🚀 Payoneer's acquiring global hiring platform Boundless, Bermuda's building the world's first on-chain economy with Circle and Coinbase, and NYSE just announced 24/7 tokenized securities trading. Meanwhile, BlackRock hit $14T in assets while pushing deeper into private credit.
Fintech industry moves
Payoneer acquires global hiring platform Boundless
According to Payoneer official report, acquisition builds on Payoneer's earlier purchase of global workforce and payroll management startup Skuad in 2024. Payoneer's consolidating global hiring, payroll, and payments into a single platform for distributed teams.
What this creates: Payoneer's becoming the all-in-one infrastructure for global workforce management. Companies can hire, pay, and manage international employees through one provider instead of stitching together multiple services.
Kirill Lazarev, CEO and Founder at Lazarev.agency: "Payoneer's acquisition strategy is smart consolidation. Companies managing global teams juggle multiple platforms. Payoneer's building one unified system. When acquisitions create seamless experiences, companies stick. When they create fragmented interfaces, customers churn despite functional integration."
Remote bolsters HR and payroll platform with Atlas acquisition
The acquisition will see Remote integrate Atlas international expense management solution to help businesses streamline cross-border workforce management.
Oleksandr Koshytskyi, Lead Designer at Lazarev.agency: "Remote's Atlas acquisition shows they're thinking beyond payroll. Distributed teams need expense management that handles multi-currency, tax compliance, and reimbursement workflows. Remote needs to design expense flows that feel as simple as consumer apps despite complex backend compliance."
Zepz acquires Pomelo in push to expand beyond remittances
Zepz acquired Pomelo to extend its services beyond traditional remittance offerings. Financial details weren't disclosed. Founded in 2020, Pomelo enables immigrants in the US to send money instantly to their families abroad, with significant focus on the Philippine market.
What this signals: Zepz is evolving from remittances into broader financial services for immigrants. Pomelo's instant transfers and focus on specific diaspora communities (Philippines) show where Zepz is expanding.
The opportunity: Remittances are transactional. Expanding into savings, credit, and investment products for immigrant communities creates recurring revenue and higher lifetime value.
Bermuda plans world's first on-chain economy with Circle and Coinbase
The Government of Bermuda is working with Circle and Coinbase to distribute digital asset infrastructure, including payments in USDC, among local residents and businesses.
What this means: Bermuda's building a national economy where blockchain-based stablecoins are primary payment infrastructure. Residents and businesses would transact in USDC alongside traditional currency.
Kirill Lazarev, CEO and Founder at Lazarev.agency: "Bermuda's on-chain economy is the boldest crypto experiment yet. Using USDC as national payment infrastructure requires perfect UX, residents can't struggle with wallet management, gas fees, or transaction failures. If Bermuda's residents experience friction, adoption stalls and the experiment fails. This is where crypto UX meets real-world scale."
Truity Credit Union integrates InvestiFi's digital investment tech
Truity Credit Union partnered with InvestiFi to integrate digital investment solutions into its online and mobile banking app.
Why embedded investment matters: Users want consolidated financial views. When investments live in separate apps, engagement drops. Embedded investment keeps users in one ecosystem.
Oleksandr Koshytskyi, Lead Designer at Lazarev.agency: "Embedded investment only works if UX feels native. Users need to see their checking, savings, and investments in one unified interface. The design challenge is making investments feel accessible without overwhelming users who primarily think of their credit union for checking and savings."
NYSE announces new tokenized securities platform with 24/7 trading
According to WSJ, the new platform developed by NYSE will enable 24/7 trading of US listed equities and ETFs, instant settlement, orders sized in dollar amounts, and stablecoin-based funding.
Why this matters: Global investors operate across time zones. 24/7 trading removes the constraint of market hours. Instant settlement eliminates T+2 settlement risk. Stablecoin funding enables international participation without foreign exchange delays.
Investing and stocks news
United Bankshares beats Q4 earnings expectations
According to Yahoo Finance, United Bankshares reported fourth quarter earnings of $128.8 million, or $0.91 per diluted share, exceeding analyst expectations of $0.86 per share. The company delivered record net interest income of $287.5 million for the quarter, up 3% from Q3 2025. Strong quarterly performance helped United achieve record annual earnings of $464.6 million, or $3.27 per diluted share, for full year 2025.
What this signals: Regional banks are performing well despite high interest rates. Net interest income growth shows lending margins remain healthy.
BlackRock hits $14T asset record as it stands firm on private credit
BlackRock hit $14.04 trillion in AUM at year-end, up 22% from a year earlier.
The numbers: Net inflows reached $342 billion, beating analyst expectations. Base management fees rose 9%. Quarterly net income fell 33% to $1.13 billion on one-time acquisition costs, though adjusted earnings of $13.16 a share topped Wall Street estimates. Revenue climbed 23% to $7.01 billion, and the firm raised its quarterly dividend by 10%.
Kirill Lazarev, CEO and Founder at Lazarev.agency: "BlackRock's $14T in assets and private credit push shows they're betting on alternative lending despite risks. For fintech platforms offering embedded lending, this validates that credit infrastructure built correctly can scale profitably."
Intel's stock soars to a four-year high, raising the bar for earnings
According to MarketWatch, Intel's budding status as an AI winner will be tested when the company reports earnings. While the company has struggled in AI accelerators, its central processing units for servers are seemingly in demand as AI systems become more complex.
Why fintech cares: AI-powered fintech features depend on server infrastructure. Intel's server CPU demand signals that AI workloads are growing, which means fintech AI capabilities will keep expanding.
Venture capital fundings
Datarails lands $70M Series C raise
Datarails, a US-based financial planning and analysis platform, secured $70 million in Series C funding led by One Peak, with participation from Vertex Growth, Vintage Investment Partners, Zeev Ventures, Innovation Endeavors, Joey Low, Qumra Capital, and ClalTech. This brings Datarails' total capital to $175 million.
Why this matters: Finance teams still rely on Excel for FP&A. Datarails automates workflows that are manual and error-prone. As AI improves forecasting accuracy, FP&A platforms become strategic tools.
Oleksandr Koshytskyi, Lead Designer at Lazarev.agency: "FP&A platforms fail when they replicate spreadsheet complexity in software. Datarails' challenge is making financial modeling feel intuitive for finance teams who are Excel power users."
Stream lands $90M Series D for US expansion
Stream has secured $90 million in Series D funding to fund US market expansion. The round was led by Sofina, with participation from Better Society Capital and existing backers Ascension Ventures, Balderton, Northzone, Smash Capital, Local Globe, and the British Business Bank.
Why US expansion matters: Employee financial wellness is growing fast in the US. Employers offering financial wellness benefits see higher retention and lower stress-related productivity loss.
Danylo Dubrovsky, Senior UX/UI designer at Lazarev.agency: "Stream's $90M for US expansion shows that employee financial wellness is a growth category. Stream needs to design tools that meet employees where they are stressed about bills."
LMAX integrates Ripple stablecoin with institutional trading infrastructure
LMAX Group is integrating Ripple USD (RLUSD) into its global trading infrastructure through a new partnership with Ripple, focused on institutional stablecoin adoption and improved cross-asset mobility. The addition of this "core collateral asset" will allow institutions to use RLUSD for cross-collateralization and margin funding in spot crypto, perpetual futures, and CFD trading.
Kirill Lazarev, CEO and Founder at Lazarev.agency: "LMAX integrating RLUSD as collateral is infrastructure convergence. Institutions can use stablecoins like traditional assets for margin and collateral."
Portage inks deal to manage select fintech assets from Point72 Ventures' portfolio
Financial services investment platform Portage finalized a new agreement to manage select assets from the fintech portfolio of US venture capital firm Point72 Ventures. The deal involves transferring these assets into a $280 million continuation vehicle (CV), named PPCVI, which will be managed by an affiliate of Portage serving as general partner. The fund's investment was led by Goldman Sachs Alternatives.
What this signals: Point72 Ventures is spinning out fintech assets into a continuation vehicle. That gives existing investors liquidity options while allowing assets to mature under specialized management.
Why continuation vehicles matter: VCs are holding companies longer. Continuation vehicles let early investors exit while allowing portfolio companies more time to grow before IPO or acquisition.
What's coming next week
More consolidation in global workforce management, more blockchain-based payment experiments, and probably another traditional exchange launching tokenized securities. We'll keep tracking where fintech infrastructure meets real-world adoption and we can help you to build the next news worthy project with:
- UX/UI design for AI & ML products
- Fintech product design with real-world constraints in mind
🔥 Stay sharp. Stay with Lazarev.agency, your AI design agency for fintech.
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