Fintech Highlights — July 2026

A quiet month otherwise — much of the fintech news cycle was consumed by that one Stripe-PayPal story.

Stripe made its PayPal interest official. 

Back in March, Stripe was reportedly weighing a PayPal acquisition — this month it turned into an actual unsolicited offer, with Stripe and private equity firm Advent International jointly bidding $60.50 per share, valuing PayPal at more than $53 billion (a 28% premium). PayPal shares jumped 16% on the news. PayPal has been through a rough stretch — down 80% from its pandemic-era highs, with a new CEO and a business reorganized into three units — and there's no guarantee PayPal responds favorably, but a completed deal would create the largest merchant acquirer in the world and hand Stripe something it's never really had: a large base of direct consumer relationships.

Also this month: 

• Airwallex raised $320M in Series H funding at an $11B valuation;
• SoFi acquired automated investing platform Composer; and
• Fiserv reportedly discussed selling its debit card network to major banks like JPMorgan and Bank of America