fintech

According to Livecoins, Brazilian Federal Deputy Lincoln Portela proposed Bill No. 2.901/2026, which aims to establish a framework for a national fintech and digital finance platform, creating a permanent regulatory sandbox system for testing blockchain technology and asset tokenization, supervised by the Central Bank of Brazil.The bill requires regulatory requirements to be proportional to the size of the company, allowing small fintech startups to apply simplified standards, and prohibits the government from imposing bureaucratic measures or obligations that do not align with the digital nature of the cryptocurrency market. The sandbox testing scope includes financial flow tracking, artificial intelligence credit applications, and programmable payment practices.The bill also allows companies to share network infrastructure and institutional adaptation databases, but they must comply with data protection regulations. The cooperation mechanism aims to combat financial crimes in cryptocurrency transactions, promote customer identity verification, and enhance cybersecurity.The bill also proposes the establishment of a national system for digital financial integrity, coordinating network regulatory actions to combat criminal structures that use cryptocurrency to hide wealth. Fines for non-compliant companies can reach up to 20% of their annual profit or revenue. The bill will be discussed in various committees of the House of Representatives.

According to La Política Online, the Mexican fintech industry is seeking to promote the Fintech 2 bill reform under the leadership of the new head of the National Banking and Securities Commission (CNBV), Ángel Cabrera. The industry believes that the Fintech Law passed in 2018 can no longer keep up with the pace of innovation, leading to bottlenecks in the approval process, and there is an urgent need for clearer and more flexible regulatory standards. Key demands include accelerating the authorization process, implementing tiered risk management, conditional authorizations, and comprehensive regulations for open financial models.Regarding crypto assets, Mexican financial authorities still maintain restrictions on such tools, despite the continuous growth of the global crypto market. The industry is seeking progress in the regulation of crypto assets, hoping to establish clearer rules. In addition, the industry also hopes to promote a hybrid model that allows the same platform to integrate services such as payments, credit, and insurance. Experts point out that about 85% of transactions in Mexico are still conducted in cash, and a large portion of the population is not covered by the traditional financial system; updating regulations will help accelerate financial inclusion.

Web3 fintech startup Jia announced the completion of a $3 million seed round financing, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Stellar Development Foundation, A100x Ventures, TCG, and Hashed Emergent. So far, Jia has raised a total of $7.3 million.Jia currently operates multiple decentralized lending pools and introduces liquidity through networks such as Base, Stellar, Arbitrum, and Polygon, while using stablecoins for cross-border settlements to reduce the cost and time of cross-border remittances. The new funding will be used to expand features such as business bank accounts and cash flow management.

According to CNBC, fintech company Mercury announced the completion of a new round of financing of $200 million, led by TCV, with participation from institutions such as Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), and Coatue Management.Mercury primarily provides banking services for startups, currently serving over 300,000 clients and achieving approximately $650 million in annualized revenue. The company stated that the recent AI startup boom has significantly driven the demand for new company registrations and account openings, becoming an important driver of its growth.At the same time, Mercury also announced that it has received conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and plans to apply for a federal banking license to expand its lending and payment network (such as Zelle) access capabilities, while reducing reliance on partner banks. The company's founder stated that the future goal remains to go public rather than being acquired.

According to Bloomberg, Moment is a fintech company founded by former Citadel Securities quantitative traders and researchers. After signing partnerships with Edward Jones, LPL Financial, and Hightower Advisors over the past year, the company completed a $78 million financing round, led by Index Ventures, with existing investors Andreessen Horowitz and Avra also participating.Moment primarily helps financial institutions automate fixed income and equity trading technology. The company's previous financing round was in July of last year, when it raised $36 million.

According to official disclosures, the fintech company Stitch has completed a $25 million Series A funding round, led by a16z, with participation from Arbor Ventures, COTU Ventures, RAED Ventures, and SVC.

According to The Block, the well-known startup accelerator Y Combinator will hold interviews in New York City for the first time, focusing on fintech and cryptocurrency startups, hoping to support more companies in this field.YC stated on Wednesday: "This is the first time YC has moved the interview process for a specific industry offline in this way, as they are meeting with founders who are forming a key ecosystem."A YC spokesperson said the interviews will take place offline in New York on May 21. The standard investment terms for selected startups are a $500,000 investment for 7% equity. Earlier this year, after YC launched this option, startups can also choose to receive funding in the form of Circle's stablecoin USDC.The YC Winter 2026 batch includes several crypto and fintech startups, including the financial infrastructure Sponge Wallet for the AI agent economy, the crypto deposit service provider Unifold, the unified trading platform for crypto, real-world assets, and prediction markets Sequence Markets, and the cross-platform trading platform for prediction markets Valence.Since its establishment in 2005, YC has invested in over 5,000 companies, with a total valuation exceeding $1 trillion. Its portfolio includes OpenAI, Airbnb, Stripe, and Reddit. YC's first crypto investment was in Coinbase in 2012, and it has since invested in over 150 crypto and fintech companies, including the prediction market platform Kalshi, the DeFi trading platform Axiom, and the NFT marketplace OpenSea. Last year, YC partnered with Coinbase to support startups building on-chain infrastructure, which YC referred to as "Fintech 3.0."

According to CoinDesk, monitoring by CertiK reveals that the Lazarus Group is conducting an attack operation named Mach-O Man targeting executives in the fintech and cryptocurrency industries. This operation utilizes ClickFix social engineering techniques, sending fake online meeting invitations to lure victims into pasting repair commands on their Mac terminals, thereby gaining access to company and financial systems.CertiK researcher Natalie Newson stated that the Lazarus Group has stolen over $500 million through attacks on Drift and KelpDAO in the past two weeks. Mach-O Man is a modular macOS malware toolkit developed by the Chollima division of the Lazarus Group, capable of automatically deleting itself after use to evade detection.Additionally, attackers have implemented this attack by hijacking DeFi project domain names and replacing them with fake Cloudflare messages.

According to Cointelegraph, bipartisan lawmakers in the United States jointly announced the "PACE Act," which aims to create a unified national payment license for fintech companies and cryptocurrency companies, to be regulated by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).

The cryptocurrency fintech company Superstate has launched a new fund operating system, FundOS. FundOS opens the underlying infrastructure used by Superstate's own funds to asset management companies, helping traditional private equity funds, public funds, and ETFs achieve on-chain deployment.Managers do not need to change the existing fund operation methods and can independently choose the supported chains, DeFi protocols, and whether to enable stablecoin subscriptions/redemptions. Currently, FundOS has provided technical support for USTB and USCC, with a total managed scale exceeding 1 billion dollars, and has been adopted by Invesco US.

According to Tech in Asia, South Korean internet giant Naver plans to promote the IPO of its fintech subsidiary Naver Financial within five years after completing a share swap with Dunamu, the operator of the cryptocurrency exchange Upbit in which it holds shares. The transaction has been delayed due to an extended antitrust review period, and the specific timetable and structure will depend on market conditions and the regulatory environment. The proposed "Digital Asset Basic Law" in South Korea may change the transaction structure or timetable.On the same day the share swap contract was signed, both parties entered into a shareholder agreement, requiring the establishment of an IPO committee for Naver Financial within one year after the share swap is completed. If the IPO is not achieved within five years, the timeframe can be extended by another two years. Regulators are also discussing a proposal to limit the shareholding ratio of the major shareholders of the exchange to within 20%, which may lead to adjustments in the transaction terms.

According to PR Newswire, fintech company Superstate announced the completion of a Series B funding round, with asset management giant Invesco Private Capital, a subsidiary of Invesco, as a new investor, although the amount has not been disclosed.At the same time, Invesco will serve as the investment manager for Superstate's flagship tokenized fund USTB (Short-Term U.S. Treasury Fund) starting in Q2 2026. The fund has a size of approximately $900 million, making it one of the largest tokenized government bond products globally. After the handover, the fund will be renamed, while Superstate will retain the function of digital transfer agency. This move marks Invesco's full entry into the blockchain fund sector.

According to Tech in Asia, Indian crypto rewards fintech company GoSats has completed a $5 million Series A funding round, led by Konvoy, with participation from Y Combinator, Taisu Ventures, and several angel investors. The funds raised will be used to expand the product line and team size.

According to The Block, South Korean payment and banking giant Toss has revealed that it is considering developing its own blockchain network and issuing a native cryptocurrency, potentially based on a Layer1 mainnet, and exploring Layer2 scaling solutions.Insiders say that Toss has not yet made a final decision on whether to adopt a Layer1 or Layer2 architecture, and the related decision is influenced by the progress of South Korea's "Basic Law on Digital Assets." This legislation will regulate key areas such as token issuance, stablecoins, and crypto ETFs.

According to Bloomberg, Circle Internet Group announced a partnership with Sasai Fintech, a subsidiary of Cassava Technologies supported by NVIDIA, marking the first collaboration in Africa. The transfer application under Sasai Fintech covers 30 markets in Africa, and users can now use Circle's USDC stablecoin for domestic and cross-border payments through the app.