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UAE Leads MENA Fintech’s Next Growth Phase as Sector Shows Structural Strength

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Management consulting firm Arthur D. Little has published an in-depth report titled ‘The Next Phase of MENA Fintech Growth’. Conducted jointly with the grassroots community Fintech Tuesdays in the second half of 2025, the research draws on first-hand perspectives from more than 140 founders and C-suite executives operating across the region.

The findings provide a grounded assessment of the sector’s structural foundations—including regulatory depth, investor track records, and accelerating digital adoption—as the industry navigates near-term economic headwinds.

Optimism meets market realism

The survey reveals a landscape defined by profound optimism meeting realistic capital constraints. A significant 77 per cent of respondents indicated that MENA fintech was stronger in 2025 than in the preceding year, while 75 per cent rated their optimism about the medium-term future at a four or five out of five. However, founders are not ignoring market realities, as 78 per cent of participants cited a lack of cross-border regulatory harmonization as a major barrier, and 73 per cent reported fundraising difficulties.

Industry leaders pointed to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia as the primary engines for future development. Around 60 per cent of respondents identified the UAE as the market most likely to lead fintech innovation over the next three years, with nearly half viewing the country’s regulatory landscape positively. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s rising fintech strength also earned significant recognition, capturing 31 per cent of the vote from entrepreneurs and founders backing the Kingdom to lead on innovation.

Overcoming global funding constraints
Arjun Singh, partner and global head of financial services at Arthur D. Little Middle East

Despite cautious funding environments worldwide, the Middle East successfully recorded a series of standout transactions in 2025, pushing venture capital funding to an impressive $3.8billion across the region. High-profile deals reflected continued investor conviction in regional infrastructure, including major raises by AI-native Islamic bank Mal at $230million, financial services app Tabby at $160million, embedded finance firm HALA at $157million, and crypto exchange Rain at $58million.

Arjun Singh, partner and global head of financial services at Arthur D. Little Middle East, noted that the region’s historical track record is now paying off. Fintech in the Middle East has spent a decade earning the right to be taken seriously through regulatory frameworks, record investment cycles, and genuine adoption, Singh explained, adding that this structural depth is exactly what the region will draw on as the current environment tests it.

Growth opportunities and technological innovation
Mehdi Letaief, principal of financial services at Arthur D. Little Middle East

The report identifies six major structural opportunity areas poised for immediate disruption. These include SME financing to address underserved enterprises, cross-border payments leveraging digital rails, and digital wallets functioning as a leapfrog technology for financial inclusion. Additionally, the study highlights strong potential in digital-first Islamic finance products, the ongoing evolution of Web2-to-Web3 payments, and tokenization opportunities within the massive regional real estate market. Driving these opportunities are several transformative technological innovations, with respondents ranking embedded finance highest at 34 per cent, closely followed by artificial intelligence and machine learning at 29 per cent, and open banking capturing 21 per cent of the focus.

To capitalize on this momentum, the report outlines clear recommendations for key stakeholders. It highlights the urgent need for greater regulatory harmonization and clearer rules across the Gulf Cooperation Council. It also urges traditional banks to move beyond simple pilot programs to enable genuine, win-win partnerships, while advising fintechs to adapt to the operating models of their traditional partners and fully embrace embedded finance architectures.

Mehdi Letaief, principal of financial services at Arthur D. Little Middle East, framed these recommendations as a critical call to action. The data is clear that this ecosystem has built something real over the past decade, Letaief commented. He stated that the task now is to protect what has been built, maintain collaboration between regulators, banks, and fintechs, and use the current moment to demonstrate that structural depth holds under pressure.

Bitcoin Could Surge as AI Race and War Fuel Money Printing says Hayes

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The ongoing war in Iran and the race to dominate the AI sector will result in money printing that could benefit the crypto ecosystem and push Bitcoin back to its all-time high this year, according to Arthur Hayes, the chief investment officer of crypto investment fund Maelstrom.

In a Substack post on Tuesday, Hayes said the competition between US and China to win the arms race has led both to pursue looser financial conditions and more fiat printing as the technology “directly relates to national security.”

“The combination of the political will to win the AI race and the financial will to fund the build-out with printed money and bank loans produces the perfect environment for crypto,” he said.  

Source: Arthur Hayes

“There will be vastly more units of fiat tomorrow than today, and the rate of change is accelerating due to rapidly increasing yearly AI and electrification CAPEX expenditures,” Hayes added. 

Most of the crypto sector registered new all-time highs last year, with the market capitalization hitting $4.28 trillion in October, according to CoinMarketCap. However, the market slumped toward the end of last year, and analysts have debated when it will fully recover.

Bitcoin to $126,000 is a “foregone conclusion”

Hayes said war is inflationary and the Iran conflict is no different. Military spending and a shift by nations toward domestic infrastructure investment rather than US Treasurys and equities will lead to further money printing. 

He also predicted in March that the US Federal Reserve could ease monetary policy to help finance the country’s conflict with Iran and boost crypto.

Related: Hyperliquid’s HYPE price will increase by August, predicts Arthur Hayes

“The politicians support this money printing out of real and perceived necessity. That is why Bitcoin post-February 28th is outperforming the other major risky assets such as gold and US tech stocks,” Hayes added.

Bitcoin has traded between $79,467 and $82,496 over the past seven days, according to CoinGecko. It was trading at about $81,000 as of Wednesday, up more than 31% from its Feb. 6 low of $62,822. Gold was trading around $4,581 at the start of February and has climbed to $4,710 in the same timeframe, for a 2% gain.

Arthur Hayes said Bitcoin has been outperforming other major assets, such as gold, since February. Source: Substack 

“Bitcoin bottomed earlier this year at $60,000, and with a tailwind of trillions of dollars and yuan yet to be created at its back, retaking the $126,000 is a foregone conclusion,” Hayes said.

“I expect the rally to intensify and the haters to cower in the corner as Bitcoin’s upward price trajectory turns explosive after punching through $90,000, where many call over-writers will rush to cover as their strike gets taken out.”

Magazine: Guide to the top and emerging global crypto hubs — Mid-2026 

Senate Banking Committee Releases 309-Page Clarity Act Draft: US Senate Banking Committee

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The Senate Banking Committee publicly released the full text of its crypto market structure bill ahead of Thursday’s markup, with amendments due by end of business Wednesday.

The US Senate Banking Committee released the full 309-page draft of the Clarity Act on Tuesday, May 12, 2026, making public the cryptocurrency market structure bill it has been developing since January. Committee members now have until close of business Wednesday to file amendments before the scheduled Thursday markup vote. The legislation had previously circulated among industry stakeholders behind closed doors.

The Clarity Act represents a major regulatory effort to establish clear federal framework for digital asset classification and oversight. The bill’s public release marks a critical step in the legislative process, allowing committee members and the broader crypto industry to formally review and respond to the proposal before markup proceedings begin.

Sources: CoinDesk | Eleanor Terrett (X/Twitter) | WatcherGuru (X/Twitter)

This article was generated automatically by The Defiant’s AI news system from publicly available sources.

Ethereum Community Unveils Feature to End Blind Signing

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The Ethereum community has introduced Clear Signing, a security feature that ensures users can clearly understand transaction details before signing, replacing unreadable hex data and reducing risks from blind signing attacks.

“Approving a transaction is meant to be the last line of defense when exercising control over what happens to your assets on the blockchain. When it is done blindly, that defense does not hold,” the Ethereum Foundation said on Tuesday, calling blind signing a “structural flaw” that has contributed to billions of dollars in losses, including the $1.4 billion Bybit hack last year.

The “What You See Is What You Sign” security feature aims to address this issue and is being integrated by several self-custody crypto wallets, including Ledger, Trezor and MetaMask. 

Source: Ethereum Foundation

The security feature comes as bad actors target the crypto industry with increasingly sophisticated hacks and scams despite considerable improvements in security measures in recent years.

North Korean state-backed workers have stolen over $7 billion in funds alone since 2009, with a large share of that coming from crypto protocols. The Bybit hack was its largest crypto heist by compromising a third-party service provider and manipulating transaction signatures. 

Trezor chief technology officer Tomáš Sušánka told Cointelegraph that attackers have been exploiting this relentlessly due to there not being a widely accessible security feature that is capable of distinguishing malicious smart contracts from legitimate transactions.

This issue has led users to “unknowingly sign them, and lose everything,” Sušánka said, adding that the Clear Signing feature “directly addresses this by making transactions human-readable before approval.”

The Clear Signing feature was introduced through the Ethereum Foundation’s Trillion Dollar Security Initiative and initiated by Ledger through the open-source ERC-7730 token standard.

The foundation said the key components of the Clear Signing feature include “human-readable transaction descriptions” and a “neutral, mirrorable descriptor registry.”

Related: Ethereum’s EEZ could pull other blockchains into its orbit 

It also includes an attestation framework enabling auditors to verify those descriptors.

A host of crypto platforms are supporting Clear Signing

Several other crypto wallets and Ethereum privacy and security platforms contributed to the Clear Signing feature, including Keycard, WalletConnect, Argot, Sourcify, Zama, ZKnox and Fireblocks.

Sušánka said Trezor seeks to implement the security feature before June 30.

“We’re implementing this standard because it’s the right thing to do for our users,” Sušánka said before calling the Clear Signing feature a “critical security advancement for our entire industry.” 

Magazine: Guide to the top and emerging global crypto hubs: Mid-2026

Affirm works with Google to make AI shopping payments clear and simple

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Affirm’s pay-over-time options will be integrated into the Gemini app and Google Search, including AI Mode, through Google Pay

AI is changing how people discover and decide what to buy. But those decisions can’t turn into purchases without a clear and trustworthy way to pay.

At the moment of payment, people want to know exactly what they’re agreeing to — especially when decisions are happening quickly or with the help of an agent. Without that clarity, AI-driven commerce breaks down.

That’s why Affirm is expanding its work with Google to start rolling out its payment options into Google Search, including AI Mode, and the Gemini app when checking out with Google Pay. Shoppers will be able to move confidently from decision to purchase, with the same clear options and transparent terms they rely on from Affirm.

Built for the agentic commerce shift

Many traditional financial products have inherent complexities — balances that change over time, interest that compounds, and terms that make it difficult to calculate the total cost when you’re ready to check out.

Affirm was built differently. Every transaction is evaluated in real time, with straightforward terms, no hidden fees, and payment plans designed around what a consumer can afford. Those terms are designed to be instantly understood — by both discerning shoppers and the agents supporting them.

Because Affirm evaluates each purchase individually, it can present options that make sense in the moment. Consumers can choose what works for them with confidence, merchants can see more intent turn into completed purchases, and platforms can deliver experiences that feel consistent and trustworthy wherever people shop.

“People deserve transparent, flexible financial options. Agentic commerce may be the moment that makes that impossible to ignore,” said Vishal Kapoor, SVP of Product at Affirm. “From day one, Affirm was built around clear terms and transparency, so people can confidently use credit for specific purchases without worrying about fine print or surprises. As more decisions are made by AI on people’s behalf, products that rely on hidden terms or ambiguity won’t hold up — the ones that are clear and predictable will.”

Bringing buy now, pay later experiences to Google

Now in Google Search and the Gemini app, shoppers will start to see Affirm as a payment option within Google Pay at checkout. After choosing Affirm, they’ll go through a real-time eligibility check and, if approved, choose the plan that works best for them. They’ll see the full cost, payment schedule, and end date before committing, and as always with Affirm, will never owe a penny in late or hidden fees.

“As AI becomes a more active part of how people discover and buy, it’s critical that the payment options remain secure and reliable,” said Ashish Gupta, VP/GM, Merchant Shopping at Google. “Our work with Affirm brings transparent, flexible payment options into these new journeys, so as shopping evolves, people can continue to make decisions with confidence.”

This experience is rolling out to consumers and merchants in the coming weeks, giving people more ways to use Affirm across the Google ecosystem, from wallets and browsers to AI-powered shopping journeys.

Building what comes next

As shopping evolves, it’s not just about showing up in new experiences — it’s about helping define how they work.

In addition to initial launches within Google Pay on the Gemini app and Google Search, Affirm has independently developed an early version of BNPL extensions for the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), the open standard for agentic commerce. Affirm is hosting this extension on its site to gather feedback and refine development.

These extensions are designed to ensure pay-over-time works consistently across the ecosystem — embedding transparency, clear terms, and consumer-first principles into the foundation of how transactions happen. The goal is not just to make payments seamless, but to make them understandable and aligned with how people actually want to manage their money.

Bitcoin back above $81,000 after hot CPI print, BNB, DOGE lead majors gains

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Bitcoin shrugged off the inflation scare almost as quickly as the print landed.

The largest cryptocurrency dropped to $79,879 in late U.S. hours Tuesday after the April Consumer Price Index came in at 3.8% year-over-year, hotter than economists had estimated, with gasoline prices doing most of the lift since the Iran war began. BTC recovered to $81,208 by Asian morning Wednesday, ending the session up 0.3% over 24 hours after trading a $1,400 range. The dip got bought aggressively.

Among the majors, BNB led with a 2.5% gain to $677, while dogecoin added 1.3% to $0.1114. Ether dropped 0.3% over 24 hours to $2,300 and is now down 3.2% on the seven-day, the laggard of the cohort. Solana slipped 0.6% to $95.52. XRP traded at $1.45, down 0.5% on the day.

The CPI print rattled traditional markets harder than crypto. The S&P 500 fell 0.2% and the Nasdaq 100 dropped 0.9%, with semiconductor stocks taking the brunt of the selling after weeks of outsized gains.

The rate-sensitive two-year Treasury yield held just under 4%, while Japan’s 20-year bond yield breached its January peak to touch the highest level since 1997 as elevated energy prices add to inflation pressure globally.

Asian equities clawed back early losses after the White House confirmed Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang would join President Donald Trump’s trip to China, lifting chipmaker futures.

The flows underneath crypto are still positive. CoinShares reported global crypto fund inflows of $858 million last week, with bitcoin products absorbing $706 million, ether $77 million, solana $48 million, and XRP $40 million.

The largest data point was the $14 million in outflows from bitcoin short positions, the biggest weekly short unwind of 2026. Money is leaving bearish bets on bitcoin even as the macro tape turns choppier, which is the kind of positioning shift that typically precedes upward grinds rather than capitulations.

FxPro’s chief market analyst Alex Kuptsikevich said the broader sentiment index has settled just below the midpoint of its range, recording readings of 47, 48 and 49 over the past three days, suggesting bears still have a slight upper hand.

Bitcoin “lost its upward momentum as it approached the 200-day moving average,” he said in a note, referring to the long-term trend line that smooths out short-term price noise.

“Although this line is trending downwards, the market has failed to break through it for the past six days. On the other hand, as the decline is quite modest, it resembles nothing more than a breather following a rally.”

CoinShares also noted that last week’s inflow surge came alongside a compromise on stablecoin yield treatment under the CLARITY Act, which the Senate Banking Committee is expected to consider next week. The regulatory progress is one of the few clean tailwinds the market has had since the Iran war began, and it is showing up in the flow data rather than the price action.

For now, bitcoin holding $81,000 after a CPI print this hot and a Treasury yield setup this tight is the kind of behaviour that suggests structural buyers are still active under the price. Whether that holds through next week’s Senate markup and the next round of macro data is the next test.

First Spot Zcash ETF? Grayscale Pushes Privacy Coin Into ETF Race

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Grayscale has filed to convert its Zcash Trust into a spot exchange-traded fund, setting up a potential first for regulated exposure to a privacy coin in the U.S. ETF market. If approved and listed, the product would give investors exchange-traded access to ZEC without requiring them to custody the asset directly.

The proposed ETF would hold ZEC, the native asset of the Zcash network, and is expected to list on NYSE Arca under the ticker “ZCSH.” The filing says the trust would be renamed Grayscale Zcash Trust ETF once the registration becomes effective and the shares are listed.

Grayscale Brings Zcash Into the Spot ETF Race

The filing pushes Zcash into a category that has so far been dominated by larger, more liquid crypto assets. Spot Bitcoin ETFs and spot Ether ETFs created a template for regulated crypto exposure, but a Zcash product would test whether that structure can extend to an asset whose market identity is closely tied to privacy-preserving transactions.

Grayscale’s registration statement describes the product in direct terms. “The Trust’s purpose is to hold ‘ZEC’, which are digital assets that are created and transmitted through the operations of the peer-to-peer Zcash Network, a decentralized network of computers that operates on cryptographic protocols. The Trust’s investment objective is for the value of the Shares (based on ZEC per Share) to reflect the value of ZEC held by the Trust, as determined by reference to the Index Price, less the Trust’s expenses and other liabilities.”

The filing also stresses that the shares are not the same as holding ZEC directly. “While an investment in the Shares is not a direct investment in ZEC, the Shares are designed to provide investors with a cost-effective and convenient way to gain investment exposure to ZEC. Grayscale Investments Sponsors, LLC is the sponsor of the Trust.”

The trust is structured as a Delaware statutory trust. Grayscale Investments Sponsors, LLC is listed as sponsor, CSC Delaware Trust Company as trustee, The Bank of New York Mellon as transfer agent and administrator, Coinbase, Inc. as prime broker, and Coinbase Custody Trust Company, LLC as custodian.

Trust Held Nearly 391,104 ZEC at Quarter-End

The existing Grayscale Zcash Trust already holds a material ZEC position. In its latest quarterly filing, the trust reported 391,103.88769118 ZEC as of March 31, 2026, down from 393,522.33134026 ZEC at the end of 2025. Using the filing’s stated fair value of $254.27 per ZEC, that position was worth roughly $99.45 million at quarter-end, with Coinbase identified as the principal market for valuation purposes.

The registration statement says creations and redemptions would occur in blocks of 10,000 shares, referred to as baskets. As of Nov. 21, 2025, approximately 817.0998 ZEC were required to create one basket of 10,000 shares.

For now, the filing describes a cash-order model. Under that structure, an authorized participant deposits or receives cash, while a third-party liquidity provider sources or receives the ZEC. The trust is not currently able to process in-kind creations and redemptions with authorized participants, though NYSE Arca may later seek approval for that model.

Privacy-Coin Context Returns to the Foreground

The filing follows a notable shift in the regulatory backdrop around Zcash. The SEC concluded its review of the Zcash Foundation without recommending enforcement action or other changes, easing a long-running concern around one of the crypto market’s best-known privacy-focused networks.

The Zcash Foundation said: “We are pleased to announce that the SEC has concluded its review and informed us that it does not intend to recommend any enforcement action or other changes against Zcash Foundation regarding this matter. This outcome reflects our commitment to transparency and compliance with applicable regulatory requirements. Zcash Foundation remains focused on advancing privacy-preserving financial infrastructure for the public good.”

The SEC’s conclusion does not amount to ETF approval. It does, however, change the setting for Grayscale’s attempt to bring a privacy-coin product into a regulated public-market wrapper.

At press time, ZEC traded at $551.44.

Zcash price chart
ZEC faces the 1.618 Fib extension, 1-week chart | Source: ZECUSDT on TradingView.com

Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com

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Crypto analytics firm Elliptic lands $120 million as AI reshapes blockchain compliance

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Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic said it raised $120 million in fresh funding from investors including Nasdaq Ventures and Deutsche Bank as financial institutions ramp up spending on crypto compliance and security infrastructure.

The fundraising round, led by growth equity firm One Peak, values the London-based company at $610 million, according to a Tuesday press release. The British Business Bank also participated.

The investment comes as crypto markets face a wave of security breaches and exploits that have exposed weaknesses in both decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols and centralized platforms. Hackers have stolen nearly $3 billion in crypto assets since the beginning of 2025 through smart contract exploits, phishing attacks and cross-chain bridge breaches, and regulators are pushing exchanges and banks to tighten anti-money laundering controls.

As a result, blockchain analytics firms have become critical infrastructure providers for institutions entering the digital asset industry. Elliptic’s software tracks crypto transactions across dozens of blockchains and flags wallets linked to sanctions, fraud, ransomware or illicit finance.

Banks, exchanges and government agencies use these tools to monitor transactions and comply with financial crime rules. The company said two-thirds of global crypto trading volume flows through exchanges that already use its services.

Demand for those systems has accelerated alongside the growth of stablecoins and tokenized assets, which are increasingly moving into mainstream finance. Stablecoins accounted for roughly $33 trillion in transactions last year, according to the company.

Large financial firms are also exploring tokenized securities and blockchain-based settlement systems, raising the stakes for compliance providers that can monitor activity across public blockchains in real time. At the same time, artificial intelligence (AI) tools are making attacks cheaper and faster, forcing a rethink of how crypto systems stay secure.

Elliptic said the new funding will be used to expand its AI-driven monitoring and risk analysis tools as institutional adoption of digital assets grows.

“One of the things that we will be accelerating with the funding is our agentic product roadmap,” CEO Simone Maini told CoinDesk. “What that means is building and launching agents that sit on top of Elliptic’s dataset to be able to automate a lot of what is otherwise highly manual, repetitive tasks performed by compliance analysts.

“That means those that that those precious resources can be redeployed to deep diving and investigating financial crime where they need to,” she said.

EBay rejects GameStop’s $56 billion bid as bitcoin exposure back in focus

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Shopping giant eBay has rejected video game retailer GameStop’s ambitious $56 billion takeover offer, leaving the latter to decide whether it wants to walk away, raise the bid or take the fight directly to shareholders.

EBay’s board called the half-cash, half-stock offer “neither credible nor attractive” on Tuesday, per Reuters, citing doubts around financing and arguing the company is better positioned under its current management. The rejection was widely expected. EBay has traded well below GameStop’s $125-per-share bid since the offer surfaced, a sign investors were not convinced the deal could close.

That puts GameStop’s bitcoin position back in the conversation, as CoinDesk reported earlier this month.

The cultish firm holds roughly $368 million worth of bitcoin exposure via a covered-call options strategy. It shifted nearly all of its 4,709 BTC to institutional brokerage Coinbase Prime, as a filing showed in March, turning the position into a receivable rather than directly held bitcoin.

GameStop’s offer was built around $9.4 billion of cash and liquid investments, plus up to $20 billion in debt financing from TD Bank. But that financing is contingent on the combined company maintaining an investment-grade rating, and Moody’s has already warned the deal would be credit negative for eBay. Raising the offer or going hostile would likely make the financing math more challenging.

Cohen has previously framed the eBay deal as “way more compelling than bitcoin,” leaving open the question of whether GameStop’s BTC position could be unwound if more cash is needed.

Selling it would not fund the deal by itself, but it is one of the few discretionary assets GameStop can point to as it tries to convince investors the bid is real.

The market remains skeptical, however. EBay shares slipped about 1% to $107 before the bell Tuesday, still far below the offer price, while GameStop fell 4%.

The deal previously drew pushback from parts of GameStop’s own investor base.

Michael Burry, the investor made famous by The Big Short, sold his stake after the bid and warned that buying eBay could saddle GameStop with debt and dilute shareholders.

Adfin Raises $18M Series A from Index Ventures for Automated Business Finance

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WHY THIS MATTERS

Adfin’s $18 million Series A funding on May 11, 2026, signals a definitive shift from passive financial automation to “agentic” execution. In the UK, where late payments drain the working capital of 63% of SMEs, Adfin has already proven its model: its customers see a late-payment rate of just 9%, roughly seven times better than the national average. By raising over $30 million in less than two years and securing backing from Index Ventures, Adfin is moving beyond mere reminders into an era of “money that moves itself.”

The platform’s core innovation lies in its proprietary payment infrastructure coupled with agentic AI. Unlike standard “autopay” features, Adfin’s agents act as autonomous negotiators and managers, deciding the optimal course of action to secure payments while preserving the delicate relationship between a business and its clients. For the professional services firms, accountants, and SMEs that Adfin serves, this funding allows for the expansion into end-to-end cashflow management, turning a business’s “bloodstream”—its money movement—into a high-speed, self-governing asset.

Adfin, the London-based fintech, has raised $18 million in Series A funding to build the agentic money movement platform: starting by helping businesses getting paid on time, and ending with money that moves itself.

The funding round was led by Index Ventures, with participation from Visionaries Club and new investors Stéphane Kurgan (former COO of King) and Andrey Khusid (founder of Miro). The investment brings Adfin’s total funding to over $30 million in less than two years and comes as Adfin was named the third fastest-growing technology company in Europe, and the fastest-growing UK company by Scaling Europe

In the UK alone, almost two-thirds (63%) of invoices sent by SMEs are paid late. This strains working capital, slows growth, and puts jobs at risk. Adfin gives SMEs the tools to get paid on time, uniquely coupling proprietary new payment infrastructure with agentic AI to decide the best course of action for each client and automate the tedious tasks that were preventing businesses doing what they do best: managing client relationships. This infrastructure has already delivered outstanding results for Adfin customers. Today, they see only 9% of their invoices paid late: nearly 7x better than the 63% figure for the UK as a whole.

Getting paid is just the start. With the Series A, Adfin plans to expand the Adfin product into end-to-end cashflow management, step up hiring across engineering and sales, and prepare for international expansion.

Tom Pope, Adfin Co-founder and CEO said: “Adfin is building the agentic finance platform for money movement: automating the workflows finance teams use to get paid, manage their money, and, in time, much more. And we’re doing it the way our customers keep telling us they want: safe, auditable, trackable, with humans firmly in control. By owning both the underlying financial infrastructure and the agentic workflows on top, we’ll let finance teams deploy agents in a way nobody else can. 

Why does this matter? If you’re getting paid faster and optimising how you manage cash, you’re building a better business. Money movement isn’t admin, it’s the bloodstream of every company. We believe this so strongly that we’ve rewritten our mission around it: Adfin exists to help the world build better businesses.”

Liam McHugh, Director at Steve Pye & Co, a Norwich-based accounting practice said: “Since using Adfin we’ve seen nearly a 3x reduction in the number of our invoices that are paid late. It’s had a meaningful impact on our cashflow. It also means our team no longer has to spend time chasing invoices, and instead can focus on serving our customers and growing our business.” 

Julia André, Partner at Index Ventures said, “Index backs founders who have the rare ability to obsess over a problem and build category-defining businesses. We see that same pattern in Tom and Ciprian. We backed them at pre-seed and seed and we’re tripling down, because their results speak for themselves.”

FF NEWS TAKE

Adfin is effectively building the “Central Nervous System” for business finance. By naming it an “agentic money movement platform,” Tom Pope and Ciprian Diaconasu are setting a new standard where finance teams stop being “chasers” and start being “overseers.” Index Ventures’ decision to “triple down” on the team reflects the rarity of a fintech that delivers such high-impact operational results so early in its lifecycle. In a 2026 market where “Agentic Payments” is becoming the industry’s buzziest category, Adfin has a significant head start by owning both the underlying payment rails and the AI decision layer.

However, the leap from “getting paid” to “money that moves itself” is an immense technical and regulatory challenge. As Adfin scales internationally, it must navigate a fragmented global landscape of real-time payment schemes and varying AI governance standards. The inclusion of visionary investors like Andrey Khusid (Miro) suggests that Adfin is prioritizing the “user-centricity” of its agents. If Adfin can prove that its AI agents can handle complex, multi-currency treasury tasks with the same 99% accuracy it brings to simple invoicing, it will likely become the definitive operating system for the world’s mid-market businesses.