Executive Summary
The fintech landscape continues to evolve with major developments across banking, payments, crypto, AI, and regulation. Last week’s top stories showcased both innovation and challenges, from AI’s growing influence in financial services to new regulatory shifts impacting the industry.
Let’s dive into this week’s top news!
Trends in Fintech Verticals
Top Data Breaches
Grubhub confirms data breach affecting customers and drivers: GrubHub has confirmed suffering a ‘security incident’ involving a third-party contractor which resulted in the unauthorized access to a set of user contact information.
The breach was detected after the firm noticed unusual activity within its environment, which it traced back to a third-party vendor that provides services for its Support Team. Once discovered, GrubHub reportedly launched an investigation and found unauthorized access to an account associated with the vendor.
The company says it took ‘immediate action’ to contain the situation and is now confident the incident is ‘fully contained’. The leaked data includes names, email addresses, phone numbers, and partial payment information for a group of users. It’s also believed the threat actor had access to hashed passwords for legacy systems.
Wacom Notifies E-Shop Customers of Credit Card Data Exposure: Graphics tablet maker Wacom has disclosed a potential data breach affecting customers who made purchases through its official online store. In a notification letter sent to impacted users, the company revealed that credit card details may have been exposed between November 28, 2024, and January 8, 2025. The incident is still under investigation, but Wacom assures customers that the underlying issue has been addressed.
While Wacom has not publicly detailed the exact cause of the breach, the nature of the incident suggests the possible involvement of card skimmers — malicious scripts that cybercriminals inject into e-commerce sites to steal payment card data in real-time.
Over 1 million Connecticut residents impacted by healthcare data breach: Over a million people in Connecticut woke up Wednesday morning to find their personal information had been compromised in a health care data breach. The breach involves Community Health Center, which has locations all across the state, including Norwalk, Stamford, Stratford, Greenwich and Danbury.
Attorney General William Tong said about 575,000 patients had all of their personal health information compromised– that includes social security numbers and COVID-19 vaccination records.
He said an additional 571,000 people had just their vaccination records exposed, and 4,200 employees were also impacted.
Community Health Center said information that has been accessed could include diagnosis, treatment details, test results and health insurance.
Latest Funding News
Cashfree Payments raises $53m in funding led by KRAFTON: India’s payments company, Cashfree Payments, has raised $53 million (INR 450 crore). This financial boost was spearheaded by KRAFTON, a Korean digital entertainment leader, alongside continued backing from existing investor Apis Growth Fund II, a private equity fund managed by Apis Partners Group (UK) Limited (Apis Partners).
The newly acquired funds are set to enhance Cashfree’s payment solutions and expand its market presence. This partnership is expected to harness synergies with KRAFTON, propelling Cashfree to innovate and pioneer across various digital sectors.
TrueFoundry Raises $19M Series A to Scale AI with Autopilot Agent: TrueFoundry, a leading AI deployment and scaling platform, today announced it raised $19 million in Series A funding, led by Intel Capital. Existing investors Eniac Ventures and Peak XV’s Surge (formerly Sequoia Capital India & SEA) participated, alongside new investor Jump Capital and several angel investors including Gokul Rajaram, Mohit Aron, and executives from Fortune 1000s. In conjunction with the financing, Avi Bharadwaj, Investment Director at Intel Capital, will join TrueFoundry’s board of directors.
Solaris SE secures $144m in Series G funding: Solaris SE, the European embedded finance platform, has announced the securing of its Series G funding round.
The round, with a total volume of €140 million, was led by SBI Group and Boerse Stuttgart Group, with contributions and equity-supportive measures from a diverse group of investors and strategic partners.
As part of the Series G round, SBI Group will become the majority shareholder, signalling a transformative evolution in Solaris’s shareholder structure. Together with Boerse Stuttgart Group, SBI is currently undergoing an ownership control process.
Gemini in talks to pursue IPO: Gemini, the cryptocurrency exchange and custodian backed by the billionaire Winklevoss twins, is reportedly considering an initial public offering as early as this year. Sources close to the matter indicate that the firm is in active discussions with potential advisers, signaling a pivotal move toward public markets amid a dynamic crypto landscape.
The potential IPO comes as the crypto industry accelerates its public listings, following heightened investor interest since President Donald Trump’s election. With the Winklevoss twins’ high-profile legacy and strategic influence, Gemini’s move could not only unlock significant shareholder value but also reshape market dynamics as competition intensifies.
Banking and Payments
Backbase & Feedzai partner to enhance fraud prevention in digital banking:
Backbase, the Engagement Banking expert, has partnered with Feedzai to help banks tackle the growing challenge of digital fraud while maintaining seamless customer experiences. The collaboration integrates Feedzai’s Digital Trust solutions with Backbase’s Engagement Banking platform, giving financial institutions the capabilities to protect, build trust, and improve their customers’ digital banking experiences.
“By combining Backbase’s engagement banking expertise with Feedzai’s advanced security capabilities, we are giving financial institutions the complete package – superior customer experience and intelligent fraud prevention in one integrated platform,” said Jouk Pleiter, CEO & Founder at Backbase. “Together, we are setting a new standard for how banks can build trusted digital relationships with their customers.”
Aldermore Bank taps Temenos to modernise business savings: Temenos announced that UK-based Aldermore Bank has selected Temenos SaaS to modernize its existing savings operations starting with quickly launching new savings notice accounts for small businesses.
The bank will adopt Temenos Business & Corporate Enterprise Service to achieve a fast time to market and scale efficiently as it seeks to grow customer deposits and unlock new sources of revenue. Using Temenos’ end-to-end service for business and corporate banking, Aldermore will leverage pre-configured, proven capabilities across core and digital banking, to enable rapid deployment of its new products.
Worldpay to acquire Ravelin, an AI-Native Fraud Prevention Platform: Worldpay®, a global payments solution, has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Ravelin, an AI-native fraud prevention platform headquartered in London, UK.
The acquisition of Ravelin will complement and enhance Worldpay’s portfolio of value-added solutions and enable merchants of all sizes to grow faster and protect their businesses as fraud activity accelerates globally.
Barclays customers attempt to withdraw £250 in ‘free cash’ from ATMs amid banking app outage: Crowds of people flocked to ATM machines across the UK to supposedly claim “free cash” of up to £250 following the Barclays online banking and app outage which has impacted customers over the last couple of days.
A major technical glitch at the bank has caused widespread disruption across the UK, with customers unable to access their accounts, make payments or get paid for nearly free days.
British payments startup GoCardless edges toward profitability: The firm, which cut 17% of its global workforce in a June 2023 restructuring, reported a net loss of £35.1 million for the full year ending June 30, 2024, a 55% improvement on the £78 million loss posted in the prior year.
The London-based startup, which helps businesses collect recurring payments such as subscriptions, reported a 55% improvement from the £78 million it lost the year prior and said it’s aiming to reach full-year profitability by 2026
The earlier workforce cuts reduced annual operating expenses by 13%, helping to move £79.2 million of costs from the bottom line. The business also boosted its revenue by 38% to £126.8 million in full-year 2024.
Wealthtech
How technology is transforming retirement planning for individuals and businesses: Technology is revolutionising retirement planning by making financial decisions more transparent, personalised, and accessible. Solutions like KidbrookeONE enable financial institutions to provide sophisticated digital and in-person advisory services, equipping individuals with the tools needed to navigate their pension journey. As demand for greater financial control grows, advanced analytics platforms are shaping how both individuals and businesses approach long-term savings.
KidbrookeONE serves as an advanced financial analytics platform designed to enhance engagement in retirement planning. It empowers pension providers to offer interactive, visual, and highly personalised financial planning experiences. Whether individuals are preparing for retirement or managing post-retirement finances, this technology enhances decision-making by offering insights and tailored investment strategies.
Insurance Technology (Insurtech)
WisePal launches digital insurance agency with Bindable’s virtual agency solution: Bindable, a provider of Insurance-as-a-Service technology solutions, has partnered with WisePal, a cost-saving software company, to launch a new in-house digital insurance agency.
The initiative enables WisePal to offer customers the ability to compare and purchase property and casualty (P&C) insurance products directly through its app and newly established agency team.
The launch is aimed at enhancing its core mission of helping families manage recurring expenses while maintaining strong customer relationships.
By integrating insurance into its offerings, WisePal seeks to provide additional financial benefits to users without disrupting the connections it has built with its customer base.
Duck Creek Technologies Launches End-to-End Payments Marketplace: The new marketplace reduces payment integration from 18 Months to Two Weeks
Duck Creek Technologies, the global intelligent solutions provider defining the future of property and casualty (P&C) and general insurance, announces the launch of its Payments Marketplace, a comprehensive payments ecosystem purpose-built for the global insurance industry. The Duck Creek Payments Marketplace offers seamless integration with trusted payment providers and delivers end-to-end payment management for carriers.
Duck Creek announced a significant partnership with Paymentus, a leading provider of digital payment solutions to our marketplace for ease of integration. This partnership brings billions in payment volume to the Payments Marketplace. Together, Duck Creek and Paymentus will serve several global Top 10 insurance carriers as well as large regional insurers as customers.
Markel transitions to Guidewire Cloud to enhance claims and IT operations: Markel, the insurance division of Markel Group Inc., and Guidewire announced the successful migration of Guidewire ClaimCenter from an on-premise setup to Guidewire Cloud.
This transition enhances and streamlines Markel’s claims and IT operations. The company deployed ClaimCenter on Guidewire Cloud to support its specialty lines across its US operations.
“Migrating ClaimCenter onto Guidewire Cloud enables us to automate and transfer system maintenance and updates to Guidewire so our teams can increase their focus on delivering value to our customers and partners,” added Markel Chief Information Officer Morris Taylor.
Regulatory Technology (Regtech)
FCA steps up action against misleading financial adverts: Nearly 20,000 financial promotions were withdrawn or amended in 2024 following intervention from the FCA – nearly double the amount in 2023.
The regulator has highlighted concerns with cryptoasset, debt solutions, and claims management company (CMC) promotions. 9,197 CMC promotions were withdrawn in 2024. Many of these promotions were related to housing disrepair and motor finance claims targeted at vulnerable consumers.
The FCA continues to urge social media platforms to do more to proactively identify and prevent illegal financial promotions. Last year, the FCA launched targeted action against ‘finfluencers’, resulting in 20 people being interviewed under caution.
Blockchain and Cryptocurrency
Stripe closes $1.1 billion Bridge deal, prepares for aggressive stablecoin push: Stripe has closed on its $1.1 billion purchase of stablecoin platform Bridge — marking the payment giant’s largest acquisition to date and tangible push into crypto.
Co-founded in 2022 by Coinbase and Square alumni Zach Abrams and Sean Yu, San Antonio, Texas-based Bridge built an API that helps companies accept stablecoins. The pair raised $58 million from investors such as Index Ventures and Sequoia Capital, according to PitchBook. It was valued at $200 million when it raised a $40 million Series A in 2024.
With this acquisition, Stripe is clearly betting big on crypto.
Standard Chartered says bitcoin price could reach $500,000 by 2028: Crypto-friendly banking giant Standard Chartered has predicted that Bitcoin will surge multiple times to half a million dollars in three years.
Standard Chartered’s Geoffrey Kendrick has a bold long-term forecast for bitcoin, predicting that the cryptocurrency will reach $500,000 by 2028. He attributes this potential rise to two key factors: growing investor access and declining volatility.
Brava Launches to Unlock $210 Billion Stablecoin Market for Institutional Investors and Wealth Managers: Brava has launched to help open up the fast-growing $210 billion stablecoin market to institutional investors and wealth managers with the launch of its AI-driven stablecoin management system.
The London-based start-up has developed its proprietary system, empowering institutional investors, wealth managers and high-net-worth individuals to manage their stablecoin holdings efficiently. The platform enhances portfolio performance by automatically identifying the most competitive and suitable yields. Set it and forget it—let Brava find the best yields for you, so you don’t have to. It streamlines yield generation, ensuring seamless and optimized fund allocation.
Artificial intelligence
DeepSeek: Everything you need to know about the AI chatbot app: DeepSeek has gone viral.
Chinese AI lab DeepSeek broke into the mainstream consciousness this week after its chatbot app rose to the top of the App Store charts. DeepSeek’s AI models, which were trained using compute-efficient techniques, have led Wall Street analysts — and technologists — to question whether the U.S. can maintain its lead in the AI race and whether the demand for AI chips will sustain.
But where did DeepSeek come from, and how did it rise to international fame so quickly?
OpenAI Reveals “chain of Thought” in ChatGPT’s O3-mini Model: Earlier on Thursday, OpenAI announced that the paid and free users of ChatGPT will receive an “updated chain of thought” process in response to prompts. The chain of thought shows the model’s reasoning used to find answers. Paid subscribers using o3-mini-high will also receive the readout.
O3-mini is a reasoning model, and hence, it is expected to thoroughly fact-check its responses before displaying the result. This helps avoid fallacies or inaccuracies in responses. However, it comes with a trade-off: longer response times.
Auquan Launches Industry’s First AI Agent for Financial Services Sustainability Teams: Auquan, the market leader in generative AI for deep work in financial services, today announced the launch of its Sustainability Agent, the first and only AI agent purpose-built to liberate sustainability teams from tedious and time-consuming manual work. One-quarter of the top 25 global financial services firms trust Auquan to transform how they gather and analyze intelligence for critical and timely decisions and realize radically enhanced productivity gains, research coverage, and speed to insight
U.S. lawmakers move to ban China’s DeepSeek from government devices: A bipartisan duo in the the U.S. House is proposing legislation to ban the Chinese artificial intelligence app DeepSeek from federal devices, similar to the policy already in place for the popular social media platform TikTok.
The proposal comes after the Chinese software company in December published an AI model that performed at a competitive level with models developed by American firms like OpenAI, Meta, Alphabet and others. DeepSeek purported to develop the model at a fraction of the cost of its American counterparts. A January research paper about DeepSeek’s capabilities raised alarm bells and prompted debates among policymakers and leading Silicon Valley financiers and technologists.
EU kicks off landmark AI law enforcement as first batch of restrictions enter into force: The European Union formally kicked off enforcement of its landmark artificial intelligence law Sunday, paving the way for tough restrictions and potential large fines for violations.
The EU AI Act, a first-of-its-kind regulatory framework for the technology, formally entered into force in August 2024. On February 2, the deadline for prohibitions on certain artificial intelligence systems and requirements to ensure sufficient technology literacy among staff officially lapsed.
That means companies must now comply with the restrictions and can face penalties if they fail to do so
Stellantis and Mistral AI to Develop AI-Powered in-Car Assistant: An AI-powered in-car assistant for drivers is the latest of several initiatives being explored in an expanded partnership between automaker Stellantis and Mistral AI.
“Together, we are exploring AI’s potential across several domains to enhance our product development, customer experience and deliver real benefits,” Ned Curic, chief engineering and technology officer at Stellantis, said in the release.
In the case of the AI-powered in-car assistant, Stellantis and Mistral AI aim to create a “real-time, voice-enabled user manual” that drivers can interact with using natural language and receive answers to their questions about vehicle features, troubleshooting or warning indicators, according to the report.
Upcoming Events
- Finnovate Europe
FinovateEurope, one of Europe’s leading FinTech conferences, is set to bring together industry experts, innovators, and decision-makers for two action-packed days in London.
Date: February 25th – 26th
Location: London, United Kingdom
More Details Here
🎙️ Tech Behind Fintech Podcast Highlights
Coming Up This Week
Join us on Friday, February 14th, 2025, at 12 PM EST, for a must-watch episode of Tech Behind FinTech featuring Fabian Eberle, COO & Co-Founder at Keyless. With deepfakes and AI-powered fraud on the rise, traditional authentication methods are under attack. In this episode, we’ll explore how biometric authentication is shaping the future of identity security in banking and FinTech. Fabian will share expert insights on the evolving threat landscape, the role of privacy-preserving biometrics, and how financial institutions can stay ahead of increasingly sophisticated fraud tactics.
Deepfakes and AI-driven fraud are redefining the risks in digital finance. From account takeovers to SIM-swapping attacks, criminals are leveraging new technologies to bypass outdated security measures. With passwords and one-time passcodes proving to be weak links, biometric authentication is emerging as a more secure alternative. But how do we balance privacy, security, and user convenience?
🔍 What You’ll Learn:
✅ The Growing Threat of Deepfake Fraud – How AI is being weaponized to manipulate identity verification and exploit security vulnerabilities.
✅ The Future of Biometric Authentication – Why traditional methods like passwords and OTPs are failing, and how FinTechs can leverage privacy-preserving biometrics.
✅ Mitigating Fraud in FinTech & Banking – Real-world strategies that financial institutions are using to combat identity theft, SIM-swapping, and phishing attacks.
Whether you’re a FinTech leader, cybersecurity expert, or banking professional, this episode will provide practical insights into how next-gen authentication is reshaping the fight against fraud in financial services.
Live Show Links
Website: https://techbehindfintech.com/featured/the-deepfake-invasion-can-biometrics-save-fintech-from-fraud
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/events/7293805151599886336
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pouKUoAoDw
Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/events/618598511106094
In case you missed it – Latest Episode Highlights
The Role and Evolution of the Chief Revenue Officer in FinTech
In the latest episode of “Tech Behind FinTech,” aired on February 7, 2025, host Nnamdi Osuagwu was joined by Aditi Subbarao, a leading expert in AI and fintech, to explore how artificial intelligence is transforming the way financial institutions process unstructured data. From transaction logs to customer emails, AI is unlocking hidden value, enhancing decision-making, and reshaping financial services.
💡 Key Lessons from This Episode:
⭐ AI Unlocks Hidden Value in Data – AI-driven analysis of unstructured data reveals key insights that improve financial decision-making.
⭐ Improved Fraud Detection & Risk Management – AI enhances real-time fraud detection, protecting both businesses and consumers.
⭐ Personalized Customer Experiences – AI helps fintechs deliver tailored financial solutions, boosting customer engagement.
⭐ Overcoming Data Management Challenges – AI streamlines unstructured data processing, making it more accessible and actionable.
⭐ The Future of AI in Fintech – From compliance to predictive analytics, AI is set to revolutionize financial services.
🎧 Don’t miss out on these game-changing insights! Listen to the full episode to discover how AI is reshaping fintech and driving the future of financial services.
🔗 Watch now: https://techbehindfintech.com/featured/unlocking-unstructured-data-transforming-fintech-with-ai
Or stream it on your favorite podcast platform! 🚀
📩 Stay Connected
Don’t miss exclusive updates, expert insights, and the latest FinTech trends delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe to the Tech Behind FinTech weekly newsletter today!
🎧 Subscribe to get notified: https://techbehindfintech.com/subscribe
💡Have a story or insight to share? Send us an email media@techbehindfintech.com — we’d love to feature it!
