Chelsea FC Partners With Sokin in FinTech Meets Football Deal
Hey Payments Fanatic!
If you’ve been following me for a while, you already know I have a particular interest in the intersection of FinTech and sport. I’m always curious to see how payment companies use major sports partnerships to go beyond traditional advertising.
Now Sokin is joining Chelsea FC.
The business payments and FX platform has signed a multi-year partnership with Chelsea, becoming the club’s Official Business Payments and FX Partner. From the 2026/27 season, its logo will appear on the sleeves of the men’s, women’s and academy teams.
But there’s more to this deal than shirt sponsorship. Sokin will also help Chelsea manage international payments and foreign exchange across the many currencies the club operates in. For a FinTech processing billions in annual business payments, it’s a chance to put its global capabilities on one of football’s biggest stages.
And if FinTech x sport partnerships are your thing too, check out FinTech in the Arena, where I cover the deals, partnerships, and financial technology shaping the sports industry.
Here’s what else is happening in payments today👇
See you tomorrow!
Cheers,
INSIGHTS
💡 Incognia: A new way to prevent payment scams in real time. What happens when someone willingly sends money to a scammer without realising they’re being tricked? From the bank’s perspective, everything might look legitimate because the customer authorised the payment themselves. That’s what makes these scams so difficult to catch. Incognia looks at how real-time device and location intelligence could help banks spot warning signs and intervene before the money is gone.
NEWS
🇬🇧 Chelsea FC announces a multi-year sleeve partnership with Sokin. Sokin's logo will appear on the men's, women's and academy kits from the 2026/27 season. The company will also support Chelsea's international payments and foreign exchange operations, building on its existing business payments activity of more than $11 billion annually.
🇮🇳 Tech Mahindra and Mastercard partner to accelerate embedded B2B payments. The deal embeds virtual card capabilities into enterprise ERP and procurement platforms. It aims to help enterprises optimize working capital and automate payments.
🇪🇹 Dashen Bank and ShebaMiles launch a Platinum Mastercard debit card in Ethiopia. Cardholders get airport lounge access, fast track, and data roaming. Customers can access the virtual card in the Dashen Bank Super App.
🇦🇪 Checkout.com enhances payment infrastructure for UAE platform PRYPCO. The partnership helped PRYPCO lift payment acceptance rates by 20%. It now also covers processing for PRYPCO Mint, its real estate tokenization platform. Read more
🇺🇸 Klarna is now available as a payment option on Adorama.com, with Scuba.com and SunnySports.com to follow. Shoppers can split a new lens into four interest free payments or finance bigger purchases. Adorama serves photographers and filmmakers.
🌎 MAJORITY launches cross-border stablecoin payments to Latin America with zerohash. US senders pay in dollars while recipients receive USDC in their MAJORITY Global Wallet. Eligible members can send money 24/7, including weekends and holidays.
🇳🇱 EPI launches Wero for online payments in the Netherlands, starting the migration from iDEAL. Customers of 11 Dutch banks, including ING, Rabobank and bunq, can now use Wero for webshop purchases. EPI aims to complete the migration before the end of 2027, with subscriptions and pay on delivery added in Q2 2027.
🇺🇸 OPay targets a $4.42B US IPO valuation, aiming to raise up to $366M. The Nigeria-focused company plans to list on the NYSE as OPAY. Stanbic Africa Holdings agreed to invest up to $200M in a private placement.
🇺🇸 RedotPay prepares a confidential US IPO filing, targeting a $5B valuation. Bloomberg reports it could submit the SEC filing before the year ends. The Hong Kong stablecoin firm has 9M+ customers and $180M+ annualized run rate revenue.
🌏 Adyen marks ten years as a payments partner to Agoda, with the two exploring issuing and payouts. Adyen is Agoda's acquirer across APAC, Europe and the US and routes its transactions to improve authorization rates. Its work also covers local payment methods and streamlined authentication at checkout.
🇨🇦 Brim Financial partners with Manulife Bank to modernize its credit cards and payments. Manulife Bank will move its credit card portfolio to Brim's platform, which brings issuing, processing, servicing and loyalty together. The platform sits within Manulife Bank's digital banking experience.
🇺🇸 Elavon to deliver embedded payments across SAP applications, joining the SAP PartnerEdge program. The planned integration will streamline payments across SAP finance, commerce and supply chain applications.
🇿🇦 Paymentology expands its Mukuru partnership, powering a new Account & Card in South Africa. Offered with Bank Zero as sponsor bank, the card lets customers receive salaries, pay local bank accounts and send money abroad. Around 500,000 existing Mukuru prepaid cardholders can move onto the new proposition.
🇸🇬 Aspire launches AI accounting tool AspireBooks in Singapore. The product uses AI agents to classify transactions and match payments to invoices and bills. It combines bookkeeping, reconciliation and multicurrency financial reporting within Aspire's financial platform.
🇸🇦 Paymentology appoints Sultan Alabdullatif as Country Manager for Saudi Arabia. Alabdullatif will lead Paymentology's continued growth in the Kingdom after serving as Head of Acceptance Solutions at Visa in Saudi Arabia. He was previously Country Manager at Amazon Payment Services.
🇸🇪 Westpay appoints Jens Ålander as interim CFO. He will cover for CFO Pernilla Ullsten during her temporary absence for personal reasons, starting 1 November 2026. Ålander has served as CFO of listed companies including Seamless Distribution Systems and Imint. Read more
GOLDEN NUGGET
Stablecoin Payments inside Banks are anything but simple.
At a high level, it looks like this:
→ 𝗣𝗮𝘆𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗳𝗹𝗼𝘄 & 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗹 𝗴𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀
KYC, payment instructions, wallet checks, funding, FX, compliance, signing and execution.
→ 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻𝘂𝗼𝘂𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗹𝘀
Blockchain risk, AML, treasury, custody and exception handling.
→ 𝗔𝗰𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 & 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻
Connecting the payment system, core banking ledger and blockchain records.
→ 𝗣𝗼𝘀𝘁-𝘀𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗹𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 & 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴
Fees, balances, audit trails and regulatory reporting.
The key point:
On-chain confirmation ≠ final settlement.
Banks still need to complete accounting, reconciliation, and control checks before the payment is truly closed.
The hard part isn’t moving the stablecoin. It’s making every system around it agree that the payment is complete.
Which layer do you think is the hardest for banks to get right?
Source: Anup Panwar
Trusted reach among senior decision-makers in FinTech, Payments & Banking.
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