Fintech

Airwallex hits $11bn valuation as fintech funding rebounds

Airwallex raised $320m at an $11bn valuation. Payments is now just 30% of its revenue - which is exactly why the round priced at a software multiple.

Rick StevesFintech12 Jul

Riverty opens Luxembourg bank to serve 1,800 merchants

Bertelsmann's Riverty starts as a licensed EU bank in July, turning a BNPL book of 25m customers into a deposit-funded merchant lender. Why charters win.

Rick StevesFintech12 Jul

Kord raises £6.4m to fight AI fraud in regulated sectors

UK RegTech Kord has raised £6.4m led by Guinness Ventures to unify onboarding, compliance and payments for regulated firms — a bet that AI fraud forces re-bundling.

Rick StevesFintech12 Jul

REPAY closes $372m KUBRA deal to scale US bill payments

REPAY has closed its $372m cash acquisition of KUBRA, betting on recurring, non-discretionary consumer bill payments over the crowded checkout arms race.

Rick StevesFintech11 Jul

TrueLayer adds credit to Pay by Bank with in3 as FCA rules land

Rick StevesFintech11 Jul

Equifax buys Círculo de Crédito for $750m to expand Mexico

Equifax pays a $750m enterprise value — about 12x EBITDA — for Mexico's Círculo de Crédito, answering TransUnion's Buró de Crédito move in the LatAm data race.

Rick StevesFintech9 Jul

JPMorgan taps SambaNova as AI chip maker raises $1bn

JPMorgan Chase picks SambaNova for on-prem AI inference as the chip maker closes a $1bn Series F at $11bn — and bank AI strategy visibly bifurcates.

Rick StevesFintech9 Jul

Nuvei installs COO, CFO and CPTO ahead of Payoneer close

Nuvei names its first-ever COO plus a new CFO and CPTO three weeks after the $2.75bn Payoneer deal — the integration org chart arriving before closing.

Rick StevesFintech8 Jul

Klarna files for US bank charter to end partner-bank reliance

Klarna applies to the FDIC and Utah for an industrial-bank charter — deposit-funded BNPL, a Southwest Airlines tie-up, and what it means for BaaS banks.

Rick StevesFintech8 Jul

Visa takes agentic payments live with 30 European issuers

Visa's AI agents now buy from real European merchants, backed by 30+ issuers, Payment Passkeys and a trust protocol wired into Cloudflare and Akamai.

Rick StevesFintech6 Jul

Intesa Sanpaolo moves core banking to Google Cloud in Italy

Intesa Sanpaolo completed its core banking migration to Google Cloud's Turin and Milan regions — 800+ apps moved, and a sovereignty template for EU banks.

Rick StevesFintech5 Jul

Crédit Agricole buys 100% of CAWL as Worldline refocuses

Crédit Agricole has bought out Worldline's stake in French merchant-payments JV CAWL, converting the tie-up to a commercial deal. Why banks want payments back.

Rick StevesFintech4 Jul

SumUp launches a consumer bank account to rival the neobanks

SumUp is launching a consumer bank account with cashback at its own merchants — a two-sided network play Europe's neobanks like Revolut can't easily copy.

Rick StevesFintech2 Jul

Airwallex raises $320m Series H at $11bn valuation

Airwallex raises $320m Series H at an $11bn valuation, betting a decade of cross-border payment licences is the real moat in the agentic-commerce race.

Rick StevesFintech1 Jul

Backbase buys Kasisto to bring agentic AI to core banking

Backbase has acquired agentic-AI pioneer Kasisto, the latest in a June cluster of agentic-banking deals as software vendors race to own the AI layer.

Rick StevesFintech30 Jun

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 StevesFintech28 Jun