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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
Lithuanian ICT security and compliance automation platform CyberUpgrade has introduced its free DORA self-assessment tool.
The new offering provides two ways for firms to assess their DORA readiness and make the necessary changes in order to comply with the new EU regulations on financial resilience.
CyberUpgrade made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2025 in London.
Lithuania-based regtech CyberUpgrade recently launched a free DORA self-assessment tool designed to help fintechs meet the European Union regulatory requirements of the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA). DORA is a new EU-based mandate designed to ensure the security and operational resilience of companies in the financial sector, specifically by focusing on the networks and information systems that financial operations rely on. The regulation impacts not only banks, investment companies, and insurers, but also third-party ICT providers, as well.
“DORA has introduced a complex and urgent set of requirements that many financial institutions and their third-party providers have been struggling with,” CyberUpgrade CEO and Co-Founder Aurimas Bakas said. “Our tool helps organizations get clarity on where they stand and what actions they need to prioritize—without needing prior in-depth DORA knowledge.”
DORA mandates that companies must maintain essential operations even during major disruptions; provide robust defense against fraud and cyber threats; and log, monitor, and report major ICT incidents. Although DORA was enacted in January 2023 and went into effect at the beginning of this year, only 1% of EU companies are fully DORA-compliant. Reasons for this vary from a lack of in-house expertise on regulatory requirements to simple uncertainty and confusion as to how to begin the process.
In response, CyberUpgrade DORA Self-Assessment Tool is free, anonymized, and helps everyone from technical cybersecurity and compliance specialists to executives and managers quickly assess their DORA readiness. The solution is available in two modalities: firms can choose a Fast Track Mode that provides a five-minute, high-level snapshot of their current DORA readiness status, or a Full Scope Mode that includes a 25-minute “deep dive” that spots compliance gaps and produces a detailed readiness score, along with actionable insights.
Using the tool is straightforward. Firms only need to go to the CyberUpgrade DORA Self-Assessment Tool website, select a mode (Fast Track or Full Scope), complete the assessment questionnaire, and download the resulting report that details DORA readiness, any compliance gaps, and recommended next steps. There is no sign-up required and there are no hidden fees or obligations.
“Financial institutions falling short of DORA’s standards face serious regulatory risks, including administrative fines, business restrictions, or even losing operating licenses,” CyberUpgrade General Counsel Nojus Bendoraitis wrote on the company’s blog. “The risks are even sharper for third-party ICT service providers, who are directly supervised by European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) and face strict oversight and penalties.”
CyberUpgrade made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2025 in London. At the conference, the ICT security and compliance automation platform demonstrated how its AI-driven co-pilot CoreGuardian works with its vendor management solution VendorGuard to provide comprehensive cybersecurity and compliance. CoreGuardian engages workers one-on-one through channels like Slack and Teams to provide real-time education, assessment, and alerts. VendorGuard streamlines vendor management by handling risk assessments, incident planning, and prioritization.
CyberUpgrade’s technology automates up to 80% of compliance tasks, reduces compliance costs by more than €60,000 each year, and keeps companies audit-ready around the clock. Founded in 2023, CyberUpgrade is headquartered in Vilnius, Lithuania.
San Francisco, California-based embedded finance platform Highnote has launched its Instant Payments capability.
The new addition to its unified product platform will enable businesses to provide near real-time payments from Highnote-issued cards to eligible debit and prepaid cards.
Founded in 2021, Highnote made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2022.
Embedded finance platform Highnote, which began the year with a $90 million Series B funding round led by Adams Street Partners, has announced the latest addition to its unified product platform. The company launched its Instant Payments capability this week to empower businesses to provide near real-time payouts from Highnote-issued cards to eligible external debit and prepaid cards.
Instant Payments enables businesses to push funds to debit and prepaid cards in the US. This not only gives users faster access to their earned wages, but also boosts liquidity and enhances payout operations. By embedding instant payments functionality directly into its product platform, Highnote believes its solution compares favorably to “stitched together” legacy infrastructures by giving users built-in access to seamless, intelligent money movement. Use cases for the technology include gig worker payouts, employee tips, insurance reimbursements, merchant settlements, refunds, and more.
“Instant Payments reflects both where our subscribers are today and where the market is headed,” Highnote CTO Kin Kee said. “By embedding on-demand disbursements directly into our issuing stack, we are helping businesses move money faster and more intelligently, all within a single, unified product experience.”
Highnote’s Instant Payments is supported by Mastercard’s portfolio of money transfer solutions, Mastercard Move, as well as by Visa Direct, and is currently available to all Highnote’s US subscribers.
Visa SVP for Money Movement North America Yanilsa Gonzalez-Ore underscored the ability of the technology to help businesses “leverage Visa’s scale and robust security infrastructure to deliver faster and more reliable payouts.” Stefany Bello, SVP for Digital Partnerships, Fintech & Enablers for Mastercard, North America, highlighted the company’s “longstanding relationship with Highnote” and the importance of the collaboration in ensuring “businesses can securely access critical funds in near real-time to keep their operations up and running.”
Headquartered in San Francisco, Highnote made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2022. The company offers a unified, embedded finance platform, designed for modern card issuance, acquiring, credit, and real-time money movement. The platform features built-in ledgering, integrated payment capabilities and complete program management to help fintechs, vertical SaaS providers, and businesses launch their own embedded payments experiences.
Highnote has raised more than $140 million in funding courtesy of a Seed and Series A round in 2021 and a Series B round at the beginning of 2025. John MacIlwaine is Co-Founder and CEO.
“This is the turning point for AI in community finance—we’ve moved beyond experimentation,” Eltropy VP of Product and Head of AI Saahil Kamath said. “Our AI certification program proves that credit unions and community banks can build, deploy, and benefit from AI, not tomorrow but today. In under one hour, participants were able to create real bots on real channels, not just slides and ideas. That’s what practical AI looks like, and that’s how we close the gap between innovation and impact.”
The self-paced, online program will go live later this summer. The course is designed for workers in both the front- and back-office, and will provide foundational knowledge in AI, practical applications for Agentic AI, and how to use the technology in a safe, compliant way in regulated environments like banking and finance. Participants will get hands-on experience building live AI agents for telephony, website, and internal knowledge systems. The course will also provide instruction in AI-based technologies such as Large-Language Models (LLMs), Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), prompt engineering, and Quality Assurance (QA) automation.
The hands-on nature of Eltropy’s program differentiates it from other AI training programs that can be more theoretical, the company noted in a statement. Participants who successfully complete the program will receive an Eltropy AI Practitioner Certificate and advanced learning materials and tools that will enable them to put their practical AI skills to use at their own institutions.
“Our goal is to demystify AI,” Eltropy Head of AI Engineering Rahul Prakash said. “By the end of the course, every participant should have a working solution—whether for voice, web, or internal operations—while gaining clarity on responsible AI usage in regulated environments.”
Eltropy’s announcement follows the successful training the company held at its annual user conference EMERGE 2025, where 130+ credit union and community bank professionals earned their practitioner certificates. The course was completed in less than an hour and was credited for being “insightful and educational” and for “making AI real and doable” by participants.
“We came in curious and walked out certified,” said one participant, who hailed from a Midwest credit union.
The announcement also follows news that the company has fully integrated video banking into its Unified Conversations Platform. Eltropy’s video banking solution enables credit unions and community banks to offer secure, face-to-face banking services to members and customers around the clock. The integration helps promote financial inclusion, providing greater reach into underserved communities where physical branches may be distant or unavailable. The solution also enables institutions to connect members and customers with interpreters during a video banking session to make sure that language differences are not an impediment to accessing financial services.
“What started as a pandemic necessity has become a competitive advantage for community financial institutions,” Eltropy Co-Founder and CEO Ashish Garg said. “Our customers are seeing remarkable results—from 84% growth in booked loans to 70% reduction in lost opportunities. They key is that Video Banking isn’t replacing personal service, it’s extending it. CFIs can now deliver that same high-touch experience whether someone walks into their lobby or connects from their kitchen table.”
Founded in 2014, Eltropy made its most recent Finovate appearance at FinovateFall 2022. At the conference, the company demoed Eltropy One, its all-in-one omni channel solution that enables financial institutions to manage both inbound and outbound communications from a universal console. Eltropy One supports communication via text, secure chat, video, audio, cobrowsing, and conversational bots.
Eltropy’s AI certification course comes weeks after the company unveiled its desktop app, which delivers faster access with less resource usage. The solution provides 20% faster launch times and combines full feature parity with browser-based access. Also this summer, Eltropy launched its Collections 2.0 Suite to help community financial institutions deal with rising delinquency rates while maintaining positive customer and member relationships. Note that Eltropy acquired collections technology company Lexop at the beginning of the year.
Headquartered in Santa Clara, California, Eltropy counts more than 700 credit unions and community banks among its clients, and has powered 200 million conversations since inception.
Small business intelligence platform Crux Analytics has forged a strategic partnership with commercial bank Bankwell.
The partnership will integrate Crux Analytics’ automated platform into Bankwell’s business banking services to enable the bank to provide more personalized and proactive solutions.
Based in New York, Crux Analytics made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2025 in San Diego.
A strategic partnership between small business intelligence platform Crux Analytics and commercial bank Bankwell will boost Bankwell’s ability to deliver personalized and proactive solutions and services to its business customers. The integration will enable Bankwell to leverage Crux Analytics’ automated platform that offers enhanced lead targeting and prioritization, as well as active relationship monitoring to spot potential business opportunities as they develop.
“Bankwell’s commitment to digital solutions that support personalized service makes them an ideal partner,” Crux Analytics Co-Founder and CEO Jacob Bennett said. “Our platform enhances the human element of banking by giving bankers tools to be a more effective partner to their business clients while helping to drive institutional growth.”
The partnership between Crux Analytics and Bankwell comes at a time when small businesses are expressing a “disconnect” between their stated level of trust in their bank, the actual services their bank offers, and some of the tools and solutions that small businesses need. In response to this challenge, recently noted in research by American Banker, Crux’s intelligence platform helps financial institutions use data to both recognize what their small business customers might need as well as provide those solutions in a personalized, tailored way.
“In today’s competitive landscape, businesses need a financial partner who understands their specific challenges and opportunities,” Bankwell Chief Innovation Officer Ryan Hildebrand said. “Crux’s technology augments our bankers’ expertise with powerful automation and business-specific intelligence, allowing them to spend more time delivering value to clients.”
Connecticut-based Bankwell is a commercial bank with more than $3 billion in assets. The institution was founded in 2002 and serves communities in Southern Connecticut from its headquarters in New Canaan. The bank’s holding company, Bankwell Financial Group, is a publicly traded firm on the NASDAQ—ticker symbol BWFG—and has a market capitalization of $300 million. Christopher Gruseke is Bankwell’s Chief Executive Officer.
Founded in 2023 and headquartered in New York, Crux Analytics made its Finovate debut earlier this year at FinovateSpring 2025 in San Diego. At the event, the company showed how its flagship platform sources, qualifies, and engages small business leads. The technology uses personalized outreach on behalf of the banker to remove many of the logistical burdens financial institutions face when forming and maintaining small business relationships.
Crux Analytics’ partnership announcement with Bankwell came at the same time that the firm reported that it would be a part of the incoming cohort for credit union collective CURQL’s accelerator program. Crux joins two fellow Finovate alums—Fingoal and Themis—as well as earned wage access specialist Reset and scam defense platform Charm Security.
According to a report in Bloomberg, JP Morgan is going to make fintechs pay up if they want access to customer financial data. Fighting words? Or just signs of what’s to come? Check out this news and more in this week’s edition of Finovate’s Fintech Rundown!
Identity management
Digital identity platform Signicatacquires Dutch NFC-based digital identity verification solutions provider Inverid.
Lending
Digital lending platform Yabxlaunches GenAI-powered voice solution designed to increase financial literacy among its underserved borrowers.
This week’s edition of Finovate Global looks at recent fintech headlines from the South American nation of Peru.
EBANX partners with Peruvian digital wallet Yape
Brazilian payments company EBANX announced a direct integration with Peruvian digital wallet, Yape. Designed for cross-border commerce and relying on an easy user enrollment process, Yape enables users to pay for purchases on international ecommerce websites using either their Yape wallet balance or a linked card. The wallet supports recurring, one-click and on-file payment solutions and, in 2024, was responsible for the largest share of the volume transacted online through a digital wallet in the country. This is according to research from Payments and Commerce Market Intelligence (PCMI).
“With over 14 million active Peruvian users, Yape empowers millions of consumers with reliable daily transactions,” Yape Head of Payments Claudia Silva said. “This direct integration with EBANX marks a significant step in expanding our reach to global merchants, allowing them to tap into the vast potential of the Peruvian market.”
Digital wallets are a major component of Peru’s payment ecosystem. The fourth most commonly used payment in the country, digital wallets represented 10% of all digital commerce transactions in Peru in 2024. PCMI anticipates a digital wallet annual growth rate of 17% by 2027 and much of this growth, according to Silva, can be credited to Yape. According to the firm’s own data, Yape’s digital wallet delivers a 93% approval rate on transactions, an especially valuable achievement as digital wallets are increasingly becoming the preferred payment method for recurring transactions.
“Through its partnership with Yape, EBANX enables merchants to access a seamless, secure, and high-conversion payment solution that drives immediate results for one-time purchases as well as for subscription-based services and recurring payments,” said Juliana Etcheverry, Director of LatAm Country Growth—South Cone at EBANX. “This partnership goes beyond payments; it’s about fostering scalable, long-term growth for merchants in a rapidly evolving market.”
Founded in 2016, Yape is headquartered in Lima, Peru. The company’s payment app has more than 20 million users and more than 2.5 million affiliated businesses. Yape expanded to Bolivia in 2023, reaching two million users (“Yaperos”) a year later.
Paysafe goes live with PagoEfective ewallet in Peru
As if to underscore the rising popularity of digital wallets in Peru, payments platform Paysafe announced that it is expanding its eCash brand, PagoEfectivo, into a digital wallet. As a brand, PagoEfectivo has been a major force in Latin America’s eCash payment ecosystem, supporting the transactions of millions of online consumers. As a digital wallet, the brand will enable users to load funds instantly, make online transactions, receive payouts from participating merchants, transfer funds to others, and more.
“Our recent survey with Peruvian consumers found that 81% would use a digital wallet from PagoEfectivo,” Paysafe Head of Latin America Estaban Sarubbi said. “With that strong sign, we’re launching a solution that meets consumers’ payment needs.” Paysafe CEO Bruce Lowthers added, “Consumers in Peru already trust PagoEfectivo for everything from iGaming and digital goods to travel and ecommerce. With the launch of our new digital wallet, we’re giving them a more convenient way to pay—one that reflects Paysafe’s commitment to powering the experiential economy.”
Headquartered in London, Paysafe processed $152 billion in annualized transactional volume in 2024. A leading payments platform, Paysafe empowers businesses and consumers to connect and transact through its capabilities in payment processing, digital wallets, and online cash solutions. Delivering services across 260 payment types in 48 currencies, Paysafe’s integrated platform is designed for mobile-initiated transactions, real-time analytics, and facilitating the convergence between in-store and online payments.
Do Payment launches pay-in service Do Pay in regional expansion
Peruvian paytech Do Payment has launched its own pay-in service, Do Pay. The new offering is designed bring greater speed, lower costs, and more flexibility to the payments process by enhancing liquidity for clients and reducing reliance on intermediate parties. Do Pay also creates a single provider for both pay-in and pay-out payment solutions thanks to leveraging its own proprietary infrastructure and direct connections with banks, acquirers, and local payment networks.
“In Latin America, companies face a critical challenge: the slowness of fund availability, with delays of 48 to 72 hours and even up to one week, directly impacting their liquidity,” Do Payment Chief Product Officer Valentina Brero said. “Against global solutions poorly adapted to the region, Do Pay emerges as a service specialized in payment collection with the fastest settlement in the market, ideal for operators who need to use the funds for daily operations.”
Do Payment’s new offering enables firms to better manage a range of problems faced by companies in Latin America when it comes to collecting and making payments. These challenges include having to work with multiple partners—often different providers for both collecting and disbursements—as well as multiple technologies, high fees, and long waiting times. Do Pay, in contrast, enables firms to leverage a single platform for both collection and dispersal, which enhances operational liquidity and ensures that funds are credit faster.
Founded in 2022 by CEO Cristian Valderrama, Do Payment is based in Lima, Peru. The company is already active in seven countries—Peru, Mexico, Ecuador, Chile, Colombia, Panama, and the US—with its pay-out service. In addition to Peru, Do Payment will go live with its Do Pay pay-in solution in Mexico and Ecuador, with the goal of expanding to both Chile and Colombia subsequently. Do Payment also noted that it plans to grow its footprint in Brazil in the second half of 2025.
Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.
Latin America and the Caribbean
Payments platform Paysafe launched its digital wallet, PagoEfectivo, in Peru.
Mexican fintech and edtech Mattilda partnered with payment orchestration platform Gr4vy to power its new white-label payments solution, Mattilda Pay.
Uruguay-based paytech dLocal announced plans to acquire Kenyan cross-border payments solutions provider AZA Finance.
Asia-Pacific
Revolutpartnered with Ant International to enable its customers to send money to China.
Visaunveiled its Security Roadmap for New Zealand, featuring a three-year plan to leverage AI to fight fraud and other cyberthreats against consumers and businesses in the country.
Worldpaywent live with domestic acquiring services in Thailand.
Sub-Saharan Africa
Nigerian cryptocurrency exchange Roqqu acquired Kenyan crypto startup Flitaa as part of its expansion into East Africa.
Daily Investor profiled South African entrepreneur Lungisa Matshoba, co-founder of Yoco.
South African paytech Stitch acquired Efficacy Payments in order to offer card acquiring services directly to merchants.
Central and Eastern Europe
Clarity AI acquired Berlin, Germany-based Sustainability-as-a-Service innovator ecolytiq.
Azerbaijan-based fintech PashaPay inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Mastercard.
German online bank N26 announced plans to offer stock trading to customers in Austria and Germany.
Middle East and Northern Africa
Egypt’s Faisal Islamic Bank partnered with Intellect to launch its Shariah-compliant digital transformation.
According to research from Mordor Intelligence, the fintech market in the United Arab Emirates is expected to grow to more than $6.4 billion by 2030.
Egyptian digital investment platform Thndr raised $15.7 million in a round led by Prosus Ventures.
Central and Southern Asia
Pakistan-based ecommerce startup Bazaar Technologies announced that it is nearing profitability following its acquisition of Pakistani paytech Keenu.
Indian cross-border investing and financial management platform Belong is now available to non-resident Indians living in the UAE.
Central Asian digital banking ecosystem TBC Uzbekistan launched a new insurance vertical, TBC Insurance.
Clarity AI has announced its acquisition of Sustainability-as-a-Service fintech ecolytiq. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
The acquisition will add to Clarity AI’s suite of sustainability solutions and enhance the firm’s ability to embed sustainability intelligence into financial decision-making.
ecolytiq introduced itself to Finovate audiences in 2021 as part of our developers conference FinDEVr.
German Sustainability-as-a-Service innovator ecolytiq has agreed to be acquired by Clarity AI. The company helps financial institutions, public organizations, and individuals boost sustainability by calculating the environmental impacts of payment transactions. Terms of the acquisition were not immediately available. As part of the acquisition, Visa—which has had a longstanding strategic partnership with ecolytiq—has become an investor and strategic partner of Clarity AI.
“ecolytiq was founded with the idea that banking can be a powerful catalyst for climate action,” ecolytiq Co-Founder and Managing Director David Lais said. “The mission has always been to empower individuals to drive positive climate impact at scale through their everyday purchasing decisions. By joining forces with Clarity AI, we’re taking that vision to the next level—combining our behavioral science-based climate engagement technology with a world-class, AI-driven sustainability platform. Together, we’re accelerating the transition to a greener future—powered by the best available data and backed by purpose.”
The acquisition will bring additional climate engagement technology to Clarity AI’s platform, which is designed to embed sustainability intelligence into decision-making at scale, turning complex data into actionable insights that support responsible consumption and investment. ecolytiq’s technology leverages behavioral science to analyze transaction data in real-time and quantify environmental impacts. This information is delivered as high-impact sustainability content that has helped encourage climate-positive activity for millions of consumers and businesses throughout Europe and beyond.
Clarity AI Founder and CEO Rebeca Minguela called the acquisition “a declaration of intent,” noting that ecolytiq’s platform “aligns perfectly with our mission to embed sustainability intelligence into every decision—from multi-billion-dollar portfolios to everyday purchases. Together, we’re setting a new standard for how financial institutions engage customers with data that drives meaningful change.”
Recognized by Forrester as a Leading Provider in the field of sustainability intelligence, Clarity AI serves a network of clients managing a combined $70 trillion in assets. These clients include companies such as Invesco, Nordea, Lazard Asset Management, and Santander. From its inception in 2017, Clarity AI has put AI technology to work to support its suite of data solutions, analytics capabilities, and tools for portfolio management, corporate research and engagement, regulatory reporting, online banking, and more. Headquartered in New York, Clarity AI maintains offices in Europe and the Middle East, as well.
Headquartered in Berlin, Germany, and founded in 2020, ecolytiq has teamed up with the likes of Mashreq, HSBC, and Piraeus—as well as with fellow Finovate alums like Tink and TSYS—to provide solutions that help individuals and organizations understand the impact of their transactions on the environment and make adjustments to lower their carbon footprint. A Certified B Corporation, ecolytiq has approximately 14,500 financial institution clients worldwide.
Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) face big challenges when it comes to global payments. Opportunities to reach new markets across borders and overseas have never been greater. But unlike their larger competitors, SMBs are often stymied by both the complexity of international payments and the risks of dealing with new partners.
We caught up with Saujin Yi, Founder and CEO of LiquidTrust, a Los Angeles, California-based firm that offers a technology that reduces the risk and equalizes the power in business relationships to enable businesses of any size to partner, collaborate, and scale with flexibility, ease, and confidence. Earlier this year at FinovateSpring in San Diego, Yi and her co-presenter, Head of Business Development Sean Popock, demonstrated how LiquidTrust’s latest solution enables businesses to hold payments in third-party micro escrow accounts to guard against delays and defaults, as well as fraud.
In addition to LiquidTrust’s appearance at FinovateSpring in San Diego, the company also recently announced securing $4 million in seed funding. The round featured investments from Anthemis Female Innovators Lab Fund, Resolute Ventures, and Motivate Ventures, along with “strategic support” from BMO and JP Morgan. The capital infusion came at the same time that LiquidTrust announced the launch of Micro Escrow, its instant escrow payment solution for SMBs.
In our conversation, we discuss the current state of small business payments and the challenges SMBs face when conducting payments across borders. We learn about LiquidTrust’s solutions that provide fast, verified global payments for these firms and, importantly, the potential impact of the Trump administration’s tariff policy on SMBs when it comes to international payments.
Tell us about yourself and the company you founded. What problem does LiquidTrust solve and who does it solve it for?
Saujin Yi: I’m the founder and CEO of LiquidTrust. Before that, I spent over a decade working at the intersection of small and medium-sized businesses, fintech, and global payments. What we saw again and again, especially when working with these SMBs, is that trust remains a huge barrier to growth. Businesses want to work with new partners, especially across borders, but hesitate because they’re afraid they won’t get paid or that what they’ve paid for won’t arrive.
This is a real issue. SMBs in the US source goods and services from an average of nine different countries (1). And while many look to their bank or credit union for support, 75% of SMBs say they’re dissatisfied with current cross-border payment options. More than a quarter say they’re directly held back from global expansion because of the complexity and risks tied to current systems (2).
LiquidTrust exists to solve that. We partner with financial institutions and marketplaces to provide modern B2B payment solutions that make sending and receiving payments—especially across borders—safer and simpler for small and mid-sized businesses. Our flagship product, Protected Pay, is powered by our patent-pending Micro Escrow™ technology, which brings the kind of transaction protection that was once only available to large enterprises to the broader business world. Unfortunately, more than half of SMBs still believe that cross-border payment systems aren’t built for businesses of their size. We’re here to change that.
LiquidTrust offers two primary global payment methods. Can you outline these methods and explain the use cases for each?
Yi: Today, we partner with banks, credit unions, and B2B platforms to offer their SMB customers and members two ways to pay through one trusted platform: Simple Pay, for fast, verified global payments with no hassle, and Protected Pay, for escrow-style protection on higher-stakes transactions.
Simple Pay is ideal for repeat relationships where there’s already a baseline of trust, but both sides still want safeguards like payment validation or delivery confirmation. This is commonly used in ongoing vendor partnerships.
Protected Pay is for first-time, high-value, or higher-risk transactions where goods or services are being exchanged. This option uses our proprietary Micro Escrow technology to hold funds and release them only once specific milestones or conditions are met. It’s especially useful in cross-border deals, custom orders, or any situation that involves prepayment and delivery risk.
We’ve heard from financial institutions, marketplaces, and small business owners that this kind of flexibility—trust without unnecessary friction—is exactly what’s been missing. In fact, the fear of fraud is the number one reason over a quarter of SMBs say they’ve avoided trying to make or receive online cross-border payments altogether (3).
Can you tell us about a favorite implementation, deployment, or feature of your technology?
Yi: One of my favorites is a recent implementation with a logistics platform that serves SMB exporters and importers. Before LiquidTrust, many of their customers were wiring money upfront to overseas suppliers with no recourse if something went wrong. It was stressful and costly.
By integrating and offering our Protected Pay with Micro Escrow™ embedded, buyers now release funds only once documents are uploaded and verified. Sellers ship with confidence because they know the funds are secure. What I appreciate most is how seamless the experience is. The technology is fully embedded into the platform’s existing workflow, and the users don’t need to think about “escrow” as a separate process. It just works.
You recently wrote about the challenges that the proposed tariffs from the Trump Administration might represent for small business payments. What are these challenges and how are fintechs helping SMEs overcome them?
Yi: Tariff uncertainty creates chaos in two ways.
First, there’s payment timing. We’ve seen businesses rush to send full payments ahead of a tariff deadline, only to have goods delayed or renegotiated mid-shipment. One business owner put it bluntly: “Our money is stuck in limbo, and we can’t do anything about it.” Second, there’s the impact on supply chain diversification. Finding, vetting, and trusting one supplier in a country where you don’t know the language or local business culture is hard enough. When tariffs suddenly force SMBs to shift sourcing to an entirely new country, it’s more than just a logistics problem—it can be the difference between staying in business and not. And who’s to say they’ll be lucky enough to find another trustworthy partner?
This is where fintechs can help. We can build payment systems that match the real-world flexibility SMBs need—things like conditional release, milestone-based payments, and built-in dispute protection. When policies shift fast and unpredictably, businesses need tools that help them stay agile without putting their cash at risk.
Your company has a compelling origin story. What in your background gave you the confidence to tackle the challenge of small business global payments?
Yi: Our team was already working closely with SMB owners, and during the 2022 downturn, we kept hearing the same thing: payments were falling through. Some weren’t getting paid on time—or at all. Others were paying suppliers but never receiving what they ordered, with no real way to recover their losses. It became clear very quickly that the existing payment protections just weren’t built for them.
I’m a problem-solver at heart. My background is in engineering and finance, and what drives me isn’t building something flashy; it’s building something truly useful. I love simplifying complex systems, like escrow, and making them accessible. That, along with our experience in the space, gave me the confidence to build a solution that works for the people who need it most.
LiquidTrust recently secured $4 million in seed funding. What did this investment mean and what will it enable the company to do?
Yi: This investment allows us to scale thoughtfully. We’re using it to build more partnerships with financial institutions and B2B platforms, accelerate onboarding, and strengthen our compliance infrastructure so we can support more global markets. Just as importantly, it sends a strong signal to the market. When investors back a mission like ours—to make trust in payments accessible to everyone—it tells SMBs, “You’re not alone, and better tools are on their way.”
What can we expect from LiquidTrust in the months to come?
Yi: We’re focused on expanding our footprint with financial institutions and B2B platforms that want to offer trusted payments without having to rebuild everything from scratch. You’ll also see enhancements to our Micro Escrow™ technology, including more configurability, broader use-case support, and even simpler integrations.
And we’re continuing to listen. Most of our best features have come from conversations with business owners and bank partners who just want a better way to work. That’s what you can count on from us. We’ll keep building, quietly and thoughtfully, to make trust easier for everyone.
A partnership between Nymbus and Bud Financial will make AI-powered personal financial management (PFM) solutions available to customers of community banks and members of credit unions.
A full-stack banking platform for banks and credit unions in the US, Nymbus will embed Bud Financial’s suite of personal financial management (PFM) widgets directly into its banking platform. This will give customers and members greater visibility into their finances and equip them with relevant content and financial tools to help them better manage their money. Bud Financial’s transaction data enrichment and AI-driven insights provides categorized, contextual data that enables banks and credit unions to offer more tailored, personalized experiences.
“We’re thrilled to be partnering with Nymbus as they continue to transform banking for community institutions across the US,” Bud Financial CEO Edward Maslaveckas said. “Together, we’re enabling their clients to move beyond legacy data into a new era of intelligent, insight-driven banking. This collaboration reflects our shared belief that better data leads to better outcomes—for financial institutions and their customers alike.”
Nymbus’ partnership with Bud comes in the wake of the firm’s launch of Nymbus Engage. Engage is a new customer engagement solution designed to help community banks and credit unions use data to build better long-term relationships with their customers and members. Integrating Bud’s PFM tools extends Nymbus’ strategy by empowering financial institutions to offer more personalized initiatives to build customer loyalty. In their partnership announcement, the companies noted that the first Nymbus client deployment powered by Bud Financial is already underway. A wider rollout is expected over the weeks and months to come.
“This integration supports our mission of providing banks and credit unions with the tools they need to grow, differentiate, and deliver modern, personalized banking experiences,” Nymbus CEO and Chairman Jeffrey Kendall said. “Bud’s AI-driven enrichment unlocks a new level of insight from transaction data, and we’re excited to bring this to our clients.”
Founded in 2015, Nymbus is headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida. The company has presented its technology at both Finovate’s developer conference, FinDEVr, as well as Finovate’s flagship series, most recently demoing at FinovateFall 2023 in New York. Nymbus offers financial institutions a single, scalable platform that delivers core banking, digital services, lending, onboarding, and analytics.
Bud Financial is the second Finovate alum Nymbus has partnered with this year. The company began 2025 announcing a strategic agreement with Digital Onboarding (FinovateFall 2018) to provide community banks and credit unions with better marketing and analytics capabilities to enhance customer and member engagement.
Making its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2023 in New York and returning a year later for FinovateFall 2024, Bud Financial enriches transactional data to provide actionable insights and readable inputs for large-language models (LLMs) in banking and financial services. The company, headquartered in London, has processed tens of billions of transactions since its launch in 2015.
In addition to its partnership with Nymbus, Bud Financial has also forged partnerships in recent weeks with financial empowerment platform Fruition and adaptive financial infrastructure (AFI) platform XYB. In February, the company introduced its Intelligent Search capability that enables retail banking customers to search their transaction data for insights on spending and proactive suggestions on better money management.
Now that the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” is the law of the land, is there anything in there that fintechs and financial services companies need to be ready for?
There are two little-discussed items in the 900+ page statute may be of interest to the fintech and financial services industries One is a bit of a bankshot, the other represents a potential new hurdle for fintechs involved in payments, including cross-border transactions and micropayments.
Let’s start with the bankshot. The OBBBA includes a requirement that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) auction 600 MHz of spectrum behind 1.3-10 GHz by the year 2034. Why is this important? For one, the government stands to earn as much as $88 billion from the proceeds. At the same time, telecoms like T-Mobile and AT&T stand to gain bigly from greater access to a mid-band spectrum that represents the foundation of not just 5G but also future 6G networks, as well.
“Wireless spectrum acts as the invisible backbone for our digital economy,” Shane Tews, Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote last month. “Every smartphone call, streaming service, autonomous vehicle communication, and Internet of Things (IoT) device depends on this limited resource. As we approach widespread deployment of 5G and look ahead to 6G, the availability of commercial spectrum becomes increasingly vital to maintaining America’s competitive edge in the global technology race.”
While the biggest and most direct winners will be the telecoms who are able to buy the additional bandwidth, faster, low-latency connectivity will be a boon to fintechs and financial services companies when it comes to delivering current solutions faster, as well as offering new products and services that can take advantage of modern networks. Everything from account updating to more sophisticated anti-fraud technology to high-definition video banking could be positively affected by more robust 5G/6G connectivity. The broader network coverage could also support financial inclusion by making it easier for financial institutions, including regional and community-based financial institutions, to reach un- and underbanked communities in their vicinities.
The other aspect of the OBBBA that relates to fintech and financial services is the repeal of the de minimis tariff exemption. The de minimis tariff exemption allowed packages valued at less than $800 to enter the US duty-free and with less restrictive customs screening. The exemption came under fire from critics who feared a wave of low-value shipments from China and Hong Kong that would take advantage of the exemption.
Unlike much of what happens in Congress, there was actually bipartisan support for repealing the exemption; repeal also helped sync Senate and House versions of the legislation. The repeal is slated to take full effect by July 1, 2027—though partial implementation for Chinese imports has already begun.
How might this little-discussed feature of the OBBBA impact fintechs and financial services companies? Greater complexity in payments and cross-border transactions is one potential outcome as previously exempt transactions become subject to new tariff calculations. Along with this there are likely to be additional—and often more complex—compliance steps that firms will need to take including more extensive documentation, enhanced duty calculation functionality, and more. Companies will also have to explain and deal with the impact of higher prices on customers, who have become increasingly cost-conscious in recent years.
That said, there may be opportunity in this development for fintechs in the regtech space in particular. Firms with talent and technology in trade compliance, logistics, as well as tools to help automate new and complex regulatory requirements, will be ideal partners for fintechs, banks, and other companies as they navigate a world with far more dynamic trade and tariff policies than we’ve experienced in a long time.
Decentralized biometrics solutions company Anonybit announced a partnership with AI-native no-code platform SmartUp.
Courtesy of the partnership, the two companies are introducing what they call the first privacy-preserving digital identity solution for AI agents.
Founded in 2018, Anonybit made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2025 in San Diego.
Decentralized biometrics solutions provider Anonybit has teamed up with AI-native no-code platform SmartUp to launch what the two companies are calling the first privacy-preserving digital identity solution for AI agents. The solution brings secure, identity-bound agentic automation to enterprise workflows in payments, supply chain, and order management, and marks a pioneering implementation of agentic commerce secured by decentralized biometrics.
“Agentic commerce holds incredible promise for efficiency and scale, but without identity, it also introduces serious risks around trust, fraud, and control,” Anonybit Co-Founder and CEO Frances Zelazny said. “We’re proud to be the first to bring a real-world solution to market that delivers secure, ethical, and scalable agentic workflows. With SmartUp, we’re proving that identity-bound agents can operate in production, not just in theory. Our decentralized biometric cloud, data vault, and token management system form the missing identity layer the enterprise needs to build trust, ensure accountability, and future-proof agent-driven automation.”
The partnership comes at a time when use of agentic systems has grown dramatically. According to research by Gartner, by 2026, 80% of digital workers will rely on AI agents in order to complete routine customer service operations. McKinsey anticipates that agent-driven automation could be a major boon to productivity in the enterprise.
But as agentic AI does more of the work, who (or what) is truly operating on behalf of the user and where does accountability actually lie? Anonybit answers this question with a decentralized infrastructure that binds identity to agents: authenticating users, authorizing actions, and providing cryptographically secure identity tokens across the lifecycle of the agentic flow.
Anonybit’s decentralized biometric cloud supports all major biometric modalities (face, voice, finger, iris, and palm) for both authentication and step-up verification. The solution avoids storing biometric data in a single location, and leverages its decentralized data vault to protect the sensitive data collected by agents and ensure data residency, compliance, and quantum-resistant security. Anonybit also features an identity token management system that enables agents to operate on behalf of users with precise authorization that is auditable and works across any workflow—online, in-person, or automated. Via the partnership with SmartUp, identity-bound agents are authenticating business users and customers, using biometrics and privacy-preserving credentials to bind agents to these identities, authorizing specific tasks by way of scoped identity tokens and integrations with orchestration platforms, and providing real-time auditability and zero-trust across workflows.
“SmartUp is pioneering agentic automation in core business functions like order management and supply chain management, and our customers are already seeing the benefits of secure, identity-bound agents,” SmartUp Co-Founder and Country Manager Moishe Shemtov said. “With Anonybit’s identity infrastructure, we ensure our agents are not only autonomous, but accountable. This is the foundation for the next generation of secure enterprise AI.”
Founded in 2018 and headquartered in New York, Anonybit made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2025 in San Diego. At the conference, the company showed how its technology integrates with Q2 and other digital banking platforms to enable passwordless login, step-up authentication, and account recovery with no requirement to download an app or use a dedicated device.
As the summer gets into full swing, we’re seeing no slowdown in the pace of financial and fintech news coming to our desk. We’ll keep you posted on the latest headlines here at Finovate’s Fintech Rundown!
Payments
KeyBanklaunches its unified solution for the invoice-to-cash process, KeyTotal AR, powered by Versapay.
Workforce payroll company Papaya Globalteams up with Worksome to launch a fully integrated Freelance Management System to help companies manage payments for contingent workforces.
London-based paytech Redpinbrings its payments platform to businesses in Spain.
Hospitality industry payments provider Katanox secures authorization from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to initiate payment services in the UK.
