The stablecoin wars are officially on.

Just two months after the U.S. passed its first Stablecoin Law, the $300B market long ruled by Tether and Circle is being shaken up, and there’s blood in the water.

Stripe and Anchorage Digital have jumped in fast: Stripe now lets anyone issue a branded stablecoin through its newly acquired Bridge platform (yep, the $1.1B deal from earlier this year is paying off), while Anchorage struck a deal to co-issue Tether’s new U.S. stablecoin (USAT).

The result? Margins are collapsing.

New rules ban interest payments on stablecoins, forcing issuers to share yields with partners and exchanges. What used to be a cash cow (Tether made $13B in profit last year) is turning into a commodity business.

And right in the middle of this shift comes Coinflow, a scrappy payments startup that just raised $25M from Pantera, Coinbase Ventures, and Jump Capital to build the Stripe of the stablecoin era.

Coinflow’s bet: merchants don’t care about blockchain — they care about instant settlement.

With its PSP rails minting, burning, and settling stablecoins across Ethereum and Solana in seconds, CEO Daniel Lev says this is the “superpower for moving money.”

Between new laws, Stripe’s empire-building, and Coinflow’s rise, the stablecoin space is no longer just crypto’s playground. It’s the next payments frontier.

Scroll down for more FinTech stories shaping that future 👇

Cheers,

Marcel

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FINTECH NEWS

🇳🇱 WealthTech startup NAO launches in the Netherlands, letting private investors access alternative assets from just €1. According to the company, the Netherlands is characterised by high per capita financial assets. This reached over €117K in 2023, 69 percent higher than the German level (€69K).

🇿🇦 AI FinTech Optasia targets biggest South Africa IPO in 2025. Optasia plans to raise 6.3 billion rand by selling shares in the country to acquire companies as demand for digital finance booms. The company will use the proceeds to fuel its growth and look at geographical diversification outside of Africa, and in Asia and potentially Latin America.

🇩🇪 Neo-Broker lemon.markets expands €2.2 trillion custodian arsenal with Deutsche WertpapierService Bank (dwpbank). The transaction adds a digital brokerage platform to dwpbank’s traditional custody services, allowing the combined entity to serve clients ranging from established financial institutions to newer FinTech players.

🇬🇧 Moniepoint reports $1.2million loss in first year of UK operations and acquires FCA-regulated Bancom Europe. The company did not generate any revenue between February and December 2024, with operations continuing to be funded by its parent company. In July 2025, it completed the acquisition of Bancom Europe.

PAYMENTS NEWS

🇬🇧 Ecommpay adds ekko climate action to Hosted Payment Page. The integration of ekko’s features into the Ecommpay Hosted Payment Page will empower customers to turn everyday payments into a measurable environmental impact. Critically, the process is delivered seamlessly at checkout for a frictionless customer experience. ekko works with a range of organisations across key environmental issues, including the oceans, nature, wildlife, birdlife, and climate.

🇬🇧 Checkout.com launches Flow Remember Me, an extension of Flow that allows shoppers to save their card details once and then have them immediately available for use across Checkout.com’s global network of merchants. By eliminating the need to re-enter information, Flow Remember Me makes transactions faster and more likely to convert.

🇮🇳 UPI reaches 500 million consumers and 65 million merchants. UPI has evolved from a digital payment platform into a daily habit, driving financial inclusion, enabling access to credit, and fuelling growth for micro and small enterprises across India, according to a report released. UPI’s presence now spans 99% of India’s more than 19,000 pin codes, catalysing economic momentum nationwide.

🇬🇧 GoCardless records first profitable quarter. According to co-founder and CEO Hiroki Takeuchi, this achievement reflects the discipline, focus, and strategic scaling the business has executed over the past 18 months. With this momentum, the company now aims to sustain profitability over a full year while continuing to pursue its ambitious growth objectives.

🇮🇳 UK’s Revolut to launch India payments platform, eyes 20 million users by 2030. Revolut will let Indian users make domestic and international payments via its tie-ups with the UPI and Visa, starting with 350,000 waitlisted customers later this year before opening to others. Additionally, Revolut introduces Pay by Bank payment method in Finland to its payment processing service, offering businesses a new tool that enables fast and secure payments directly from a customer’s bank account.

🇮🇳 Amazon Pay introduces UPI Circle.  UPI Circle now enables primary UPI account holders to securely add family members to their payment circle with either one-time approval or transaction-by-transaction authorisation. Keep reading

🇮🇳 PhonePe launches next-gen SmartSpeaker with integrated card payments. PhonePe has launched its new SmartPOD, a device merging POS and smart speaker functions, enabling small merchants to accept both UPI and card payments. Designed in India, it supports major card networks and offers features like dual displays and celebrity voice confirmations.

🇮🇳 BharatPe launches BharatPeX, the online PAPG with an X-factor: AI-guided, in-app UPI first, and implementation-led. It combines a modern online payment gateway with an implementation-first model that helps clients ship in-app UPI experiences faster, keep customer data within their own apps, and materially lift success rates.

🇶🇦 Ooredoo FinTech to join PayPal World, expanding global digital payment access. This integration will provide users with expanded access to millions of businesses, the ability to pay international merchants using their preferred domestic payment methods and local currencies, and smoother cross-border money transfers.

REGTECH NEWS

🇮🇱 QNB Group receives Central Bank of Egypt license approval for a new digital bank. ezbank will combine advanced digital technology with international best practices to offer seamless financial services to a broad customer base. The bank will use mobile-first platforms, AI-driven tools, and smart risk management to make transactions easier, increase access, and support Egypt’s digital economy.

🇺🇸 Baltimore sues MoneyLion over alleged predatory loan practices. The complaint, filed by the city’s Department of Law, claims that the company violated Baltimore’s Consumer Protection Ordinance by promoting small, short-term “Instacash Advances” with deceptive terms.

🇬🇧 FCA lifts retail ban on crypto ETNs. The UK’s financial watchdog has ended its four-year ban on the use of crypto-based exchange-traded notes (ETNs) by retail investors in a move that could add 20% to the UK’s crypto market. ETNs are debt instruments that track the performance of an underlying asset.

DIGITAL BANKING NEWS

🇸🇬 Trust Bank now offers a customisable savings plan in Singapore with up to 2.5% p.a. Under the plan, customers can choose any three bonus interest categories from a menu of eight, depending on their lifestyle and financial habits, such as spending, saving, or investing.

🇮🇩 Superbank denies going public for 2025 IPO despite strong signals. Backed by Emtek and Grab, the bank plans to allocate 70% of IPO proceeds for loan disbursement and the rest for digital infrastructure. Read more

🇬🇧 Atom Bank opens new headquarters in Newcastle city centre. Mark Mullen, CEO of Atom bank, emphasized that the move to the Pattern Shop represents more than just a change of location; it’s a strong statement about the bank’s future and its commitment to the North East.

PARTNERSHIPS

🌎 Solidgate partners with Bamboo to boost reach in Latin America. Through this integration, merchants gain broader regional access, more payment options, and faster market entry with improved infrastructure support. The partnership reinforces Solidgate’s commitment to helping global merchants scale and grow in one of the world’s most dynamic e-commerce regions.

🇬🇧 Ecommpay partners with humm to meet demand for online finance for travel and high-value retail sectors. UK and Ireland merchants using Ecommpay as their payment services provider will be able to offer online finance for goods and services up to £3,000 through humm, benefitting from a potential uplift in conversions as well as the value of sales.

🇬🇧 DashDevs joins FINTECH Circle to boost global FinTech collaboration. This move supports DashDevs’ mission to drive FinTech innovation through collaboration and shared expertise. As part of the network, DashDevs aims to co-create scalable digital solutions, support founders and institutions globally, and contribute to the growth of the global FinTech ecosystem.

🇩🇪 Bullish and Deutsche Bank partner to deliver seamless fiat integration for institutional crypto trading. Through this partnership, Deutsche Bank will provide comprehensive corporate banking services to Bullish, including the seamless facilitation of fiat deposits and withdrawals for customers of Bullish Exchange’s Hong Kong SFC and German BaFin-regulated businesses.

🇪🇸 ID Finance and myTU Partner to deliver instant loan payouts with programmable banking infrastructure. The partnership enabled ID Finance to deploy instant loan payouts within a single business day, avoiding a potentially costly disruption. Keep reading

🇮🇳 PhonePe partners with Mastercard to launch device tokenisation. This collaboration makes online payments more secure and seamless for users. Customers can now save their card details once on the PhonePe app and use them across various merchants. This initiative aims to simplify the checkout process.

🇬🇧 Thredd launches first-to-market fraud solution in collaboration with Featurespace. According to the companies, the solution eliminates the need for fraud analysts to log into separate systems for cards and payments. Continue reading

🇬🇧 Big Issue partners with fumopay to roll out a new way for vendors to take cashless payments via open banking. Big Issue sellers taking part in the fumopay pilot have been able to accept instant payments from customers by displaying a QR code to accept instant payments, all without the need for WiFi or charging card readers.

DONEDEAL FUNDING NEWS

🇺🇸 Increase Alpha raises $3.5M to launch proprietary AI prediction engine for institutional investors. Designed for seamless integration into existing investment strategies, the engine offers ready-to-use signals for hedge funds without requiring internal data cleansing or signal processing, as is typically the case with other alternative data providers.

🇺🇸 Jiko announces strategic investments from key industry players, including Coinbase and Blockstream Capital Partners. These strategic partners will join a growing number of institutions adopting Jiko as a banking partner to utilize its U.S. T-bill-based model for storage, settlements, and payments.

🇺🇸 Stablecoin startup Coinflow raises $25 million to challenge Stripe. The funds will be used to help merchants use stablecoins to achieve faster money movement. Coinflow is a payment service provider, or PSP, going head-to-head against competitors amid the race to remake global transactions with blockchain technology.

MOVERS AND SHAKERS

🇺🇸 Fiserv, PayPal ex-CEOs, Frank Bisignano, grab new roles. Bisignano, who earlier this year was appointed by President Donald Trump to lead the Social Security Administration, has now also been named CEO of the Internal Revenue Service. Treasury Secretary and acting IRS commissioner said that Bisignano is a “natural choice” for the role.

🇺🇸 Ex-BlockFi CEO Zac Prince returns to the crypto spotlight to lead Galaxy Digital’s new banking platform. The appointment places Prince at the center of another effort to merge crypto services with mainstream finance, but this time, under markedly different conditions. In an interview, Prince said his personal risk appetite is “more conservative” after what he experienced with BlockFi.

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