Fintech Highlights — November 2025

Card networks tried to make peace with merchants. 

Visa and Mastercard reached a revised settlement in their long-running interchange fee lawsuit, agreeing to cut fees by 0.1 points for five years and letting businesses reject certain card categories. The networks say it could save merchants over $200 billion — but groups like the National Retail Federation are already lining up in opposition, so don't expect the legal fight to end here.

Stablecoins kept eating into traditional payments. 

Klarna announced it will launch its own dollar-backed stablecoin, KlarnaUSD, in 2026, using Stripe's Bridge and running on the Tempo blockchain — joining a wave of fintechs racing to launch stablecoins since July's federal legislation passed. Tether, for its part, reported over $10 billion in profit through the first nine months of the year and launched a share buyback, cementing its place as one of the most profitable crypto companies anywhere.

Crypto consolidation crossed borders. 

South Korean internet giant Naver agreed to buy the parent of crypto exchange Upbit — which controls over 80% of Korea's retail crypto trading — for around $10.3 billion, potentially setting up a future Upbit IPO. Closer to home, Kraken raised $800 million at a $20 billion valuation, and Coinbase quietly walked away from talks to acquire stablecoin infrastructure firm BVNK.

Prediction markets and neobanks both got fresh valuations. 

Kalshi raised $1 billion at an $11 billion valuation just weeks after ICE's Polymarket investment made headlines. Revolut was valued at $75 billion in a secondary share sale led by Coatue and Fidelity — making it one of the most valuable fintechs in the world without ever having gone public.

Also this month: 

• Human Interest, a 401(k) platform for small and mid-sized businesses, raised over $100M at a $3B valuation
• Forge Global put itself up for sale after its post-SPAC market cap collapsed;
• Indian investing platform Groww's shares jumped nearly 30% on its IPO debut.