The State of Stables (TWIF 2/20)

Hello Fintech Friends,

Welcome to the 189 new readers who’ve joined us since last week. You’re joining 235,000+ other subscribers rebuilding payments.

Today's newsletter is brought to you by our friends at Modern Treasury...

...Speaking of Modern Treasury: This week they launched a PSP built natively for both stablecoins and conventional payment methods (built on-top of Beam, the company they acquired a couple months ago). If you missed Chuk's great writeup on the product yesterday, it's worth a read. Stablecoins – like ACH, RTP, FedNow, UPI, Pix, or any other payment method – are ultimately a rail. They are a better rail. But their utility is only as powerful as their ability to integrate into today's payment systems.

Want to learn more? Drop by our NYC Stable Salon next Thursday Feb 26th.

Speakers will include:

This week, Stablecon and Artemis also launched our inaugural State of Stables report for Q1 2026!

Each quarter, along with the great team at Artemis, we'll publish an overview of the key indicators of stablecoin growth and a deep-dive into the zeitgeist and trends in their adoption.

This quarter's report focused on stablecoin-linked cards, with a crypto card map, a profile of Rain founder Farooq Malik, the 'zeitgeist' section by Chuk Okpalugo, and our regulatory overview from Justin Friedman.

On Monday, most of the TWIF team and I are jumping on a flight down to Mexico City, where we're excited to attend the Fintech Mexico Festival on February 26th!

The FinTech Mexico Festival 2026 will bring together more than 3,000 professionals from the financial and technological sectors, in a space that will promote dialogue, collaboration and the evolution of the ecosystem. (Reach out to us for a TWIF-subscriber discount if you plan to go.)

Alongside the Festival, we'll be running our inaugural Mexico Fintech Week, featuring a Stablecoin Day, Art Basel event, Running Club, and more.

Please enjoy another week of fintech and banking news below.

Please enjoy another week of fintech and banking news below.

Have feedback for us? Let us know. Find me at @nikmilanovic, @twifintech, and @ndm

Modern Treasury has launched Payments, an integrated payment service provider (PSP) built for both fiat and stablecoins.  With a developer-first API, multi-rail support (ACH, wire, RTP/FedNow, push-to-card, stablecoins), and real-time reporting powered by a single, immutable ledger, teams can go live in days—not months. Supporting companies of any size, you can start with the PSP and scale forever on the same platform trusted to process $400B+ in payments.

Discover Modern Treasury Payments

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Experian launched a specialized insurance marketplace application on ChatGPT, enabling users to compare personalized auto and home insurance quotes directly within the AI interface.

Goldman Sachs enlisted Anthropic to deploy specialized AI agents designed to automate complex accounting tasks and streamline regulatory compliance monitoring across its global operations.

UK banks are building a domestic alternative to Visa and Mastercard, motivated by concerns that future US trade policies could disrupt international payment rails.

Mastercard and Visa enlisted a group of global banks to pilot new "agentic payment" frameworks, which allow AI assistants to securely authorize and execute transactions on behalf of cardholders.

Sezzle launched a new mobile service offering unlimited 5G data plans, allowing consumers to bundle their wireless costs into interest-free installments.

Confido* unveiled an "Advanced Disputes" dashboard designed to help fintechs and banks automate the resolution of complex payment discrepancies and reduce operational overhead.

GoCardless introduced an AI-native tool that predicts the best time to collect recurring payments for each individual customer.

Robinhood launched a dedicated corporate venture capital fund focused on investing in high-growth startups ahead of their initial public offerings.

Score relaunched its financial-compatibility dating platform as a permanent service, offering a new inclusive "basic" tier alongside a "verified" tier that uses Equifax to validate credit scores as a proxy for personal reliability.

Lightning Labs unveiled a new protocol update that enables the instant issuance and transfer of stablecoins and RWA over the Bitcoin Lightning Network.

X is preparing to launch "Smart Cashtags," a feature allowing users to execute real-time crypto and stock trades directly within their timeline via a partnership with eToro.

Google integrated "agentic shopping" into its AI-powered search, enabling users to delegate complex purchasing tasks.

Plynk introduced simplified IRA and Roth IRA retirement accounts.

Modern Treasury has launched Payments, an integrated payment service provider (PSP) built for both fiat and stablecoins.  With a developer-first API, multi-rail support (ACH, wire, RTP/FedNow, push-to-card, stablecoins), and real-time reporting powered by a single, immutable ledger, teams can go live in days—not months. Supporting companies of any size, you can start with the PSP and scale forever on the same platform trusted to process $400B+ in payments.

Discover Modern Treasury Payments

Want to sponsor a newsletter? See our sponsorship information here.

Alipay reported that its "AI Pay" solution exceeded 120 million transactions in a single week, marking a milestone for agentic commerce.

Forbes released its annual Fintech 50 list, showcasing the most innovative private companies in financial technology—from Stripe and Plaid to rising stars in AI.

Payoneer plans to launch a suite of stablecoin services powered by Bridge, allowing cross-border businesses to securely receive, hold, and send digital assets.

Mesh announced a strategic partnership with Adyen to aggressively scale its travel and expense management platform across the UK and Europe, leveraging Adyen’s infrastructure to provide local currency card issuance for multinationals.

Lightspark partnered with Cross River to enable 24/7 real-time fiat-to-fiat settlements via the Bitcoin network.

The Bank of Canada issued a temporary compliance order against XTM Inc., requiring the fintech company to immediately stop all retail payment activities due to serious concerns regarding the safeguarding of client funds and a significant shortfall in user accounts.

Top fraud investigators at Binance were allegedly fired after uncovering evidence that over $1 billion in Tether flowed to Iranian entities through the exchange, potentially violating international sanctions laws.