Executive Summary
From regulatory crackdowns and funding wins to AI-powered breakthroughs and rising cybersecurity threats, this week’s fintech news paints a picture of rapid innovation amid growing oversight. OpenAI and Google push AI forward, while Worldpay changes hands and Stitch leads a $55M funding round. In crypto and insuretech, legacy and Web3 players alike are joining forces to redefine financial ecosystems.
📩 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
GPS Spoofing Attacks Spike in Middle East, Southeast Asia: Last week, the Indian military revealed that flights bringing humanitarian aid to Myanamar in the wake of a strong March 28 earthquake had encountered GPS spoofing and had to use backup systems to navigate. A year ago, the number of flights affected by GPS spoofing peaked at more than 1,500 per day in the Middle East alone and to more than 2,000 worldwide. Since then, GPS spoofing attacks have declined significantly, only to pick up at the end of last year and into 2025.
Spoofing attacks on the global positioning system (GPS) continue to widely impact air and sea transportation in 2025, following a significant surge during the summer of 2024, when airline flights suffered frequent jamming in conflict zones, especially in Eastern Europe and Russia, the Middle East, and most recently Myanmar and Southeast Asia.
Hertz Data Breach Exposes Customer Information in Cleo Zero-Day Attack: Thousands of Social Security and driver’s license numbers were pilfered from car rental giant Hertz when hackers exploited a vulnerability in a popular file sharing tool last fall.
Hertz, which owns its eponymous car rental company as well as top brands like Dollar and Thrifty, began reporting a data breach to state regulators in California, Iowa, Maine, Texas, Vermont last week.
The company did not report the total number of people nationwide to regulators in Maine, which typically collects that information. A spokesperson to Hertz declined to say how many people were affected overall — only telling Recorded Future News that “it would be inaccurate to say millions of customers are affected.”
Fortinet Zero-Day Bug May Lead to Arbitrary Code Execution: A threat actor posted about the zero-day exploit on the same day that Fortinet published a warning about known vulnerabilities under active exploitation.
An unnamed threat actor claims that a zero-day vulnerability found within Fortinet’s FortiGate firewalls can be exploited remotely, allowing the attacker to execute arbitrary code without authentication.
The threat actor took to a Dark Web forum to post about the zero-day, claiming that the exploit would provide an attacker with full control over the affected device, allowing them to extract FortiOS configuration files and other sensitive information such as credentials, two-factor authentication status, and more.
Latest Funding News
Theseus Secures $4.3M Amidst Defense Tech Innovations: Theseus, a San Francisco-based startup focusing on military drone technology, has raised $4.3 million in seed funding following a viral hackathon tweet. Founded by Ian Laffey, Sacha Lévy, and Carl Schoeller, Theseus joined Y Combinator’s Spring 2024 cohort. The company develops hardware and software enabling military drones to navigate without GPS, a crucial innovation amidst rampant GPS jamming. While the company has not yet secured U.S. military contracts or battlefield deployments, it has entered early testing agreements with U.S. Special Forces.
Bluesky feed builder Graze raises $1M: Graze, a startup that lets people build and monetize custom feeds for Bluesky’s social network, has attracted new capital.
Pre-seed investors, led by Betaworks and Salesforce Ventures, have invested $1 million in the company’s small team, which is working to give users control over their algorithms and social media experiences.
The feed’s topic gives them an idea about the demographic they’d reach, and the feed operators get to choose which ads appear in their feeds, how often, and at what cost to advertisers.
Latin American open finance platform Belvo raises $15m: Belvo, the leading Open Finance platform in Latin America, has raised $15 million in funding. The round had participation from Quona Capital, a VC fund focused on emerging markets fintech, as a new investor and existing investors Kaszek, Kibo Ventures, Future Positive, Citi Ventures, and Y Combinator. The new funds will accelerate the expansion of Belvo’s Open Finance product suite across data and payments and advance its AI capabilities to foster the development of more inclusive and personalized financial tools for millions of individuals and businesses across Latin America.
South Africa’s Stitch secures $55m Series B to scale payment solutions: South African payment service provider Stitch has raised $55 million in a Series B funding round led by QED Investors.
Glynn Capital, Flourish Ventures and Norrsken22 joined in the round, alongside participation from existing funders Ribbit Capital, PayPal Ventures, The Raba Partnership and Firstminute Capital.
Stitch emerged from stealth in February 2021 and has raised $107 million in total funding to date.
The firm’s full suite of payment methods serves some of the leading enterprise businesses in South Africa, including Takealot, Mr. D, MTN, Vodacom, Standard Bank’s Shyft, TFG’s Bash, Hollywoodbets, Luno, The Courier Guy and more.
Banking and Payments
Global Payments agrees $24.25 billion Worldpay deal as industry heavyweights shift focus: Global Payments has agreed to buy rival Worldpay from FIS and private equity firm GTCR for $24.25 billion in a three-way deal, sharpening its focus on merchant services in its race for big-business clients in a crowded payments market.
As part of the deal announced on Thursday, Global Payments will sell its issuer solutions unit, which offers card processing and account services, to FIS for $13.5 billion.
The agreements will be transformative for two of the world’s largest processors of digital payments, with Global becoming a pureplay payments processor to businesses and FIS solidifying its offering around services to financial institutions.
PingPong Payments Partners With Trulioo for Global Business Verification: Global cross-border payment platform PingPong has partnered with Trulioo, a provider of identity verification services.
As per the official press release, PingPong will leverage Trulioo’s Business Verification and Watchlist Screening solutions to minimize manual onboarding. By automating verification processes across regions, the partnership will enable PingPong to grow its presence around the world while adhering to know your business (KYB) and anti-money laundering (AML) compliance standards.
Trulioo’s Business Verification solution can reportedly verify over 700 million business entities via an integrated global data network that is refreshed every 15 minutes. The company’s real-time verification capabilities are designed to meet KYB and AML compliance requirements across different markets and to offer a comprehensive overview of businesses and their ultimate beneficial owners.
MoneyGram and Plaid Partnership Drives Seamless Global Payments: Global payments network MoneyGram has chosen data network Plaid as its Pay by Bank provider in the US.
Using Plaid’s technology, MoneyGram users in the US will be able to authenticate their bank accounts to enable funding for both domestic and cross-border payments. The solution is expected to be rolled out to additional markets later this year.
The Pay by Bank offering connects to Plaid’s network, which comprises thousands of banks and credit unions.
MoneyGram customers will also benefit from Plaid’s instant account verification, combined with MoneyGram’s compliance and anti-fraud systems.
Klarna scales in-store offering with Clover: Klarna has moved to boost its in-store presence in the US, bringing its BNPL payment options to 100,000 merchant locations though a deal with Fiserv’s Clover point-of-sale business.
In-store shoppers at select Clover-powered merchants will see a Klarna logo on the pre-screen of payment devices, with a larger rollout to new and existing Clover merchants slated for early 2026.
“We’re bringing Klarna to Main Street,” says David Sykes, chief commercial officer, Klarna. “Klarna started by changing how people pay online — now we’re changing how they pay everywhere. With Clover, we’re meeting shoppers where they are and giving small businesses a powerful new way to grow.”
Wise launches ‘Spend with Others’ feature: Wise has announced the launch of its new feature, Spend with Others, developed to enable customers to share transactions with family and friends.
Following this announcement, the new feature will simplify shared spending for families, friends, and acquaintances, allowing customers to set up a group in order to make transactions together straight from the Wise application.
In addition, the feature will split everything from everyday costs to trips abroad, being free of charge to Wise Account clients in the UK. Wise will continue to focus on meeting the needs, preferences, and demands of customers and users in an ever-evolving market, while prioritising the process of remaining compliant with the regulatory requirements and laws of the industry as well.
Wealthtech
US Bank launches spend management platform for business owners: U.S. Bank has introduced an all-in-one checking account combined with payments acceptance capabilities for small businesses.
U.S. Bank Business Essentials, announced Monday (April 14), lets businesses accept card payments with free same-day access to their funds and a free mobile card reader.
The bank said it introduced Business Essentials in response to the needs and demands of small business clients, who are seeking service providers who can bundle their digital banking, payments, and operations tools.
“With Business Essentials, we are making it easier for small business owners to manage their business,” Shruti Patel, chief product officer for the business banking segment at U.S. Bank, said in a news release provided to PYMNTS.
Artificial intelligence
OpenAI debuts Codex CLI, an open source coding tool for terminals: OpenAI has launched a new AI coding agent named Codex CLI, designed to autonomously carry out programming tasks on a user’s terminal.
Codex CLI is said to be an open-source coding agent capable of reading, modifying, and running code locally on a user’s terminal. The Microsoft-backed AI startup announced the new AI-driven programming tool alongside its latest, most advanced AI reasoning models, o3 and o4-mini, on Wednesday, April 16.
Hence launches an AI ‘advisor’ to help companies manage risk: London-based startup Hence AI has launched a new AI-powered software, Hence Global, to assist companies in managing geopolitical and business risks. As global trade tensions rise, with President Donald Trump’s tariffs increasing uncertainty, Hence Global offers an affordable solution for startups and NGOs that cannot afford costly consultancy services. The product, built on Palantir’s Foundry and AI platform, provides daily updates and analysis tailored to a company’s needs, helping organizations monitor risks and take informed actions. Hence AI, co-founded by Sean West, aims to democratize access to critical information, supporting companies in sectors like tech, energy, and AI. With existing clients like TravelPerk and Diversifi Capital, Hence Global is already attracting new clientele due to the ongoing trade dynamics. The startup has raised around $5.2 million and is seeking further investment to expand its offerings.
Google used AI to block half a billion scam ads in 2024: Google has released its 2024 Ads Safety Report, showing how advanced artificial intelligence is transforming the fight against bad ads, scams, and misinformation online. As scams grow more sophisticated—often impersonating public figures or deploying AI-generated content—new tools are helping stop harmful ads before they ever reach people.
In 2024 alone, Google blocked or removed 5.1 billion ads, restricted 9.1 billion more, and suspended over 39 million advertiser accounts—most before a single ad was served. This progress reflects how AI models, powered by Gemini, are enabling faster and smarter detection of fraud signals such as stolen payment methods, fake business identities, or coordinated scam networks.
Blockchain and Cryptocurrency
Ex-Revolut staffers team with Mastercard to take stablecoins mainstream: Blockchain bank account startup Bleap has joined with Mastercard to launch a non-custodial debit card, making it possible for people to connect stablecoin payments with traditional financial payment rails.
Launched by former Revolut dup Joao Alves and Guilherme Gomes, Bleap has been operating in beta mode since December, offering simplified access to DeFi yields, multi-currency accounts, trading and exchange features, zero fees for buying or selling stablecoins and a debit card offering 2% cashback.
The firm claims to have processed $5 million in transactions in its first four months.
The partnership with Mastercard enables cardholders to spend stablecoins through crypto to fiat currency conversion at more than 150 million merchants worldwide.
Bolt launches SuperApp combining one-click crypto and everyday payments: Bolt has released a new SuperApp combining one-click crypto and everyday payments to compete with the likes of Coinbase, Zelle and PayPal.
The product is the first out of the trap since the founder of Bolt, Ryan Beslow, re-assumed control of the company he founded in 2014.
Standard Chartered and crypto exchange OKX launch collateral mirroring programme: Standard Chartered is working with crypto exchange OKX on a collateral mirroring programme, enabling institutional clients to utilise cryptocurrencies and tokenised money market funds as off-exchange collateral for trading.
The partners say that the programme boosts security and capital efficiency for institutional clients by using a so-called Globally Systemically Important Bank (G-SIB) as the custodian for their collateral.
The collateral mirroring capability has been launched as a pilot within the Dubai Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority’s regulatory framework, promising clients enhanced protection against counterparty risk, a significant concern in the current digital asset markets.
Insurance Technology (Insurtech)
Earnix unveils Filing Accelerator to streamline insurance rate filings: Earnix, a global technology company offering intelligent decisioning SaaS solutions for regulated sectors such as insurance and banking, has unveiled a new tool aimed at transforming the regulatory rate filing process for insurers.
The newly introduced Filing Accelerator is designed to streamline the creation of filing documentation required for submitting proposed rate changes to insurance departments in North America.
It also supports internal audits and compliance reviews, helping insurers reduce time, complexity and the potential for costly filing errors.
Qover Launches Omnichannel Insurance Platform for BMW and MINI in Ireland: Qover, a leading insurtech company, has partnered with BMW and MINI to launch a new embedded motor insurance solution tailored for the Irish market.
The initiative introduces a seamless omnichannel approach that integrates insurance into every step of the vehicle purchase journey, whether online or at a retail location. Customers in Ireland can now easily request a quote, sign up, and manage their insurance policies digitally or with the support of customer care.
Ageas acquires esure from Bain Capital for £1.3bn to build UK’s third largest personal lines insurer: Ageas has announced the acquisition of esure from Bain Capital in a $1.7bn deal that positions the firm as the third largest personal lines platform in the UK.
The deal, expected to close in the second half of 2025, will help Ageas UK broaden its target customer demographics and boost its revenue to £3.25bn by 2028, according to Reuters.
It also supports Ageas’s ambition to elevate its digital capabilities across motor and home insurance, enhancing competitiveness against established market leaders such as Aviva and Direct Line.
Regulatory Technology (Regtech)
Draft Legislation in Florida Explicitly Demands Encryption Backdoors: A draft bill in the state of Florida would require social media companies to provide law enforcement with encryption backdoors so cops could access users’ accounts. The bill advanced unanimously from committee this week and will now go to the state Senate for a vote. If passed, the Social Media Use by Minors bill, which is sponsored by state senator Blaise Ingoglia, would require “social media platforms to provide a mechanism to decrypt end-to-end encryption when law enforcement obtains a subpoena.”
New York sues DailyPay and MoneyLion over ‘illegal loans’: The New York attorney general has sued DailyPay and MoneyLion.
The lawsuits allege that the companies’ services are payday loans and that the fees the companies charge on these short-term loans can amount to annual interest rates of as much as 750%, according to a Monday press release.
They also allege that the lenders use abusive tactics to push borrowers to take out new loans to cover gaps created by earlier ones, per the release.
“While many New Yorkers are worried about making ends meet, DailyPay and MoneyLion are making tremendous profits by extracting workers’ hard-earned wages,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in the release. “I’m suing DailyPay and MoneyLion because New Yorkers deserve to keep the money they earn, not have it taken by predatory lenders.”
BNY strengthens compliance with Behavox Quantum: BNY has boosted its compliance monitoring by rolling out Behavox’s AI-powered electronic and voice communication surveillance system.
The SaaS implementation of Behavox Quantum technology covers BNY’s various communication channels across 16+ languages.
Tom Wileman, head, global compliance assurance, BNY, says: “By leveraging Behavox’s technologies, we’re helping to elevate our compliance monitoring and strengthen our holistic approach to risk management.”
Upcoming Events
- NEW YORK FINTECH WEEK 2025
New York Fintech Week was designed to be an inclusive collaboration of the entire startup ecosystem. It’s a series of events highlighting different fintech initiatives and range from conferences and invitation-only roundtables to events free to the community.
Date: April 21st – 25th
More Details Here
🎙️ Tech Behind Fintech Podcast Highlights
Coming Up This Week
Join us for a special re-run episode of the Tech Behind Fintech this Friday, April 25 at 12pm EST.
In this riveting episode of “Tech Behind FinTech,” we unravel the intricate web of payment rails that form the backbone of the financial technology world. Join us as we explore the sophisticated systems that move money across the globe, powering everything from the smallest peer-to-peer transactions to the largest international money transfers. Our special guest, Iphie Jide-Ebeogu, a distinguished Managing Partner at The PaymentLogue, brings a wealth of knowledge and insider insights into the inner workings of these essential networks. Together, we’ll explore the various types of payment rails, such as traditional bank wires, ACH networks, card networks, and the emerging technologies that are set to revolutionize the industry.
Iphie will share her expert perspective on how these systems interconnect, the challenges they face in terms of scalability, security, and regulation, and the innovative solutions being developed to overcome these obstacles. Whether you’re a FinTech enthusiast, an industry professional, or simply curious about how your money moves in the digital age, this episode will equip you with a deeper understanding of the critical infrastructure that keeps the financial world spinning. Don’t miss this deep dive into the fascinating tech behind FinTech’s payment rails.
Show Links
Website: https://techbehindfintech.com/featured/the-backbone-of-fintech-a-deep-dive-into-payment-rails-2
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFpvtSF0zeI
📌 In case you missed it – Latest Episode Highlights
Confessions of a Fintech Marketer – The Good, The Bad, and the AI
In this solo episode, host Nnamdi dives into the recent news of Affirm and Shopify expanding their BNPL (Buy Now Pay Later) partnership beyond the U.S., starting with Canada. Using an article from the Tech Behind Fintech newsletter, he explores what this move means for the future of digital payments, global e-commerce, and consumer financing.
The conversation transitions from news breakdown to a deep dive on the BNPL industry, specifically how Affirm operates, makes money, and distinguishes itself in a crowded market. Nnamdi explains how BNPL compares to traditional credit, unpacks Affirm’s five revenue streams, and outlines how its model is designed to offer flexible, transparent, and interest-free installment payments. He also touches on regulatory concerns, particularly around credit reporting, consumer protection, and emerging frameworks in the U.S., UK, EU, and Australia.
💡 Key Takeaways & Lessons Learned
1. Affirm + Shopify = Global Expansion Momentum
The partnership expansion into Canada—and eventually Europe and Australia—signals Shopify’s intent to compete globally by offering seamless, flexible payments. It also gives Affirm access to millions of merchants without custom integrations, allowing rapid scale.
2. BNPL Is Not a Credit Card, But It’s Still Credit
While BNPL is marketed as more flexible than credit cards (with no hidden or late fees), it still impacts credit scores if payments are missed—especially for longer installment loans reported to credit bureaus like Experian.
3. Affirm’s Revenue Model is Multi-Faceted
Affirm earns money through:
- Merchant fees
- Simple-interest loans
- Interchange from its Affirm Card
- Loan sales
- Servicing fees from sold loans
This makes it more than a “checkout button”—it’s evolving into a comprehensive financial service for both consumers and businesses.
4. Regulation Is Catching Up Fast
BNPL is gaining regulatory scrutiny globally. The U.S. CFPB has flagged overextension risks and data practices, while the UK and EU are drafting formal oversight. Australia already treats BNPL as a “credit-light” product, signaling more rules on the horizon.
5. BNPL Echoes Layaway, But With a Twist
Nnamdi likens BNPL to modern layaway—except now, consumers get the product first and pay later. This inversion of the traditional model is central to its appeal, but it also introduces risk, especially during economic downturns.
6. Newsletters as Insight Tools
The episode also showcases how newsletters like Tech Behind Fintech can be used not just to stay updated, but also to inform internal strategy, spark team discussions, and anticipate industry shifts—valuable for both fintech pros and casual enthusiasts.
🔗 Watch the full episode now: https://techbehindfintech.com/featured/the-bnpl-takeover
Or stream it on your favorite podcast platform! 🚀
📩 Stay Connected
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