Top 5 Stories of the Week in FinTech

How Neat: Visa’s New Partnership for Embedded Insurance

French insurtech provider Neat has entered into a partnership with global fintech Visa to bring embedded insurance to Visa cards. 

The partnership provides a new opportunity for clients to access fresh insurance features.

In addition to “innovative” insurance features, Visa cardholders will also be able to access efficient and personalised solutions. 

Originally rolling out in France, the extension of the existing embedded card insurance programme – that covers 25 million cardholders – will eventually expand over to other countries throughout Europe. 

Barclays: Modernising Online Deposits Growth with FIS 

Barclays US Consumer Bank has extended its multi-year core banking partnership with fintech leader FIS.

The partnership will look at deepening the existing collaboration which already underpins the bank’s growing digital deposits business and broader modernisation agenda.

At the heart of the renewed agreement is FIS Profile, a cloud-ready, high-performance core banking platform designed to manage “money at rest” – deposits, accounts and balances – while enabling real-time, multi-currency processing. 

The system already powers approximately 30 direct and digital banks globally, including several leading US digital banks, providing the scalability and reliability required for growth across increasingly competitive deposit markets.

PayPal Proffers Pix Payments for Brazilian SMBs

As PayPal marks 15 years of operations in Brazil this year, the fintech giant has announced a significant expansion of its local capabilities. 

Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in the region can now offer Pix – the instant payment method used by more than 170 million Brazilians – directly through the PayPal Complete Payments (PPCP) platform

The move is designed to reduce friction at checkout screens, allowing smaller merchants to tap into a payment ecosystem that has become the backbone of Brazilian commerce.

By integrating Pix into a unified solution, PayPal is addressing the specific needs of a market where digital agility is no longer optional.

Revolut: Are Banks turning into Human Resources Hubs?

Revolut Business has expanded its ecosystem with the launch of GlobalHire – an all-in-one platform designed to dismantle the barriers of international expansion. 

By integrating Employer of Record (EoR) services directly into its business banking stack, the licensed bank is enabling its UK-based customers to hire, onboard and pay global talent without the traditional administrative friction.

For many scaling businesses, the dream of a global workforce is often tempered by what Revolut describes as a “hidden growth tax”. Legacy EoR providers frequently charge up to 5% in hidden currency fees when processing international payroll. 

Agentic Waves: Mastercard Splashes out with lobster.cash

Mastercard is sailing ahead as a leader in agentic payments as it announces a partnership with Crossmint’s AI agent payment solution lobster.cash.

The integration will reinforce Mastercard’s reputation for secure transactions as it employs the use of existing Mastercard cards, combining them with standards-based proof of authorisation. 

Cardholders using OpenClaw will be able to authorise AI agents to fulfill agentic commerce wishes, cryptographically linking the user’s explicit intent to Mastercard’s network-backed payments infrastructure. 

Initially available through OpenClaw, lobster.cash agents will be expanded to other agentic platforms outside of agentic credential layer Basis Theory.