Delivery giant @DoorDash has agreed to acquire rival @Instacart in a major industry consolidation. Key numbers from the acquisition: • $17 Billion Total deal valuation. • $65/Share Purchase price per Instacart share. • 26% Premium Premium relative to Instacart's closing share price on Oct. 22, 2026. • 50,000+ Stores Additional merchant access unlocked for Instacart customers. • $100 Million Estimated annual savings for users through a combined single membership fee. • Late 2027 / Early 2028 Expected timeline for the transaction to close, subject to regulatory approval. via @FNN_HQ

Really fun conversation with @Lead_Bank Co-Founder & CEO @jackiereses at @money2020. AI is coming for financial services. Lead has strong opinions on how we incorporate it. Definitely worth a watch via @FNN_HQ.

Wow... Sign of the times. Americans love prediction markets. 🚨 @Kalshi Hits a $40B Valuation in $1B Funding Round 👉Prediction market Kalshi secured $1 billion in new funding led by @Sequoia and @Wellington_Mgmt, catapulting its valuation to $40 billion. This marks an 82% valuation jump in just five months (up from its $22B valuation following a @coatuemgmt-led round) as the company rapidly moves beyond its core event-trading roots. A few thoughts: 1️⃣ Expansion into TradFi & Perpetual Futures Kalshi is expanding directly into traditional financial markets. Following @CFTC approval, the platform launched perpetual futures covering crypto, equity indexes, and metals, aiming directly at traditional exchange giants like @CMEGroup and ICE. 2️⃣ Growing Regulatory Heat The massive raise comes alongside intense legal pushback. Utah’s Attorney General recently filed criminal charges against Kalshi and two executives, alleging illegal online gambling operations amid the company’s push to outpace competitors like @Polymarket. 3️⃣ A Broader Shift? Despite regulatory friction, institutional backing highlights a major trading market shift: prediction platforms are evolving into mainstream, multi-asset derivatives exchanges.

Big news: This Week in Fintech is now The Financial News Network - @FNN_HQ. Same team, same editorial independence, much bigger ambitions. Our new home: How we got here and what’s next 🧵

ICYMI: I spoke with Brett Manning, @Plaid's credit product manager, and Suddu Seshadri, its head of data and AI, about how its new credit models could help lenders spot financial stress before borrowers start missing payments. Read the full @twifintech article linked in the comments. Disclosure: Plaid is TWIF's parent company; it has no say in our editorial process

I've been looking for an excuse to work with @HadickM and @Nick_van_Eck, two of the smartest people in stablecoins. They bring together a great investor + founder perspective on the space. Excited to share that they'll be joining us as our hosts for @MoneyCodePod Season 2 🙌 Now, who should we interview? Drop us a line at @thestablecon.

Traditional credit scores are breaking down. In the US, millions of creditworthy people are locked out of loans simply because FICO scores can’t evaluate real-time financial behavior. @Plaid just took a big step toward fixing that with their Fall Product Release, leveraging foundational models across credit, fraud, and payments. (Important Note: Plaid is the parent company of @twifintech, but that makes this no less exciting 🔥) Here's the breakdown of what Plaid unveiled and why it matters for credit and lending: 1. Smarter Cash-Flow Underwriting Traditional credit looks backward at static snapshot reports. Plaid’s cash-flow tools look at real-time income, spending patterns, and bill payments. LendScore 2: Plaid’s upgraded core credit model delivers 42% stronger predictive performance than traditional credit data alone. Vertical-Specific Models: LendScore Auto: Cut deep-subprime delinquencies by 26% at the same approval rate. LendScore Home Lending: Approved 6.3% more mortgage borrowers without increasing default risk. Instant Link: Speeds up borrower onboarding by enabling consumers to consent and share cash-flow insights across applications in under 2 seconds. 2. Enter "LendScore Arc" (Transformer Models for Credit) Plaid introduced LendScore Arc, its first transformer-based credit risk score. Instead of taking a snapshot of a bank account, Arc treats financial history like a sequence—analyzing the order and timing of transactions (much like how LLMs analyze words). Performance Boost: Delivers a 20% predictive lift on deep subprime and a 24% lift on superprime borrowers over core baselines. 3. Fighting Fraud & Payment Risk via Sequential AI The same foundation models powering credit are now applied to fraud detection and ACH settlement: Plaid Protect: Uses a sequential AI model to analyze the full chain of user interactions rather than isolated events, driving up to a 40% relative improvement in fraud detection over previous baselines. Signal & Guaranteed Payments: Plaid's payment risk tool (Signal) now analyzes sequence patterns to prevent 26% more ACH returns without raising false flags. The future of underwriting isn't a 3-digit static score—it's dynamic, sequential cash-flow intelligence.

Why does Africa’s biggest bank want a stake in OPay? Standard Bank is reportedly in preliminary talks to acquire a strategic pre-IPO stake in OPay, ahead of the fintech’s proposed $4B US listing. @jovebosco looks at what the deal could mean for both sides, as one of Africa’s biggest traditional banking groups eyes a stake in one of the continent’s biggest fintech success stories. Elsewhere this week, Blockradar passed $1B in processed stablecoin volume, Quidax added Kenyan shilling wallets and payouts, and Ghana expanded its virtual asset sandbox. Get @jovebosco's take, plus this week’s biggest African fintech news, in This Week in Fintech Africa:

🚨 BREAKING: @Revolut has crossed 80 million customers. It now has over 80 million retail customers across 40 countries. The pace is the story: it hit 75M only ~3 months ago, meaning it added ~5M in a single quarter. For context, it took ~4 years to go from 1.5M to 15M. The scale shows up in activity, not just sign-ups. Revolut says customers now run over 1 billion transactions every month — a sign accounts are being used for everyday money movement, not sitting idle. The trajectory over two years: → 50M – Nov 2024 → 65M – Sep 2025 → 70M – Jan 2026 → 75M – spring 2026 → 80M+ – now That puts its goal of 100M by mid-2027 well within reach on the current run rate. Growth means less if the economics don't follow. They have. Revolut reported $6B in revenue for 2025 (+46% YoY) and $2.3B in profit before tax. It was valued at $75B in its last primary round, with a more recent secondary reportedly pushing that higher. The bigger shift underneath the customer number is what Revolut is becoming. It secured full banking licenses in the UK, France, and Australia this year – letting it hold deposits, extend credit, and operate as a regulated bank rather than an app on top of one. It already offers loans, credit cards, and overdrafts in several markets, and is now weighing mortgages, with Australia as an early test. A decade in, Revolut is still growing faster than in its early years while turning a profit and becoming, more and more, a global bank.

Who's headed to @thestablecon DC in a few weeks? I'll be your HOST on the Epicenter Stage and can't wait to see all my fintech friends IRL. @zerohashx is a proud partner of this year's festivities. Get your pass →

What if mainstream crypto adoption happens without consumers even realizing they're using crypto? For years, the industry imagined a future where people would pay for everyday purchases directly with crypto. But the path to adoption may look very different. On Episode 5 of Crossing the Chasm, Blake Duncan, Lead Agent Experience Engineer at @Alchemy, explores how stablecoin-backed cards are allowing institutions to build on crypto rails while giving consumers the payment experiences they already know. The technology moves behind the scenes. The experience stays familiar. Could that be what finally brings crypto payments mainstream? Listen to the full conversation with host Justin Friedman wherever you get your podcasts, or via the link in the comments below. Powered by @raincards.