September 14, 2026 @ 8:29 am By Tony Zerucha  |  

Plenty of heavy hitters came out of the Labor Day weekend with product releases and partnerships, including Visa, Mastercard, Ant, Nu, and Marqeta. Visa, Mastercard and Ant to develop agent trust framework The trio hopes to build a trust framework that will help agentic commerce… Read More

September 13, 2026 @ 9:04 pm By Tony Zerucha  |  

Stablecoins, in one way or another, dominate this edition of Web3 thoughts of the week. Lawyers speak out on the CLARITY Act, too. Stablecoins “The number of issuers is expanding quickly. A consortium of 21 financial institutions plans to launch a dollar stablecoin in 2027,… Read More

September 13, 2026 @ 5:35 pm By Tony Zerucha  |  

Chime hits its Stride in $590M deal Chime has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Stride Bank, N.A. for $590 million in cash. Stride is a nationally chartered bank that has been Chime’s bank partner for more than seven years. Upon closing, Stride will… Read More

September 8, 2026 @ 12:40 am By Tony Zerucha  |  

FTV leads TabaPay’s $155M round This financing includes both primary capital for the company and a secondary transaction. Alongside the transaction, TabaPay also announced its intent to acquire Transact Bank, N.A., an OCC-chartered and FDIC-insured bank based in Denver, Colorado. Through a single API, TabaPay… Read More

September 7, 2026 @ 4:34 pm By Tony Zerucha  |  

SoFi, Payward team up on multiple fronts Payward will leverage SoFi’s Big Business Banking capabilities, join the SoFi Exchange Network (SEN) and list SoFiUSD on its multi-asset trading platform. SoFi will also use Kraken Prime, Payward’s full-service prime brokerage solution, as an additional source of… Read More

September 7, 2026 @ 12:07 pm By Tony Zerucha  |  

Stablecoin consortium “Twenty-one banks backing a stablecoin is the clearest sign yet that the growth in blockchain rails is coming from TradFi now, not crypto. Nobody’s debating whether public chains work for settlement anymore, just who gets to own the issuer. “The real losers here… Read More

September 1, 2026 @ 7:49 am By Tony Zerucha  |  

AI security firm Alice confirms $140M funding round Apax Digital Funds led the round, with participation from Samsung, SentinelOne, Maj Invest, MoreTech and Phoenix Insurance. Existing investors Resolute Ventures, Grove Ventures, CRV, Highland Europe, Vintage Investments, Norwest, NFX and Claltech came along for the ride… Read More

August 31, 2026 @ 9:51 am By Tony Zerucha  |  

Affirm (NASDAQ:AFRM), Shopify (NASDAQ:SHOP), Ripple, and Visa (NYSE:V) were among the companies announcing product features and partnerships this week. Affirm, Shopify announce Aussie installment feature Shop Pay Installments lets eligible shoppers split their purchases into fortnightly or monthly payments. Approved consumers can choose from interest-free or interest-bearing payment… Read More

August 31, 2026 @ 8:44 am By Tony Zerucha  |  

As Artificial Intelligence both simplifies and changes fraud activity, SotaTek is seeing great success with SotaShield, a platform that helps banks screen merchants, detect emerging risk patterns and reduce manual investigations. CEO Meng Khong Tong said one key is for companies to improve their onboarding… Read More

August 30, 2026 @ 6:08 pm By Tony Zerucha  |  

Digital Assets minds had plenty to say about crypto markets this week. “On regulation, the SEC has proposed a framework for crypto assets, while the CFTC is advancing related regulatory and enforcement initiatives. The market is now watching the next procedural steps for the Clarity… Read More

August 25, 2026 @ 1:20 am By Tony Zerucha  |  

Stripe goes AI shopping, buys OpenRouter for $7B Stripe expands its AI presence with OpenRouter, which builds infrastructure allowing developers to secure access and route requests across different AI models. Bank of America to invest up to $1.8B in Jio Credit For its investment, BoA… Read More

August 23, 2026 @ 8:18 pm By Tony Zerucha  |  

Thredd to underpin Cashi’s Hong Kong stablecoin card debut Thredd contributes issuer processing infrastructure for Cashi, whose app lets users send and hold digital assets. The card can facilitate daily spending. In Hong Kong, users get virtual Visa cards and Google Pay support. Apple Pay… Read More

August 23, 2026 @ 5:49 pm By Tony Zerucha  |  

Why AI will select AI “The sheer number of AI agents is already unmanageable at enterprise scale. Gartner predicted that the average Fortune 500 company will go from less than 15 AI agents in 2025 to more than 150,000 in 2028, while only 13% of… Read More

August 18, 2026 @ 12:00 pm By Tony Zerucha  |  

New agentic AI services from TransFi, OSL Group and Ionic highlight this week’s fintech product release and partnership announcements. TransFi launches JARVIS, an AI-powered compliance intelligence platform JARVIS consolidates customer and transaction data from across its internal systems and third-party providers into a single, risk-based… Read More

August 16, 2026 @ 3:27 pm By Tony Zerucha  |  

I don’t think Bitcoin is ever going to go back below $60,000. I think forever “I think the base case for Bitcoin is basically that you get higher lows, and you do have these run-ups that happen roughly every four years. I would say that… Read More

August 15, 2026 @ 7:36 pm By Tony Zerucha  |  

Mainframe computers could endure in the AI era Research from Crisil Coalition Greenwich suggests mainframe computers will retain their place alongside cloud computing and AI. More than 90% of banking technology executives say more than 50% of their core banking applications rely (and will continue… Read More

August 14, 2026 @ 8:30 am By Tony Zerucha  |  

Maybank buys remaining Maybank Ageas Holdings stake for $1.18B Malayan Banking, better known as Maybank, gets the remaining 31% stake from Belgian insurer Ageas. It now has full control of the Etiqa insurance arm. Allianz buys UOB asset management services for $434M An arm of… Read More

August 11, 2026 @ 10:16 am By Tony Zerucha  |  

Drata co-founder and CEO Adam Markowitz sees Artificial Intelligence’s rapid adoption creating an unprecedented trust gap that his company is perfectly positioned to solve. Drata empowers security teams to automate compliance, manage risk, and win with trust. Markowitz said trust is a scarce resource that… Read More

August 10, 2026 @ 3:36 pm By Tony Zerucha  |  

Two new Marqeta partnerships highlight this week’s list of fintech product release and partnership announcements. Marqeta, Google, expand child-focused Google Wallet capability Google can now bring tap-to-pay technology to the Wallet for kids experience, enabling supervised kids and teens to use their NFC-enabled Android phones… Read More

August 10, 2026 @ 9:04 am By Tony Zerucha  |  

While Forward Financing saw the biggest number, several others reached unicorn status thanks to fresh capital. Forward Financing nabs $525M in new financing The package includes a $350 million variable funding note (VFN) facility alongside a $175 million asset-backed securitization (ABS). It grows Forward Financing’s… Read More