Future of Fintech: Revolut’s Stablecoin Sandbox Moment
Future of Fintech – Edition #184 (16th–28th Feb’ 26)
This edition covers regulated experimentation with new forms of digital money, continued progress in making cross-border transfers more direct, and wider use of AI in core financial operations. It also includes late-stage indicators. Underneath it all, banks are modernising the core to stay competitive for the next cycle.
✔️ Supervised innovation in digital money
✔️ More direct cross-border delivery
✔️ AI in core workflows and maturity signals
Ready to connect the dots? 👀
🚨 Featured Story of the Week:
Revolut Enters FCA Stablecoin Sandbox
Revolut was selected by the UK Financial Conduct Authority as one of four firms admitted to the FCA’s stablecoin cohort within its Regulatory Sandbox, chosen from 20 applicants. The sandbox allows limited, supervised testing with real users and safeguards, and the FCA has positioned it as a way to validate proposed policy in practice ahead of final UK stablecoin rules.
Revolut has already been pushing stablecoin utility within its app.
Expanded crypto access for users with features like staking and crypto transfers.
Launched Revolut X, a standalone crypto trading platform aimed at more active traders.
This reflects Revolut’s intent to own more of the crypto stack rather than simply distribute tokens.
Want the deeper context? WhiteSight’s Revolut Deep Dive Report 2025 explains the strategy behind Revolut’s global expansion, from subscriptions and licensing to payments and SME growth.
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🚀 Startup Spotlight: Otto Money
This edition, we’re spotlighting Otto Money, a startup building an AI-led wealth guidance platform. The company recently raised USD 1.3M in a pre-seed round to strengthen the product, expand personalisation, and grow the team.
Otto Money is targeting a familiar gap in wealth services. Turning fragmented user data and generic advice into more consistent, guided decision support. The focus is on using AI to make day-to-day guidance more actionable, while keeping the experience personalised as users’ needs change over time.
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Edition 184 focuses on the trends with the strongest implications for digital finance.
The Week’s Hot 10!♨️🔟
Regulators Test New Money
⤷ Revolut was selected by the UK FCA to participate in a stablecoin trial via its regulatory sandbox programme.
⤷ TrueLayer rolled out pay-by-bank at checkout in the UK, signalling accelerating adoption of account-to-account rails in a tightening compliance environment.AI Becomes The Engine
⤷ Allica Bank raised $155M to scale beyond the UK and deploy AI across SMB lending processes.
⤷ BridgeWise acquired Context Analytics to strengthen AI-driven analysis of unstructured market data.Wallets Replace Bank Details
⤷ Thunes partnered with Banco Cathay to launch Pay-to-Wallet payments via Swift, enabling cross-border transfer through Thunes’ Direct Global Network.
⤷ Mambu expanded its payments platform beyond the EU into EMEA, LATAM, and APAC with connectivity to local and global payment schemes.Fintechs Hit New Milestones
⤷ Klarna reported over 55 million monthly active users globally and 9 million daily users, with daily engagement up 53% YoY.
⤷ Plaid completed an employee tender offer that valued the company at $8B, marking a 31% increase from its valuation in 2025.Back-End Modernisation Wave
⤷ Engine by Starling partnered with SBS Bank in New Zealand to upgrade SBS Bank’s core banking to Engine’s cloud-native platform.
⤷ Liberis enabled faster access to flexible funding for restaurants and food businesses via a pre-approved capital programme.
Now, for the ‘byte’-sized fintech buzz –
Digital banking is being shaped by licensing and compliance boundaries while platforms add richer operational tooling!
Revolut closed approximately 14k accounts across New Caledonia, French Polynesia, and Wallis & Futuna, due to EU regulatory constraints on its Lithuanian banking licence.
State Bank of Texas (SBT) and BankCherokee went live with Alkami’s digital banking platform, rolling out upgraded retail/business digital features such as mobile check deposit, real-time alerts, and Positive Pay and ACH reporting for business customers.
Digital payments is making acceptance and recipient delivery simpler, with mobile-first merchant enablement on one side and wallet-linked transfers on the other!
MineSec and BSD Enterprise signed an MoU to form a joint venture in Mexico to deliver a mobile-first payment acceptance platform for Latin America.
DBS Bank and Tenpay Global launched a DBS Remit service in DBS digibank that lets customers send money directly to recipients’ Weixin Pay wallet balance or bank cards linked to Weixin Pay.
Digital wealth is moving closer to everyday banking and institutional-grade operations!
Heartland Credit Union partnered with InvestiFi to embed digital investing tools into its existing digital banking platform, giving customers access to guided investing, self-directed trading, crypto access, and financial education.
BSE selected ITRS to strengthen real-time monitoring across its trading infrastructure by deploying ITRS Geneos for end-to-end visibility and proactive issue detection.
Embedded finance is broadening how credit is delivered and accessed, combining faster availability of funds with pay-over-time options!
Jaris expanded its partnership with Paysafe to offer Instant Payouts to U.S. SMB merchants, enabling near-real-time push-to-card funding so merchants can access eligible funds instantly.
Affirm partnered with H&R Block Canada to bring BNPL/installment payments to professional tax preparation.
Open finance is shifting from data access to practical automation, supported by standardisation efforts for portability and product integrations!
Open Finance Network Canada (OFNC) partnered with the Digital Governance Standards Institute (DGSI) to develop a consensus-driven technical specification for a Data Portability Framework to support open banking in Canada.
Bankfeed integrated Salt Edge’s Open Banking data aggregation into its Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central add-on to give EU/UK businesses access to account balances and transaction data.
Fintech infrastructure is prioritising resilience and risk reduction, combining tighter cyber defence and threat visibility!
Conferma integrated with Oracle OPERA Cloud to automate corporate travel payments using virtual cards embedded into hotel systems.
Cloudflare partnered with Mastercard to extend cyber defence for businesses by combining attack-surface intelligence with Cloudflare application security controls.
And that’s a wrap 👋
We hope you enjoyed this edition of the Weekly Fintech Brew!
If you’re someone who likes to read think pieces, you will likely love our monthly blog, Fintersections, where our team members analyse the convergence of fintech with the world.
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