bunq opens its banking licence as a BaaS platform across the EU
bunq has opened bunq-as-a-Service to EU businesses, letting partners build regulated accounts and payments on its own bank licence — inverting the US BaaS model.
Rick Steves
Senior Reporter, Regulation and Fintech
Rick Steves has seen business and economics through many lenses. He joined the financial services industry in 2009, and has been a financial journalist since 2011. He holds a degree in Business Administration and has experience producing real-time news, from both buy-side and sell-side, as well as for retail traders, brokers and service providers. Steves' work has appeared in a variety of online publications including FX Street, NewsBTC, FinanceFeeds, and The Industry Spread. Rick has great interest in the dynamics of the trading industry. The never-ending clash between technology, economics, regulation, and more importantly, the people.
June 2026
Float raises CAD $85m Series C at a $548m valuation
Float Financial raised CAD $85m at a $548m valuation, led by Inovia Capital, to build an AI finance platform — corporate-spend fintech's pivot accelerates.
Why the US stablecoin KYC rule stops at the issuer’s door
A five-agency FinCEN rule makes US stablecoin issuers BSA financial institutions, but the KYC duty stops at the issuer — leaving the secondary market open.
Nuvei to buy Payoneer for $2.75bn in cross-border paytech deal
Nuvei will acquire Payoneer for $7.40 a share, about $2.75 billion, bundling payment acceptance with cross-border payouts in the latest paytech consolidation.
Retail FX leverage caps hold at 30:1 as enforcement goes offshore
Retail FX leverage caps hold at 30:1 across the EU, UK and Australia, but 2026 enforcement targets the offshore funnel — CySEC's FXNET and SquaredFinancial cases.
BoE’s £40bn stablecoin cap deepens the EU–US reserve split
The Bank of England's £40bn stablecoin cap and 70/30 reserve rule diverge from MiCA and the GENIUS Act, leaving issuers with three incompatible regimes.
Interchecks raises $50m Series C, debuts account-funding rails
Interchecks raised a $50m Series C led by Bettor Capital and launched debit-rail account funding, as regulated gaming underwrites the instant-payments race.
Tokenised securities split EU, UK, US and Singapore rules in 2026
As tokenised real-world assets pass $20bn, the EU, UK, US and Singapore are diverging on tokenised-securities rules — creating real regulatory-arbitrage risk.
Marqeta adds money-movement rails in 30 markets via Banking Circle
Marqeta taps Banking Circle to add multi-currency accounts and money movement across 30 European markets — the clearest sign yet it wants to be more than a card-issuer.
Fintech revenue tops $504bn but an AI divide splits the field
Global fintech revenue hit $504bn in 2025, up 22% and 4x faster than banks, per BCG and FT Partners — but an AI-foundational divide now splits the winners.
Best execution splits EU, UK and US FX rules in 2026
Best execution returns to FX supervision in 2026: ESMA's new RTS repeals RTS 27/28, the FCA scrapped them in 2021, and the US keeps a prescriptive duty.
Adyen launches Agentic to ride the AI-checkout protocol war
Adyen launched Adyen Agentic on June 16, 2026, betting on neutral 'integrate once' infrastructure as Visa, Mastercard and Stripe split the agentic-payments market.
Why crypto staking rules split the US, EU and UK in 2026
Crypto staking is regulated four ways across the US, EU, UK and Hong Kong. From the Kraken reversal to MiCA's July 1 deadline and the FCA's new regime.
Flagright raises $12.5m to scale AI financial-crime compliance
Flagright has raised a $12.5m Series A led by Infinity Ventures to scale its AI financial-crime compliance platform as RegTech defies the funding slowdown.
AMLA’s single rulebook splits EU AML from the US and UK
From July 10, 2027 the EU's AMLR single rulebook and Frankfurt's AMLA centralise AML supervision over banks, crypto and FX firms — diverging from the US and UK.
Pollen Street buys Finastra’s Universal Banking core unit
Pollen Street Capital is buying Finastra's Universal Banking core unit and its Essence platform — a PE bet that modernising 150+ incumbent banks beats rip-and-replace.
How regulators are closing in on retail prop trading in 2026
Retail prop-trading firms face a regulatory squeeze across the US, EU, UK and Australia in 2026 after the CFTC's My Forex Funds case collapsed.
Mercury raises $200m at $5.2bn after OCC bank-charter nod
Mercury raised a $200m Series D at a $5.2bn valuation and won conditional OCC approval for its own US bank charter, breaking the sponsor-bank model.
EU’s PFOF ban hits its June 30 cliff as the US keeps it legal
From June 30, 2026, MiFIR Article 39a bans payment for order flow across the EU as Germany's exemption expires — while the US keeps PFOF legal under disclosure.
Also filing this week: Karthik Subramanian and Abdelaziz Fathi.