Checkout.com Unlocks $10B in Revenue for Enterprises With AI-Powered Boost
Weekly news up to Tuesday, 25th of March 2025
👀 NEWS HIGHLIGHT
Swissquote is targeting a pre-tax profit of CHF 500 million in 2028 after closing last year with record revenue of CHF 661 million and a pre-tax profit of CHF 345.6 million. For 2025, the company has set a revenue guidance of CHF 675 million and a pre-tax profit of CHF 355 million.
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📊 INFOGRAPHIC
NOW, ON TO THE SUMMARY OF LAST WEEK'S NEWS
🌎 FINTECH HIGHLIGHTS
⭐️ Ecommpay shortlisted in four Retail Systems Awards.
⭐️ MuchBetter debuts B2B accounts as a banking alternative for underserved businesses.
⭐️ Crypto meets forex: Finrax and FXBO team up.
⭐️ Qlarifi successfully closes €1.6 million pre-Seed round to revolutionise BNPL.
FINTECH
Checkout.com surpasses $10 billion in revenue unlocked for enterprise merchants using AI-powered boost. With Checkout.com’s AI-powered engine learning in real-time, every successful payment optimization is instantly available to all merchants using Intelligent Acceptance, improving acceptance rates, reducing costs, and unlocking revenue.
Less than a quarter of Europe’s FinTech unicorns are profitable—only 13. Revolut, Bitpanda and SumUp are among the companies that have reported pre-tax profits in their latest publicly available annual results. More on that here
PAYMENTS
Affirm and Adyen bring a longstanding partnership. Adyen’s U.K. merchants looking to provide their customers access to flexible, pay-over-time plans can now seamlessly integrate and offer Affirm at checkout. This enables a wider range of interest-free and interest-bearing installment options for their customers.
Tink hits 10,000 merchant milestone for open banking payments. Tink has hit the merchant milestone through its direct payment partnerships with merchants and by working with leading PSPs who have integrated Tink’s Pay by Bank solution into their checkout interfaces so it is available to their merchants and end-consumers.
Trustly becomes first payment provider to support Sweden’s central bank instant settlement system. It will now offer instant payout coverage for all Swedish banks and their customers. The move is also a significant development for the broader Swedish payments ecosystem.
Worldpay partners with Visa to offer click-to-pay solutions. Through this collaboration, the two companies have a shared commitment to advance checkout optimization, support businesses, and minimize cart abandonment. Keep reading
DIGITAL BANKING
Monzo develops backup bank to cover outages. Called Monzo Stand-in, the replica platform enables customers to make payments, withdraw cash, freeze their cards, and send and receive bank transfers even if the main Monzo app goes down. Read more
Bank of London changes its name as accounts now nearly six months overdue. The company, formally The Bank of London Group Holdings Limited, changed its name to Oplyse Holdings last week. The reason is unclear, though ‘oplyse’ appears to mean ‘inform’ in Danish. Read on
CRYPTO
Vivid launches First Crypto Earn Account for SMEs. Business owners first purchase eligible crypto assets within their crypto earnings account. These assets then automatically generate staking rewards with weekly payouts, offering businesses a new way to grow their funds effortlessly.
PARTNERSHIPS
Allica Bank to double accountancy partnerships team to meet demand for banking expertise. Allica’s accountancy partnership team was set up to help accountants step into the gap that high-street banks have left when it comes to business support and expertise.
Spendesk and Wise Platform: bringing international payments capabilities to 5,000+ businesses. With the new feature, Spendesk's customers will be able to process invoice payments and expense reimbursements in 30 currencies seamlessly, quickly, and cost-effectively—all from a single, unified dashboard.
Pleo partners with Taktile: Smarter financial crime detection for scalable growth. This partnership marks an important advancement in Pleo's security infrastructure, harnessing the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning to detect unusual activity with enhanced precision and speed.
Lunar and Fortnox partner to streamline business startups. The Commercial Manager at Lunar, stated, "The collaboration with a well-established player like Fortnox reflects the company's focus on creating modern and digital solutions for entrepreneurs, marking another strategic step toward becoming the best everyday bank for small businesses and individuals."
KIKO Milano and Adyen: the future of beauty passes through innovation and effective payments. The companies partner with the aim of optimizing the payment experience of their customers, making the moment of purchase unique and meaningful.
Natwest partners with OpenAI as FTSE giant scales up tech. The firm said it would deploy “some of the latest and most powerful developments in generative AI” through its access to OpenAI’s latest technology and insights. Keep reading
DONEDEAL
Flexvelop raises €44 million for their FinTech platform. The financing is of great importance for the expansion and further development of the company. Furthermore, Flexvelop has now finally completed its transformation from startup to ‘grown-up’ thanks to the equity increase.
M&As
France's Credit Mutuel to buy German bank IPO candidate OLB. The planned sale was recently announced by OLB and the French bank's German subsidiary, Targo Deutschland. Neither bank disclosed financial terms. The price tag for OLB is close to 2 billion euros.
TPG said to offer over €800 million for unit of Italy's Nexi. A Nexi disposal of the unit would “free up resources to further de-leverage and increase shareholder remuneration,” Banca Akros analysts wrote in a note. The company has pledged to boost its 2025 shareholder return to around €600 million, 20% more than last year.
Lloyds Banking Group expands collaboration with Oracle. This allows Lloyds to deploy Oracle database services either in Azure data centers or on-premises, offering consistent capabilities and an efficient operating model. The move enhances Lloyds' ability to serve customers with increased speed and agility.
MOVERS & SHAKERS
Monzo appoints Andy Smart as the new CPO. Andy joined in 2016 as one of Monzo’s first 20 employees and during his career has served in several significant positions across the technology platform including being appointed Monzo’s first Vice President of Engineering, and acting as Interim CTO.
Trading 212 Chairman Andrew Bole steps down. Bole had served as Chairman of Bulgaria/London based firm since 2020. Last year he had also stepped down from the board of institutional multi-asset brokerage Britannia Global Markets Limited, where he served as non-executive Chairman.