This Week’s Top 5 Stories in Fintech

Money20/20: Blackcat on How it is Fixing BaaS for Fintechs

Blackcat is positioning a new correspondent services model for regulated financial institutions that need SEPA access – all without inheriting the compliance burden that weakened legacy BaaS structures.

Olegs Cernisevs, CTO of Blackcat, argues that the issue is not market demand, but the way the industry tried to force one framework to do a job it was never designed to do.

Speaking with FinTech Magazine at Money20/20 in Amsterdam, Olegs describes Blackcat first as a retail-facing business, but also as a company that has built the relevant payments stack in-house and can now offer those same elements to other financial institutions.

Blackcat’s new launch is a correspondent services product for regulated financial institutions, offering direct SEPA access through a redesigned infrastructure model.

It is aimed at solving a basic access problem for financial services firms, especially newer ones. 

Olegs says Blackcat is “firstly, making payments very easy” for financial services institutions, one of the biggest challenges they face today.

“Currently – especially in Europe – you should have access to instant payments and be able to make them with euros, and that is a must,” he says.

“But it’s very hard to reach it. Since there are not many suppliers, banks are not happy to offer such services to financial institutions, especially new ones that have just registered. 

“We are trying to help them.”

By offering SEPA access through direct participation and removing some of the barriers that smaller institutions face when trying to connect to the rails themselves, Blackcat is setting out to help financial institutions overcome this problem.

Revolut and Peers Back ‘Built in Europe’ VC Talent Push

Europe’s startups are showing that a Silicon Valley ZIP code is not required to build a world-class business. 

Revolut  Mistral, Wayve and ElevenLabs are among the backers of the six-figure 'Built in Europe' campaign, which seeks to overturn the idea that the continent struggles to produce globally significant tech companies.

The initiative is the brainchild of Balderton Capital, one of Europe's longest-standing venture firms, which has recruited leaders from many of the region's largest technology companies to front the movement.

Unveiled on 1 July 2026 across London, Paris, Berlin, Munich and Stockholm, the campaign spans billboards, digital advertising and a specialised jobs platform that aggregates open roles from 1,000 startups.

The push aligns with major technology events in June 2026, including London Tech Week and VivaTech in Paris, France, underscoring Europe's momentum in fintech and Gen AI.

The FinTech Interview: Mandy Lamb, Head of Value Added Services at Visa Europe

Visa has embedded AI into its core infrastructure for more than three decades.

Taking a measured approach to its evolution in payments, the global digital payments leader prioritises security, reliability and continuity, ensuring agent-initiated transactions are built on trusted existing frameworks rather than entirely new systems.

For Mandy Lamb, Head of Value Added Services at Visa Europe, Visa’s long-standing AI foundation is what enables the company to move confidently into the next phase of commerce – one defined by autonomy, intelligence and scale.

Mandy leads Value-Added Services business, which brings together capabilities across fraud prevention, data and analytics, acceptance and payment innovation to help Visa’s clients manage risk and adapt as payments and commerce evolve. 

“Many people know Visa because of cards and payments, but that’s only part of what we do,” she explains.

“At its core, Visa runs the technology that allows money to move securely and reliably around the world. On top of that foundation, we use technology to help financial institutions and businesses change how they operate and grow.”

Through its Value Added Services business, Visa is expanding beyond transactions into transformation.

This includes fraud prevention, data analytics and acceptance solutions that help clients modernise their operations in line with increasingly digital and connected commerce ecosystems.

Mandy adds: “Our work is about supporting transformation – helping clients move from where they are today to where they need to be as commerce and banking become more digital, more connected and more automated.

“As new technologies like AI start to influence how decisions are made and how payments are triggered, Visa deploys tools and experience to help ensure those changes are safe, useful and workable at scale so that merchants can unlock new areas of growth.”

Crossmint Launches New Secure API for AI Agent Card Payments

Stablecoin and wallet infrastructure provider Crossmint has officially announced the public release of its agentic card payments API.

Developed in partnership with Visa Intelligent Commerce and Basis Theory, the infrastructure enables developers to allow eligible US-issued Visa credit and debit cardholders to use their cards directly within AI agent ecosystems.

An audit of published OpenClaw skills found that card credentials were exposed in 7.1% of instances – a level of risk that is unacceptable for corporate treasury and compliance teams.

In the absence of standardised infrastructure, developers have typically relied on improvised payment solutions that increase the likelihood of fraud and data breaches.

Crossmint’s API addresses this issue by integrating card-network-compatible security measures directly into the agent transaction process.

“The agentic economy has been missing its most basic piece of infrastructure: a secure, open payment layer that can work for every agent, on every platform,” says Crossmint Co-Founder Alfonso Gómez-Jordana Mañas.

“Now developers can give their users the ability to equip agents with a payment method that’s scoped, under their control and built on trusted payments infrastructure.”

Wells Fargo CEO Weighs AI’s Dual Impact on Employment

Business leaders remain divided on whether AI will enhance productivity and work-life balance or make roles redundant. Charlie Scharf, CEO of Wells Fargo, argues that the reality is more complex.

At the Bernstein investor conference, he said: “I find it very surprising when really smart people take one side or the other. They sit there and they say, ‘it is not a threat to employment,’ or they sit there and say, ‘it is a huge threat to employment.’

“It is so obvious to me, looking at the way we are using AI inside the company, it is both of those things. The risk is that they are not totally aligned, in terms of the same people and the timing of it.”

That framing captures today’s transition: productivity gains can be significant, but the benefits and disruptions rarely reach the same teams at the same time.