Executive Summary
AI is powering everything from insurance pricing to anti-scam tools, while Square goes full bitcoin and the SEC finally walks away from Binance. This week, Grammarly grabs $1B in nondilutive funding, and Worldpay teams up with BVNK for stablecoin payouts. In wealthtech, Lloyds and Lumio tackle relationship finance, while in insuretech, real-time AI is reshaping underwriting in real time. But it’s not all growth—ConnectWise and Deloitte are reeling from high-profile breaches, underscoring the cyber risks that come with scale.
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Trends in Fintech Verticals
Top Data Breaches
ConnectWise Hit by Cyberattack; Nation-State Actor Suspected in Targeted Breach: ConnectWise, the developer of remote access and support software ScreenConnect, has disclosed that it was the victim of a cyber attack that it said was likely perpetrated by a nation-state threat actor.
“ConnectWise recently learned of suspicious activity within our environment that we believe was tied to a sophisticated nation-state actor, which affected a very small number of ScreenConnect customers,” the company said in a brief advisory on May 28, 2025.
The company said it has engaged the services of Google Mandiant to conduct a forensic probe into the incident and that it has notified all affected customers. The incident was first reported by CRN. However, it did not reveal the exact number of customers who were impacted by the hack, when it happened, or the identity of the threat actor behind it.
Deloitte Allegedly Suffers Major Data Breach: Global consulting giant Deloitte has allegedly suffered a significant data breach, with internal Github credentials and source code reportedly leaked on an online forum. The multinational professional services network, headquartered in London, is one of the “Big Four” accounting firms, providing a wide array of services including audit, consulting, tax, and advisory services to many of the world’s largest corporations. The scale and importance of its clientele make any potential compromise of its data a serious concern.
The alleged breach appears to have originated from a post on a dark web forum, where an individual claims to have compromised Deloitte’s systems. The post included snippets of what appears to be configuration files and repository information. The full extent and validity of the breach are yet to be officially confirmed by Deloitte.
Latest Funding News
Grammarly secures $1B in nondilutive funding from General Catalyst: This is the largest investment Grammarly has received to date. The funding came from General Catalyst’s Customer Value Fund, which is known for investing in companies whose revenue streams are predictive. This is also not the first time General Catalyst has invested in Grammarly; its initial investment was in 2017, when it led a $90 million investment round. The financing comes as generative AI continues to interest investors and grow in hype. For example, earlier this week, Salesforce acquired data management vendor Informatica for $8 billion. The Salesforce deal will establish a unified architecture for agentic AI, which is a form of GenAI.
Uplinq Secures $10 Million Series A to Revolutionize AI-Powered Bookkeeping and Tax Solutions for SMBs: Uplinq, a leading provider of AI-driven bookkeeping and tax solutions for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), today announced the closing of a $10 million Series A funding round. The round was led by Next Coast Ventures, with participation from AZ-VC, Live Oak Ventures, and existing investors.
This infusion of capital will accelerate Uplinq’s growth, enhance its AI capabilities, scale customer acquisition efforts, and strengthen infrastructure to deliver seamless, automated financial management.
Palla raises $14.5m for cross-border payments: Palla, an international payments platform that enables instant cross-border payments for global financial institutions and fintech firms, announced today that it has raised $14.5 million in a Series A funding round. The round was led by Revolution Ventures, with participation from Y Combinator, Ardent, Cowboy Ventures, Dash Fund, Uncommon Capital, Meta Fund, Evolution VC, First Check Ventures, Vitalize, and DeepWork Capital.
Palla’s platform enables partners to embed real-time international payments into their existing digital channels via a suite of APIs, white-label apps, and embeddable components. Unlike traditional money transfer providers that require customers to use separate, siloed apps, Palla allows financial institutions to offer international payments directly within their native applications—or via Palla’s hosted infrastructure—tailored to each partner’s cross-border use case and end customer needs.
Empathy Secures $72 Million Series C Funding and Launches Empathy Alliance to Transform Grief Support: Empathy, the leading technology company transforming how the world plans for and manages life’s toughest moments, announced today a $72 million Series C fundraise led by Adams Street Partners with participation from General Catalyst, Index Ventures, Entrée Capital, Brewer Lane Ventures, SemperVirens, Latitude, and LionTree, bringing total capital raised to $162 million. Alongside this most recent round, the company has formalized the Empathy Alliance, a coalition of market leaders and luminaries passionate about reimagining cultural standards around access to support. With a commitment to fund innovation that moves the industry forward, members of the Empathy Alliance who participated in the company’s Series C include Aflac Ventures, Allianz Life Ventures, Citi Impact Fund, Munich Re, MetLife, New York Life, Securian, and TIAA Ventures.
Banking and Payments
TerraPay and Wave Mobile Money Partner to Enable Remittances to 2.5 Mn Active Digital Wallet Users: In a strategic move to enhance cross-border remittance services in West Africa, TerraPay, a global money movement company, has partnered with Wave Mobile Money, one of the country’s leading mobile money providers.
This partnership enables Malians to receive money from family and friends abroad directly into their Wave mobile wallets, creating a faster, more accessible, and cost-effective way to access international remittances.
Through this collaboration, TerraPay’s global payment network now facilitates remittance flows from multiple Money Transfer Operators (MTOs) across the US, Canada, and Europe to Mali, all through a single streamlined integration. This unique model ensures that all Wave users in Mali can instantly receive funds, further strengthen financial inclusion and offer a secure alternative to informal remittance channels.
Mastercard introduces Touch Card by Mastercard™ in Canada: In a significant move toward making finance more inclusive, Mastercard Inc has rolled out its innovative Touch Card in Canada. This tactile card is specially designed to give the sight loss community a more secure and independent way to make payments. This innovative card, now available through CIBC Adapta Mastercard, uses unique notches — rounded for debit, squared for credit and triangular for prepaid — allowing users to easily identify card types by touch alone, especially at retail counters or ATMs.
With eight in 10 Canadians supporting the idea of making financial products more accessible, MA’s initiative is a timely response to growing demand for inclusivity. The card’s tactile system allows users who are blind, deafblind, or have low vision to confidently manage daily financial transactions, which was a challenge with modern flat card designs.
Block rolls out bitcoin payments on Square: Block, Inc. announced it will launch bitcoin payments on Square, marking a significant milestone in making bitcoin more “accessible and usable.”
Bitcoin payments on Square will be showcased at Bitcoin 2025 in Las Vegas from May 27-29, where attendees can “experience this new feature firsthand at the BTC Inc. merchandise store.”
By leveraging the Lightning Network, the Square Point of Sale app enables merchants to “accept bitcoin payments directly through their Square hardware for near-instantaneous, low-cost transactions.”
ACI Worldwide Redefines Payments with ACI Connetic: ACI Worldwide (NASDAQ:ACIW), an original innovator in global payments technology, has announced the integration of the major UK, EU and global networks’ payment capabilities into ACI Connetic, ACI’s transformative, cloud-native payments hub. These include Swift cross-border payments, RTGS payments including Target2, SEPA Instant RT1 and TIPS payments, with the addition of more capabilities planned.
For the first time in the industry, ACI Connetic brings together account-to-account (A2A), card payments and AI-driven fraud prevention on a unified cloud-native platform – making it simpler, faster and more cost-effective for banks and financial institutions (FI) to modernize their payments infrastructures.
Wealthtech
Lloyds Team Up With Lumio to Help Couples Better Manage Their Finances: Lloyds Banking Group has teamed up with money app Lumio to take the stress out of shared financial management for couples.
Lumio’s app allows couples or other people who manage a household budget together, to manage their finances in a shared space, track and automatically split shared expenses and save together towards common financial goals.
It will be rolled out between May and August to selected Lloyds customers that jointly manage bills, who will be invited to trial the app on a first come first serve basis and enjoy free access to premium package Lumio Couples Pro, typically priced at £39.99 per year.
Artificial intelligence
AI firm Hugging Face unveils two open-source humanoid robots: AI dev platform Hugging Face continued its push into robotics on Thursday with the release of two new humanoid robots.
The company announced a pair of open-source robots, HopeJR and Reachy Mini. HopeJR is a full-size humanoid robot that has 66 actuated degrees of freedom, or 66 independent movements, including the ability to walk and move its arms. Reachy Mini is a desktop unit that can move its head, talk, listen, and be used to test AI apps.
Hugging Face doesn’t have an exact timeline for shipping these robots. The company’s co-founder and CEO, Clem Delangue, told TechCrunch over email that they expect to start shipping at least the first few units by the end of the year, and the waitlist is currently open.
bolttech Powers Generative AI-Driven Hyper-Personalized Customer Services on AWS: Amazon Web Services (AWS), an Amazon.com company, today announced that bolttech, a Singapore-headquartered international insurtech company, is implementing AWS’s generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) solutions across their customer- and internal-workflows, enhancing operational efficiency and customer experiences while reducing costs.
bolttech, which serves millions of customers across 37 markets on four continents, has built its Gen AI platform – bolttech GenAI Factory – using Amazon Bedrock, and powered by Amazon Connect and Amazon Lex, to enhance their existing omni-channel call center solution. It will also be used by bolttech’s teams to develop and deploy their own Gen AI applications.
Westpac is Using AI to Put Scammers Out of Business: Westpac has built new AI technology which will revolutionise its customer support capabilities, including improving the bank’s ability to detect if a customer is being scammed.
A first of its kind in Australia, the real-time call assistant technology is being integrated within the bank’s frontline customer service and operations platforms to aid bankers with customer interactions. The AI synthesises information from customer phone conversations in real-time to highlight key indicators enabling bankers to respond more effectively.
Currently being piloted in the bank’s specialist scam and fraud team, the technology is helping these operators stop more scams, more quickly for customers.
Westpac CEO Anthony Miller says the AI is improving support for customers in crucial moments.
Blockchain and Cryptocurrency
$TRUMP and other meme coins won’t be protected by SEC, Commissioner Hester Peirce says: SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce says the agency will stop regulating meme coins like $TRUMP. She warns investors not to expect protection from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) when buying these kinds of tokens.
The decision shows a clear change in Washington’s attitude toward crypto as leaders, including Trump family members, get more involved with digital assets and support a lighter regulatory approach.
The SEC warns investors to trade meme coins at their own risk
SEC drops Binance lawsuit, ending one of last remaining crypto enforcement actions: The SEC and Binance have filed a joint motion to end a nearly two-year legal battle in the agency’s latest backdown from its prior crypto enforcement actions.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission will drop its long-running lawsuit against crypto exchange Binance in the regulator’s latest backdown from policing the crypto industry. A joint motion filed on May 29 by the SEC, Binance and its co-founder Changpeng Zhao asked a Washington, D.C., federal court to allow the regulator’s complaint that it filed in June 2023 to be dismissed.
The motion mentioned the SEC’s Crypto Task Force “might impact and facilitate the potential resolution of this litigation” and that the regulator believed dropping the suit was appropriate “in the exercise of its discretion and as a policy matter.”
The motion also bids for the lawsuit to be dropped with prejudice, meaning it cannot be filed again.
Worldpay partners BVNK for stablecoin payouts: Worldpay has enlisted BVNK to bring nearly instant global payouts in stablecoins to its clients in the US and Europe.
The collaboration will enable Worldpay’s clients to pay out to customers, contractors, creators, sellers, and other third party beneficiaries in stablecoins across more than 180 markets nearly instantly, without having to hold or handle the digital assets themselves.
With a pilot set to go live in the second half of the year, clients will access the service through their existing integration with Worldpay’s payouts platform.
Insurance Technology (Insurtech)
ZestyAI’s Storm Risk Models Approved in Michigan Amid Rising Weather-Related Losses: The Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services has approved ZestyAI’s Severe Convective Storm suite, including the proprietary Z-HAIL™, Z-WIND™, and Z-STORM™ models.
The approval comes as Michigan contends with rising weather-related insurance losses.
According to NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), the state has experienced over $5 billion in insured storm damage since 2019, with hail and straight-line winds accounting for the majority of claims. In 2024, a series of intense summer storms alone caused more than $1.2 billion in insured losses.
Why real-time AI is redefining pricing and underwriting in insurance: The insurance sector is undergoing significant transformation, driven by the rapid evolution of technology and shifting market dynamics. According to Earnix, agentic AI lies at the heart of this change. Unlike conventional large language models that simply respond to user prompts, agentic AI is designed to take autonomous action, complete complex tasks, and drive outcomes – making it a key player in the future of InsurTech.
Agentic AI has several compelling use cases within the insurance industry. For instance, personalised pricing becomes more agile with AI that can instantly analyse behaviour, claims history, and risk data to generate tailored quotes.
Regulatory Technology (Regtech)
Ssumsub launches bank account verification to combat fraud across Europe: Sumsub, a global identity verification and KYC compliance provider, has announced the launch of its new Bank Account Verification solution, expanding its capabilities across Europe’s financial and digital ecosystems.
The new solution addresses the growing need for stronger fraud prevention and regulatory compliance tools as digital transactions become more widespread and sophisticated. With fraud tactics such as deepfakes increasing sharply, particularly in the UK and across Europe, the demand for robust, real-time identity and financial verification tools has become urgent for businesses operating online.
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🎙️ Tech Behind Fintech Podcast Highlights
Coming Up This Week
In this episode, we sit down with Liselle Pratt, a seasoned fintech leader and banking advisor, to explore how financial technology is breaking barriers for high-risk and underserved industries. From cannabis to adult content to emerging markets, these sectors have long been shut out of traditional banking. But thanks to innovative compliance solutions, alternative rails, and digital onboarding, fintech is helping them access the financial tools they need to grow.
🔥 Whether you’re in fintech, banking, or just curious about how financial systems evolve, this episode is a must-watch.
Website: https://techbehindfintech.com/featured/banking-the-unbankable-how-fintech-is-powering-high-risk-industries
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkulZetUaDo
📌 In case you missed it – Latest Episode Highlights
Show Title: Fixing the $150 Billion Insurance Blind Spot
Guest: Mike Gulla, CEO & Co-Founder of Adaptive Insurance—a startup rewriting the rules of climate risk coverage in the age of AI
🎧 Episode Summary:
This episode dives into an overlooked crisis in insurance: the massive financial losses from short-duration power outages—a $150 billion blind spot largely ignored by traditional policies. Host Nnamdi Iregbulem speaks with Mike Gulla, CEO of Adaptive Insurance, about how his team is tackling this problem with a parametric insurance product called Grid Protect. Unlike conventional coverage, which requires outages to last 24–72 hours and include physical damage, Adaptive’s solution offers instant payouts based on power grid data, covering even brief interruptions that disrupt business operations.
Gulla breaks down how Adaptive is using real-time data monitoring, risk modeling, and trigger-based coverage to protect small businesses—especially those without the capital reserves to survive unexpected downtime. From climate change to aging infrastructure, Gulla emphasizes the urgency of rethinking insurance for a more volatile energy future.
💡 Key Takeaways:
Short Outages, Big Losses: Most U.S. power outages last under 24 hours and aren’t covered by traditional insurance, leaving businesses financially exposed.
What Is Parametric Insurance? A policy that pays out automatically when a pre-defined event (like a 12-hour power outage) occurs—no paperwork or damage assessment required.
Who Benefits: Small businesses like restaurants, retailers, gas stations, and offices that suffer income loss even without physical damage.
Beyond Catastrophes: It’s not just hurricanes or wildfires. Everyday events like grid overloads and lightning storms are the real culprits behind frequent outages.
Real-Time Data Is Everything: Adaptive monitors power grid data and third-party sources to trigger claims and issue payouts within 24–48 hours.
Intentional Outages Are Excluded: Planned utility shutoffs (like California’s wildfire precautions) aren’t covered, but Adaptive can still notify businesses proactively to help them prepare.
Not About Selling Fear: Gulla emphasizes empowering businesses with financial resilience—not panic—through smarter, faster, tech-enabled coverage.
🔗 Watch the full episode now: https://techbehindfintech.com/featured/the-150-billion-insurance-blind-spot
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