Karsten Wenzlaff, Advisor
August 26th, 2025
Apr 2, 2026 | NCFA Fintech Market Activity | Banking And Credit, Regulation And Policy
Image: Freepik/rawpixel.com
On April 2, 2026, Italy’s competition authority (AGCM) fined Revolut group €11 million for unfair commercial practices tied to investment disclosures, payment account restrictions, and communication around Italian versus Lithuanian IBANs.
These fines come at a time when Revolut has grown into a bigger and more profitable company, and trying to look more like a primary banking platform than a fast growing fintech. In late March, Revolut reported $2.3B in profit before tax for 2025 with 68.3 million customers and $6B in revenue. Regulators expect more from a company with that type of scale; clarity, conduct, and professional account handling.
Regarding the IBAN issue,, the AGCM said Revolut didn't provide clear and exhaustive information on the requirements and timing for obtaining an Italian IBAN instead of a Lithuanian one. Revolut’s Italy account documentation now identifies Revolut Bank UAB Italian branch details and says the information sheet took effect on March 30, 2026. For a fintech trying to become more embedded in everyday banking, local account setup and customer communication are not side issues, and are important for trust and primary account use.
Revolut said it strongly disagrees with the findings and plans to appeal in the Italian courts. The company said the decision would have no impact on operations or its financial position. That response may settle investors in the short term, but its a sign that once a fintech reaches bank like scale, regulators stop looking only at growth and product breadth. They look much harder at how claims are framed, how restrictions are handled, and whether customers understand what they are actually getting.
Fractional investing, account controls, and local account migration can look like product details when a company is small. At scale, they become conduct risk. Italy’s decision shows how quickly those details can become costly once a fintech evolves deeper into the center of consumer finance.
When a fintech starts to look more like a primary bank, which becomes harder to defend at scale: aggressive growth tactics or unclear customer communication?
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, artificial intelligence, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Apr 1, 2026 | NCFA Fintech Market Activity | Embedded Finance Platforms And Partnerships, Payments And Money Movement

On March 31, 2026, Reuters exclusively reported TikTok's Brazil license applications. The company applied for one license to issue electronic money for prepaid accounts and payments and another to operate as a direct credit company, enabling lending without taking public deposits.
TikTok already has the reach with more than 131 million users in Brazil. Most fintechs spend years trying to build that kind of distribution. TikTok already has it. The harder part is turning that audience reach into payment, wallet use, and trust in a credit product.
Brazil's payment system also gives TikTok a strong foundation to build on. Pix reached nearly 170 million users and BRL 11 trillion in transactions in 2024. The domestic payment rail is already there so the battleground is who controls checkout, the wallet, the customer relationship, and eventually the credit layer inside social commerce.
If TikTok can connect discovery, commerce, payments, and lending into a single flow, it starts to look less like a social app with a wallet and more like a commerce platform with financial rails built in. The upside is clear. Payments can reduce checkout friction. Credit can lift conversion, change seller economics, and pull more transactions into the platform.
The trust question is harder. A social platform can add financial rails faster than a normal fintech can add distribution, but it still has to prove that users, merchants, and regulators trust the same platform to handle money as well as attention. That challenge is real when, especially when platforms can face backlash after changing how users think abut their service scope, data usage or activity will be used, as seen in Bluesky’s data use backlash.
The old approach was to build a financial product and then fight and claw for users. TikTok is trying the reverse. It already has the users. Now it wants the financial plumbing, much like Elon Musk's super app push for X. That in itself makes the licensing outcome worth watching for fintech founders, banks, acquirers, and payment firms already operating in Brazil.
The open question is whether a social platform can turn payments and credit into a real commerce edge without drawing heavier scrutiny as it grows. If it can, Brazil may become a clear example of platform distribution beating out traditional financial distribution.
When a platform already reaches 131 million users, does the edge in finance come from the product itself or from owning the customer before the first payment starts?
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, artificial intelligence, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Mar 31, 2026 | NCFA Fintech Market Activity | Artificial Intelligence And Data

On March 28, 2026, Bluesky introduced Attie in invite only closed beta, it's first agentic social product built on atproto. It's interesting because Bluesky built part of its appeal on taking a more cautious public approach on generative AI and user content than larger platforms.
Attie is a standalone AI assistant for custom feeds and app building. Users can describe what they want in natural language, build their own algorithm, create custom feeds, and over time build social apps on the protocol without needing to code.
In late 2024, Bluesky had already set expectations around how it saw AI and user data. The company said it had “no intention” of training generative AI on user posts.
Then in 2025, the company published a data reuse proposal that would let users set preferences across generative AI, protocol bridging, bulk datasets, and web archiving. That debate got heated because it didn't create a hard block on scraping or data reuse. For many users, it crossed a data use line that Bluesky already said it wouldn't cross. They said they wouldn't train AI on post data but now it was building a system around opt outs and reuse preferences, creating friction with its users.
By March 30, Attie had become one of Bluesky’s most blocked accounts. More than 125,000 users had blocked it within days. Users didn’t wait for a long policy debate. They reacted to what the launch seemed to mean.
Bluesky didn't announce that it would now train generative AI on user posts. But in trust based markets, users don’t separate product utility, data use, and company intent as neatly as product teams do. Once those concerns merge, the launch stops being just a product story. It becomes a consent and brand story too.
For founders and investors, there's a practical and commercial lesson here. AI features and products are getting easier to ship, but clear boundaries aren’t. In fintech, payments, digital identity, and any other business built on sensitive data, that gap (or buffer) can backlash and get expensive fast.
What did Bluesky launch?
Bluesky launched Attie as an invite only closed beta app built on atproto. It helps users create custom feeds with natural language prompts and is designed to support broader app building over time.
Why did users push back so quickly?
Because many users already saw Bluesky as more cautious on AI than rival platforms. A branded AI app raised immediate questions about whether that line of mutual trust was starting to change.
Did Bluesky say it will now train AI on user posts?
No verified source tied to this launch shows Bluesky announcing that change. The concern comes from how users connected the launch to earlier debates over AI training and scraping.
Why does this matter for fintech?
Because the same problem appears in any trust based product. If users are unsure what an AI tool does, what data it uses, or what clear policies the company will not cross, adoption can weaken before the product gets a fair chance.
What makes this commercially important?
This isn't just a social media story. It shows how fast a useful AI feature can become a trust and brand problem. That risk applies to consumer finance, digital identity, payments, and any business built on sensitive data.
As AI tools spread across digital platforms, will users reward the company that ships first, or the one that makes the boundary clear before launch?
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, artificial intelligence, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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