Circle’s $400 million acquisition of Tazapay and Mastercard-linked stablecoin partnerships highlighted a busy fintech week, alongside a wave of funding rounds and product launches. Circle said the Tazapay deal will expand its cross-border payments capabilities beyond its stablecoin business, strengthening support for international business payments and money movement across emerging markets.
Chime agreed to acquire Stride Bank for $590 million in cash, creating Chime Bank, N.A. as a wholly owned subsidiary. Other notable raises included Split Pay’s $125 million A and B rounds led by Khosla Ventures, PayTabs’ $100 million deal for Amazon Payment Services’ MENA arm, and Latitude’s $35 million Series A, which connects stablecoins to hyper-local payment rails across 45 U.S. markets.
In product and partnership news, Mastercard, Visa and Ant Group said they will develop an agent trust framework for agentic commerce. BVNK and Marqeta confirmed a stablecoin partnership allowing Marqeta customers to embed stablecoin capabilities into wallets, cards and other products. Paystand launched its agentic finance suite using its USDb business-grade stablecoin. OKX introduced pre-IPO markets and tokenized stocks across Europe, starting with OpenAI and Anthropic, offering up to 10x leverage.
