€500 Million in Suspicious Transactions Put Wise Under the Spotlight
Hey Payments Fanatic!
Wise has spent years becoming one of FinTech’s most recognizable success stories.
Now it's facing one of its toughest regulatory tests yet.
Belgian prosecutors are investigating whether the company failed to comply with anti-money laundering requirements after Wise accounts appeared in hundreds of criminal investigations spanning more than 30 European countries. The cases reportedly involve around €500 million worth of suspicious transactions.
Wise says it is working with investigators and responding to their requests as the review continues.
As digital payments become faster, cheaper, and more global, regulators are paying much closer attention to the infrastructure moving money behind the scenes. Last year, the UK government classified money laundering risk within the e-money sector as "high," warning that cross-border payment platforms are becoming increasingly attractive to criminals.
That's the difficult balance every payments company faces today.
Customers want instant global transfers. Regulators want stronger controls. And the bigger a platform becomes, the harder it is to satisfy both at the same time.
Today's remaining Payments headlines are just below, including a few interesting takeaways from Tether’s latest Q1 2026 report. 👇 See you tomorrow!
Cheers,
INSIGHTS
🚨 Tether posted $1.04B profit in Q1 2026 while reserve assets reached $191.7B, backed heavily by U.S. Treasuries.
NEWS
🇭🇰 Mastercard enhances the travel experience with contactless card payment on Airport Express. This enhancement enables cardholders to enjoy seamless, tap-and-go journeys between the airport and the city, further strengthening Hong Kong’s position as a globally connected smart travel hub.
🌍 Mastercard advances instant cross-border payments with TIPS cross-currency pilot. Through Mastercard Move, the company successfully processed and settled real-time payments between euros and Danish kroner, demonstrating how cross-border transactions can be executed with greater speed, transparency, and reduced settlement risk.
🌍 Mastercard advances Europe’s checkout transformation on the road to 2030. Working with banks, merchants and payment partners across the ecosystem, Mastercard is scaling technologies such as tokenisation, Click to Pay and payment passkeys to make digital checkout faster, safer and more seamless for consumers, while helping merchants reduce fraud and improve approval rates.
🇧🇪 Money transfer giant Wise was investigated for half a billion in suspicious transactions. Prosecutors in Belgium opened the investigation last year after noticing that Wise accounts had featured in hundreds of requests for cross-border help in criminal proceedings from more than 30 countries across Europe.
🌍 OpenFX doubles down on Europe with the Embed acquisition. The deal brings EU and UK payments licences, strengthens OpenFX’s regulatory footprint, and supports its strategy of combining stablecoin-powered settlement with local financial infrastructure across key global markets.
🇮🇳 India's RBI plans expansion of digital rupee through welfare schemes, cross-border payments. The central bank has already piloted programmable digital rupee disbursements for government benefit schemes and is working with partners in Singapore and the United Arab Emirates on cross-border payment initiatives.
🇮🇳 UPI transactions hit a record high of ₹29.9 lakh crore in May. National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) said the value of transactions was at ₹29.03 lakh crore in April against ₹25.14 lakh crore in the same month a year ago, registering a 19% growth on an annual basis.
🇫🇷 Worldline announces the finalisation of the divestment of the Mobility & e-Transactional Services perimeter to Magellan Partners Group. The divestment is part of Worldline’s North Star 2030 strategy to sharpen its focus on core payment services in Europe, with total proceeds from recently announced asset sales expected to reach €590–640 million.
🇺🇸 Visa partners with PingPong for a global business card-to-account payments launch. The solution enables corporates to settle any supplier invoice using their existing commercial credit card, even if the supplier does not accept card payments.
🌍 Visa strengthens long-term commitment to Europe with new €500m investment in regional infrastructure, growth and innovation. The investments are focused on strengthening payment resilience, AI-driven innovation, cybersecurity, and digital payments infrastructure across the region.
🌍 Flutterwave hits 1 billion transactions and processes $40bn in payments, highlighting the growing adoption of digital payments across Africa. The company also expanded its regulatory footprint with new licences in Senegal, Zambia, and Cameroon, while strengthening its cross-border capabilities through stablecoin partnerships with Circle and Polygon.
🇨🇭 Hercle appoints Gabriele Zuliani as Chief Revenue Officer. In the new role, Zuliani will take full ownership of Hercle's commercial engine, spanning Sales, Account Management, Business Development, Marketing, and Client Onboarding, with a mandate to convert the company's institutional footprint into repeatable revenue growth across global corridors.
🇺🇸 OpenPayd targets a Nasdaq Listing at a unicorn valuation after agreeing to merge with Titan Acquisition Corp. The transaction could provide up to $276 million in gross proceeds to support OpenPayd’s expansion across fiat, stablecoin, and blockchain-based payment infrastructure, with a particular focus on the U.S. market and emerging agentic payment use cases.
🌍 The National Bank of Rwanda and the National Bank of Cambodia announced a new cross-border payments cooperation initiative. The partnership aims to modernise payment systems, improve financial connectivity and support trade, tourism and broader economic relations between both countries.
🇬🇧 AccessPay appoints Johan Jardevall as CEO to lead the next phase of growth. Johan brings more than 25 years of experience leading and scaling enterprise software and SaaS businesses across Europe and the UK. He has held several senior executive and CEO positions within high-growth technology companies.
GOLDEN NUGGET
𝗠𝗥𝗖 𝐌𝐢𝐧𝐢-𝗦𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀: 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗹-𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝗣𝗮𝘆𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗰𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗴𝗹𝗼𝗯𝗮𝗹 𝘁𝗼𝗽 𝟱 & 𝗔𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗰 𝗽𝗮𝘆𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝘅𝘁 🔥Created by Arthur Bedel 💳 ♻️
The 2026 MRC | Merchant Risk Council Global eCommerce Payments & Fraud Report is out — and two data points stopped me cold.
Based on a survey of 1,278 merchants across 37 countries, here's what's reshaping the acceptance landscape right now.
𝐎𝐧 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐥-𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐏𝐚𝐲𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬:
▪︎ 43% of merchants now accept RTP globally — up +6% YoY
▪︎ That's enough to push RTP above cash and into the top 5 accepted methods worldwide
▪︎ Cards (76%), digital wallets (68%), bank transfers (63%), and mCommerce (48%) still lead
▪︎ Among merchants not yet on RTP, 48% say they'll likely add it within 12 months
▪︎ 83% of merchants already accepting RTP saw customer usage definitively increase last year
▪︎ 86% expect that growth to continue in 2026
RTP is no longer a niche. It's infrastructure.
𝐎𝐧 𝐀𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐀𝐈 𝐏𝐚𝐲𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬: This is where it gets interesting for anyone following the agentic commerce space.
▪︎ 19% of merchants already have a plan and solutions in place to accept agentic AI payments
▪︎ 63% are actively exploring or implementing solutions right now
▪︎ Enterprise merchants are leading: 28% already have solutions vs. 12% of mid-market and SMBs
▪︎ Only 15% say they have no plans at all
For context: that 19% readiness rate is already on par with crypto acceptance (17%).
AI agents making purchases on behalf of humans is no longer a thought experiment. Merchants are building for it today.
👇
𝐎𝐧𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐡 𝐰𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠:
▪︎ Cryptocurrency acceptance also climbed — up +7% YoY to 17%.
The era of the single-method checkout is over. Merchants now accept an average of 4.6 payment methods. The question is no longer if you offer optionality — it's which rails you're ready for next.
Source: MRC 2026 Global eCommerce Payments & Fraud Report
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