Capacity planning and insights platform Cinareo announced a partnership with workforce management and engagement solutions company Aspect. The partnership will help contact centers reduce reliance on spreadsheets in favor of modern, scenario-based workforce management and capacity planning tools. Cinareo made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2025 in San Diego. The Ontario, Canada-based company was founded in 2022. Capacity planning and insights platform Cinareo has forged a partnership with workforce management and engagement solutions company Aspect. The two firms will join forces to help contact centers reduce spreadsheet risk, align budgets with service goals, and transition from planning to performance faster and smarter. The partnership will help contact centers move away from spreadsheets and siloed assumptions in order to forecast demand and build schedules, as well as model “what-if” scenarios, compare service-cost tradeoffs, and manage long-range staffing decisions. Cinareo and Aspect will empower companies to align day-to-day workforce operations with customer experience targets, budgets, hiring plans, and more by connecting scenario-based capacity planning to real-time scheduling and intraday execution. “Cinareo was built to eliminate the limitations and risks of spreadsheet-based planning by providing structured, scenario-based capacity planning across staffing, financials, and recruitment,” Cinareo CEO Karen Elliott said. “Together with Aspect, we’re delivering a unified workflow from planning to execution so organizations can plan with confidence, staff accurately, and adapt easily as demand changes.” Cinareo’s technology enables guided, scenario-based capacity plans across both weekly and monthly horizons—supporting planning up to 52 weeks and extending up to three years—that are aligned to budgets, hiring windows, and service targets. Aspect takes approved plans and enables organizations to build actionable schedules and manage intraday adjustments as circumstances demand. The combination of Cinareo’s technology and Aspect’s intelligent platform will allow companies to plan with precision, execute with confidence, and prove impact with plan-vs-actual variance tracking, thresholds, and more. “Contact center leaders need a defensible plan they can trust, and the ability to operationalize that plan as conditions change,” Aspect VP of Partner Ecosystem Anna DeGraftenreed said. “By partnering with Cinareo, we’re linking scenario-driven capacity planning and financial alignment with Aspect’s real-time scheduling and intraday management, so teams can make better decisions earlier and deliver more consistent outcomes.” Headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, Aspect offers an enterprise workforce management solution, powered by Aspect Intelligence, that unifies AI forecasting, dynamic scheduling, and real-time performance analytics to enable firms to anticipate demand, take timely action, and ensure service quality. With more than 400 contact centers using Aspect’s technology, Aspect counts American Airlines, Bank of America, and Dell among its global brand customers. Jeff Kupietzky is the company’s interim CEO, joining the firm in December 2025. Founded in 2022, Cinareo made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2025 in San Diego. At the conference, the Ontario-based company demonstrated how its technology streamlines contact center operations and mitigates risk with precise resource allocation and data-driven decision-making. Learn more about Cinareo and the challenge of workforce management and capacity planning in our Finovate Global interview with company CEO Karen Elliott. Speaking of FinovateSpring, tickets for our 2026 conference in sunny San Diego—May 5 through May 7— are available now. 80% of our demo lineup is already set. Take advantage of big savings and secure your ticket today! Photo by Narciso Arellano on Unsplash The post Cinareo Teams Up with Aspect to Boost Contact Center Performance appeared first on Finovate.       

Digital asset company Ripple is expanding its digital payments platform, Ripple Payments, to create a single, end-to-end platform that consolidates the payments stack. The California-based company aims to speed up settlement and reduce friction with a full payments infrastructure platform that allows fintechs to operate in the onchain economy by supporting payments made on both fiat and onchain rails. Using the new platform, organizations can collect money, hold it, convert it from fiat to stablecoin and back, manage liquidity, and pay it out. Bringing all of these capabilities into a single place allows fintechs to manage their entire payments operation. Instead of using one provider for wallets, another for custody, another for FX, and another for payouts, fintechs can now do all of this through Ripple Payments. Prompting this change are two acquisitions made in 2025. In November of last year, Ripple acquired digital asset custody company Palisade for an undisclosed amount. In August, the company purchased stablecoin-powered global payments platform Rail for $200 million. The added capabilities offer the ability to provision named virtual accounts and wallets, automate collection flows, and exchange and settle funds into operational accounts. Overall, Ripple Payments has processed more than $100 billion in total volume, with Rail adding another $10 billion annually. “For the global financial system to evolve, fintechs and financial institutions need infrastructure that treats digital assets with the same rigor as traditional finance,” said Ripple President Monica Long. “Success in this space requires enterprise-grade infrastructure, extensive licensing, and deep liquidity—capabilities few can match. Ripple has built the blueprint for blockchain-based enterprise solutions designed to operate at global scale for regulated finance.” By adding these new capabilities, Ripple can now handle the entire payment lifecycle. The company is positioning itself as more of a regulated global payments infrastructure provider that supports both fiat and stablecoins instead of simply a crypto rails provider. This new role places Ripple in competition with traditional cross-border payment processors and infrastructure vendors such as SWIFT, Visa Direct, Mastercard Cross-Border Services, and large correspondent banking networks, as well as fintech infrastructure players like Stripe, Adyen, and Airwallex. By combining custody, liquidity management, FX, and payout orchestration into a single platform that supports both fiat and stablecoins, Ripple is positioning itself as a direct challenger to well-established incumbents. Founded under the name OpenCoin in 2012, Ripple debuted at FinovateSpring the following year. The company provides blockchain-based solutions across traditional and digital finance. Its solutions span global payments, custody, liquidity, prime brokerage, and treasury management tools for banks, fintechs, payment service providers, and crypto businesses. Ripple offers a stablecoin, RLUSD, that is designed to be used for settlement, liquidity management, and digital dollar transactions within its platform. RLUSD has surpassed $1 billion in market cap since launching in December 2024. Ripple’s cryptocurrency, XRP, is often used as a bridge asset to move value between currencies in cross-border payments. Photo by Dan Cristian Pădureț The post Ripple Payments Now Handles More of the Payments Lifecycle appeared first on Finovate.       

FinovateSpring 2026 takes place in sunny San Diego on May 5-7. Register to attend by March 20 and save $400. With just two months to go, the excitement for FinovateSpring 2026 is building as our demo lineup fills up fast. On May 5 and 6, more than 50 fintech and financial services companies will take the stage to showcase their latest innovations, giving attendees a front-row seat to the cutting edge of fintech. Every demo is handpicked to highlight fresh, impactful technologies that solve real-world challenges and drive efficiency. This is the place to be to see where the industry is headed and discover solutions that can transform your business. Here’s a sneak peek at what our 2026 demo lineup will help you achieve: Revolutionize payments: Enable low-cost, near-instant global transactions with stablecoin-powered FX. Empower financial wellness: Offer integrated Earned Wage Access solutions to retain customers. Boost deposits: Add digital business savings accounts to your strategy. Approve smarter loans: Use AI-driven underwriting to reduce costs and expand SME market share. Gain cash visibility: Automate treasury management with real-time insights. Simplify compliance: Reduce back-office work and save money with tailored, attorney-reviewed solutions. and more! And that’s just the beginning! Stay tuned as we reveal the full lineup in the coming weeks. Whether you’re looking to solve a specific challenge or simply want to stay ahead of the curve, FinovateSpring 2026 is where innovation meets opportunity. _________________________________________________________________________________________ Celebrate Cinco de Mayo with us! FinovateSpring kicks off on May 5, but the festivities start early in San Diego. Explore vibrant Cinco de Mayo celebrations the weekend before and on the day itself in iconic neighborhoods like the Gaslamp Quarter and Old Town. On May 5, we’ll bring the holiday spirit to FinovateSpring with themed lunches, special drinks, and more! Stay tuned for more details, and get ready to enjoy San Diego while discovering the latest in fintech innovation. The post 80% of Demos Locked In for FinovateSpring 2026 appeared first on Finovate.       

Eltropy is introducing a governed agentic AI platform built specifically for credit unions. The new platform enables credit unions to create, deploy, and supervise AI agents within defined operational and compliance guardrails. By centralizing agent deployment and governance, Eltropy positions credit unions to scale AI safely and competitively, narrowing the innovation gap between smaller institutions and large banks with larger technology budgets. Member communications platform Eltropy is launching an agentic AI platform specifically for credit unions this week. The tool offers a single location for credit unions, fintechs, and core banking providers to work collaboratively on an agentic AI project. The platform allows users to create, govern, integrate, and deploy AI agents. The tool offers credit unions visibility into what an AI agent did, why it did it, what data it used, and how it reached its decision. Every AI agent is subject to standard operating procedures and authentication protocols, so the agents are unable to take actions outside of the procedures or data boundaries. Additionally, Eltropy’s agentic AI platform offers organizations control over which employees are able to access and control the agents. “This ensures Agentic AI is innovative but controlled, powerful but predictable, open but always safe,” said Eltropy CEO and Co-Founder Ashish Garg. Offering credit unions the ability to build and govern AI agents in-house reduces vendor sprawl and creates a structured distribution channel for fintech partners. Rather than layering solutions across consumer touchpoints, credit unions can centralize automation under a governed agent framework. Crucially, Eltropy’s agentic AI platform positions credit unions to compete more effectively with large banks that have significantly larger IT and R&D budgets. By embedding auditability, authentication protocols, and role-based controls, the platform lowers the regulatory and operational risk that often prevents smaller institutions from deploying advanced AI tools. “This is just the beginning,” said Abhishek Tiwari, Chief Product Officer, Eltropy. “For us, agentic AI is not about automation for its own sake, it’s about delivering measurable business outcomes. Our AI agents already authenticate members and provide account information, and we’re rapidly expanding into payments, loan system updates, collections workflows, and more. The goal is simple—drive real operational impact across the credit union. This is how agentic AI becomes real.” Eltropy’s Agentic AI platform helps shift agentic AI from experimental chatbot deployments to core operational infrastructure. With AI advancements moving rapidly and traditional financial institutions struggling to keep up, agentic AI platforms like Eltropy’s will be crucial fintech infrastructure as the industry continues to evolve. If you’re a credit union, check out opportunities in our Credit Union Spotlight Program at FinovateSpring, taking place March 5 through 7 in San Diego, California. Photo by Google DeepMind The post Eltropy Unveils Agentic AI Platform for Credit Unions appeared first on Finovate.       

Fraud dispute management specialist Quavo Fraud & Disputes has teamed up with Virginia-based Apple Federal Credit Union (Apple FCU). Apple FCU will implement Quavo’s QFD platform, which delivers greater efficiency, faster fraud claim resolutions, and a better overall experience for credit union members. Quavo Fraud & Disputes most recently demoed its technology at FinovateFall 2025 in New York. Joseph McLean is Co-Founder and CEO. A technology partner and strategic advisor specializing in fraud dispute management, Quavo Fraud & Disputes announced a new partnership with Apple Federal Credit Union (Apple FCU). The partnership will transform the credit union’s dispute management operations via the implementation of Quavo’s QFD platform, bringing greater efficiency, faster claim resolutions, and a frictionless experience for Apple FCU members. “Apple FCU shares our vision for creating smarter, more member-centric dispute processes,” Quavo CEO and Co-Founder Joseph McLean said. “Together, we’re replacing outdated workflows with intelligent automation that meets members where they are—online, mobile, and ready for faster results.” Quavo’s QFD platform is an AI-powered solution that automates the dispute process from intake through to recovery and resolution. The platform was developed specifically for financial institutions and technology companies, enabling them to reduce manual workloads, accelerate fraud and dispute resolution times, and ensure regulatory compliance. Trained on 20+ million real-world cases, QFD helps financial institutions scale their operations as they grow. Apple FCU will benefit from a streamlined self-service portal accessible via online and mobile banking, real-time visibility into claims and status updates, reduced reliance on call centers and branch offices, as well as faster, fairer dispute outcomes. With nearly 270,000 members and $5.4 billion in assets, Apple Federal Credit Union serves the communities of Fairfax, Frederick, and Prince William counties in Virginia. Established in 1956, Apple FCU is a not-for-profit, membership-owned institution dedicated not only to providing financial services to the local community, but also to promoting community involvement, financial literacy, and charitable giving. Headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware, Quavo most recently demoed its technology at FinovateFall 2025. At the conference, the company demonstrated its latest innovation, Investigation AI, that leverages an 18-point detection framework to resolve fraud claims faster with greater accuracy. The combination of Investigation AI with Advanced Intake Deflection, which helps combat so-called “friendly” or first-party fraud, enables QFD to deliver real-time decisioning, cost reductions, and superior customer experiences. Quavo’s partnership news comes a month after the company announced a pair of major C-suite additions. In January, Quavo announced that David Oldershaw and Tony DiGiorgio had been appointed as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Technology Officer, respectively. Oldershaw joins Quavo after most recently serving as the Chief Operating Officer for OfficeRnD, where he led go-to-market functions, partnerships, corporate development, and operations. DiGiorgio was formerly Chief Architect at healthcare operations platform provider symplr, where he helped grow the company from $200 million to $500 million in annual recurring revenue. Photo by Praswin Prakashan on Unsplash The post Quavo Enhances Fraud Dispute Operations for Apple FCU appeared first on Finovate.       

In July of 2025, the GENIUS Act, the first comprehensive federal framework for stablecoins, became law. Last week, the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) to implement the GENIUS Act’s requirements for payment stablecoin issuance and related activities. While the new proposed rulemaking makes the GENIUS Act a reality instead of just a statute, it doesn’t change the intent of the GENIUS Act. It operationalizes the GENIUS Act by creating a dedicated regulatory section for issuers, establishing the licensing mechanics and timelines, forming the capital and operational requirements, and stipulating foreign issuer treatment. 2025 GENIUS Act The 2025 GENIUS Act had a crucial role in setting the stage for the legality of stablecoin payments. It defined what a payment stablecoin is and who is allowed to issue stablecoins. It stipulated that stablecoins require full reserve backing with liquid assets, prohibited interest-bearing stablecoins, and created a federal and state regulatory structure. Overall, the purpose of the 2025 Act was to set guardrails. With this year’s notice of proposed rulemaking, the OCC is bringing a more procedure-focused approach. New dedicated regulation As mentioned above, the OCC is operationalizing the GENIUS Act in four major ways, the first of which creates a dedicated regulatory section (12 CFR Part 15) that establishes standards and requirements for stablecoin issuers. Creating the new part in the CFR changes the GENIUS Act from a written requirement into more enforceable supervisory standards. New licensing Additionally, new licensing mechanics come into play that create a defined pathway for entering the stablecoin market. Under the OCC’s proposal, prospective permitted payment stablecoin issuers (PPSIs) must submit a formal application outlining their business model, governance structure, reserve management approach, technology infrastructure, and risk controls. The proposal establishes what constitutes a “substantially complete” application and outlines supervisory review expectations. The new licensing process makes stablecoin issuance similar to applying for a bank charter, rather than launching a new product. New capital and operational requirements Similarly, the 2026 capital and operational requirements make stablecoin issuance look more like running a regulated financial institution than launching a new product. While the 2025 GENIUS Act focused primarily on reserve backing, the OCC’s 2026 proposal stipulates minimum capital thresholds, liquidity buffers beyond token redemption obligations, formal governance structures, internal control standards, and explicit third-party risk management expectations. Established banks already have these processes embedded into their operating procedures. For fintechs, however, the new requirements may call for meaningful investment in governance, compliance documentation, and risk oversight infrastructure. These new formalities raise the cost of entry into the stablecoin issuance market. New foreign issuer treatment The OCC’s 2026 proposal incorporates foreign issuer rules directly into the scope of the plan, meaning that non-US players can no longer rely on regulatory ambiguity as a strategy to enter the market. Just as the proposed framework requires US issuers, foreign issuers serving US users would still be required to apply for OCC registration, provide evidence of Treasury’s comparability determination, consent to US jurisdiction and OCC access to records, and meet requirements around US-available reserves (subject to any reciprocal arrangement). This limits offshore entities operating in regulatory gray zones while marketing to US customers. The new rulemaking makes clear that global stablecoin players will need to align with US supervisory expectations, creating a more demanding roadmap for cross-border participation. What this means for banks and fintechs The proposed rulemaking makes clear that stablecoins are moving closer to the core of regulated banking activity and are increasingly being treated as part of the financial infrastructure rather than as a crypto experiment. As stablecoin issuance begins to resemble supervised activity, banks enter the conversation from a position of structural advantage. With governance frameworks, capital planning, risk management, and compliance processes already embedded in their operating models, traditional financial institutions may be better positioned than fintechs to comply with the regulatory demands of stablecoin issuance. As compliance costs associated with stablecoin issuance rise, so does the barrier to entry. Not every fintech will have the appetite or resources to meet capital, liquidity, and supervisory expectations. The increased friction, however, brings institutional credibility to a payment type once considered adjacent to Bitcoin. This credibility lowers the risk for issuers as well as for end consumers and will ultimately transform stablecoins into an everyday tool. Photo by Moose Photos The post What the OCC’s 2026 Rulemaking Means for Stablecoin Issuers appeared first on Finovate.       

Welcome to March! Women’s History Month, Holi (the Hindu “Festival of Colors”), the start of spring, St. Patrick’s Day, Eid al-Fith, Cesar Chavez Day … there’s a lot to celebrate and look forward to over the next few weeks. Here on Finovate’s Fintech Rundown, we’re looking forward to the rush of industry news and announcements that typical comes with the seasonal thaw. Payments Private equity firm Incore Invest completes its acquisition of CoreOrchestration AB from Worldline. Apple is in conversation with banks in India to bring Apple Pay to the country later this year. Embedded finance Confido, an embedded financial infrastructure platform for law firms and legaltechs, raises $9 million in funding. Fraud prevention ThetaRay and Matrix USA team up to help financial institutions modernize their transaction monitoring programs. Stablecoins MoonPay builds infrastructure platform for PYUSD-backed stablecoins. Agentic AI Colt Technology Services announces proof of concept for an agentic AI engine developed in partnership with Microsoft. Banco Santander and Mastercard complete Europe’s first live agentic AI payments transaction. DeFi US-based FundBank acquires Irish blockchain startup Trrue. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), the Shanghai Data Bureau (SDB), and the National Technology Innovation Center for Blockchain ink a Memorandum of Understanding between Shanghai and Hong Kong to apply blockchain technology to develop a cross-border platform to facilitate trade finance. Open finance Promoteo teams up with Fiskil to help implement Open Finance across Latin America. Photo by Pixabay The post Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News appeared first on Finovate.       

Virginia-based cash handling company The Brink’s Company (Brink’s), has agreed to acquire NCR Atleos in a deal valued at around $6.6 billion. The deal will combine Brink’s global cash management expertise with NCR Atleos’ ATM management and services as well as its ATM network and ATM-as-a-Service (ATMaaS) solutions. Adding NCR Atleos’ capabilities will allow Brink’s to offer complementary products, services, and software that provide banks and retail customers with an even broader variety of cash management solutions. “This acquisition further supports Brink’s ability to deliver enhanced customer solutions and accelerates our value creation strategy,” said Brink’s President and Chief Executive Officer Mark Eubanks. “NCR Atleos is a partner we know well, and our business cultures are closely aligned around customer success, continuous improvement, and managing the interface between physical to digital payments to enable ease of cash acceptance and use. By combining our organizations, we gain critical scale and complementary, integrated capabilities to drive our ambitious growth strategy and provide new levels of service to our global customer base.” Founded as NCR Corporation in 1881, the firm spun out NCR Atleos in October of 2023 to run as an independent company focused on ATMs. Today, NCR Atleos has an installed base of approximately 600,000 ATMs, 78,000 of which it owns and operates in high traffic retail locations. Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, NCR Atleos employs 20,000 people across the globe to facilitate hardware, software, and service for its line of ATM-related technology. This is a massive win for Brink’s, and not simply because it is buying up one of the oldest firms in financial services. The acquisition offers the company a greater geographic footprint, tapping NCR Atleos’ client base located across more than 140 countries. Adding NCR Atleos’ ATM software, services, and installed ATMs to its own armored transport services will enable Brink’s to offer a more holistic and vertically integrated set of services and products. Once combined, Brink’s anticipates it will generate approximately $10 billion in total revenue. “This transaction represents a strategic opportunity for NCR Atleos,” said NCR Atleos CEO Tim Oliver. “The extraordinary efforts of the NCR Atleos team over the two years since our separation from legacy NCR have strengthened our leading ATM installed base, sustained best-in-class service levels and introduced innovative products. Combining the complementary service-led businesses of Brink’s and NCR Atleos will enable us to enhance offerings to financial institutions and retailers, and create more opportunities for our employees.” Photo by WoodysMedia The post Cash Handling Company Brink’s to Acquire NCR Atleos appeared first on Finovate.       

DriveWealth will integrate Kalshi’s regulated prediction markets into its brokerage-as-a-service platform, enabling fintechs to offer event contracts alongside stocks and ETFs. Kalshi, which processes over $100 billion in annualized volume, is expanding distribution through DriveWealth’s brokerage infrastructure. As prediction markets move into the financial mainstream, event contracts are emerging as a new tradable asset class that could follow the adoption path of options and crypto. Digital trading and brokerage company DriveWealth is teaming up with prediction market platform Kalshi in a move to capitalize on the growing interest in events contracts. The New Jersey-based company plans to integrate Kalshi’s event contracts into its brokerage platform. The integration allows clients using DriveWealth’s brokerage-as-a-service platform to offer event-driven markets alongside more traditional equities, ETFs, and other traditional asset classes within the same interface. Kalshi allows users to trade on the outcome of real-world events such as elections, economic indicators, weather, sports, and more in a fully regulated environment. Because it offers investment opportunities based on highly publicized events such as sporting and political events, Kalshi brings an approachable new asset class that has quickly become mainstream. Kalshi currently attracts over $100 billion in annualized volume. Rather than operating purely as a standalone trading venue, Kalshi has increasingly positioned itself as infrastructure for fintech platforms seeking to add regulated event contracts to their product mix. “DriveWealth’s global reach and embedded brokerage infrastructure make them an ideal partner to Kalshi,” said Kalshi Co-founder and CEO Tarek Mansour. “Our goal is to provide leading fintech platforms with more access to regulated prediction markets.” The new integration also places DriveWealth in the footsteps of Robinhood, which began integrating Kalshi’s prediction market platform into its investing app in August of last year. Other investment platforms leveraging Kalshi include WeBull and PrizePicks. Offering an increasingly popular asset class like prediction markets enables DriveWealth clients to attract new users while deepening engagement with existing investors who may currently trade on external platforms. For end users, consolidating multiple investment opportunities within a single platform simplifies portfolio tracking and performance monitoring across markets. For DriveWealth clients, the addition modernizes their product offering while strengthening customer retention and growth. As prediction markets gain regulatory clarity and mainstream traction, DriveWealth sees the Kalshi integration as a way to future-proof its brokerage infrastructure. “Our integration with Kalshi strengthens our ability to deliver cutting-edge market opportunities to our partners,” said DriveWealth CEO Naureen Hassan. “DriveWealth was built to power the future of global investing through scalable, API-driven technology, and Kalshi’s forward-thinking approach to market design makes for a natural fit. Together, we’re uniquely positioned to equip our partners with the latest financial innovations and next-generation market access for their clients.” Overall, prediction markets are on a major growth trajectory this year. Prediction markets have evolved from niche academic tools and offshore betting platforms into regulated investing tools with growing institutional backing. As retail investors increasingly seek alternative ways to grow their funds, prediction markets create a new category of tradable risk exposure. If distribution partnerships like those with Robinhood and DriveWealth continue to scale, event contracts could follow a trajectory similar to options or crypto that were once fringe, but are now embedded into modern product stacks. Photo by Amit Lahav on Unsplash The post DriveWealth to Integrate Kalshi’s Event Contracts into its Brokerage Platform appeared first on Finovate.       

If you missed out on FinovateEurope earlier this month, you don’t have to feel left out any longer. The 22 demo videos are now live (and free to watch!) on the Finovate website and on Finovate’s YouTube channel. Each seven-minute video offers a fast and efficient way to catch up on the latest new launches in fintech. We’ve highlighted the three Best of Show-winning demos below to get you started. R34DY’s ABLEMENTS platform Serene Tweezr.io For more coverage of on-stage content at FinovateEurope, check out our post-show analysis. And if you don’t want to miss out on the live action next time around, be sure to register for FinovateSpring, taking place on May 5 through 7 in San Diego, California. We’ll see you there! The post Videos from the 22 Demos at FinovateEurope 2026 are Live appeared first on Finovate.       

Mambu is expanding its payments hub globally, launching in new markets across EMEA, Latin America, and Asia Pacific. The global move comes in response to growing demand from banks and fintechs operating across multiple payment schemes and jurisdictions. Mambu’s API-first payments hub extends the company’s composable core banking offering to help institutions modernize and scale payments alongside lending and deposits. Cloud banking platform Mambu is expanding its payments hub into new global markets this year, with plans to launch in additional markets in EMEA, Latin America, and Asia Pacific. Mambu said demand from global banks and fintechs operating across multiple payment schemes and jurisdictions drove this week’s expansion. Mambu was founded in 2011 and emerged as one of the pioneering players to move banking software to the cloud. The company’s composable banking approach offers a plug-and-play approach to core banking that helps firms shift away from legacy platforms and build to scale. As payments become a more central part of Mambu’s long-term platform strategy, the company is positioning its payments hub as a natural extension of its core banking business. “For years, Mambu’s core banking platform has long been the engine behind hundreds of the world’s most innovative financial players. Payments are now a cornerstone of our strategy as we help institutions navigate the industry’s growing complexity,” said Mambu VP of EMEA Leon Stevens. “We are poised to help modernize core infrastructure and accelerate innovation across the entire banking stack—from lending and deposits to payments and beyond.” Launched in 2025 and fueled by the acquisition of payment gateway company and Finovate alum Numeral, Mambu’s payments hub aims to help firms modernize their entire payments stack with an API-first payments hub. With native straight-through processing, orchestration, liquidity, reconciliation, fully-managed connectivity to local and global payment schemes, and composable payment workflows, Mambu’s payments hub facilitates a faster, lower cost approach that can easily be scaled. From an execution standpoint, Mambu sees growing complexity across global payment ecosystems as a key driver behind the expansion. “Payments are becoming more global and more local, more interconnected and more fragmented, and now move in real-time,” said Mambu VP Payments Edouard Mandon. “This complexity makes scaling payments across multiple markets challenging. To solve this, we have expanded our payments hub to give institutions access to local schemes while maintaining a consistent integration and operational experience. This continues our investment in connectivity at scale, which increasingly includes next-generation rails, to deliver payment solutions truly built for the future.” Since launching, Mambu’s payments hub processed seven times as many payments in 2025 than what it did in 2024 when it was under the Numeral brand. Also in the nine months since launch, the company added European and global financial institutions, including Western Union, BCB Group, Flowe, and Spendesk. As payments become increasingly global, the subsector is becoming a strategic battleground for banks as they seek to grow and modernize their technology stacks, especially as payments mix real-time, legacy, and new payment rails across multiple regions. Offering the ability to standardize integration while natively embedding payments into its composable banking platform will ultimately help Mambu’s clients scale faster while limiting complexity. Mambu plans to continue expanding connectivity to major payment rails worldwide in an effort to help banks support payment schemes through a single platform. The company notes that its geographical expansion marks the next phase of its international growth, especially as it further builds out global core banking and payments infrastructure. Photo by Marina Leonova The post Mambu Expands its Payments Hub Beyond Europe into Asia and Latin America appeared first on Finovate.       

Lithuanian regtech Copla has raised €6 million ($7.1 million USD) in Series A funding for its AI-powered compliance automation platform. Iron Wolf Capital led the round, which featured participation from Operator Stack and existing investors Specialist VC, SuperHero Capital, FirstPick, NGL Ventures, and Loggerhead Partners. Founded in 2023, Copla made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2025 in London. Copla, a regtech headquartered in Lithuania that offers an AI-powered compliance automation platform, has secured €6 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Iron Wolf Capital. Operator Stack and existing investors Specialist VC, SuperHero Capital, FirstPick, NGL Ventures, and Loggerhead Partners also participated in the funding. Copla, which made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2025, will use the capital to further build out its product, add talent to its team, and expand into markets beyond the European Union. In a statement, the company noted that regulations are becoming increasingly complicated and operational. From the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) to the EU Artificial Intelligence Act (EU AI Act) to the Cyber Resilience Act, there are a range of new compliance obligations that regulated firms throughout the European Union will have to deal with starting this year. Copla’s platform specializes in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) compliance, transforming the mandates of regulations like DORA and the EU AI Act into guided, evidence-based workflows. The technology converts regulatory requirements into specific tasks, tracks execution on a continuous basis, and automatically records all evidence to ensure that the operations are audit-ready. In a recognition that not all regulatory processes are best automated, Copla also offers hands-on support via in-house and fractional CISO services, as well as a network of partner providers across Europe to assist with audits, risk decisions, and interactions with regulators. “Regulation is getting sharper, but most compliance is still stuck in spreadsheets,” Copla Co-founder and CEO Aurimas Bakas said. “We built Copla so compliance stays current by default, and so companies can grow with confidence instead of audit anxiety. This round gives us the momentum to make Copla the default compliance execution layer for regulated finance in Europe and beyond.” To this end, one initiative announced along with the company’s funding was Copla Bridge, a new platform layer that will help partners, consultants, and multi-entity organizations manage compliance issues across companies from a single, unified view. Copla Bridge is designed to help organizations that must centralize compliance across subsidiaries, regulated entities, or a group structure, a major challenge for most organizations that do not have the requisite tooling and infrastructure. Founded in 2023 and headquartered in Vilnius, Lithuania, Copla made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2025. At the conference, the company showed how it combines three of its solutions—CoreGuardian, an AI-driven CoPilot, and VendorGuard—to provide comprehensive cybersecurity and compliance. CoreGuardian ensures compliance with key frameworks such as DORA. Copla’s CoPilot engages users individually via Slack and Teams to provide real-time education, assessments, and alerts. VendorGuard streamlines vendor management, providing risk assessments, incident planning, and prioritization. Photo by Maksim Shutov on Unsplash The post Regtech Copla Raises €6 Million in Series A Funding appeared first on Finovate.       

February is Black and African-American History Month. As the month draws to a close, we wanted to take a moment to recognize and celebrate the Black and African-American executives, founders, and analysts who have shared their ideas, insights, and experiences with Finovate audiences in 2025. From the keynote podium to the demo stage, these Black and African-American fintech, banking, and financial services professionals are a reflection of the growing diversity and inclusion that continues to shape and transform our industry today. Erin Estell—SVP, Chief Marketing Officer—Valley Strong Credit Union Estell participated in FinovateSpring 2025, sharing her insights as part of our Power Panel on the Customer Experience Revolution. Estell brings more than 15 years of experience in strategic marketing and brand management, leveraging innovative data-driven strategies to drive growth, engagement, and retention. At Valley Strong Credit Union, Estell oversees digital marketing, consumer insights, communications, public relations, field marketing, and community outreach. Based in Bakersfield, California, Valley Strong Credit Union offers checking and savings accounts, credit cards, personal and auto loans, mortgage and home loans, investing and retirement services, and more to 35,000+ members. Nate Gibbons—Chief Experience Officer—QuickFi Gibbons co-led the live demonstration of QuickFi’s self-service, embedded finance platform for business equipment financing at FinovateSpring 2025 in San Diego. The demo showed how QuickFi can enable borrowers to quickly complete onboarding, authentication, credit underwriting, and document signing on a highly secure lending platform. A regular conference speaker and strategist as well as Chief Experience Officer at QuickFi, Gibbons was previously an executive with First American Equipment Finance. He has an MBA from the Simon Business School at the University of Rochester, and earned the Blue Ladder Award for extraordinary achievement from the City National Bank. A Finovate alum since 2021, QuickFi has won Best of Show on three separate occasions, most recently at FinovateSpring 2024. The company offers an embedded finance platform for secured commercial equipment financing, enabling business borrowers to initiate and complete equipment financing in minutes. Deola Habeeb—Head of Global Tech Operations—Vanguard Habeeb joined Finovate at FinovateEurope 2025 to share her thoughts and experiences as part of our Women in Fintech panel. Head of Global Tech Operations for Vanguard, Habeeb is a technology leader, entrepreneur, investor, and strategist with more than two decades of experience building enterprise operations and driving business growth. Habeeb combines technical acumen and business acuity across professional services, engineering, and business operations. Vanguard is one of the largest investment management companies in the world. The firm offers investments, advice, and retirement services to tens of millions of individual investors directly, through workplace programs, and via financial intermediaries. Christopher Hollins—Head of Global Product Sales and Delivery—SVB, a Division of First Citizens Bank Hollins most recently spoke at FinovateSpring 2025 as part of our Power Panel on balancing the balance sheet and winning the battle for deposits. Head of Global Product Sales and Delivery at SVB, a division of First Citizens Bank, Hollins is instrumental in transforming the platform’s solution delivery model to ensure that SVB’s Commercial Bank innovation economy clients can access the best partners and solutions to solve their business challenges. Based in Santa Clara, California, SVB provides commercial and private banking services to founders, entrepreneurs, and companies in the technology, life science, private equity, venture capital, and related industries. The bank specializes in serving the unique needs of clients in dynamic, transformative businesses, providing deep sector expertise, insights, and connections. Priscilla O-Iyari—Regional Marketing and Communications Outreach Officer—FACE Coalition O-Iyari, in her recent capacity with FACE Coalition, joined FinovateSpring 2025 as part of our Executive Briefing on Financial Inclusion: “How can banks capture the huge growth opportunity offered by this new customer base?” With more than 14 years of experience developing and executing strategies that have built successful brands in industries ranging from financial services to healthcare, O-Iyari came to Finovate via her role at FACE Coalition where she connected Black entrepreneurs with funding sources, human resources, and other support to help them scale their businesses and facilitate generational wealth creation. O-Iyari is currently Associate Marketing Manager with TD where she is responsible for global brand management, education, and governance for the TD enterprise across countries and lines of business. Mary Joseph—Senior Vice President, Strategic Investments, Treasury & Trade Solutions—Citi Joseph participated in our Investor All Stars panel at FinovateFall 2025, discussing the current outlook for the market, valuations, and the future of financial services. Focusing on opportunities that enhance Treasury and Trade Solutions and expand Citi’s technology ecosystem, Joseph leads the bank’s global investments in fintech and B2B SaaS startups. She brings expertise from her tenure in fintech and M&A advisory from within Citi’s Investment Banking group and as an investor at venture capital firm, GreenHouse Capital. Citi provides financial services that enable growth and economic progress, safeguarding assets, lending money, making payments, and ensuring access to the capital markets. The institution does business in more than 180 countries and jurisdictions, serving corporations, governments, investors, institutions, and individuals. Tobiloba Oyetoke—Chief Executive Officer—Bitpowr Technologies Oyetoke introduced his company, Bitpowr Technologies, to Finovate audiences a year ago as part of FinovateEurope 2025 in London. Founded in 2021 and headquartered in Delaware, Bitpowr Technologies helps businesses and developers manage digital asset operations and build financial products. The company provides modular, critical infrastructure to issue digital wallets and process global payments safely and securely, while meeting regulatory requirements. At the conference, Oyetoke demonstrated Bitpowr’s latest solution, Powr Finance, which enables fintechs and companies to offer embedded stablecoin banking, payments, digital wallets, and card products in a safe and compliant way. Photo by Monstera Production The post Finovate Celebrates Black and African-American History Month appeared first on Finovate.       

Experian has acquired AtData, US data and intelligence company. The deal adds AtData’s more than 10 billion global email addresses to strengthen Experian’s identity and fraud capabilities. Experian expects that integrating AtData’s real-time email intelligence into its broader consumer data and analytics platforms will support its clients’ AI-driven decisioning strategy. Data analytics and consumer credit reporting company Experian announced a key acquisition today. The Ireland-based firm has acquired US data and intelligence company AtData for an undisclosed amount. AtData was founded in 1999 as TowerData, then combined with FreshAddress in 2021, and rebranded to AtData a year later. The company offers email address technology that helps thousands of organizations take control of their first-party email data collection to fuel marketing and minimize fraud. Experian expects the acquisition to expand its existing data and identity assets by adding more than 10 billion email addresses of people across the globe. The company will combine AtData’s real-time data signals with its consumer data, analytics, and decisioning platforms to better allow its clients to identify, authenticate, and engage their customers across multiple channels. For Experian, the acquisition is about strengthening identity resolution at a time when real-time signals and AI-driven decisioning are becoming table stakes. “Differentiated data and real-time identity signals are the ultimate advantage and increasingly important in the age of AI,” said Experian North America CEO Jeff Softley. “AtData brings deep email intelligence into our platform and further fuels our AI strategy. This isn’t just about adding capabilities; it’s about creating an integrated, durable identity solution that helps our clients deliver better experiences at every stage of the customer journey.” Beyond expanding Experian’s identity stack, the deal highlights how the company is positioning itself amid an unsettled open banking landscape. As Section 1033 of the Dodd-Frank Act remains tied up in a legal and regulatory debate, and data-sharing standards continue to vary by institution and use case, financial services firms are seeking more resilient ways to identify, authenticate, and engage customers. By expanding its identity stack beyond traditional credit data to include real-time email intelligence, Experian is betting on first-party identity as foundational infrastructure for AI-driven decisioning even as open banking remains in flux. The acquisition comes 15 years after the two companies first teamed up. For AtData, the deal represents a natural evolution of a long-standing relationship between the two companies. “Our goal has always been to help our customers optimize their first-party email data collection, accelerate their marketing performance, minimize the cost of fraud, and drive their data-oriented business strategies,” said Tom Burke, CEO of AtData. “Experian has consistently set the standard for using data to drive trusted outcomes for businesses and consumers. Joining Experian enables us to combine complementary strengths and deepen the intelligence capabilities that power confident, real-world decisions.” Founded in 1980 and originally known for its consumer credit reporting, Experian has extensive access to data and has added fraud prevention offerings, identity theft protection, credit building tools, and a loan comparison marketplace. On the commercial side, Experian provides a range of services for small businesses, including business credit reporting, marketing products and services, debt collection tools, and more. Experian is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, and is listed on the London Stock Exchange under the ticker EXPN. The company has a market capitalization of $31.6 billion. Photo by cottonbro studio The post Experian Finalizes Acquisition of AtData appeared first on Finovate.       

In its first acquisition in over 16 years, Experian has acquired AtData. The deal adds AtData’s more than 10 billion global email addresses to strengthen Experian’s identity and fraud capabilities. Experian expects that integrating AtData’s real-time email intelligence into its broader consumer data and analytics platforms will support its clients’ AI-driven decisioning strategy. Data analytics and consumer credit reporting company Experian announced its first acquisition in more than 16 years today. The Ireland-based company has acquired US data and intelligence company AtData for an undisclosed amount. AtData was founded in 1999 as TowerData, then combined with FreshAddress in 2021, and rebranded to AtData a year later. The company offers email address technology that helps thousands of organizations take control of their first-party email data collection to fuel marketing and minimize fraud. Experian expects the acquisition to expand its existing data and identity assets by adding more than 10 billion email addresses of people across the globe. The company will combine AtData’s real-time data signals with its consumer data, analytics, and decisioning platforms to better allow its clients to identify, authenticate, and engage their customers across multiple channels. For Experian, the acquisition is about strengthening identity resolution at a time when real-time signals and AI-driven decisioning are becoming table stakes. “Differentiated data and real-time identity signals are the ultimate advantage and increasingly important in the age of AI,” said Experian North America CEO Jeff Softley. “AtData brings deep email intelligence into our platform and further fuels our AI strategy. This isn’t just about adding capabilities; it’s about creating an integrated, durable identity solution that helps our clients deliver better experiences at every stage of the customer journey.” Beyond expanding Experian’s identity stack, the deal highlights how the company is positioning itself amid an unsettled open banking landscape. As Section 1033 of the Dodd-Frank Act remains tied up in a legal and regulatory debate, and data-sharing standards continue to vary by institution and use case, financial services firms are seeking more resilient ways to identify, authenticate, and engage customers. By expanding its identity stack beyond traditional credit data to include real-time email intelligence, Experian is betting on first-party identity as foundational infrastructure for AI-driven decisioning even as open banking remains in flux. The acquisition comes 15 years after the two companies first teamed up. For AtData, the deal represents a natural evolution of a long-standing relationship between the two companies. “Our goal has always been to help our customers optimize their first-party email data collection, accelerate their marketing performance, minimize the cost of fraud, and drive their data-oriented business strategies,” said Tom Burke, CEO of AtData. “Experian has consistently set the standard for using data to drive trusted outcomes for businesses and consumers. Joining Experian enables us to combine complementary strengths and deepen the intelligence capabilities that power confident, real-world decisions.” Founded in 1980 and originally known for its consumer credit reporting, Experian has extensive access to data and has added fraud prevention offerings, identity theft protection, credit building tools, and a loan comparison marketplace. On the commercial side, Experian provides a range of services for small businesses, including business credit reporting, marketing products and services, debt collection tools, and more. Experian is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, and is listed on the London Stock Exchange under the ticker EXPN. The company has a market capitalization of $31.6 billion. Photo by cottonbro studio The post Experian Finalizes First Acquisition in 16 Years appeared first on Finovate.       

What is the state of community banking in the US today? How are community banks evolving and transforming at a time of both potential opportunity and unprecedented challenge and competition? Success stories about how community banks across the country are taking advantage of new technologies like generative AI and embedded finance will be a major part of the conversation later this year at FinovateSpring, May 5 through May 7, in San Diego. With that in mind, today we’re taking a look at the findings from the 2025 CSBS Annual Survey of Community Banks that was unveiled at the Community Banking Research Conference last fall. Rising competition from within and without the community The competitive challenge from nonbanks remains a major concern for community banks throughout the US. Especially in areas such as payment services and wealth management, these fintech competitors have effectively leveraged enabling technologies like AI and embedded finance to create digital platforms able to attract customers, especially younger customers who are digitally native and have fewer ties to the traditional banking system. Nonbanks without a physical presence, for example, produced a 7% year-over-year change in competitiveness in payment services, according to the community bankers surveyed. That said, nonbanks still trail other community banks as the biggest competition in seven out of nine product and service categories. Community banks identified local regional banks as their main competitors in payment services and nonbanks as their primary rivals in wealth management and retirement services. The battle over deposits continues to be a significant challenge for most banks and financial institutions, and community banks are no different. While transaction deposit levels have stabilized in recent years, competition from nonbank institutions has grown, especially among those nonbanks that are out-of-market. This has compelled community bankers to adjust their pricing strategies based on local market rates; the survey noted that the number of community bankers that said that they “always” responded to rate changes increased by more than 38% to represent a quarter of all survey participants. Fraud and financial crime remain paramount concerns In terms of internal risks, community bankers cited cybercrime as a top issue by far all others. Both credit and debit card fraud are the most common types of fraud reported in terms of dollar losses, with check fraud, identity theft, and account takeover also among the chief challenges. The survey noted that these financial crimes—card fraud, check fraud, and identity theft with account takeover—represent the lion’s share of both total fraud cases and dollar losses. To this point, the community bankers surveyed indicated that they were putting resources to work combatting fraud and financial crime. After safety and soundness practices, money laundering and consumer protection standards maintenance accounted for the second and third largest commitments of total compliance expenses. “We continue to put more resources into cybersecurity and technology risk,” one respondent noted, “which has grown rapidly as part of our cost structure. We’ve invested heavily in systems and processes and added staff to review outputs to protect customers and prevent fraud. Fraud is not yet a large loss item for us, but it could be.” E-signatures and remote deposit over AI and BaaS For all the talk of AI and stablecoins, the technologies that are moving the needle for many community banks are more pedestrian and practical than one might imagine. Technologies viewed as “extremely” or “very” important included such solutions as e-signature, remote deposit capture (RDC), and integrated loan processing systems. At the bottom of the list of priorities? Interactive teller machines (ITMs) and fintech partnerships for Banking-as-Service were deemed “not at all important” by more than 50% and nearly 40% of respondents, respectively. Asked to look forward over the next five years, the responses from the community bankers are similarly grounded. The top response by far, with more than 75% of respondents in agreement, was that the expansion of mobile banking services will be the most promising opportunity for their bank in the next half decade. Fully integrated loan processing systems came in second at just over 61% with cloud-based core systems at more than 53%. AI? As a tool for enhancing customer interactions, AI technology earned less than half the number of respondents. Partnerships with fintechs? For digital transformation, about a third. For BaaS, about a fifth. What do community bankers want from fintechs? The 2025 CSBS Annual Survey is a rich source of information and insight into the thinking of community bankers in the US right now. For fintechs looking to work with these institutions, either as partners or vendors, the survey offers a number of takeaways that can help make those connections fruitful for both fintechs and community banks. Boosting deposit growth—Fintechs can support community banks in boosting deposit growth by offering tools such as personalized savings plans and competitive interest rate management solutions. Enhanced customer engagement platforms that heavily incentivize deposit loyalty can also be valuable. Fintechs can also provide community banks with analytics to help them identify and respond to deposit trends. Scalable loan management technology—Making the process of loan origination, underwriting, and servicing easier for community banks is key to helping them win against competition in key financing areas such as small business, agriculture, and commercial real estate. This is also where AI-powered solutions can have a dramatically positive impact. Streamlining processes, improving applicant review, and enhancing the customer experience in lending overall are areas where fintechs have a significant track record of success and can greatly benefit community banks. Operational efficiency and compliance—It is true for most businesses and community banks are no exception. Enabling technologies are making manual tasks increasingly unnecessary, as automation and agentic AI transform legacy workflows into smooth operational processes free of human error. These technologies are also making it easier for institutions—including community banks—to be more aware of their regulatory responsibilities and to be better able to act quickly and completely to ensure compliance. Fintechs specializing in compliance management tools and services can be key allies for community banks at a time of significant regulatory change and uncertainty. Photo by Hannah Busing on Unsplash The post What Do Community Bankers Want? What Do Community Banks Need? appeared first on Finovate.       

Spreedly is partnering with Paysafe to integrate Paysafe’s merchant acquiring capabilities into its global payments orchestration platform. The partnership gives merchants more flexibility by combining Paysafe’s gateway and acquiring tools with Spreedly’s open payments architecture. The move will help modernize payment stacks with a modular approach. Open payments platform Spreedly is partnering with payments processing fintech Paysafe, integrating Paysafe’s merchant acquirer capabilities into its own global payments orchestration platform. Paysafe will process credit card and debit card payments for Spreedly’s online merchant clients doing business across Europe, North America, and other geographies. Under the agreement, Paysafe is processing card payments for multiple online trading brokers and financial services companies and plans to onboard additional merchants launching before the end of 2026. From Paysafe’s perspective, the partnership expands the reach of its gateway technology into Spreedly’s global orchestration layer, particularly among online trading brokers and financial services companies operating across multiple markets. “With the Paysafe Gateway, a trusted solution for card payments among forex and financial trading brokers and a wide range of other industries, we look forward to strengthening Spreedly’s Open Payment Platform and streamlining payments for its merchant users and their customers,” said Paysafe Chief Revenue Officer Rob Gatto. This integration is meaningful for merchants operating across borders, as payments complexity continues to grow with gateway fragmentation and regulatory changes. Combining Paysafe’s tools into Spreedly’s offering brings a modular, open payments stack that allows merchants to adapt without rebuilding their infrastructure. Spreedly’s Open Payment Platform is a payment orchestration stack that offers merchants more than 140 gateway connections to more than 40 payment methods. Integrating the Paysafe Gateway allows Spreedly to process online card payments for merchants and their customers. For Spreedly, adding Paysafe reinforces the company’s broader strategy of giving merchants more choice and flexibility across payment providers and geographies without locking them into a single acquirer or gateway. “At Spreedly, we believe open payments drive better outcomes for merchants. Bringing Paysafe onto our Open Payments Platform expands optionality for our customers and reinforces our mission to provide a flexible, future-ready infrastructure for global commerce,” said Spreedly Partner Strategy Director Michael Rokos. Founded in 1996, UK-based Paysafe has 30 years of experience providing online payments tools for forex and financial trading brokers, as well as merchants in iGaming, ecommerce, travel, and hospitality. The company connects businesses and consumers across 260 payment types in over 48 currencies around the world. Paysafe processes an annualized volume of $152 billion in transactions and is publicly listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker PSFE with a market capitalization of $350 million. Spreedly was founded in 2007 to help merchants build their payments stack on a single platform. The company’s payment orchestration stack processes over $60 billion in gross merchandise value on behalf of more than 400 customers across 100+ countries. Spreedly also offers fraud prevention, payment optimization tools, and more. Among the company’s clients are BMW, CLEAR, HBO Max, Hopper, Lemonade, Getty, Warner, The New York Times, and others. Photo by Leeloo The First The post Spreedly Taps Paysafe to Process Card Payments appeared first on Finovate.       

AI solutions provider for financial advisors Jump has raised $80 million in Series B funding. The round was led by Insight Partners. The investment will help Jump scale its technology, which automates a range of tasks for financial advisors, from an AI assistant to a comprehensive intelligence and AI orchestration layer for modern financial advisory firms. Founded in 2023 and headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, Jump made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2025 in New York. Parker Ence is Founder and CEO. In a round led by Insight Partners, AI solutions provider for financial advisors Jump has secured $80 million in Series B funding. The round also included participation from new investors F-Prime, Allianz Life Ventures (the venture capital arm of Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America), TIAA Ventures, and Peterson Partners. Also involved in the round were existing investors Battery Ventures, Sorenson Capital, Pelion Venture Partners, and Citi Ventures, as well as angel investors Hans Tung, Ryan Anderson, and Aaron Skonnard. “In less than two years since launch, we’ve grown from zero to more than 27,000 advisors—making Jump the fastest-growing wealthtech software application in industry history,” the company noted in a statement. “We are now adding more than 2,000 new advisors each month across RIAs, independent broker-dealers, and global financial institutions.” This week’s investment takes Jump’s total capital raised to $105 million, following the company’s $20 million Series A round led by Battery Ventures in 2025. The company will use the funds to power its next phase of growth, specifically expanding the platform from an AI meeting assistant for financial advisors to a comprehensive intelligence and AI orchestration layer tailored for modern financial advisory firms. Jump exists at the nexus of a structural shift in the wealth management industry as advisory firms explore integrating AI into the way their advisors prepare, engage, document, analyze, and scale. Starting with using AI to reduce the amount of manual work that advisors do, Jump is evolving into a platform that integrates intelligent, agentic workflows and enterprise controls to comprehensively support modern financial advisory firms. With a focus on reducing operational friction, deep workflow integration, and configurable compliance, Jump’s new funding will enable the company to help advisors proactively identify risks, discover new growth opportunities, and advise on next best actions based on analysis of client conversations and investment flows. “An enterprise RIA recently shared that Jump ranked number one among more than 40 AI pilots they ran last year in terms of delivering real advisor impact and measurable ROI for the firm,” Jump CEO and Co-Founder Parker Ence said. “They saw not only Jump’s usual one to two hours saved per advisor per day, but also a meaningful increase in their overall organic growth rate.” Ence added that the funding will help the company “invest aggressively in product research and development” as the firm accelerates its vision “for an AI-native operating system.” Headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, Jump made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2025. At the conference, the company showed how its AI-powered meeting assistant for financial advisors automates meeting prep, note-taking, follow-up, and other client management tasks. Reportedly saving advisors up to 20 hours per week, Jump’s technology puts meeting administration on AI autopilot and provides AI-powered actionable growth insights, while exceeding enterprise scalability and compliance requirements. Photo by Kirill Lazarev The post Jump Raises $80 Million to Leverage AI to Automate Financial Advisory Workflows appeared first on Finovate.       

It’s the last week of February, which means we have one more month to wrap up any Q1 goals. Below, we’ve aggregated the top news in fintech for the week. We’ll continue to add more announcements as the week progresses. Payments Flywire appoints Patrick Blanc as Chief Technology Officer. MoneyHash partners with Wayl to support expansion into Iraq. Payabli and Huntington Bank partner to bring seamless payments to the digital banking experience. Worldline unveils One Commerce, powering the next generation of omnichannel retail. Jaris expands Paysafe partnership to bring instant payouts to US small businesses. Wealth mangement Vestwell raises $385 million, doubling its valuation from 2023. Small business financial mangement Forest Lawn Memorial Parks achieves complete spend management through Vroozi platform integration. Wellspring launches treasury management platform for small and mid-sized businesses. Photo by Vincent Jialei The post Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News appeared first on Finovate.       

This week’s edition of Finovate Global focuses on fintech developments in countries located in and around East Africa. Digital banking secures investment in Zambia Zambian digital banking platform Lupiya has raised $11.25 million in Series A funding. The round—nearly two years in the making—was led by IDF Capital’s Alitheia IDF Fund, and featured participation from INOKS Capital and KfW DEG, a German development finance institution. Lupiya will use the capital to bolster the digital bank’s technology infrastructure, grow its product range, and enter southern and east African markets beyond Zambia’s borders. Founded by Evelyn Chilomo Kaingu (CEO) and Muchu Kaingu (CTO) in 2016, Lupiya serves unbanked and underbanked communities in Zambia with credit products and digital payment services via its Lupiya Pay offering. The company has partnered with Mastercard to access payment rails to enable digital transactions and is part of the card network’s financial inclusion strategy. Previous investors in the firm include Enygma Ventures, which contributed $1 million to the company’s coffers. Lupiya has opened an additional funding round this year—alongside its Series A—dedicated to scaling its lending business, enhancing its embedded finance offerings, and bringing Lupiya Pay to new markets. Lupiya was one of the first companies to earn approval from the Security Exchange Commission in Zambia to offer investments through peer-to-peer lending. Launching this service in-country in 2022, Lupiya expanded operations to Tanzania the following year. Lupiya offers personal loans including collateral-backed loans and salary advances, as well as business financing, invoice discounting, and agriloans. Customers can use Lupiya to send and receive funds via mobile money, P2P, or bank accounts. According to the World Bank, Zambia’s financial inclusion rate has improved significantly in recent years, climbing from 59.3% in 2015 to 69.4% in 2020. Regional disparities are significant, however, with Lusaka Province, home to the capital city, Lusaka, having a financial inclusion rate of more than 87%, with more rural areas having inclusion rates of approximately 40%. The landlocked country shares borders with the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, and Tanzania. Ethiopia goes live with instant payments Instant payments are sweeping the globe—and now businesses, communities, and banks throughout Ethiopia will be able to leverage the technology to provide centralized automated reconciliation, new card and e-wallet services, and more. In partnership with the National Bank of Ethiopia, the country’s national switch EthSwitch has launched Ethiopia’s National Instant Payment System. Powered by BPC’s SmartVista platform, the system was officially introduced in December 2025, and now connects 32 banks, 12 MFIs, three PSOs, and three PIIs. The unveiling of EthioPay-IPS will enable EthSwitch to offer banks and other financial institutions modern payment rails capable of delivering faster and more economical payment transactions. These include account-to-account and wallet-to-wallet transfers, payments with interoperable QR codes, as well as requests-to-pay and alias-based payments that allow users to transfer funds using a simple identifier. BPC’s SmartVista suite is a modular payment processing solution for banks, financial institutions, payment service providers, and fintechs. The technology combines banking, commerce, and mobility platforms to facilitate digital banking, payment processing, ATM and switching, fraud management, financial inclusion, and more. Founded in 1996 and headquartered in Switzerland, BPC has more than 500 customers across 140 countries. Established in 2011, EthSwitch is a share company owned by Ethiopia’s private and public banks, as well as the National Bank of Ethiopia, MFIs, PIIs, and PSOs. The organization has a mandate to support the modernization of Ethiopia’s payment system and to enhance financial inclusion throughout the country. This includes EthSwitch’s 2016 initiative to enable the interoperability of ATMs and POS terminals operated by the nation’s banks. “Our goal is to provide simple, affordable, secure, and efficient digital payment infrastructure to every retail payment provider and through them, to every Ethiopian,” EthSwitch Chief Portfolio Officer Abeneazer Wondwossen said. “With SmartVista, we have built an interoperable nationwide ecosystem for instant payments that is locally governed, future-ready, and open to innovation. This launch is a point of pride for Ethiopia and a milestone for our financial sector.” Kayko Raises $1.2 million to help SMEs in Rwanda Kayko, which offers a small business financial management platform for companies in Rwanda, has secured $1.2 million in seed funding. Participating in the investment were Burrow Capital, the Luxembourg Development Agency, and Hanga Ignite by BRD and develoPPP Ventures. The company, founded in 2021 by brothers Crepin and Kevin Kayisire, will use the capital to fortify its infrastructure, expand its data capabilities, and build credit scoring and lending tools based on real transaction data. Kayko serves more than 8,500 Rwandan SMEs with bookkeeping, inventory, and tax support. The fintech helps boost SME access to credit in a country in which many businesses have incomplete or informal financial records that make it difficult to secure financing or to scale operations. For these and other small businesses, Kayko provides a point-of-sale and business management system that helps them process sales, track expenses, and accept payments, while turning everyday business activity into structured financial data for analysis and insights. Kayko’s funding news coincides with the Kigali-based fintech securing an Electronic Money Issuer (EMI) license from the National Bank of Rwanda (NBR). “With this license, we move from planning to execution,” Crepin Kayisire said in a statement on the company’s LinkedIn page. “We can now operate regulated payments, merchant wallets, and data-driven financial services that improve access to financing for small businesses.” Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world. Sub-Saharan Africa South African crypto platform Luno introduced crypto and tokenized stock bundle. Blockchain infrastructure provider Binance and African mobile network operator Africell announced a collaboration to boost blockchain education and digital asset literacy across Africa. Ethiopia’s national switch, EthSwitch, launched the country’s National Instant Payment System, in partnership with the National Bank of Ethiopia and powered by BPC’s SmartVista platform. Central and Eastern Europe The Bank of Lithuania supplemented the electronic money institution (EMI) license for TransferGo Lithuania, enabling the fintech to expand beyond money transfers and payment account services. Open banking solutions provider Salt Edge and financial management platform NoCFO teamed up to bring Pay by Bank to SMEs in Germany and Finland. UK-based fintech Unlimit opened a new global research and development center in Belgrade, Serbia. Middle East and Northern Africa Emirates NBD launched its new Carbon Calculator within its ENBD X Mobile Banking app. Dubai-based Hoxton Wealth app reached $10 billion in assets worldwide less than three years after its April 2023 launch. The Times of Israel looked at the potential for a rebound in the Israeli fintech market. Central and Southern Asia OpenAI forged a partnership with India’s Pine Labs focused on enterprise payments and AI-powered commerce. India’s Induslnd Bank expanded its gold lending network to 500 branches throughout the country. US-founded banking and investment platform Fasset announced plans to enter the Pakistan market via a partnership with Habib Rafiq Limited (HRL). Latin America and the Caribbean Uruguayan fintech dLocal partnered with online English-language platform Open English to introduce a new payment method, Bre-B, for students in Colombia Visa inked a deal to acquire Argentinian payment companies Prisma Medios de Pago and Newpay from private equity firm Advent International. Peru’s Banco de la Microempresa selected Temenos SaaS to modernize its core banking infrastructure. Asia-Pacific Philippine fintech Maya is reportedly considering a $1 billion US IPO. Australian fintech Lorikeet, which provides AI concierge services for financial firms, opened a new office in London. South Korea’s Danal Fintech inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Sahara AI to integrate AI into its stablecoin-based payment infrastructure. Photo by Aron Marinelli on Unsplash The post Finovate Global East Africa: Investing in Digital Banks, Delivering on Instant Payments, and More! appeared first on Finovate.