Executive Summary
This week, the fintech world is buzzing with major AI partnerships, crypto crackdowns, and new innovations in embedded finance and wealth management. While Stripe’s AI investment boosts its valuation to $91.5 billion, OKX faces a massive $505 million penalty for AML violations. Meanwhile, Revolut hits regulatory roadblocks in Ukraine, and PayPal is making moves in stablecoins.
📩 Stay ahead of these fintech trends! Read our full report for expert insights and deeper analysis on the latest industry developments.
Trends in Fintech Verticals
Top Data Breaches
Threat Actor Claims to Sell 25 Million Truecaller Contacts from the USA: A threat actor has allegedly put up for sale a database containing 25 million contacts from the Truecaller platform, purportedly belonging to users in the United States. The claims surfaced on a dark web forum, where the individual behind the post shared details about the alleged dataset and offered a sample as proof. In the post, the seller claimed that the dataset includes contact details of millions of users and is available for purchase through private channels. The actor also stated that transactions would be conducted securely via escrow services to ensure anonymity and trust between buyers and sellers.
Latest Funding News
Unique Secures USD $30 Million Series A to Pioneer Agentic AI Workforce in Financial Services: Unique, a vertical AI player creating a specialized agentic AI platform for financial firms, today announced the successful completion of its Series A funding round, raising USD $ 30 million. Unique’s total investment now stands at USD $53 million since its founding in 2021. This round is led by CommerzVentures and DN Capital, with continued support from existing seed investors including VI Partners and Pictet Group.
With advanced data security and regulatory compliance ensured, Unique’s platform supports customers to deploy agentic AI, through one of its 25 specialized ‘off the shelf’ use cases, or via customized agents. These powerful and efficient solutions for back and middle-office functions can be seamlessly integrated into existing systems, delivering improved performance and accuracy in processing data and requests.
Silverflow Platform Powers Solidgate’s $100 Billion Subscription Growth Plan: Silverflow, a cloud-native payment processing provider, has joined forces with international payment specialist Solidgate to transform the subscription payments sector.
This collaboration aims to tackle the major challenges faced by subscription businesses, from high customer acquisition costs to revenue losses due to declined recurring payments. The subscription economy is expected to reach over $500bn by 2025, reflecting a 65% growth rate. In such a market, ensuring high payment approval rates is critical to maximising revenue.
The partnership is set to help Solidgate optimise its payment management systems and boost performance, positioning the company to process $100bn in annual transactions within the next five years.
Quanta just raised $4.7M to further use of AI in accounting: Quanta, the next-generation accounting company powered by AI, announced the general availability of its platform featuring an intuitive self-serve onboarding process that accomplishes in minutes what typically takes weeks with other solutions. Quanta also raised $4.7 million in seed funding led by Accel with participation from basecase, Comma Capital, Designer Fund, and Operator Collective, as well as prominent angel investors including Elad Gil. This round propels Quanta’s vision of eliminating all non-creative accounting work in order to empower businesses with financial clarity in real-time.
Built by Ex-Stripe, Affirm, Notion, and Intercom leaders, Quanta is now generally available providing self-serve onboarding in minutes and financial performance in real-time
General Catalyst is reportedly weighing a potential IPO:General Catalyst is in the very early stages of considering an IPO, Axios has learned from multiple sources. GC would be the first U.S. venture capital firm to take the public plunge, nearly two decades after Blackstone broke the barrier for U.S. private equity.
To reiterate, this is preliminary. No bankers, timetable, etc. Instead, General Catalyst is in rapid expansion mode — trying to build the sort of diversified, fee-generating asset base that would entice Wall Street analysts to use firms like Blackstone as comps.
That’s meant buying a hospital, launching a wealth management business, forming a strategic tech advisory unit, getting into fund-of-funds investing, and raising $8 billion in new venture capital funds.
Lantern Finance Raises $1 Million+ Pre-Seed Round to Advance Crypto-Backed Lending:Lantern Finance, Inc. today announced the successful close of its oversubscribed $1 million+ pre-seed financing round. The funding will accelerate the development of Lantern’s next generation crypto-backed lending platform for US-based crypto investors. By allowing users to borrow against their digital assets and receive funds directly into their bank accounts, Lantern Finance fills a critical market gap—enabling them to access liquidity without selling their crypto, avoiding taxable events and preserving long-term upside. This approach delivers speed, simplicity, and regulatory compliance to an otherwise complex process.
“We believe our focus on the safety of client assets, combined with an exceptional customer experience, will set us apart,” said Jung Won Kim, Cofounder of Lantern Finance. “With BitGo as our custodian, we ensure that users’ assets remain highly secure with insurance while they take advantage of our lending solutions. This new round of funding will allow us to continue building a platform that makes crypto-backed loans both safe and accessible.”
Banking and Payments
66% of Banks Unprepared for Emerging Fraud Risks: Banks today face intense pressure to keep pace with rapidly evolving fraud trends, balancing an increasingly complex internal and external threat landscape with changing customer needs, market dynamics, and regulatory demands. Staying on top of the latest fraud trends is paramount.
As banks continue to integrate new technology offerings and services, fraudsters are constantly looking to exploit these advancements to devise new methods of conducting
fraud.
Temu Expands Global Payment Options With Nuvei Partnership: Global online marketplace Temu has partnered with Canadian FinTech company Nuvei to provide Temu customers worldwide with greater access to local payment methods.
With this integration, Temu customers can pay using local payment methods like Konbini, au Pay and Payeasy in Japan; MBWay, Blik and P24 in Poland; Bancontact in Belgium; iDeal in the Netherlands; and MBWay and Multibanco in Portugal, the companies said in a Friday (Feb. 28) press release. Later this year, the integration will expand to include payment options in Colombia, Chile and Canada, according to the release.
“Proving localized payment options is an important part of improving convenience for customers, and we are always looking for ways to optimize our payment processes to meet the needs of different markets,” a Temu spokesperson said in the release.
“By offering hyper-localized payment experiences on a global scale, we’re enabling international eCommerce giants like Temu to develop deeper relationships with their customers through payments, wherever they are and however they want to pay,” Nuvei Chair and CEO Philip Fayer said in the release.
Brazil’s Nubank expects to unveil new market this year: Nubank, one of the fastest-growing digital lenders in the world, plans to announce an expansion this year after sweeping through its home market Brazil as well as Mexico and Colombia, an executive at the firm said on Thursday, as fourth-quarter profits grew.
The 87% jump in adjusted net profit, boosted by higher revenues and a larger client base, was not enough to lift shares, however, which slid in after-hours trading.
BNY and OpenAI strike deal to develop AI platform: Bank of New York Mellon Corp, also known as BNY, on Wednesday announced a multiyear relationship with artificial intelligence heavyweight OpenAI. Under the deal, America’s oldest bank will gain access to cutting-edge OpenAI tools such as Deep Research and its most advanced reasoning models, supercharging the bank’s internal AI platform, Eliza. In return, OpenAI said it hopes to gain insight into how well its models work for complex tasks in the real world.
Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.
“We feel AI has transformational power and will be part of every product and service,” said Sarthak Pattanaik, head of BNY’s AI hub.
Banks are emerging as early leaders in AI adoption and as top-filers in AI patents, as well as top tech-talent recruiters plucking researchers from academic institutions.
Wealthtech
Flanks raises €14m to automate wealth management: Flanks, a Barcelona-based FinTech specialising in wealth management automation, has secured €14m in an equity funding round aimed at accelerating its expansion across Europe.
The investment round was led by Motive Ventures, with participation from Battery Ventures and existing investors Earlybird, JME Ventures, and 4Founders Capital, according to a report from EU-Startups.
Founded in 2019, Flanks provides a data-driven wealth management platform designed to simplify wealth management. Its platform automatically gathers high-quality data and consolidates its into brand-customised 360-degree wealth reports.
Insurance Technology (Insurtech)
Fusion Specialty Partners with Insly to Enhance M&A Insurance Operations: Fusion Specialty, a global underwriting agency specializing in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) insurance, has selected Insly to provide end-to-end insurance software across its global operations.
The implementation of Insly’s platform is designed to enable Fusion Specialty to manage increasing business volumes, streamline the underwriting process, and automate and standardize processes throughout the insurance lifecycle.
Fusion Specialty, founded in 2018, focuses on M&A insurance products, including warranty and indemnity (W&I), tax liability, and contingent risks. With a significant presence in the APAC region and expanding operations in the US, UK, and Europe, the company serves a diverse client base, from small SMEs to large corporations.
Loro and Faura Partner to Enhance Digital Distribution and Risk Selection for Property Insurers: The collaboration integrates Faura’s property risk assessment technology with Loro’s digital insurance distribution platform.
Faura’s technology use survivability-focused resilience models to assess property risk, enabling insurers to improve underwriting and profitability for high-risk properties. By combining on-the-ground risk analysis with proprietary technology, Faura identifies properties with enhanced resilience to natural disasters.
Loro’s platform enables the digital distribution of specialty insurance products across various distribution channels. The platform facilitates rapid product launches, enhances underwriting through Loro Boost, and provides comprehensive portfolio management tools. It also enables distribution through complex, multi-layered channels.
Regulatory Technology (Regtech)
ConnectPay Launches the First Simplified Embedded Finance Version: ConnectPay, one of the biggest EMIs in Lithuania, launched a simplified embedded finance version with built-in Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) module. It’s designed to simplify compliance with PSD2 regulations for B2C businesses in Europe and the UK, allowing companies to easily integrate mandatory authentication requirements, reducing operational complexity and preventing revenue loss from failed compliance.
Crypto exchange OKX hit with $505m penalty over AML violations: Aux Cayes Fintech Co., a crypto platform doing business as OKX, pled guilty today to one count of operating an unlicensed money transmitting business.
OKX is one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange platforms, with billions of dollars’ worth of cryptocurrency transactions occurring daily on its platform.
The penalty comes amid a new era in crypto enforcement as the Trump administration looks to provide regulatory clarity in an industry that has been ripe with fraud, mostly notably the collapse of crypto exchange FTX. It also signals a widening crack down from the SDNY against Seychelles-based crypto firms, with KuCoin paying $297 million in penalties last month over similar violations.
Revolut hits stumbling block in Ukraine as National Bank calls for license: The National Bank of Ukraine has told Revolut that it must obtain the necessary licenses to conduct banking operations in the country, following a recent expansion of the firm’s activity.
Revolut announced in early February that it was expanding its European services to Ukraine, including instant peer-to-peer payments, foreign exchange services and virtual and physical cards.
The London-based fintech carried out the expansion via its Revolut Bank UAB division, which is based in Lithuania and provides financial services under a European Union (EU) licence.
Blockchain and Cryptocurrency
Flexa Launches Tap to Pay for Crypto Transactions: Flexa, the leading provider of pure-digital payments, is today introducing Tap to Pay support for cryptocurrency transactions, becoming the first digital currency acceptance platform to enable direct blockchain payments via NFC-enabled hardware wallets. This marks a major step in digital asset usability, allowing in-person transactions without the need for a mobile phone or internet connection.
Launching with support for hardware wallets like Burner, this system enables users to sign and transmit cryptocurrency transactions directly at the point-of-sale. These wallets function like contactless payment cards, but securely process blockchain transactions instead of traditional credit and debit payments.
“Flexa is resolutely dedicated to making paying with digital currency easier, safer, and faster than using a credit or debit card,” said Trevor Filter, cofounder of Flexa. “By enabling the first NFC-based crypto payments directly from hardware wallets, we’re providing a better, more instant way to spend digital assets on the go.”
Vanar Chain and Worldpay Partner to Transform Web3 Payments: Vanar Chain, the pioneering Layer 1 blockchain, is proud to announce a strategic partnership with Worldpay, a global leader in payments technology, to drive innovation in Web3 payment solutions. With Worldpay processing over $2.3 trillion annually across 146 countries, this collaboration represents a continuation of Worldpay’s efforts to integrate blockchain technology with mainstream financial systems.
This partnership will include exploring cutting-edge Web3 financial products designed to enhance the speed, security, and transparency of transactions. The integration of Vanar’s high-performance blockchain with Worldpay’s extensive payment infrastructure will pave the way for new joint services that make blockchain more accessible to businesses and consumers worldwide, with exciting opportunities for new web3 payment gateways and stablecoin solutions.
PayPal Unveils PYUSD Stablecoin to Revolutionize Cross-Border Payments: PayPal, a leading global financial technology company, has announced its plans to introduce PYUSD, a stablecoin, to its extensive network of over 20 million merchants. This strategic move aims to leverage PayPal’s competitive advantage in the stablecoin market, challenging the dominance of existing players like Tether (USDT).
Currently, merchants face numerous fees and delays when buying from suppliers online, primarily due to currency conversion. PayPal’s stablecoin offers a solution by providing a single token that merchants can use without the need for constant currency exchange, streamlining the business process and reducing costs.
PayPal is committed to expanding the functionality of PYUSD to include cross-blockchain capabilities.
SEC says meme coins not subject to securities regulations: Cryptocurrency tokens known as meme coins — such as the one promoted by President Donald Trump last month — are not subject to federal securities regulations, the Securities and Exchange Commission said Thursday.
Meme coins associated with Donald and Melania Trump soared shortly before Trump’s inauguration — likely netting companies affiliated with the coins millions in fees — before plummeting in recent weeks.
According to the SEC, the coins are more akin to “collectibles” and don’t fall under the category of securities under federal law, likely shielding companies like the one behind $TRUMP from potential litigation.
Artificial intelligence
OpenAI’s GPT-4.5 is better at persuasion than other AIs: OpenAI’s next major AI model, GPT-4.5, is highly persuasive, according to the results of OpenAI’s internal benchmark evaluations. It’s particularly good at convincing another AI to give it cash.
In one test that had GPT-4.5 attempt to manipulate another model — OpenAI’s GPT-4o — into “donating” virtual money, the model performed far better than OpenAI’s other available models, including “reasoning” models like o1 and o3-mini. GPT-4.5 was also better than all of OpenAI’s models at deceiving GPT-4o into telling it a secret codeword, besting o3-mini by 10 percentage points.
Stripe hits $91.5bn valuation as AI investment pays off: Stripe on Thursday announced a tender offer for employees and shareholders that valued the company at $91.5bn, nearly 41% higher than its valuation a year ago, potentially delaying the fintech firm’s ambitions of going public.
The deal signals the strong recovery of the global venture capital sector, particularly in AI, as central banks have started to cut interest rates amid subdued inflation and strong economic data.
Figure will start ‘alpha testing’ its humanoid robot in homes later this year: Figure AI announced today it will begin alpha testing its Figure 02 humanoid robot in home environments by the end of 2025, marking a significant milestone in bringing general-purpose robots into residential settings.
Why it matters: The move represents a major step toward integrating humanoid robots into everyday life, as Figure transitions from controlled demonstrations to real-world home testing with its 5’6″ bipedal assistant.
What is Mistral AI? Everything to know about the OpenAI competitor: Mistral AI is a France-based artificial intelligence (AI) startup known primarily for its open source large language models (LLMs). Since its founding in 2023, it has become one of the world’s leading generative AI developers. But compared to its $6 billion valuation, its global market share is still relatively low.
However, the recent launch of its chat assistant on mobile app stores was met with some hype, particularly in its home country. “Go and download Le Chat, which is made by Mistral, rather than ChatGPT by OpenAI — or something else,” French president Emmanuel Macron said in a TV interview ahead of the AI Action Summit in Paris.
While this wave of attention may be encouraging, Mistral AI still faces challenges in competing with the likes of OpenAI — and in doing so while keeping up with its self-definition as “the world’s greenest and leading independent AI lab.”
Meta is reportedly planning a standalone AI chatbot app: Meta AI will soon become one of the social media company’s standalone apps, joining Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
The company intends to debut a Meta AI standalone app during the second quarter, according to people familiar with the matter. It marks a major step in Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s plans to make his company the leader in artificial intelligence by the end of the year, ahead of competitors such as OpenAI and Alphabet, said the people, who asked not to be named because the project is confidential.
Upcoming Events
- Staying Audit Ready: Simplifying Compliance Through Centralized Data Management
In today’s regulatory environment, maintaining audit readiness and compliance is a complex challenge for organizations dealing with fragmented legacy recording systems and evolving regulatory standards. In this webinar, we explore how centralized data management can transform compliance operations, enabling faster audit responses, robust data integrity, and reduced costs. Learn how adopting a unified approach to interaction data can minimize risks, streamline workflows, and prepare your organization for any compliance audit.
Date: March 4th
Location: Online (Zoom)
More Details Here
🎙️ Tech Behind Fintech Podcast Highlights
Coming Up This Week
Join us on Friday, March 7th, 2025, at 12 PM EST, for a special re-run of Navigating AI Adoption in Banking: Strategies for Success on Tech Behind FinTech, featuring Hossein Rahnama, Founder & CEO of Flybits.
🔍 AI in Banking: The Next Frontier Artificial intelligence is reshaping financial services, but how can banks effectively integrate AI while maintaining security, compliance, and customer trust? In this episode, Hossein dives deep into the strategies for AI adoption, the challenges financial institutions face, and the opportunities that AI presents for innovation and growth.
💡 Overcoming Barriers to AI Integration From personalized banking experiences to streamlined operations, AI holds the key to modernizing financial services. But implementation is not without its hurdles. Hossein will share actionable insights on how banks can mitigate risks, maximize AI’s potential, and future-proof their institutions for the digital age.
🔍 What You’ll Learn:
✅ The Power of AI in Banking – How artificial intelligence is transforming customer engagement and operational efficiency.
✅ Key Challenges & Solutions – What obstacles banks face when adopting AI and how to overcome them.
✅ The Future of AI in Finance – Where the industry is headed and how banks can stay ahead of the curve.
Live Show Links
Website: https://techbehindfintech.com/featured/navigating-ai-adoption-in-banking-strategies-for-success
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkzjghA6N88
📌 In case you missed it – Latest Episode Highlights
Secrets of a Serial Acquirer – What Makes a Company Worth Buying?
In case you missed it, our latest episode of Tech Behind FinTech featured an insightful conversation with Denis Brosnan, the Portfolio CEO at CORA GROUP, where he shared valuable lessons from his decades of experience in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) across financial services, insurance, and real estate.
Here’s what you’ll learn in this must-watch episode:
🔍 M&A in FinTech and Beyond
Understand how mergers and acquisitions are transforming the financial services industry. Denis delves into what makes a company a prime acquisition target—what matters most, from revenue growth to leadership, and everything in between.
💰 The CORA Approach to Acquisitions
Discover how CORA, a part of Constellation Software, takes a unique long-term approach to acquisitions, unlike traditional private equity and venture capital models. Denis explains why holding companies in a portfolio forever can unlock sustained growth and value.
📈 How to Position Your Company for Success
What makes a company stand out to acquirers? Denis offers insider tips on positioning your business for acquisition success, from financial metrics to operational excellence and leadership strategies.
Key Takeaways:
✅ How M&A is Shaping the Future of FinTech – The driving forces behind industry consolidation and innovation.
✅ What Acquirers Really Look For – Key factors that can make your company a standout in a competitive acquisition landscape.
✅ Post-Acquisition Growth Playbook – Insights on how to drive transformation while maintaining stability after a buyout.
✅ Lessons from a Serial Acquirer – Denis’ biggest lessons learned and how they can help you future-proof your company.
📩 Stay informed on the latest fintech security trends! Watch the full episode for expert insights using the links below.
🔗 Watch now: https://techbehindfintech.com/featured/secrets-of-a-serial-acquirer-what-makes-a-company-worth-buying
Or stream it on your favorite podcast platform! 🚀
📩 Stay Connected
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