Payment Expert’s Fintech Unwrapped delivers the latest and developing news that has shaped the sector over the course of the week
This week, Lloyds and Stripe have launched Lloyds Accept, a suite of small business payment tools including tap-to-pay, payment links and card terminals, integrated into Lloyds and Bank of Scotland business accounts.
Also this week:
- Banking Circle powers stablecoin-to-fiat conversions for Stripe-owned Bridge
- Mastercard, PayMongo and Paymentology launch first virtual prepaid business card for Philippine SMEs
- Volante Technologies debuts Vol360i, its agentic AI payments framework
- dLocal expands BNPL Fuse aggregator across emerging markets
Lloyds and Stripe partner on small business payments
Lloyds has integrated Stripe’s payments infrastructure into its business account through a new product called Lloyds Accept, available within Lloyds and Bank of Scotland business accounts.
“Businesses need simple, flexible payment solutions so they can focus on growing and serving their customers,” said Amanda Murphy, CEO of Lloyds Business & Commercial Banking. “Our new tools enable businesses to get set up and start trading instantly, supporting healthy cashflow – which is vital for small businesses.”
Powered by Stripe Connect, the suite includes tap-to-pay on smartphones, payment links and terminal devices, with sign-up typically completed within minutes. For Stripe, the deal opens a route into Lloyds’ business banking base, which has more than one million businesses among its customers.
Banking Circle to provide banking rails for Bridge
Banking Circle is working with Bridge, the Stripe-owned stablecoin infrastructure platform, to support its money movement capabilities through the bank’s API-led infrastructure.
Bridge will use Banking Circle to move stablecoins in and out of local currencies, including euros and pounds, with Australian dollar support to follow in Q3, and to send and receive US dollars globally via SWIFT.
The arrangement means a business in Mexico operating on a stablecoin balance can be paid by a customer in France in euros, or pay a contractor in the UK in pounds, without holding those currencies itself.
Bridge handles the stablecoin layer, while Banking Circle provides the clearing, multi-currency accounts and correspondent relationships beneath it.
Philippine SMEs gain first virtual prepaid business card
Paymentology, PayMongo and Mastercard have launched a virtual prepaid payment card for Philippine SMEs – the first in the country to give small businesses prepaid spending alongside the controls of a business card.
Paymentology and Mastercard extend their licence to PayMongo, allowing it to issue pre-funded business cards without holding a banking licence. Merchants onboard through PayMongo and fund the card via their PayMongo wallet, with cards issued in under five minutes without opening a bank account.
“We’re giving SMEs a financial tool they can control – one that enforces the discipline to spend only on what moves the business forward, and nothing else,” said Jojo Malolos, CEO of PayMongo.
Volante Technologies embeds agentic AI into payments platform
Volante Technologies announced on 9 June that its payments platform and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) operations now run on Vol360i, the company’s agentic AI framework.
The upgrade is intended to reduce manual intervention in payments processing, with Volante reporting straight-through processing rates of over 95%. The framework is built around four agent types – Prevent, Repair, Predict and Sense – covering failure prevention, exception resolution, routing and service level agreement (SLA) monitoring.
“By embedding agentic intelligence at the core of our platform, we’re giving banks a way to serve their customers with greater speed, accuracy, and resilience; not in theory, but in day-to-day transaction flows,” said Deepak Gupta, Chief Product, Engineering and Delivery Officer at Volante Technologies.
dLocal expands BNPL Fuse across emerging markets
dLocal has expanded BNPL Fuse, its buy now, pay later infrastructure for merchants across Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia, after launching the product at Money20/20 USA last October.
The latest version screens buyers for eligibility before they reach the payment stage and enriches payer data to lift approval rates across its provider network. It also centralises refunds under a single policy across all markets, and lets merchants finance annual subscriptions through one upfront BNPL approval rather than billing monthly.
Elsewhere
- Silverflow has launched Terminal-to-Cloud, an API connecting payment terminals directly to its host platform, removing the need for a third-party gateway.
- Ecommpay has added Express Checkout for Apple Pay and Google Pay, letting merchants present the wallets earlier in the customer journey to cut friction.
- Bluechain has joined Visa Europe‘s BPSP programme, enabling businesses to pay supplier invoices with Visa Commercial Cards inside accounts payable workflows – including to suppliers that don’t accept cards.
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