribution, enhance risk management, and scale efficiently thanks to straight-through processing, real-time servicing, and high-performance architecture. Finastra noted that it plans to expand the capabilities of SCF to include purchase order (PO) finance, pre- to post-shipment finance, inventory finance, distributor finance, as well as other working capital solutions.

The release of SCF is the company’s latest investment in its Trade Innovation and Loan IQ offerings. Trade Innovation is Finastra’s digital trade finance platform that enables institutions to automate workflows, reduce risk, and improve working capital efficiency. Loan IQ is the company’s commercial and corporate loan management and servicing software. SCF extends Finastra’s goal of offering institutions a connected working capital ecosystem through a unified commercial and risk management framework.

Finastra also unveiled a new AI-powered capability within its OperatorAssist solution. Repair Recommendations, announced this week, will enable banks to respond faster to rising payment volumes by bringing better decision-making into their existing workflows. The new offering is designed to help banks avoid the kind of errors and disruptions that can hinder traditional payment processing by enabling teams to resolve issues faster, manage higher volumes more efficiently, and boost success rates without introducing additional complexity.

Repair Recommendations simplifies complex repair scenarios, identifies payment discrepancies and underlying causes, decreases dependence on specialized expertise, and reduces the amount of time and effort required by payment operations teams to manage and resolve payment exceptions. This allows banks to manage higher payment volumes more efficiently as demand from real-time cross-border activity, infrastructure modernization, and digital commerce continues to grow.

“With Repair Recommendations, we’re empowering banks to upgrade their payment operations—reducing resolution times and minimizing errors,” Barry Rodrigues, Finastra EVP, Payments, said. “As payment volumes increase, AI can help deliver immediate value by accelerating repairs, streamlining onboarding, and strengthening resilience. We’re helping banks to scale their operations and deliver faster, more reliable services to their customers.”

Headquartered in London, Finastra was formed in 2017 through the combination of Finovate alum Misys and D+H. In addition to its loan servicing and trade innovation platforms, Finastra offers solutions for payments (Global PAYplus and Payments to Go), core banking (Essence), mortgages (Mortgagebot), and more.

Photo by Rinson Chory on Unsplash

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Mifundo Teams Up with Yapily to Enhance Cross-Border Credit

Mifundo Teams Up with Yapily to Enhance Cross-Border Credit
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Mifundo
  • Credit data platform Mifundo has partnered with open banking infrastructure provider Yapily.
  • The combination of Mifundo’s cross-border credit assessment platform with enriched bank account data from Yapily will make it easier for lenders to serve borrowers who live and work in multiple countries, and provide more accurate credit assessments overall.
  • Estonia-based Mifundo most recently demonstrated its technology at FinovateEurope 2026 in London.

Pan-European credit data platform Mifundo has teamed up with Yapily, an open banking infrastructure provider based in London. The partnership will combine Yapily’s enriched bank account data with Mifundo’s cross-border credit assessment platform via Yapily’s Data Plus product. Combined with verified credit bureau information from European markets, this data will enable the creation of a single, standardized, cross-border credit report. This will allow lenders to benefit from having multiple sources and types of financial information consolidated into a single report.

“Cross-border credit assessment requires more than one type of financial data,” Mifundo Founder and CEO Kaido Saar said. “Credit bureau data shows how a customer has managed credit over time, while open banking data provides additional insight into their current financial situation. Mifundo brings these different data sources together across countries and standardizes them into one report that banks can use in their credit assessment. Yapily is an important partner in providing open banking connectivity within that wider ecosystem.”

Currently, even as cross-border consumer lending is growing, credit data is typically siloed behind national borders. A consumer may have a strong credit history in one country, but have virtually no credit history in another country where they may be seeking to obtain a loan due to the absence of portable data or cross-border data access. The combination of Mifundo’s credit bureau and registry network and Yapily’s open banking connectivity will enable banks and other lenders to see a more complete picture of a borrower’s finances, their long-term credit management, and their current financial situation.

The partnership also comes at a key moment as the revised Consumer Credit Directive (CCD2) will apply throughout the European Union from November 20, 2026. Article 6 of this directive includes a non-discrimination provision when it comes to accessing consumer credit, which includes discrimination based on a borrower’s place of residence.

“Open banking has an important role to play in making financial data more accessible across borders, and to do that, it needs data that is ready to act on the moment it lands, not a raw feed that still has to be interpreted,” Yapily Director of Sales EMEA, Irene Brime, said. “Our Data Plus product delivers bank account information already categorized and enriched, complementing credit bureau information and helping lenders build a more complete view of customers with financial histories across different countries. We are excited to be partnered with Mifundo and to contribute to a solution addressing a real challenge for European lenders.”

Open banking API infrastructure platform Yapily securely connects its customers to thousands of banks across Europe, enabling them to access financial data, initiate payments and conduct other operations from credit assessment to onboarding. Founded in 2017 and headquartered in London, the company recently reported 2025 revenues that were up 2.5x over 2024, and has achieved and sustained profitability since Q1 2025.

Headquartered in Tallinn, Estonia, and founded in 2022, Mifundo most recently demoed its technology at FinovateEurope 2026. At the conference, the company demonstrated how its cross-border credit data solution enables banks to access the verified credit history of borrowers from other countries. This helps them make lending decisions that are not just more accurate, but also avoid discriminating against worthy borrowers who live, work, or move across international borders. Mifundo makes foreign credit data accessible, standardized, and operational within existing bank processes, facilitating compliant, scalable cross-border lending across the European Union.

Photo by Hongbin on Unsplash

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Banks Know What You Spend. AI Knows Why.

Banks Know What You Spend. AI Knows Why.
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Julie's Column, Thought Leadership

At FinovateFall earlier this month, there was one question brought up in multiple panel conversations and on the networking floor: in the age of AI, who owns the customer?

Historically, banks have had an obvious, structural advantage. They hold the checking account, receive the direct deposit from the paycheck, see transactions, and often serve as the place consumers turn when they need to dispute a payment, borrow for a home, finance a major life event, start investing, etc.

The LLM’s role

However, what happens when the place consumers go first with their financial questions isn’t their bank or even a fintech? With LLMs offering increasingly powerful financial capabilities and reliable bank account connections, a customer’s first stop for financial information may be their preferred LLM.

In 2026, consumers have become comfortable using LLMs for a vast array of tasks. People are using LLMs to research questions, plan vacations, manage work projects, interpret health and fitness data, meal-plan, get parenting and school help, navigate relationships, make purchases, and increasingly analyze financial information.

The retailer’s role

Before taking a deeper look at LLM’s relationship with consumers, let’s examine another stakeholder in this equation, the retailer. Retailers, especially big box retailers like Walmart, Costco, and Target, have always held a more intimate level of information about consumers than banks have. They not only see how much the consumer is spending, but they also see each individual item the consumer is purchasing.

So while banks have valuable data regarding their consumers’ financial lives, and retailers see the exact items in customer’s basket, LLMs get to form a picture of customers through their actual lives. Oftentimes, consumers will consult their preferred LLM about details before large purchases and events such as a move, vacation, wedding, new baby, home renovation, or job change. Because of this, the LLM has the data about the consumer before the resulting transactions even appear on their bank statement.

As an example, a bank may see the consumer spent $2,389 at Costco, while Costco sees a consumer who purchased patio furniture, kids’ clothes, hummus, and carrots. That item-level data gives retailers context banks traditionally haven’t had. Retailers can distinguish grocery spending from clothing or home improvement even when everything happened at the same merchant. To summarize, the bank sees the transaction, the retailer sees the purchase, and the LLM sees the person.

The steakhouse that got me thinking

The LLM introduces another layer to this because it understands the rationale behind the purchase. To offer up a personal example, I recently planned my in-laws’ 50th wedding anniversary celebration in Colorado. Because I am not local to the area, I used ChatGPT to help plan details such as photography, celebration locations, a restaurant, and logistics. Ultimately, after using ChatGPT to compare the options, we chose Twin Owls Steakhouse in Estes Park and it was fabulous.

Weeks later, I was reviewing my finances that are connected to ChatGPT via Plaid. On a monthly basis, ChatGPT offers a written overview of my finances with red flags and suggestions. In this report, ChatGPT identified that my restaurant spending for the previous month was higher than normal and exceeded my monthly stated budget. Unprompted, it went one step further. It recognized the Twin Owls Steakhouse charge as the anniversary dinner I had previously planned using ChatGPT. Instead of simply flagging the category as overspending, the LLM distinguished an intentional, one-time celebration from a potentially concerning spending trend.

My bank knew I spent money at Twin Owls. ChatGPT not only knew why I was there, it knew I had planned to spend the money before I even spent it, and crucially, it helped inform the decision of where I ultimately spent the money.

Banks’ new role

So where does this leave banks? When operating alongside LLMs, banks have three options:

  • Build: Banks can create AI experiences that sit within their app or website that develop meaningful customer context that extends beyond answering questions about the customers’ transactions.
  • Join: Banks can make bank data, products, and execution available within the existing LLMs and AI ecosystems where customers already go to make decisions.
  • Differentiate: Banks can double down on what external LLMs cannot independently provide, such as regulated custody, trusted execution, credit, identity, fraud protection and dispute resolution. These services are hard to replicate in an LLM setting and banks retain a significant advantage in these areas.

For years, banks have invested in creating a 360-degree view of the customer. But the next battle for primacy will be won by the company with the most comprehensive view of the customer’s life first.

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FedNow Announces Support for Cross-Border Payments

FedNow Announces Support for Cross-Border Payments
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news
  • The Federal Reserve is adding cross-border capabilities to FedNow, allowing banks to use the instant payments network for the US leg of international transactions.
  • Initial use cases include international payroll, corporate payments, insurance claims, and treasury management, with correspondent banks handling the international portion.
  • The expansion strengthens FedNow’s position as stablecoins gain traction in cross-border payments, giving banks a faster, 24/7 option within established banking infrastructure.

The US Federal Reserve is improving its FedNow real time payment scheme this week. The organization is building out cross-border transaction support to allow financial institutions to meet needs of clients who conduct business across geographic borders.

Cross-border payment capabilities will allow institutions to support customers whose transactions involve sending and/or receiving funds to parties outside of the US for international payroll, corporate payments for global businesses, international insurance claims, and global treasury management. While FedNow is covering the US leg of the transaction, the organization is leveraging correspondent banking relationships to move funds on the international portion of the transaction, similar to how the Fedwire Funds Service operates.

“Cross-border transaction capabilities will give financial institutions powerful new ways to serve internationally active customers. After several years focused on growing the domestic instant payments market, this is an important first step toward meeting the global needs emerging across our ecosystem,” said FedNow Chief Executive, Nick Stanescu. “Participants have consistently told us that enabling cross-border use cases is a priority, and this milestone reflects our commitment to delivering on that feedback. It’s a meaningful step forward—and just the beginning of what’s to come.”

While the service is not currently live, a group of organizations will soon begin testing FedNow to send and receive the US domestic leg of cross-border payments. The organization said that all FedNow participants can adopt these new messages to support cross-border capabilities “soon.”

“Our upcoming integration with cross-border functionality supported by the FedNow Service reflects our commitment to providing financial institutions with a faster, more transparent solution for the US leg of international transactions, while elevating safety by un-nesting complex payments, screening each party instantly, and digitizing every risk and compliance process to deliver the highest standards our industry requires,” said Payall President and CEO, Gary Palmer. “As commerce increasingly demands instant execution across borders, we’re proud to support the infrastructure that makes this possible for our clients and their customers.”

FedNow went live in July of 2023 and now reaches 1,900 participating financial institutions, up from more than 1,500 at the end of 2025. While participation continues to expand, the Federal Reserve is still working to encourage institutions to activate and increase their use of both send and receive capabilities. Earlier this month, Federal Reserve Financial Services announced a new discount program launching in 2027 that will offer financial institutions incentives of up to $80,000 for enabling and scaling FedNow payments.

FedNow’s expansion into cross-border payments is strategic. While the network was built to give banks an always-on, real-time alternative for domestic payments, stablecoins increasingly offer many of those same benefits across borders. Stablecoins can move value around the clock without relying on the operating hours and intermediaries that have traditionally made international payments slower and more expensive. The Federal Reserve itself has acknowledged that stablecoins have the potential to become a faster, lower-cost alternative for cross-border payments.

That makes international functionality an increasingly important piece of FedNow’s value proposition. By allowing banks to use FedNow for the US leg of a cross-border transaction while correspondent institutions handle the international portion, the Federal Reserve is extending the speed and 24/7 availability of its instant-payment rail to more global use cases. It doesn’t eliminate the correspondent banking infrastructure the way some stablecoin-based payment models seek to, but it gives banks another way to deliver faster international payments while keeping settlement within familiar regulated banking infrastructure.

Photo by Alexas Fotos

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Finovate Global Cambodia: Partnerships in Fraud Fighting and Innovations in Payments

Finovate Global Cambodia: Partnerships in Fraud Fighting and Innovations in Payments
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global

This week’s edition of Finovate Global features fintech news from Cambodia.

Cambodia and the UK partner to fight online scams

The UK and Cambodia have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) declaring their intent to work together to combat networks of illegal scam centers. The agreement calls for more data sharing and greater coordination against criminal gangs in order to bring scammers to justice. The two countries also noted the role of human trafficking in international financial crime and have pledged to make sure that victims of trafficking are supported as well.

The problem of scam centers is the focus of the agreement, which marks the first time the two countries have established a joint working framework for tackling scam networks. Scam centers and networks have been effective in launching and scaling fraud attacks against thousands of victims simultaneously. These criminals deploy sophisticated tactics to con individuals into sending them money, including romance scams. In some cases, the people carrying out these scams are themselves victims of human trafficking, forced to commit fraud under threat of violence. Many of these scam centers and networks are based in Southeast Asia, which has increasingly become an international hub for this kind of illicit activity.

“Fraudsters don’t respect international borders,” UK Minister for Fraud, Lord Hanson, said. “Over two-thirds of fraud affecting the UK originates overseas so agreements like this are vital to reducing the threat to the public here at home. I’m pleased to have reached this agreement with Cambodia which will strengthen our work to dismantle scam centers and stop these criminals profiting from misery. We will pursue fraudsters wherever they operate from.”

The UK will also help bolster the capacities of Cambodian law enforcement through training in cybercrime investigations, digital forensics, and investigative procedures. The UK and Cambodian governments will also collaborate via the Global Fraud Taskforce, jointly developed by the UK and INTERPOL. This will involve identifying suspects and providing support to operations to dismantle scam centers, as well as tracing and disrupting the financial flows that support them.

UPI acceptance goes live in Cambodia

Through of a partnership between NPCI International Payments Limited, the international arm of the National Payments Corporation of India, and ACLEDA Bank, Unified Payments Interface (UPI) acceptance is now live in Cambodia via the country’s own national QR code, KHQR.

The launch, currently in Phase 1, will enable Indian consumers to scan KHQR at more than 4.5 million merchant outlets, allowing them to make secure and seamless QR-based payments at tourist attractions, retail outlets, restaurants, and other businesses using their UPI-powered apps. The next phase of the partnership will enable Cambodian travellers in India to use their Cambodian payment and banking apps at millions of UPI QR-enabled merchant locations throughout the country, creating a bilateral, interoperable payment corridor between the two nations.

“ACLEDA Bank is proud to launch Phase 1 of our cross-border interoperability initiative, enabling Indian travellers to execute secure digital transactions via UPI-enabled applications across our extensive KHQR merchant network,” ACLEDA Bank President and Group Managing Director In Channy said. “This partnership represents a significant achievement in our digital transformation roadmap.”

Officially launched in July 2022 by the National Bank of Cambodia, KHQR made Cambodia one of the first countries in Southeast Asia to deploy a national standardized QR code payment system. The system is widely used in Cambodia; by the end of 2024, banks had onboarded approximately 4.5 million merchant accounts that could accept KHQR payments. KHQR is integrated with Bakong, Cambodia’s national payment system, which was unveiled in October 2020.

“By integrating the payment gateways of Cambodia and India, we are removing transactional friction and foreign exchange volatility for travellers,” In Channy added. “This synergy empowers local merchants by providing direct access to a high-velocity digital market, optimizing liquidity management, and enhancing operational throughput via secure, real-time settlement protocols. Ultimately, this collaboration drives financial inclusion and strengthens the bilateral economic corridor through robust, scalable technology.”

Named Cambodia’s leading bank for trade finance by Global Finance 2025, ACLEDA Bank is one of the country’s largest banks by assets and has a strong standing among rural communities and with small businesses. ACLEDA Bank was founded in 1993 as a non-governmental organization (NGO) that provides microfinance services. The institution became a specialized bank in 2000 and a full commercial bank in 2003. As of 2025, ACLEDA Bank has assets of more than $10 billion.

ABA Bank earns top marks from Forbes

ACLEDA Bank is not the only financial institution in Cambodia making headlines this month. ABA Bank, one of the Big Four Cambodian banks (along with ACLEDA, Canadia Bank, and KB Prasac Bank), was named by Forbes as the country’s number one bank in its World’s Top Performing Banks 2026 ranking. The listing puts the institution at number 31 globally among all Lower Mid-Size Banks, and represents a significant milestone for ABA Bank.

Founded in 1996 as the Advanced Bank of Asia Limited, providing commercial banking services to a small group of corporate customers, ABA Bank today is the largest commercial bank in the country and is recognized as a leader in digital banking. With assets of more than $16 billion and more than five million mobile banking customers, the institution maintains 106 branches, 45 self-service banking locations, and more than 2,000 self-service banking machines.

“This achievement reflects the strength of our business and the consistency of our performance, but it also represents something broader,” ABA Bank Chief Executive Officer Askhat Azhikhanov said. “It is the result of the trust of millions of customers, the dedication of our people, and our continued focus on building a strong, resilient, and forward-looking bank. We are proud to see ABA’s performance recognized on a global stage, and we remain committed to raising the bar even further.”

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Asia-Pacific

  • AIFU, a Chinese-based, Nasdaq-listed, AI-powered financial services platform raised $140 million in a private placement.
  • 01F Group, via its fintech private equity arm 01Fintech, announced an investment in Indonesian digital financial platform DANA.
  • Philippine fintech unicorn Mynt won approval from the country’s stock exchange for a nearly $1.3 billion IPO.

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Estonia-based pan-European credit data platform, Mifundo, teamed up with open banking infrastructure provider Yapily.
  • Payment app Blackcat and Prague-based non-profit consumer organization Fundurama announced a new partnership.
  • Estonian fintech CostPocket agreed to be acquired by Swedish fintech Mynt.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • Egyptian payments infrastructure company Paymob raised $35 million in a pre-Series C funding round.
  • Fintech Galaxy announced that it has become the first company in Jordan to achieve multi-bank open banking integration and account aggregation.
  • The Central Bank of Oman (CBO) announced a new national fintech strategy.

Central and Southern Asia

  • Payment technology company EBANX announced its expansion into Pakistan.
  • India’s Pine Labs partnered with Google Cloud to build agentic AI infrastructure.
  • The Astana Times looked at the role of modernizing financial infrastructure in supporting the country’s growing fintech industry.

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Mexico-based financial services company Kapital raised $125 million in combined equity and debt.
  • Brazilian fintech NG.CASH secured $15 million to boost access to credit.
  • New report from Uruguay-based fintech dLocal emphasized the value of local payment options for consumers in countries in the Global South.

Photo by Nara Tsitra

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LoanPro Launches New Payments, Disbursement, and AI Servicing Tools

LoanPro Launches New Payments, Disbursement, and AI Servicing Tools
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, LoanPro
  • LoanPro launched three new products spanning payments, card-based loan disbursement, and AI-assisted servicing: LoanPro DirectPay, Beyond Credit, and LoanPro MCP.
  • The launches bring more of the lending lifecycle onto LoanPro’s platform, helping lenders reduce reliance on separate vendors and integrations for payments, disbursements, and servicing.
  • LoanPro MCP allows lenders to connect AI agents to servicing workflows while applying the same permissions, compliance guardrails, and audit trails used for human employees.

Lending and credit platform LoanPro revealed its three newest launches this week. The Utah-based company unveiled multiple new products covering payments, card-based loan disbursement and AI-assisted servicing.

Among today’s launches are LoanPro DirectPay, Beyond Credit, and the LoanPro MCP (Model Context Protocol). The company also announced RiskRadar delinquency prediction, ongoing compliance monitoring, LoanPro Connect, full support for secured cards, and added two new payment partners, Moov and CheckAlt.

“Lenders have asked us for years to handle more of this for them, with one contract and one team to call,” said LoanPro CEO and co-founder, Rhett Roberts. “Payment processing, real-time card disbursement and AI guardrails are now built into LoanPro’s core, and all of it is live today. A lender can now get funds to a borrower on a Friday night or have an AI agent help service an account, and all of it stays inside LoanPro.”

LoanPro is rebranding its payments suite to LoanPro Payments, which centers around LoanPro DirectPay, the company’s payment processing service that moves about $4 billion per month in loan repayments and disbursements. Because LoanPro holds the loan and processing data in-house, loan officers can view the entire lifecycle of a payment, see why a payment failed, and process a dispute all on the same platform.

Beyond Credit is a virtual Mastercard through which lenders can disburse installment loan funds that borrowers can access via Apple Pay or Google Pay wallet. Lenders have control over where funds from the fee-free card are spent, and can limit card usage by merchant name, merchant ID, location, or merchant category code.

The company’s new MCP powers its Intelligence Suite, which gives loan servicing agents a summary of health indicators, recent activity, and suggested next steps for each account. Lenders can use the MCP to connect AI agents and models of their choice to LoanPro. Each action is also recorded in the audit trail under the name of the employee using the agent, giving lenders a way to introduce agentic AI into servicing while maintaining oversight and accountability.

Taken together, LoanPro’s new product launches show a push to consolidate more of the lending lifecycle onto a single platform. Bringing payment processing, real-time loan disbursement, servicing, and AI capabilities into the same environment will help LoanPro reduce the number of vendors and integrations lenders need to manage while giving them a more complete view of the borrower and loan lifecycle.

The MCP launch adds another dimension to LoanPro’s strategy to minimize third party partners because it allows AI agents to operate within the same permissions, compliance guardrails, and audit trails already used for human employees. As lenders move from using AI to summarize information toward allowing agents to actually take actions on accounts, that governance layer could become just as important as the AI models themselves.

“You will only ever drive as fast as you trust your brakes to stop you,” said LoanPro Chief Product Officer Colin Terry. “Lenders have spent years building controls around their human agents, and the LoanPro MCP runs through those same role-based access controls and compliance guardrails. We bring the context, the action and the trust. You bring the thinking, and you have an AI strategy in a box.”

Founded in 2015, LoanPro helps banks, auto lenders, and credit providers automate workflows, process payments, underwrite applications and manage collections. The company has participated in our developers conference, FinDEVr 2021, and demoed its loan management system at FinovateSpring 2021.

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Crux Analytics Secures $2.2 Million in Seed Funding

Crux Analytics Secures $2.2 Million in Seed Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Crux Analytics, Funding
  • New York-based Crux Analytics has raised €1.9 million ($2.2 million) in seed funding.
  • The investment in the relationship intelligence platform was led by Castle Creek Launchpad and also involved three credit union investment funds, Chartway Ventures, One Washington Financial, and Curql.
  • Crux Analytics made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2025. The company was founded in 2023 by Jacob Bennett (CEO) and Nathan Bennett (CTO).

Relationship intelligence platform Crux Analytics has raised €1.9 million ($2.2 million) in seed funding, bringing the company’s total capital raised to €2.8 million. The round was led by Castle Creek Launchpad, a joint venture fund with 35 community banks as limited partners. Chartway Ventures, One Washington Financial, and Curql, three credit union investment funds, also participated in the round. Crux said that it will use the additional capital to grow its team and accelerate product development.

Crux combines workflow automation and business-specific insight to enable bankers to focus their energy on driving proactive engagement instead of the administrative and logistical work behind those relationships. The company’s technology relieves bankers of this logistical burden, providing them with a sales execution engine that helps users identify, research, and prioritize prospects with the greatest potential. Crux then enables them to execute targeted, personalized outreach to these prospects and monitor those relationships as they grow and expand.

“We built Crux for community banks and credit unions, and what we learned there is that the same relationship problem exists across the small business economy,” Crux Analytics CEO and Co-Founder Jacob Bennett said. “Alternative lenders, commercial insurers, and real estate operators all win on relationships, and they all lose time to the operational work that sits behind them. We’re giving those teams the infrastructure to act on what they know about their clients, so growth comes from deeper relationships rather than bigger headcount.”

Because serving small businesses is a relationship-driven process, it typically demands a significant amount of human capital. Larger financial institutions meet this challenge simply by hiring more people, but smaller financial institutions are often more constrained. For these banks and credit unions, technology that can boost the productivity of their existing employees is key, enabling them to focus on building their relationships as trusted advisors without needing to significantly add to headcount.

“Having worked closely with community banks through our strategic limited partners, we’ve seen how these institutions are built for relationships but lack the operational tools to deliver on that promise at scale,” Castle Creek Launchpad’s Jurgen van de Vyver said. “Driving outbound sales has always been a challenge for community banks, which historically have relied on referrals from their local networks. More banks are now looking for new ways to chase organic growth, and their business relationships are crucial to achieving that. Crux Analytics unlocks that potential by automating the manual work so community banks can focus on what matters most, building meaningful relationships with local business owners.”

Founded in 2023 and headquartered in New York, Crux Analytics made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2025 in San Diego. At the conference, the company unveiled its flagship platform that sources, qualifies, and engages small business leads with personalized outreach on behalf of the bank. Crux then monitors every relationship in the portfolio, delivering a complete picture of which businesses to prioritize, when to engage them, and which products are best suited for their specific needs.

Photo by Redd Francisco on Unsplash

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FinovateFall 2026 in Photos

FinovateFall 2026 in Photos
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: FinovateFall 2026

Whether you missed out on FinovateFall in New York earlier this month or you were there in person, it’s worth checking out the massive number of photos that came out of the three-plus day event.

The event was full of meaningful conversations, fast-paced demos, a reunion of familiar faces, and new connections. And while speakers and attendees were busy talking and learning about all things fintech and banking, Finovate’s photographer was capturing the event in more than 1,000 photos.

The photos are broken down into 31 categories, including demos, industry stage sessions, and networking drinks. New this year, you can search for photos that you appear in by uploading a selfie. Here is a sampling of a few photos to help summarize FinovateFall 2026.

Networking

Sessions

Demos

Book signing

The experience

You can view all of the photos on the FinovateFall gallery page.

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Fintech After the Midterms: 3 Thoughts on How Politics Might Impact Policy

Fintech After the Midterms: 3 Thoughts on How Politics Might Impact Policy
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: David's column, List series

With the midterm elections only six-odd weeks away, control of the US House is one of the questions that will shape the next Congress. I wanted to think a little about what a future Democratic House might mean in terms of policymaking for banking, fintech, and financial services.

New Sheriffs with Old Badges

The biggest difference could be in the leadership of various House committees. For example, the House Financial Services Committee is currently chaired by French Hill, a Republican from Arkansas. Maxine Waters, a Democrat from California and the committee’s current ranking member, previously chaired the committee. If the Democrats control the House, Waters could again become chair.

As chair, Waters previously emphasized consumer protection, affordability, diversity/inclusion, and congressional oversight. More recently, she has raised concerns about bank safety and soundness, cybersecurity and the financial risks associated with AI, as well as cryptocurrencies and digital assets.

What could the committee accomplish? Oversight would be one of the committee’s most significant tools, along with the ability to issue subpoenas and compel testimony from banks, other financial institutions, and regulators. Hearings, investigations, and committee reports could provide additional opportunities to examine financial policy and bring those issues before the public and the press.

Community Banks and Regulatory Clarity as Common Ground

Given the acrimony between the parties, are there any opportunities for a Democratic House and the Trump administration to work together on banking policy?

While Democrats and Republicans have very different priorities when it comes to banking and finance, there are some areas of potential compatibility. Both Democrats and Republicans have said that they support efforts to help reduce regulatory burdens on smaller financial institutions. The devil is in the details, but it is not impossible to imagine a compromise in which reduced regulatory burden on community banks and credit unions was paired with a commitment to continued, if not intensified, oversight when it comes to the big banks and larger financial institutions. In fact, Hill and Waters actually worked together on the bipartisan 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which included provisions benefiting community banks.

Providing fintechs with greater regulatory clarity over issues like bank-fintech partnerships, for example, is another area where a Democratic House and the Trump administration may be able to find commonality. But one major sticking point might be crypto, where there is a great deal of suspicion about the role of digital assets—including meme coins—among many Democrats, as well as concerns and questions over President Trump and his family’s own involvement in the cryptocurrency industry. As such, policies focused more on stablecoins, which occupy a more specific policy and payments question compared to digital assets as a whole, represent a more fertile ground for bipartisan discussion.

Policy Debates and Paradigm Shifts

Most importantly, Democratic control of the House of Representatives next year would set the stage for a broader debate on the country’s financial priorities. Under the Trump administration, deregulation and lowering compliance costs have been central, along with limiting the authority of regulatory agencies such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). For Democrats, fortifying these agencies is a major goal, as is restoring an emphasis on consumer protection, financial stability, and regulatory independence.

What is interesting to me is how current concerns and controversies—the pace of AI development, the proliferation of prediction-market and gambling activity, concerns over government ethics and conflicts of interest, and the broader affordability debate—could interact with the traditional stances politicians on both sides of the aisle have championed and defended. How much will concerns about the longer-term risks of AI change the debate over regulation in financial services and other sectors? And, in a divided-government scenario, where will there be enough common ground for Congress and the administration to address specific problems facing banks, fintechs, and their customers?

Photo by terry bazemore iii

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Numeral Raises $100 Million for Sales Tax Solution

Numeral Raises $100 Million for Sales Tax Solution
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Funding
  • Numeral raised $100 million in Series C funding, bringing the tax compliance platform’s total funding to $157.5 million since its 2023 founding.
  • The company will use the capital to accelerate product development, expand into additional industries, and grow its team, while launching a new accounting partner program.
  • Numeral is using agentic AI to automate more of the tax compliance workload while keeping humans in the loop, as businesses face growing complexity across markets and jurisdictions.

Sales tax compliance platform Numeral has raised $100 million in Series C funding, boosting its total raised to $157.5 million since it was founded in 2023.

Insight Partners led the round, which saw participation from Salesforce Ventures, Geodesic, Benchmark, Mayfield, FCVC, Y Combinator, and Uncork.

San Francisco-based Numeral aims to simplify sales tax compliance details such as nexus tracking, registrations, filing, rate calculation, remittance, exemption certificate management, and virtual mailbox services. In addition to sales tax, the company works with VAT and GST compliance in more than 90 countries. Numeral has recently recorded a 327% year-over-year increase in total transaction volume and expects to process more than 80 million transactions via its tax engine.

“Sales tax has become a much bigger operational challenge as companies grow across markets, systems and business models,” said Numeral Co-Founder and CEO, Sam Ross. “Businesses need infrastructure that can keep pace as rules and requirements change across jurisdictions, without adding more manual work for their teams. We’re building Numeral to provide that foundation, backed by tax expertise and service that customers can rely on.”

Numeral will use today’s funding to accelerate product development, expand its offering for industries, and grow its team. The company is also launching its accounting partner program that will allow partnering firms to refer clients, resell the platform, use it to deliver their own services, or advise clients through implementation to stay closely involved in their clients’ tax decisions. Overall, Numeral’s technology leverages agentic AI while keeping humans in the loop.

“Our customers want to know that their tax obligations are being handled accurately while still having access to a person when a complex issue comes up,” said Ross. “That expectation shapes how we build the platform and how we support each customer. As Numeral moves into additional industries and serves larger businesses, we’ll continue investing in both the technology and the tax expertise behind it.”

As tax compliance is becoming more complex for businesses operating across multiple markets, Numeral is using AI to automate more of the work traditionally handled by internal tax teams and accounting firms. Rather than simply using AI to help employees complete compliance tasks, Numeral’s technology aims to take on more of the operational burden itself, while keeping tax professionals available for complex cases.

Photo by Tara Winstead

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