Stripe’s first employee turns Increase into an FDIC bank
Increase launches an FDIC-member bank from a $75m Washington lender — the clearest post-Synapse verdict on banking-as-a-service: own the charter.
Desk
Fintech
Payments, KYC, trading technology and the vendors that sell it to brokers.
254 stories since 2021 · page 7 of 13
August 2026
July 2026
InvestiFi raises $20m from the credit unions it serves
InvestiFi's $20m round is led by Vibe Credit Union and seven peers - customers as investors. Inside the credit-union push to reclaim deposits from apps.
Ominimo hits $1.6bn valuation on a $22.5m EBRD-led round
Ominimo raised $22.5m at a $1.6bn valuation, diluting barely 1.4%. The small cheque is the story: a profitable insurtech that does not need the money.
Payfinia taps MAP’s 100 credit unions for embedded payments
Payfinia's MAP deal puts its FedNow and RTP stack in front of 100+ credit unions. Embedded finance's growth edge is the cooperative sector, not platforms.
Ramp opens stablecoin accounts to all customers on Stripe rails
Ramp made stablecoin accounts generally available on July 21, built on Stripe's Bridge and Privy - renting the rails from a direct competitor.
Augustus raises $180m at $1bn to build a stablecoin clearing bank
Augustus raised $180m at a $1bn valuation led by Tiger Global to build an OCC-chartered stablecoin clearing bank - the third charter-backed raise in 90 days.
Nubank buys Banco Porto Real to keep ‘bank’ in its name
Nubank is buying a 1992 wholesale lender to satisfy a Brazilian naming rule. The charter is no longer what challengers route around - it is the asset they buy.
Klarna to power Apple Upgrade device leases from July 28
Apple Upgrade launches July 28 with Klarna behind it — a 36-month lease book that makes Klarna's US bank charter a funding necessity, not an optimisation.
Lloyds lends PremFina £400m as bank credit outpaces VC
Lloyds has lent PremFina £400m. In the week to July 17, credit facilities outraised equity two to one across fintech - much of it from bank balance sheets.
Fourthline and Veridas merge as fintech deal count falls 26%
Fourthline and Veridas will merge into a 115m-check identity platform as fintech funding rises 22.7% but deal counts fall 25.7%, concentrating capital.
Capital One open-sources VulnHunter with a model dependency
Capital One released its agentic code-security tool under Apache 2.0 on July 16. It requires Claude Opus 4.8, which makes 'open source' complicated.
Ant International raises $1.2bn as agentic payment standards split
Ant International closed a $1.2bn Series A at a $10bn valuation, funding an agentic payment protocol that competes with the card networks' x402.
Revolut wins Australian ADI licence in a neobank graveyard
APRA granted Revolut a full ADI licence on July 21, 2026. Two of the last independent Australian neobank cohort handed their licences back.
Alpaca raises $435m and targets prime brokerage entry
Alpaca's $435m raise is majority debt - a balance-sheet signal, not growth capital, as the brokerage API provider targets prime broking and hedge fund clients.
Visa, Mastercard and Amex join x402 body for agentic payments
Visa, Mastercard and Amex are premier members of the Linux Foundation's x402 Foundation, the new open-governance body standardising AI agent payments over HTTP.
Nayax refuses to pay as leak deadline lands July 21
Nayax refused a ransom with the attacker's July 21 leak deadline live. Its shares fell 11% a day before the filing - the leak site beat the disclosure.
PayPal board rejects $53bn Stripe-Advent bid as too low
PayPal's board rejected the $53bn Stripe-Advent offer as inadequate. Why the Braintree antitrust remedy is cheap and price, not regulators, is the block.
OpenPayd takes SPAC route to Nasdaq at $1.145bn
OpenPayd will list on Nasdaq via Titan Acquisition Corp at $1.145bn. A profitable infrastructure firm choosing a SPAC says more about listing windows than quality.
