TLDR FINTECH 2026-10-22

Make your supply chain reliable and resilient.

RAMP APPLIES FOR NATIONAL TRUST BANK CHARTER FROM OCC

Ramp applied to the OCC for a national trust bank charter that would let it offer fiduciary investment management and digital-asset custody under a federal framework, while not taking deposits or making commercial loans. The application comes just after Ramp raised $1.85 billion at a $60 billion valuation and amid growing legal and industry debate over the OCC's recent wave of trust-charter approvals for fintech and crypto companies.

JPMORGAN ANNOUNCES $5 BILLION IN INVESTMENTS IN COMPANIES CRITICAL TO US NATIONAL SECURITY

JPMorgan said it had invested $5 billion of its own equity in venture, growth, and later-stage companies spanning advanced manufacturing, energy, supply chains, and defense technology. The deployment, alongside roughly $230 billion already financed through its broader initiative, shows large banks competing to fund AI infrastructure, automation, and other industries tied to US industrial policy

CHECKOUT.COM EXPANDS INTO IN-PERSON PAYMENTS

After 14 years focused purely on online payments, Checkout.com is moving into in-store payments, citing demand from enterprise merchants who want its online acquiring performance in physical stores. The offering is software-led and device-agnostic, so merchants can keep their existing terminals, and online plus in-person run through one acquiring relationship with the same Unified Payments API, contract, and settlement. Mollie (350K+ merchants) is the launch partner, keeping control of its hardware and customer experience while running on Checkout.com's acquiring rails.

FINTECH FUNDING FELL 21% IN Q3 AS DEALS GREW SCARCER

Global fintech funding fell 21% year over year to $10.6 billion in Q3 2026, while deal count dropped 31% to its lowest level since at least 2018, showing that capital is concentrating in fewer companies and larger rounds. Investors are increasingly separating AI-driven market leaders from the rest, favoring infrastructure, payments, stablecoin rails, and agentic commerce, while demanding stronger growth, efficiency, and proof of durable demand from companies without clear momentum.

FINANCE IS ENTERING ITS MOD ERA

Personal AI agents will become a primary channel for banking, the way mobile did, as customers want their own agent to use a bank's product rather than open its app. Letting others build on your product can be good business, since trust, data, and integrations stay with the provider. There is an emerging protocol stack for authenticating agents and restricting what they can do. Reg E liability for agent actions remains a grey area. Start with customers already asking for agent access and give them limited, revocable, enforceable permissions.

NUBANK MAKES ITS MARK IN THE US AND MORE (26 MINUTE PODCAST)

In this podcast episode, Brett King sits down with Carl Rivera, Chief Product Officer at Nubank—one of the world's largest digital banking platforms—to discuss how Nubank is redefining modern banking. With customer-centricity at its core, Nu continues to pave new paths in financial services. King and Rivera discuss Nubank's exponential growth, international expansion, US market entry, design philosophy, and product strategy. They also explore Nubank's recent launch and leap forward with Nu Global, a multi-currency digital account for people with global lives.

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MASTERCARD OPENS EARLY ACCESS TO AI AGENT PAYMENTS FOLLOWING PILOTS WITH COINBASE, BASE, AND CLOUDFLARE

Mastercard opened early access to Agent Pay for Machines, giving developers APIs, a toolkit, and a sandbox for machine-to-machine payments after pilots with firms including Coinbase, Base, Cloudflare, BVNK, and Ant International. In one demo, an AI agent completed nine purchases using Coinbase's x402 protocol, Coinbase wallet infrastructure, and Base settlement, while Mastercard and BVNK handled payment orchestration across fiat and stablecoins, showing how agents could autonomously buy digital services within preset spending controls.

VISA, BILL, AND BILLTRUST LAUNCH LIVE PILOT FOR TRUSTED AI AGENT PAYMENTS

Visa, BILL, and Billtrust launched a live pilot that lets authorized AI agents complete already-approved B2B invoice payments end-to-end across supplier portals, removing a manual payment step that often still requires human login and data entry. Visa's Trusted Agent Protocol authenticates the agent and uses tokenized payment credentials, while buyer-defined controls and supplier acceptance rules remain in place, showing how agentic payments can automate AP execution without giving agents independent payment authority.

ANTHROPIC'S NEW AI AGENT PURCHASES BUSINESS SUPPLIES

Claude Duet checks connected apps for updates and keeps working while users are offline, asking for approval before sending messages, making payments, or deleting anything. Available by waitlist to US Pro and Max subscribers, it supports checkout through Shopify's Shop Pay and Stripe's Link, with Link requiring spending approval and using virtual cards to keep real card numbers private.

PAYPAL CEO SAYS COMPANY NEEDS FASTER DECISIONS AND CLEARER ACCOUNTABILITY

PayPal CEO Enrique Lores says the company became too slow and layered under prior leadership, and his turnaround plan centers on reducing management layers, clarifying accountability, and investing more heavily in Venmo, Braintree, and consumer financial services. PayPal is also modernizing its technology stack with AI and preparing for agentic commerce, although Lores expects meaningful agent-driven transaction volume to remain limited until around 2028.

RAMP BOLSTERS TREASURY MANAGEMENT CAPABILITIES WITH VESTO ACQUISITION

Vesto gives businesses a consolidated view of accounts held across more than 12,000 institutions, adding cash-flow monitoring and forecasting to Ramp's checking and investment products. Coming immediately after Ramp's national trust-bank application and $1.85 billion financing, the acquisition advances its shift from expense management toward a broader financial operating system.

BRITAIN SEEKS TO BREAK APPLE'S GRIP ON CONTACTLESS PAYMENTS

Britain's competition regulator proposed substantially lower access fees and fewer technical restrictions for companies using the iPhone's contactless technology.

23% OF US CONSUMERS COMFORTABLE WITH AGENTIC PURCHASES

A Money20/20 panel featuring Visa, Stripe, and Cross River explored fraud prevention, shopper control, and accountability as AI assistants move from recommending products to handling payments.

PASSKEYS AND AGENTIC CHECKOUT: VLADYSLAV KOLODISTYI ON AUTHENTICATING PAYMENTS

When an agent handles checkout, authentication moves from the payment itself to the mandate the customer grants the agent.