From London to Riyadh to São Paulo, fintech is flexing on every front.
Revolut just dropped a $13 billion bet to become the first truly global bank, EBANX is wiring stablecoins into emerging markets, and Saudi lender erad bagged fresh debt capital to fuel SME growth.
Add in Blackstone’s play on private credit infrastructure and Ooredoo’s award-winning wallet expansion, and the week reads like a snapshot of where finance is headed next.
1) Revolut Bets $13B on Becoming the First Global Bank
Revolut has never been shy about scale, but this week it put numbers behind the ambition.
The London-based fintech pledged £10 billion (~$13B) to push into 100 countries and reach 100 million customers by the end of the decade.
Already serving more than 65M users across 50+ markets, Revolut is projecting over £4B in revenue this year and booked a $1.4B pretax profit in 2024 – its fourth straight year in the black. A secondary share sale now values the company at $75B, up from $45B a year ago, vaulting it among the most valuable private fintechs worldwide.
The global push is broad: Revolut is preparing a French banking licence, launching in Portugal and Belgium, opening in India, and eyeing South Africa, Mexico, Colombia, and Argentina.
In the Middle East, it has secured an in-principle payments licence in the UAE. A global tech hub in the Philippines is already live to support this rollout.
U.K. Chancellor Rachel Reeves welcomed the plan, noting Revolut’s $4B investment pledge in Britain and commitment to create 1,000 jobs over the next five years.
For CEO Nik Storonsky, the play is simple: “Our vision to become the world’s first truly global bank is the ultimate expression of our mission to simplify money.”
2) EBANX Rolls Out Stablecoin Payments and Expands to the Philippines
Brazil’s EBANX is doubling down on emerging markets with a mix of new rails and new geographies.
The payments firm announced merchants will soon be able to accept stablecoins like USDC and USDT alongside fiat – giving them faster, lower-cost cross-border settlement options in regions where traditional banking is fragmented.
On the product front, EBANX is leaning on AI to improve approval rates and fraud detection. Its real-time fraud tool analyses over 100 data points per transaction, while smart routing dynamically shifts across issuers and networks to boost approvals by as much as 10 percentage points. A new merchant dashboard brings visibility across multiple regions, making settlement more transparent.
EBANX is also entering the Philippines by integrating directly with the country’s dominant wallets, GCash and Maya, giving global merchants local payment reach without setting up a local entity.
Its Payout system now enables instant disbursements via domestic rails like Pix in Brazil and Nequi in Colombia, processing payments in under 30 seconds with a 97% approval rate.
CEO João Del Valle framed stablecoins as “the first truly global payment method,” especially powerful in emerging economies where adoption is accelerating fastest.
With bundles covering up to a billion payment users through one API, EBANX is positioning itself as the connective tissue between global merchants and local wallets – with stablecoins as the glue.
3) Blackstone Backs LendOS to Modernize Private Credit Ops
Private credit may be booming, but the back office has been stuck in the past.
LendOS, founded in 2022, wants to change that, and it just secured a Series A led by Blackstone Innovations Investments, with Illuminate Financial and Liberty City Ventures also on board.
The platform, officially launched this year, is built to replace the patchwork of spreadsheets and legacy tools that dominate loan servicing, deal management, and trade execution.
Its SaaS architecture promises straight-through processing, real-time visibility across portfolios, and tighter auditability – all designed to scale with the explosive growth of private credit markets.
For CEO John Olesky and president Josh Herrera, the thesis is simple: institutions need modern infrastructure that can keep pace with demand for private credit, one of the fastest-growing corners of finance.
Blackstone’s Stevi Petrelli called LendOS “a new data foundation for the industry,” underscoring how critical software is becoming to scaling this asset class.
The size of the raise wasn’t disclosed, but the signal is clear.
With Blackstone backing its Series A, LendOS is angling to be the default operating layer for private credit at a time when the asset class is breaking into the mainstream.
4) Ooredoo Fintech’s Walletii Wins Big in MENA
Awards aren’t always news, but when a regional telco-backed fintech takes home two major titles, it signals momentum.
Ooredoo Fintech, a subsidiary of the Qatar-based Ooredoo Group, scooped up the Mobile – Financial Technology and Fintech – Financial Technology awards at the Middle East Technology Excellence Awards 2025 for its digital wallet app, walletii.
Walletii is already live in Oman, with Tunisia and more MENA markets next on the launch list. The product goes beyond basic wallets, offering international remittances, bill payments, and even financial literacy tools.
Under the hood, its “build once, deploy everywhere” architecture allows Ooredoo to roll out quickly across countries while tailoring to local regulations and features.
CEO Mirko Giacco framed the wins as proof that walletii is delivering inclusion and access across the region. With modular tech, multi-market scale, and a parent group that already spans multiple geographies, Ooredoo Fintech is positioning itself not just as another wallet, but as a regional infrastructure layer.
For a sector crowded with challenger apps, that combination of scale and recognition puts walletii on the radar as one of the Gulf’s fintech players to watch.
5) Erad Secures $33M to Tackle Gulf’s SME Credit Gap
Saudi Arabia’s Erad just locked in $33 million in debt financing, led by Stride Ventures, with additional investors joining in during the Money20/20 conference in Riyadh.
The Riyadh-based fintech provides Shariah-compliant financing for SMEs, using proprietary data models to cut approval times down to as little as 48 hours.
The fresh capital fuels Erad’s expansion in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, while supporting its mission to narrow the Gulf’s $250 billion SME credit gap.
Since launch, the platform has already deployed over $50M to businesses across retail, F&B, healthcare, and e-commerce, with demand outpacing supply – more than $532M in financing requests logged.
Stride Ventures, which recently expanded its own Gulf footprint, sees debt as an untapped lever for growth in the region. For Erad, the round is about scaling fast in markets where SMEs make up nearly all private sector activity but still struggle with capital access.
If the firm can keep pace with its reported 5x year-on-year growth, it could become a cornerstone of the Gulf’s emerging alt-finance ecosystem.
