All articles tagged with #fintech
Klarna has applied to set up a U.S. FDIC‑insured bank in Utah, enabling it to fund loans with customer deposits and bring more banking operations in-house, while broadening its offerings beyond buy now, pay later and reducing reliance on third‑party banks.
Circle Internet stock fell after Bloomberg reported a coalition of Visa, Stripe and more than 100 financial firms is launching the Open Standard venture to issue a US-dollar-backed stablecoin called Open USD, with Stripe’s Zach Abrams as interim CEO. Partners—including Visa, BlackRock, Klarna, Alphabet, Chime and Coinbase—plan to integrate the stablecoin into their systems later this year, potentially increasing competition with the dominant stablecoins USDC and USDT.
Airwallex raised $320 million in a Series H at an $11 billion valuation to push AI-native finance, unveiling T:0 (AI-driven finance automation) and Airi (agentic consumer wallet); revenue rose 74% to $1.3 billion and annualized transaction volume more than doubled, with over 90% of revenue from customers using multiple Airwallex products and more than 85 licenses globally to support expansion. The round, led by Addition, also signals a push into autonomous finance and agentic commerce, even as the company faces scrutiny over ties to China; management hints IPO timing could slip due to AI-margin volatility.
Meta appoints Kunal Shah, founder of Cred, to lead WhatsApp, making him the first Indian to helm the global platform. The move follows Meta's $900 million investment in Cred and aligns with WhatsApp's push into payments, business tools, and AI-powered products, leveraging Shah’s product-focused background from FreeCharge and his involvement in India's expanding startup ecosystem.
Apple’s iOS 27 beta adds Insights to Wallet, aggregating data from saved payment accounts to show spending trends, recurring transactions, and account balances. The feature, first seen in beta 1 overseas and now in beta 2 in the US, is accessed via the Wallet menu’s three-dot icon and aims to make Wallet’s data more actionable by visualizing spending similarly to Health’s insights.
Bloomberg notes that AI is enabling wealth managers to deliver private-banking‑quality service to mass‑affluent clients (under $1 million in liquid assets) while the truly rich receive more personalized, human-led care; firms will hire automation specialists and maintain human oversight as AI handles routine tasks, with Citi piloting AI tools like a college fund chatbot and CIO-style email drafting. The shift could reduce the need for traditional advisers for mass‑affluent clients, while Elon Musk suggests AI could redefine saving money in the near future.
Kalshi, an eight-year-old prediction-market platform, surpassed $2 billion in annualized revenue driven by sports-event bets (NBA and World Cup), prompting informal talks with investment banks about a future public offering; Kalshi is exploring bank integrations to reach institutional clients, but a listing is not expected until late next year or 2028.
SoFi, led by Anthony Noto, grew from a student-loan startup into a tech-forward bank with a broad product lineup and a near $40 billion valuation, but its stock slump and a scathing Muddy Waters report have investors questioning its accounting and profitability, blurring the line between a high-growth fintech and a traditional lender.
Robinhood is cutting about 290 full-time roles (roughly 10%), aiming to flatten management and operate more efficiently, with about $28 million in restructuring costs. The company, which had about 2,900 employees, says the move accompanies its push to diversify beyond trading into a broader financial-services platform, supported by record June trading volumes.
Nuvei will acquire Payoneer for $2.75 billion in cash, delisting the Israeli fintech from Nasdaq and valuing Payoneer at about $2.26 billion with a ~21% premium to the prior close. The combined group is expected to generate roughly $3 billion in annual revenue and process about $500 billion in payments yearly, boosting Nuvei’s cross-border payments footprint for SMBs. Payoneer, founded in 2005 and a user of platforms like Amazon, eBay and Walmart, ends its Nasdaq run five years after a SPAC merger valued at $3.3 billion (sale price ~17% below debut valuation). Payoneer faced slowing growth and restructuring in 2025–26, including layoffs, with 2025 revenue of about $1.05 billion and net income down about 40%; Nuvei has a history of Israeli acquisitions, including Simplex and SafeCharge, which the deal would complement.
Microsoft plans to add BNPL options for Xbox purchases via Klarna and PayPal, allowing players to spread costs over weeks or months with no interest. The feature appears to be in development, hinted by code on the Xbox site, and aims to improve affordability amid rising console and game prices and broader cost-of-living pressures in the gaming industry.
Visa announced it is integrating its payment network with ChatGPT, allowing AI agents to complete purchases on a user’s Visa card rather than just recommending products. The move signals a shift toward autonomous shopping, but experts warn about trust and scam risks as AI handles end-to-end checkout; Visa says it will focus on secure, trusted transactions as AI-enabled commerce grows.
JPMorgan Chase plans to deploy autonomous AI agents later this year that can operate for hours, evolving from single-task tools into digital workers that manage multi-step workflows across disparate software. The move aims to boost efficiency and revenue, with private banking already seeing a 20% lift in gross sales and potential to expand bankers’ client coverage by up to 50%. Security and governance hurdles remain, but JPMorgan expects longer-running AI agents to be in use by 2026, with more emphasis on building capabilities in-house rather than buying them.
An Orange County man and Aspiration co-founder, Joseph Neal Sanberg, was sentenced to 168 months in federal prison for a years-long fraud that defrauded investors and lenders of at least $248 million, involving fake clients, sham payments, falsified loan collateral, and forged documents; restitution is set for July 20, with prosecutors accusing him of abusing trust in a lucrative fintech venture.
Robinhood announced plans to let customers use AI-powered trading agents to execute stock trades within its app, signaling a move toward AI-assisted investing and automation in consumer finance. The feature aims to attract and retain users by enabling automated, personalized decision-making, while trades remain subject to standard market rules and risk considerations.