German open banking platform Deposit Solutions raised $100M at a $500M valuation, led by Vitruvian Partners with backing from Peter Thiel's e.ventures. The company operates a platform enabling banks to offer third-party deposit products to their customers. The round positions Deposit Solutions as a major player in open banking infrastructure connecting banks and savers across Europe.
SolarisBank partnered with ABN AMRO subsidiary Moneyou to enable rapid seven-minute loan approvals for German clients via a white-label banking model. SolarisBank provided the BaaS infrastructure while Moneyou offered the branded customer-facing experience. The deal exemplified the growing trend of established banks leveraging fintech partners for digital lending.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency announced it would begin accepting applications for special purpose national bank charters from nondepository fintech companies. The policy covers fintechs engaged in core banking activities such as lending, paying checks, or taking deposits. This landmark decision opened a formal pathway for fintech firms to operate under a national bank charter without requiring FDIC deposit insurance.
Entities: Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC)
Luma Financial Technologies launched an open architecture electronic platform for structured products and annuities, backed by Navian Capital, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and Morgan Stanley. The multi-issuer platform is available to any distributor, providing independent access to structured financial products.
Entities: Luma Financial Technologies · Navian Capital · Bank of America Merrill Lynch · Morgan Stanley
KeyCorp partnered with Ingo Money to launch Ingo Push, an instant payments platform enabling businesses to disburse funds digitally from checks and ACH. The platform targeted the replacement of paper-based disbursements with real-time digital push payments.
Even Responsible Finance, a fintech partner embedded within Walmart's employee benefits ecosystem, raised $40 million led by Khosla Ventures. Even provides money management tools to Walmart employees, enabling early wage access and budgeting. The deal highlights the growing embedded finance trend where fintechs partner with large employers to deliver financial services at the point of employment.
Entities: Even Responsible Finance · Khosla Ventures · Walmart
Visa launched Visa Loyalty Solutions, a white-label digital loyalty platform for issuing member banks in Latin America and the Caribbean. Developed in partnership with novae, the platform enables banks of any size to offer branded rewards programs with mobile app, web portal, and multi-channel support. Cardholders can redeem points across 285,000+ travel and entertainment merchants worldwide.
Private equity firm EQT acquired Banking Circle, a cross-border payments platform serving financial institutions including card acquirers, payment service providers, and banks. The acquisition aimed to accelerate Banking Circle's growth as a payments infrastructure provider enabling global financial connectivity.
Orange Business Services partnered with Additiv to offer cloud-based wealth management as-a-service using Additiv's Digital Finance Suite (DFS 4.0). The platform provides robo-advisors, portfolio management, and advisory dashboards to financial institutions. The partnership extends Orange's embedded financial services strategy following its Orange Money and Orange Bank launches.
Entities: Orange Business Services · Additiv · Saxo Bank
Paysend, an international remittance and money transfer platform, raised $20 million in funding led by MARCorp. The company enables card-to-card cross-border transfers, providing embedded payment infrastructure for global remittances. The raise supports Paysend's expansion into new corridors and markets.
Citizens Bank launched Citizens Access, a direct-to-consumer digital banking platform built on FIS technology and hosted entirely in the cloud. The platform offers high-interest savings accounts and CDs with no fees. It attracted over $1 billion in new deposits within its first 90 days, with an average account size exceeding $70,000.
Airwallex raised $80 million to scale its cross-border payments infrastructure platform. The company provides API-driven FX and payment rails that enable businesses to move money internationally. The raise positions Airwallex as a key embedded payments infrastructure provider for businesses operating across borders.
Stripe launched Stripe Issuing, an API-driven platform enabling businesses and platforms to create and issue virtual or physical credit and debit cards programmatically. The product integrates with Stripe's existing payments infrastructure and supports embedded finance use cases including corporate expense cards, consumer debit cards, and on-demand disbursements.
Bento for Business, a cloud-based spend management platform offering prepaid business cards, closed a $9 million funding round. The platform leverages bank-issued cards to provide businesses with expense control tools. The round supported growth in embedded card-based financial management for SMEs.
Ant Financial, Alibaba's payments affiliate, raised $14 billion in Series C financing, bringing its valuation to $150 billion. The round represented the largest single fintech funding event in history at the time. The capital positioned Ant Financial to expand its embedded finance and payments infrastructure globally.
The South African Reserve Bank published the results of Project Khokha, a 14-week proof-of-concept testing distributed ledger technology for interbank wholesale payments using tokenized rand. Seven major South African banks participated alongside ConsenSys and PwC. The project demonstrated feasibility with transaction speeds up to 400,000 tx/sec, marking a milestone for central bank-fintech collaboration in Africa.
Entities: South African Reserve Bank (SARB) · Absa · Capitec · Discovery Bank · FirstRand · Investec · Nedbank · Standard Bank · ConsenSys · PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC)
Marqeta, a card issuing and payment infrastructure provider, raised $45 million in funding. The company provides modern APIs that enable fintechs and enterprises to issue and manage payment cards. This round reinforced Marqeta's position as a foundational BaaS card-issuing platform powering embedded finance use cases.
BlueVine raised $60 million in Series E funding led by Menlo Ventures for its invoice factoring and business line of credit products. The fintech partners with banks to deliver embedded lending to small businesses. The round highlighted growing investor appetite for fintech-bank partnership models in SME lending.
BPCE, the second largest bank in France by capitalization, integrated TransferWise's API into its mobile banking app. The integration enables BPCE clients to send funds to 60 countries at approximately 0.5% fees. This represents a significant embedded finance move by a major European bank choosing to partner with a fintech rather than build in-house.
Mitek Systems and Signicat partnered to enhance digital customer onboarding for financial institutions. The collaboration integrates Mitek's identity verification technology with Signicat's digital identity platform. The partnership aims to reduce friction in customer onboarding processes for banks and fintechs across Europe.
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority published its finalized guidelines for authorizing virtual banks following a public consultation. Virtual banks must meet the same criteria as conventional banks, including HK$300 million minimum paid-up capital. The HKMA rejected industry requests for phased regulatory requirements or exemptions, setting a high bar for digital-only bank entrants.
Tradeshift raised $250M in Series E funding led by Goldman Sachs and PSP Investments, reaching a $1.1B valuation. The API-driven supply chain payments marketplace had raised over $400M total. Funds support global expansion, platform growth, and investments in blockchain and AI capabilities.
MassChallenge announced a zero-equity fintech accelerator program sponsored by Citizens Bank, Fidelity Investments, MassMutual, and other financial institutions. The six-month program pairs later-stage fintech startups with industry leaders for co-development and product validation. It offers up to $250,000 in cash prizes and aims to foster fintech-bank partnerships.
Entities: MassChallenge · Citizens Bank · Fidelity Investments · MassMutual · Putnam Investments · John Hancock · Eastern Bank · FinTech Sandbox
Citizens Bank's small business digital lending platform, built in collaboration with Fundation Group LLC, was recognized with an industry award for partnership innovation. Fundation provides digitally-enabled, integrated small business lending solutions embedded within bank platforms. The partnership exemplifies early bank-fintech collaboration in embedded lending.