The American Fintech Council publicly urged passage of the Bank-Fintech Partnership Enhancement Act (H.R. 6552), calling for a federal study on bank-fintech partnerships' impacts on community banks, innovation, and consumer protection. The advocacy effort highlights growing legislative attention to the regulatory framework governing BaaS and embedded finance relationships.
The OCC conditionally approved five national trust bank charter applications from major fintech and digital asset firms including Circle, Ripple, BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets, and Paxos. The approvals include two de novo charters and three state-to-national conversions. All five plan to focus on digital asset custody, with four also intending to issue stablecoins. This marks the first such approvals since 2021, signaling significant regulatory openness to crypto-native firms entering the banking system.
Entities: Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) · Circle · Ripple · BitGo · Fidelity Digital Assets · Paxos
UK fintech Bourn raised £3.5 million (~$4.4M) with involvement from NatWest Group to scale its SME working capital and payments platform. The bank-fintech funding relationship highlights the embedded finance trend where traditional banks back infrastructure fintechs. Bourn's platform serves small businesses with integrated payment and capital solutions.
Enova International announced a definitive agreement to acquire Grasshopper Bancorp, a BaaS sponsor bank, for approximately $369 million in cash and stock. Grasshopper supports fintechs like Pocketbook, Manifest, and Sydecar through API-driven banking platforms. The deal creates a vertically integrated fintech-bank hybrid combining Enova's online lending with Grasshopper's digital banking and deposit base.
Entities: Enova International · Grasshopper Bank · Grasshopper Bancorp
Fifth Third Bank and Brex entered a multi-year sponsor bank partnership enabling Brex's AI-powered finance platform, including commercial cards, for Fifth Third's commercial banking clients. The deal unlocks an estimated $5.6 billion in annual payment volume. This represents a significant embedded finance integration between a major regional bank and a leading fintech.
Pathward Financial announced an evolved operating model for its sponsor banking business, emphasizing customer-centric alignments. As one of the largest BaaS sponsor banks in the US, this restructuring signals a strategic shift in how Pathward manages fintech partnerships. The move reflects broader industry trends toward more sustainable and compliant BaaS frameworks.
Treasury Prime launched its AI Marketplace, an LLM-powered platform enabling banks and fintechs to identify and partner with each other more efficiently. The platform provides access to over 3,600 curated fintechs across 13 industry verticals. It addresses growing demand for structured partner discovery with built-in risk management and data transparency capabilities.
BMO launched Payment APIs enabling businesses across North America to integrate real-time payment capabilities directly into ERP systems, treasury platforms, and customer-facing applications. The offering includes a production-grade sandbox through the BMO Developer Portal for testing cross-border payment solutions. This marks a major embedded finance push by one of North America's largest banks.
Celero Commerce is offering white-labeled payment solutions and merchant referral programs to community banks, helping them grow non-interest income. The scalable processing platform enables small banks to serve small business merchants without building payments infrastructure. The initiative reflects a 2025 push for community bank-fintech collaboration.
BVNK, a stablecoin-based payments infrastructure platform, received strategic investment from Visa Ventures and Citi Ventures alongside Haun Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, and Tiger Global. The funding validates stablecoins as enterprise-grade financial infrastructure as BVNK processes $30 billion in annualized stablecoin payment volume. The investment supports BVNK's expansion of embedded wallets, new US payment rails, and AI-driven onboarding across 130+ countries.
Entities: BVNK · Visa Ventures · Citi Ventures · Haun Ventures · Coinbase Ventures · Tiger Global · Worldpay · Deel · Flywire · Rapyd
NatWest Group opened applications for its 2026 Fintech Programme, a 12-week initiative targeting pre-Series A and Series A UK fintechs using AI to enhance financial services. The program offers collaboration with NatWest, mentorship from senior executives, and access to innovation hubs. It builds on 2025 successes including Tunic Pay's fraud prevention pilot integrated into NatWest's mobile app.
Federal banking regulators previewed timelines for key fintech and digital asset rules in December 2025. The FDIC is targeting stablecoin licensing guidance by year-end 2025, while the Federal Reserve aims to establish 'skinny' master account access for novel charter holders by Q4 2026. These developments could significantly impact BaaS and embedded finance infrastructure.
CommerceOne Financial is acquiring Green Dot Bank's charter and ~$5 billion in assets to create a new publicly traded bank holding company. Simultaneously, Smith Ventures is acquiring Green Dot's non-bank fintech operations for $690 million. A seven-year exclusive agreement positions CommerceOne as the sponsor bank for the fintech business. The deals are expected to close in Q2 2026 pending regulatory approval.
Entities: CommerceOne Financial · Green Dot Bank · Green Dot Corporation · Smith Ventures
Cross River launched a stablecoin payments platform that unifies fiat and stablecoin flows within its real-time core operating system (COS). The platform emphasizes bank-grade compliance and composable money movement, bridging traditional banking infrastructure with on-chain finance.
Thrivory raised $3.5 million alongside the launch of its ThriveNow API, designed to address healthcare cash-flow issues by accelerating insurer reimbursements. The API-first product embeds financial infrastructure into healthcare provider workflows to speed up payment cycles.
Capital On Tap closed a £500 million asset-backed securitization dubbed 'London Cards 3' to fund its small business credit card operations. The deal provides long-term, scalable funding for the fintech's embedded credit products amid tightening lending conditions.
Kraken raised $800 million to expand its vertically integrated, regulated infrastructure stack bridging traditional and digital assets. The funding supports its multi-asset ecosystem including tokenised assets, positioning Kraken as infrastructure for fintech and institutional access to crypto.
Ramp secured $300 million in primary financing at a $32 billion valuation. The funding will enhance Ramp's AI-powered financial operations platform. Ramp provides corporate cards, expense management, and financial automation tools embedded into business workflows.
Maybern secured a $50 million Series B to build AI-driven infrastructure modernizing back-office and middle-office processes in the $16 trillion alternatives market. The platform automates operational workflows for private fund managers and institutional investors.
SBS unveiled its next-generation SBP Open Banking Platform, a cloud-native SaaS orchestration layer for banks supporting embedded finance, Wero digital payments, cards, and accounts via open banking standards. The platform supports PSD3 compliance and serves over 1,500 financial institutions across Europe, accelerating digital transformation and regulatory readiness.
LendAPI was highlighted for offering instant, no-code lending solutions that enable banks and retailers to rapidly launch embedded financing products. The platform addresses the lengthy timelines associated with traditional lending product development. LendAPI positions itself as infrastructure for embedded credit at the point of sale and within banking workflows.
Triodos Investment Management extended a USD 3 million loan to Kaleidofin, an Indian fintech platform serving underserved populations. Kaleidofin operates middleware-like products including Ki credit (onboarding/fraud checks), Ki view (risk dashboard), and Ki cash (savings). The investment supports embedded finance infrastructure for inclusive lending and savings in India.
Nebraska state regulators granted final charter approval to Telcoin on November 12, 2025, making it the first U.S. regulated digital asset depository institution. The bank will be located in Norfolk, Nebraska, operating under the Nebraska Financial Innovation Act, with operations expected to begin in December 2025.
Visa and Transcard launched a next-generation embedded finance platform focused on payments and working capital solutions for the freight and logistics sector. The platform was developed in collaboration with WebCargo by Freightos. It aims to embed financial services directly into logistics workflows, streamlining payment processes for carriers and shippers.
Entities: Visa · Transcard · WebCargo by Freightos