Weekly FinTech & Financial News
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Top FinTech Updates this Week
💰 Rain, the enterprise-grade infrastructure for stablecoin-powered payments, raised $250M Series C funding round led by ICONIQ to to scale its infrastructure for global enterprises
💰 Slate, Vancouver-based embedded lending infrastructure raises $1.3M CAD in pre-seed funding from Toronto’s N49P and North Exit Ventures to build embedded lending infrastructure
🌟 Checkout.com, UK-based paytech received approval for its Merchant Acquirer Limited Purpose Bank (MALPB) charter from the Georgia Department of Banking and Finance
💼 Sequence, Toronto-based cryptocurrency infrastructure developer acquired by Polygon Labs, a blockchain payments platform to help it scale up how it moves payments and other financial transactions
🚀 Fiserv, a global payments and financial technology firm launches 'Unknown Shopper', helping merchants better understand in-store customers
Top Financial Institutions Updates this Week
🤝 Portage, Toronto-based VC firm strikes deal to manage US-based Point72 Ventures FinTech assets in Steve Cohen and Goldman Sachs-backed fund
🌟 TD Bank Group expands AI-led marketing using its in-house predictive model, TD AI Prism
🌟 BVNK, the global provider of stablecoin infrastructure, secured direct access to the EU’s Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) scheme through the Bank of Lithuania’s CENTROlink system
🌟 National Bank of Canada opens an office in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), United Arab Emirates
🚀 TD delivers eligible TD Credit Card and Visa Debit customers more value with a new rewards experience launch
🤝 RBC and Canadian Tire Corporation launch a loyalty partnership, integrating Triangle Rewards and Avion Rewards to maximize value for shared customers
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Checkout.com, UK-based paytech received approval for its Merchant Acquirer Limited Purpose Bank (MALPB) charter from the Georgia Department of Banking and Finance. This critical regulatory milestone puts Checkout.com in the position to move forward to operate a MALPB in the US, marking the transition to operational execution. Securing the charter allows Checkout.com to accelerate plans to operate as its own acquirer in the US market. It is the natural next step in Checkout.com’s long-term journey, with direct US card network integration enabling greater control. This will unlock faster innovation, superior acceptance rates and deliver the performance US merchants demand. | Checkout.com
Fiserv, a global payments and financial technology firm launches 'Unknown Shopper', helping merchants better understand in-store customers. Unknown Shopper from Fiserv, a new analytics capability designed to help merchants and their marketing partners better understand in-store customer behavior and build actionable customer segments from card-present transactions. Unknown Shopper enables merchants to unlock value from in-store payment activity by transforming payment data into actionable insights that support more relevant engagement, and better customer experiences. Built on Fiserv’s payments intelligence platform and informed by billions of historical transactions, the solution helps merchants across retail, restaurant, and fuel environments—industries where insight into card-present transactions has historically been limited—gain deeper visibility into purchasing patterns. | Fintech Finance News
BVNK, the global provider of stablecoin infrastructure, and Visa entered in a strategic partnership that will see BVNK powering stablecoin payments for Visa Direct. BVNK, which processes over $30bn in stablecoin payments annually, will help power Visa Direct’s stablecoin services in select markets, including stablecoin pre-funding, enabling certain select business customers to fund Visa Direct payouts using stablecoins instead of only fiat, and payouts to end recipients in stablecoins – putting digital dollars directly in recipients’ wallets. The partnership will help power Visa Direct’s stablecoin services in approved areas, opening new avenues to meet a wider range of client needs and giving end users more choice in how and when they access their funds. | Fintech Finance News
Payments Canada appoints Stephine Zee as a Chief Product Officer to lead enterprise-wide product strategy. Stephanie has more than 20 years of experience in the Canadian payment ecosystem, having served in leadership roles in strategy, product innovation and risk management, including fraud, financial crimes and data protection. Stephanie was a Payments Canada Board member from 2013 to 2016. This appointment is part of Payments Canada's commitment to making payments easier, smarter and safer for everyone in Canada. | Payments.ca
Stripe is helping power a new shopping experience called Copilot Checkout in Microsoft Copilot. Copilot users in the US will be able to buy products from Etsy businesses and retailers like Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie, all without leaving the chat. | Fintech Finance News
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TD Bank Group expands AI-led marketing using its in-house predictive model, TD AI Prism. The internally developed model TD AI prism is being applied across marketing to anticipate client needs at scale and support more targeted, data-driven personalization efforts. | LinkedIn
National Bank of Canada opens an office in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), United Arab Emirates. This location will serve as a platform to support Canadian clients pursuing business opportunities in the Middle East. As part of this expansion, Ali Fares, Managing Director and Head, Middle East and North Africa, Capital Markets, has relocated to Dubai to lead the Bank’s regional presence. The announcement was made during an economic mission to the United Arab Emirates led by the Honourable Maninder Sidhu, Canadian Minister of International Trade, as Canada and the United Arab Emirates continue to strengthen their commercial ties through new agreements and initiatives aimed at expanding bilateral trade and investment. | National Bank of Canada (NBC)
TD delivers eligible TD Credit Card and Visa Debit customers more value with a new rewards experience launch. TD has launched a new rewards experience that helps customers get more value from their everyday purchases. Eligible TD Credit Card and Visa Debit customers can expect to find merchant discounts and cashback offers from top brands directly within the TD app and EasyWeb. It gives customers a quick and simple way to save on everyday purchases, with offers they can browse and activate in just a few clicks. | TD Bank
RBC and Canadian Tire Corporation launch a loyalty partnership, integrating Triangle Rewards and Avion Rewards to maximize value for shared customers. By linking their eligible RBC credit and debit cards with their Triangle Rewards accounts, millions of RBC cardholders can earn 3x Canadian Tire Money when they use their linked RBC credit or debit card to make a qualifying purchase at Canadian Tire, SportChek, Mark's and other participating CTC retail banners. Linked members will also receive exclusive offers from RBC and Avion Rewards, and starting later this year, will have the ability to convert Avion points to Canadian Tire Money. | RBC
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Rain, the enterprise-grade infrastructure for stablecoin-powered payments, raised $250M Series C funding round led by ICONIQ to to scale its infrastructure for global enterprises. It also saw participation from Sapphire Ventures, Dragonfly, Bessemer Venture Partners, Galaxy Ventures, FirstMark, Lightspeed, Norwest, and Endeavor Catalyst. The round values Rain at $1.95B, brings the company's total funding to over $338M. The new funding enables Rain to scale its global, compliant footprint, deepen platform capabilities, and invest in new products that redefine how payments work worldwide. | PR Newswire
Sequence, Toronto-based cryptocurrency infrastructure developer acquired by Polygon Labs, a blockchain payments platform to help it scale up how it moves payments and other financial transactions. Polygon claims that its blockchain, built on Ethereum, has processed $2.2 trillion USD of value. Its platform powers payments for Stripe, Revolut, Flutterwave, and Polymarket, the world’s largest prediction market. Polygon also acquired Coinme, at the same time as it looks to build on its infrastructure for regulated stablecoin payments. It told that it paid more than $250M USD ($347M CAD) for the two startups, but did not disclose how much it paid for each. | BetaKit
BVNK, the global provider of stablecoin infrastructure, secured direct access to the EU’s Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) scheme through the Bank of Lithuania’s CENTROlink system. The integration allows BVNK to provide its customers with direct 24/7 access to instant euro payments, with transactions settling in under 10 seconds and 99% completing in less than five seconds. This makes BVNK the only unified platform to offer direct access to instant SEPA euro payments and stablecoin settlement. Direct SEPA access removes intermediaries in the payments flow and mitigates delays caused by downtime associated with other providers. | Fintech Finance News
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Slate, Vancouver-based embedded lending infrastructure raises $1.3M CAD in pre-seed funding from Toronto’s N49P and North Exit Ventures to build embedded lending infrastructure. The round, which was raised via a simple agreement for future equity (SAFE), closed earlier this month, supported by undisclosed strategic angels. Founded in late 2025 by CEO Scott Elliot and CTO Devin Picciolini, Slate aims to allow any Canadian platform to offer embedded lending to their small and medium-sized business (SMB) customers “without the complexity of building and managing lending infrastructure.” | BetaKit
Klarna, the global BNPL provider, launched instant peer-to-peer payments marking the next step in its evolution as a digital bank. The new feature enables Klarna customers to send money to friends and family, whether splitting bills or gifting cash, directly from the Klarna app: as simple as handing someone cash, with the protection of a regulated bank. | Fintech Finance News
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Portage, Toronto-based VC firm strikes deal to manage US-based Point72 Ventures FinTech assets in Steve Cohen and Goldman Sachs-backed fund. That deal, which Portage closed, grants the FinTech-focused Toronto firm oversight of a portfolio of mature, later-stage FinTech companies. It marks Portage’s first formal foray into secondary investments. Select Point72 assets have been transferred to a new, $280M USD ($389M CAD) continuation vehicle (CV) managed by former Point72 partner Tripp Shriner, who has joined Portage as a general partner (GP) in this transaction. | BetaKit
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Shopify co-developed a new open standard for AI agent-based shopping with Google and partnered with Google & Microsoft to help consumers find and buy its merchants’ offerings more easily through their chatbots. It is also launching a new customer plan to expand its product catalogue to non-clients. These moves mark the latest developments in Shopify’s push into agentic commerce, which entails the use of autonomous AI agents to buy products online. | BetaKit
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