September witnessed significant strategic collaborations across the global fintech industry, with major announcements including Stripe’s blockchain initiative for stablecoins, UniCredit’s securities overhaul with BNP Paribas and FNZ, Chase’s enhanced underwriting capabilities through Nova Credit, Cardinal Credit Union’s stock rewards program with Bits of Stock, and Lloyds Banking Group’s cloud expansion with Broadcom.
Stripe and crypto investment firm Paradigm collaborated to develop Tempo, a Layer-1 blockchain designed for stablecoins and real-world payment applications. Paradigm co-founder and managing partner Matt Huang is leading the project, with technical contributions from Anthropic, Deutsche Bank, Mercury, Nubank, OpenAI, Revolut, Standard Chartered, and Visa, among others. Tempo aims to address real-world use cases such as global payments and payroll, remittances, tokenized deposits for 24/7 settlement, embedded financial accounts, microtransactions, and agentic payments.
UniCredit formalized a custody services partnership with BNP Paribas and is working with FNZ to establish a new cloud-based post-trade securities platform. BNP Paribas Securities Services will now act as UniCredit’s custody partner in Italy, Germany, and Luxembourg, taking over from Société Générale Securities Services and Caceis. This initiative follows UniCredit’s January announcement to integrate back-office activities for securities services internally, with the objective of standardizing operations across its various markets. The project is expected to generate over 200 new positions, including 140 in Germany, 60 in Italy, and 25 within the bank’s digital team across multiple countries.
JP Morgan’s consumer and commercial banking arm, Chase, partnered with California-based credit infrastructure and analytics firm Nova Credit to enhance its underwriting capabilities and broaden credit access for consumers. Chase will integrate Nova Credit’s Cash Atlas solution, which provides a comprehensive view of consumer financial health using trended data on income, expenses, and assets. The implementation also incorporates Credit Passport, a solution that allows immigrants to utilize international credit data when applying for loans with US financial institutions. This collaboration extends a relationship that began in 2017 when Nova Credit participated in JP Morgan’s Financial Solutions Lab. Nova Credit has since expanded its capabilities and established partnerships with other financial institutions, including HSBC, Scotiabank, and Nottingham Building Society.
Ohio-based Cardinal Credit Union partnered with Bits of Stock, a New York-headquartered platform enabling financial institutions to offer fractional stock shares as rewards. This collaboration aims to assist young investors in building wealth while enhancing their financial literacy. Through the partnership, Cardinal checking account holders aged 18 to 28 can automatically earn stock rewards on every Visa debit card purchase. These rewards can then be converted into fractional shares of selected publicly traded companies. Enrolled members will access a brokerage-style dashboard provided by Bits of Stock for trade execution and portfolio management, all integrated within Cardinal’s existing Lumin Digital-powered banking platform.
Lloyds Banking Group in the UK expanded its collaboration with US software partner Broadcom to fortify its digital banking infrastructure, focusing on technology resilience and scalability. Under the extended agreement, Lloyds will implement VMware Cloud Foundation and additional mainframe solutions to enhance the resilience, agility, and scalability of its technology estate. Broadcom stated that the private cloud platform would support the bank’s data center consolidation strategy, while the suite of mainframe solutions would underpin Lloyds’ mission-critical workloads.
