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Why Google Fintech Is A Bigger Success Than Meta
Google and Meta are both Web 2.0 giants that are among the largest companies in the world by market capitalization. Google dominates search globally outside of China, while Meta – including Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram – has a huge share of social media platforms ex-China. One area in which the two tech juggernauts differ sharply
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Why the UAE is a better crypto hub than Hong Kong
We still remember clearly when Hong Kong abruptly decided it wanted to be a cryptocurrency hub. It was late 2022, and the city, reeling from Covid-19 restrictions, needed to get its mojo back as quickly as possible. The timing was almost comical, coinciding neatly with FTX’s dramatic implosion. Almost 3 ½ years later, Hong Kong’s
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Grab doubles down on fintech
Singaporean super app Grab reached its first full year of profitability in 2025, posting US$200 million in net income. For a company once best known for burning cash in a race to the bottom against Uber and later GoTo, this is an important milestone—even if investors remain skittish: Grab’s stock has fallen 22% over the
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The Return of Bank Balance Sheets in Fintech Strategy
For most of the last decade, fintech liked to pretend the balance sheet was optional. You could build beautiful software, acquire customers cheaply (until you couldn’t), and “partner” your way around the messy parts like funding, liquidity, capital, and regulatory accountability. Banks, for their part, were happy to play utility: hold the deposits, originate the
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TRM Labs hits $1 billion valuation
Crypto crime fighting has become a big business out of necessity. In 2025, over $3.4 billion in cryptocurrency was stolen. About $1.5 billion was attributed to the February 2025 hack of the Bybit exchange, while hacks targeting individuals also rose to over $700 million. North Korea is responsible for the majority of stolen crypto funds.
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Is Revolut’s rise unstoppable?
Since its inception, Revolut has had a sweeping global vision. Not always a realistic one—as seen by its negligible presence in China and regulatory struggles in India—but almost always more ambitious than its competitors. After all, what other fintech startup is valued at US$75 billion, has 70 million users, and purports to be building the world’s
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Why Banks Are Rejecting Too Many Small Business Loans
Small business loan rejection rates in the United States remain stubbornly high, which is a lose-lose scenario. Denial of credit prevents capital-starved firms from growing and deprives lenders of revenue: they literally leave money on the table. In 2024 (the most recent full year for which data are available), 41% of applicants received all the
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Payment giants have high hopes for agentic AI
Agentic AI represents a shift from “AI as a tool” to “AI as an active agent” or partner. Unlike passive generative AI, which relies on step-by-step instructions, agentic AI is given a goal and determines the necessary actions to achieve that goal with limited supervision. Agentic AI systems can learn from past tasks and adapt
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Why Wise is growing so fast
Wise (formerly TransferWise) is growing briskly thanks to its combination of a disruptive low-cost business model, proprietary technology, and rapid expansion into business and partner banking. The UK-based firm currently serves 10.9 million active customers. Its quarterly cross-border volume grew 25% annually to £47.4 billion in the third fiscal quarter of 2026, while underlying income
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Why Airwallex has a new compliance headache
Airwallex had been on a great run. The Australia-founded B2B payments startup reached a valuation of US$8 billion in December following a massive $330 million Series G funding round. This valuation represents a 30% increase from its previous $6.2 billion valuation in May 2025, driven by strong growth in annualized revenue and transaction volume. Then AUSTRAC, Australia’s
