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Upgrade Applies for a Nevada ILC Charter After $53bn of Credit Through Partner Banks
• Upgrade has applied to the FDIC and Nevada regulators to open Upgrade Bank, an industrial loan company. • The bank would be a wholly owned, FDIC-insured subsidiary; partner banks and loan buyers would stay. • Upgrade's credit count rose from over $42bn to over $53bn in about a year, by its own figures. • Virginia Varela, a former Golden Pacific Bank chief executive, is named CEO of the proposed bank. • Stellantis, GM, Ford and Edward Jones won ILC approvals in 2026, per American Banker.
12 of the 22 Sifted 250 Startups Planning a Series B or C Are Fintechs, Eight of Them in the UK
• Sifted counts 12 fintechs among 22 Sifted 250 startups planning a Series B or C by the end of Q3 2027, eight of them in the UK. • Fintech fell to 69 companies in the 2026 Sifted 250, from 78, and lost first place to B2B SaaS. • The ranking uses three years of realised revenue backed by signed documents and does not accept ARR. • Prague lender Flowpay is the top fintech at number 5, with 37.6 million euros raised and a latest round in debt. • The names of the 12 fintechs sit behind Sifted's paywall and could not be confirmed.
Bessent Says the US Will Probably Seize $1B of Iran-Linked Crypto, but May's Billion Was Half That on Paper
• Bessent told a Newsmax summit on 8 October that the US would probably seize about $1 billion of Iran-linked crypto that week. • He named no wallets, tokens or legal route, and did not say whether the sum adds to earlier seizures. • In May he cited about $1 billion already seized, while a Treasury release cited nearly $500 million. • Treasury has sanctioned seven Iranian crypto exchanges since June, from Nobitex to BitBank. • In July, Treasury wallet sanctions froze $130 million, which an onchain analyst tied to Tether blacklisting about $131 million of USDT.
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Qippay's 'NZ$25m' Round Is NZ$5m: All Roads Buys 25% of the Auckland Open Banking Fintech
• Finextra's headline says NZ$25m, but its own text and four other outlets report NZ$5 million. • All Roads Wholesale Fund takes 25% of Qippay Group, which implies about NZ$20 million post-money. • The company register shows founders Lake-Johns and Deas keeping 26.03% each after the deal. • Qippay has six staff, plans 12 to 15, and names Australia as a later market.
OKX Raises Again at $25B: Circle, Ripple and Standard Chartered Pay the Same Price ICE Paid in March
• OKX took strategic money from Circle, QRT, Ripple and SC Ventures at a $25 billion pre-money valuation. • The price matches the March round, when ICE put in around $200 million according to Decrypt. • OKX did not disclose how much it raised, and the shares were sold privately. • Each investor already serves OKX as a stablecoin issuer, liquidity provider or custodian.
Outmarket Raises $34.5M Four Months After Its Series A. The $335M Valuation Rests on One Source
• Outmarket raised a $34.5 million Series B led by SignalFire, four months after a $17 million Series A. • One unnamed person told TechCrunch the round valued the company at $335 million; the company has not confirmed it. • Outmarket says more than 300 insurance agencies use its AI tools, including a quarter of the top 100. • Revenue is not disclosed, so the valuation cannot be checked against sales from the outside.
Sovereign Wealth Funds Help Bridge MENA Growth-Capital Gap, Paymob Says
• Monitor sovereign wealth fund activity as international capital supports scaling fintechs across MENA. • Assess growth-stage funding availability when evaluating expansion plans for regional fintech companies. • Track backing from Mubadala Investment Company and EBRD as Paymob’s international investor base develops.
Baselayer Raises $35 Million To Verify AI Agents
• Baselayer will use its Series A funding to expand identity verification from businesses to AI agents. • Its Agentic Identity Suite aims to establish whether an agent is authorized to act for a person or business. • Credentials could help merchants, banks and platforms distinguish legitimate agents from fraudulent bots. • Baselayer is working with developers, payment processors and fraud providers as it competes to establish a standard.
Can Synthetic Securitisation Support Economic Growth?
• Synthetic securitisation marginally increases corporate lending, but its estimated economic impact remains limited. • Banks issued almost three times more synthetic securitisations in 2025 than in 2021. • Banks used a larger share of released capital for dividends than for additional corporate lending. • Policymakers should support genuine risk transfer while monitoring leverage, rollover and counterparty risks.
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