fintech

Ant International signs Citi, HSBC, Barclays for new forex AI tool

Ant International on Thursday rolled out an upgraded artificial intelligence model designed to forecast foreign exchange risk, partnering with six major global banks as financial institutions race to embed specialized AI into their core operations.

Stripe acquires AI routing startup OpenRouter for $7.5B

Stripe announced Wednesday that it has agreed to acquire OpenRouter, a fast-growing AI model gateway platform, in a deal that values the startup at approximately $7.5 billion — more than five times its $1.3 billion valuation from a funding round…

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AWS launches autonomous payment service for AI agents

Amazon Web Services Amazon.com, Inc. has made Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Payments generally available, enabling AI agents to autonomously pay for APIs, data feeds, and digital content using the USDC stablecoin — a move that brings autonomous machine-to-machine financial transactions into…

Visa, Mastercard join alliance to set AI payment rules

More than 25 organizations across payments, crypto, and fintech have joined a newly formed coalition aimed at shaping how AI agents transact on behalf of humans and machines, as the industry races to define standards before trillions of dollars in…

PayPal in talks to sell itself to Stripe and Advent

PayPal is in active discussions to sell itself to a consortium of Stripe and private-equity firm Advent International, in what would be the largest fintech acquisition ever, according to reporting by The Wall Street Journal on August 14.

Stripe, Advent in talks to acquire PayPal for $53B

Stripe and private-equity firm Advent International are in active negotiations to acquire PayPal for roughly $53 billion, the Wall Street Journal News Corp reported Friday in an exclusive, a deal that would reshape the global payments industry by uniting two…

Samsung Wallet to add stablecoin payments later this year

Samsung Electronics is preparing to bring stablecoin functionality to Samsung Wallet by the end of 2026, a move that would allow Galaxy smartphone users to open stablecoin accounts, send cross-border remittances, and make in-store payments without downloading a separate cryptocurrency…

Revolut wins French banking license for Western Europe push

Revolut secured a full French banking license on Monday following joint approval from France's Prudential Supervision and Resolution Authority (ACPR) and the European Central Bank, giving the British fintech a second standalone banking license within the eurozone.

China’s UnionPay links to Brazil’s Pix amid US tariff dispute

China's UnionPay International plans to link Chinese payment apps to Brazil's Pix instant payment system, a pilot that arrives just weeks after the United States imposed tariffs on Brazilian goods partly in retaliation for the government-run platform's dominance over American…

BlackRock, Visa and Mastercard to validate Circle’s Arc blockchain

Circle on Wednesday announced the founding validator cohort for Arc, its proprietary blockchain network designed for institutional financial applications, naming some of the largest firms in global finance as network operators ahead of a public mainnet launch scheduled for September…

Visa cuts 2,600 jobs globally as AI push reaches senior ranks

Visa is eliminating approximately 2,600 positions, or 7% of its global workforce, in a sweeping restructuring that has reached the company's most senior technical and executive ranks as the payments giant accelerates its pivot toward artificial intelligence.

Mastercard completes $1.8B acquisition of stablecoin firm BVNK

Mastercard on Monday finalized its acquisition of BVNK, a stablecoin infrastructure provider, in a deal valued at $1.8 billion that marks the payments giant's largest bet on digital currency technology to date.

Open USD stablecoin backed by 140 firms to debut on Ethereum

Ethereum Institutional, an independent nonprofit organization, confirmed that Open USD (OUSD) will debut on the Ethereum blockchain, marking a move that reinforces the network's position as the leading platform for institutional finance. The stablecoin is developed by Open Standard and…

Goldman Sachs launches AI investing platform AlphaAI

Goldman Sachs The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. Asset Management has launched an artificial intelligence investing platform called AlphaAI, positioning the Wall Street giant to use AI as a core driver of returns across its public and private market businesses.

BNY moves $8.6T fund recordkeeping onto blockchain

BNY The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation, the world's largest custodian bank, announced on Wednesday the launch of a blockchain-based Digital Transfer Agency platform that moves fund ownership records and investor transactions onchain, covering approximately $8.6 trillion in assets…

Visa to cut 2,600 jobs in broad restructuring

Visa is eliminating approximately 2,600 jobs, representing about 7% of its workforce, as CEO Ryan McInerney moves to streamline the payments giant amid intensifying competition and a shifting industry landscape.

Revolut launches share sale at $115 billion valuation

British digital bank Revolut launched a secondary share sale on Wednesday that values the company at $115 billion, a spokesperson confirmed to Reuters, cementing its position as Europe's most valuable fintech and surpassing the market capitalizations of established lenders including…

Ant International raises $1.2B in Series A round

Ant International, the Singapore-headquartered global arm of Jack Ma-backed Ant Group, has completed a Series A financing round of approximately $1.2 billion to fuel its expansion in cross-border payments and artificial intelligence-enabled commerce.

Visa launches stablecoin platform for 200M merchants

Visa on Wednesday unveiled the Visa Stablecoin Platform, an enterprise-grade infrastructure that allows banks, fintechs, and crypto firms to mint, move, and manage stablecoins through a single system connected to the payments giant's global network of more than 15,000 financial…

Stripe, Advent make $53B joint offer to acquire PayPal

Stripe and private equity firm Advent International have submitted a joint offer to acquire PayPal for more than $53 billion, according to a Reuters exclusive report published late Monday. The bid of $60.50 per share represents a roughly 28% premium…

Stripe files South Korea trademarks for Open USD stablecoin

Stripe has filed trademark applications in South Korea for "Open USD" and "Open Standard," expanding the legal groundwork for a stablecoin initiative that has drawn more than 140 companies into what may be the most serious challenge yet to the…

China surpasses US in fintech patent filings, Nikkei finds

China has surpassed the United States to become the world leader in financial technology patent filings over the past decade, according to an analysis by Nikkei published on Monday. The shift marks another milestone in China's broader push to dominate…

Securitize becomes first company to tokenize its stock on IPO day

The infrastructure for trading traditional stocks on blockchains advanced on multiple fronts this week, with Binance BNB crossing a key milestone for its tokenized equities product, Securitize debuting on the New York Stock Exchange, and Ondo Finance launching SEC-aligned tokenized…

Visa, European banks complete first AI agent purchases with real merchants

Visa and a group of European banks have moved agentic commerce from controlled test environments into real-world merchant transactions, with AI agents now completing purchases on behalf of cardholders for the first time in live conditions.

Robinhood launches its own blockchain with tokenized stocks

Robinhood launched the public mainnet of Robinhood Chain on Wednesday, July 1, marking the online brokerage's full entry into blockchain infrastructure with support for tokenized equities, onchain lending, and AI-driven crypto trading.

Stripe, Visa and 140 partners launch Open USD stablecoin

A sweeping consortium of financial and technology companies on Tuesday formally launched Open Standard, an independent venture that will issue a new dollar-backed stablecoin called Open USD, directly challenging Circle's USDC in the institutional payments market.

Meta invests nearly $1B in Cred, names Shah WhatsApp head

Meta Platforms has moved to invest close to $1 billion in Indian fintech startup CRED and appointed the company's founder, Kunal Shah, as the new head of WhatsApp, according to reports from Moneycontrol and Bloomberg. The deal marks one of…

Coinbase lets AI agents trade crypto and pay for services

Coinbase on Wednesday unveiled "Coinbase for Agents," a platform that allows AI assistants such as ChatGPT and Claude to connect directly to user accounts to execute cryptocurrency trades and make autonomous payments for premium data services.

Visa integrates payment network into ChatGPT for AI shopping

Visa announced Wednesday that it has integrated its payment network directly into ChatGPT, allowing the AI chatbot to autonomously shop and complete transactions on behalf of users. The move, revealed at the Visa Payments Forum 2026 in San Francisco, marks…

Mastercard launches payment system for AI agents

Mastercard on Wednesday unveiled Agent Pay for Machines (AP4M), a payment framework designed to let AI agents and connected machines authorize, coordinate, and settle transactions autonomously across the company's global network — including payments worth fractions of a cent.