Pliant gets the FCA nod in the UK
Hey Payments Fanatic!
Pliant just got the green light to issue its own payment products in the UK.
The B2B payments FinTech has secured authorisation from the FCA as an Electronic Money Institution, meaning it can now serve UK customers through its own regulated entity.
So, why does that matter?
With its own authorisation, Pliant has more control over its infrastructure, more flexibility to grow, and a clearer path to bringing its products to more UK businesses.
CEO and co-founder Malte Rau sees the approval as a major milestone in Pliant’s UK expansion, giving the company more independence as it builds its long-term presence in the market.
Not the flashiest milestone in payments, perhaps, but getting the regulatory foundations right is what makes bigger things possible.
And speaking of getting things lined up, Money20/20 is just around the corner! 👀
If your plans for Vegas are still coming together, Maple and I are hosting a dinner on Monday, October 19. One table, 2.5 hours, great conversations, and absolutely no pitches or presentations. Request your invitation here.
In the meantime, here’s what else is happening in payments 👇
See you tomorrow!
Cheers,
INSIGHTS
💻 Yapily: Spotting Vulnerable Borrowers Before a Missed Payment
Yapily brings together experts from Serene, Finclusion and NatWest to discuss how lenders can spot early signs of financial vulnerability, support customers and meet FCA Consumer Duty expectations. The panel features Jason O’Shaughnessy (Yapily), Savanna Price (Serene), Christopher Bosworth (Finclusion) and Tom Layzell (NatWest). Register for the webinar.
📅 Tuesday, 3 November | 2 pm
NEWS
🇬🇧 Pliant secures FCA authorisation as an Electronic Money Institution, granted to its UK subsidiary Pliant Payments Limited. The approval lets the B2B payments company issue payment products and serve UK customers directly through its own regulated entity. It follows an extensive FCA review of onboarding, risk management, safeguarding and financial controls.
🇺🇸 MassPay partners with Bottomline to add Paymode virtual card and Premium ACH. The integration lets MassPay customers pay U.S. vendors through Paymode's secure network inside the platform they already use. It aims to reduce fraud exposure and give businesses still paying by check a path to electronic payments.
🇧🇩 Pubali Bank partners with Mastercard to launch Bangladesh's first offshore debit card. The card links to offshore savings and current accounts in approved currencies. Eligible NRBs and foreign nationals also get airport lounge visits through LoungeKey.
🌐 iSX Financial partners with Mastercard to scale global account-to-account payments. The partnership combines Mastercard’s Open Finance connectivity with PaidBy’s payment orchestration and settlement infrastructure, aiming to make cross-border account-to-account payments work at scale.
🌐 Noah goes live on Arc mainnet from day one. The open, EVM-compatible Layer-1 blockchain is built for financial markets and real-time money movement. Starting with USDC, Arc offers predictable, dollar-denominated transaction fees and deterministic settlement, while giving Noah another route to move money between stablecoins and local currencies.
🌍 Mollie offers €50 million in equity to build banking for AI agents. Under the offer, a founding team gets Mollie's infrastructure, a budget and access to 350,000 customers from day one. The equity is tied to milestones, and the team keeps full project ownership.
🌍 EWG selects ClearBank to strengthen its digital payments infrastructure. The partnership gives EWG access to diversified payment rails and faster payments. EWG is working toward offering clients Jersey centric sort codes and EU IBANs.
🌐 Kayak for Business partners with Mesh Payments to unify travel booking and spend. Travelers book trips on Kayak for Business, while payments run on Mesh virtual cards issued locally in more than 40 countries. The setup lets finance teams see travel spend as it happens instead of weeks later.
🇬🇧 Visa details how Barclaycard Payments scaled with the Visa Acceptance Platform. The UK acquirer connected the platform to its own banking solutions, picking only the features it needed. The partnership helped it address the UK market and scale to Europe. Keep reading
🇨🇱 XTransfer launches its cross border payment service in Chile, after XTransfer Chile SpA completed registration with the country's Unidad de Análisis Financiero. The platform serves SMEs in international trade, and its payment collections from Chile rose 79% YoY in 2025. Bilateral trade between China and Chile reached US$66.905 billion in 2025.
🇪🇺 Vivid selects Wise Platform for international SME payments. The business banking provider is partnering with Wise to offer international transfers in more than 40 currencies. Demand is growing fast: Vivid Business customers making international payments monthly increased more than fivefold over the ten months to May 2026, driving the expansion of its cross-border payment offering.
🇿🇦 Wise secures a remittance licence in South Africa, as the Reserve Bank appointed Wise Payments South Africa (Pty) Limited a Category Two Authorised Dealer in Foreign Exchange with Limited Authority. The appointment gives Wise a licensed footing inside the exchange control system. It covers bureau de change services and money remittance offered with external transfer operators.
🇺🇸 Ramp launches Glass, an AI workspace, after spending $1.5 million on AI model tokens in a single week in May. The tool turns internal knowledge and workflows into reusable AI skills, with more than 350 already available. Ramp built it to get more out of every dollar as its model bills climbed.
🌐 Bitso lists the Western Union USDPT Stablecoin with live price and chart data. The page also offers a USDPT calculator alongside the live chart. Bitso states its platform is not authorized to provide crypto services in Spain.
🇿🇦 Nuvei secures a license to offer local payment acceptance in South Africa. The approval from PASA expands Nuvei's local acquiring network to 52 markets, allowing merchants to process payments domestically, potentially improving authorisation rates, reducing costs and strengthening fraud management through a single global platform.
🇦🇪 Ant International obtains key licenses from the Central Bank of the UAE to support digital payments. The Retail Payment Services and Card Schemes license paves the way for Antom to offer merchant acquiring services, while the Stored Value Facilities license enables WorldFirst to provide cross-border financial services in the UAE.
🌐 Movere launches an AI-native payments platform to fuel business growth in new markets. Movere lets businesses go live in as little as 15 minutes through AI agent onboarding. It connects to 500+ payment methods across 100+ countries.
🇫🇷 Worldline helps establish first global ISO standard for sustainable digital services. The standard sets 32 practices to measure, reduce and manage digital emissions. Worldline led the project, and the standard covers the entire lifecycle of digital services, from design to retirement.
🇺🇸 Zip plans to launch Zip Cash in the U.S., a same day cash loan product that extends its installment experience beyond checkout. Eligible customers may access loans of up to $500, with funds deposited as soon as the same business day. More than 100,000 customers have joined the waitlist ahead of an initial launch in eligible states this holiday season.
🇺🇸 Stripe's Privy partners with Ripple to bring embedded wallets to the XRP Ledger. Developers can create XRPL wallets and sign transactions without building the infrastructure, with support for XRP and RLUSD. Server side wallets will let AI agents hold funds and pay for online services through the x402 protocol.
🇺🇸 Polygon completes its Coinme acquisition, becoming a US regulated payments platform. The deal adds 37 state money transmitter licenses and coverage across 48 states. Tazapay, Mesh, Toku and Kira are among the first to use it for cross border payments and payroll.
GOLDEN NUGGET
There are THREE models competing to reshape cross-border payments.
Here’s how they work:
1️⃣ Tokenized DepositsBanks represent deposits on regulated ledger infrastructure while keeping the money inside the banking system.
→ Faster settlement
→ Strong compliance oversight
→ Less reconciliation between intermediaries
2️⃣ Bank-Issued StablecoinsBanks issue reserve-backed digital money that can move across blockchain rails.
→ 24/7 availability
→ Near-instant transfers
→ Programmable payments
→ Transparent transaction records
3️⃣ Stablecoins + Local RailsStablecoins provide the global liquidity layer, while local partners handle FX, compliance and last-mile payouts.
→ Wider global reach
→ Local currency payouts
→ Faster merchant settlement
→ Fewer intermediary banks
The interesting part?
This isn’t simply blockchain replacing banks.
It’s banks, stablecoins, APIs, wallets and local payment networks increasingly becoming part of the same infrastructure.
Now the big question:
Which model wins?
1️⃣ Tokenized deposits
2️⃣ Bank-issued stablecoins
3️⃣ Stablecoins + local rails
What do you think?
Kudos to Anup Panwar for a fantastic explainer & visual
Trusted reach among senior decision-makers in FinTech, Payments & Banking.
👉 Explore Partnership here
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