Citi Enters Bitcoin Custody as Wall Street Goes Deeper Into Crypto
Citi is preparing to launch Bitcoin custody services, marking another major step by a Wall Street bank into the digital-asset market. The move is particularly significant because custody is core financial infrastructure, bringing crypto further into the same institutional framework used for traditional assets. Citi joins other major financial institutions that are increasingly building services around digital assets rather than treating crypto as a purely speculative market. For institutional investors, bank-backed custody could make holding Bitcoin more familiar and easier to integrate into existing investment operations. The development also strengthens the broader convergence between TradFi and crypto, as established banks increasingly provide the infrastructure that digital assets need to scale. With Citi now moving into custody, the question is shifting from whether Wall Street will enter crypto to how deeply it will become embedded in the market.
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Insight of the Day
Defining Agentic Global Payments
Key insights
• From automation to autonomy
Payments are entering a third phase, where AI moves from supporting decisions to executing them within defined control. In 2025, 85% of enterprises say they will use AI agents.
• B2B is where agentic payments accelerate fastest
Agentic payment volume in B2B is projected to grow at roughly 335% a year over the next five years, far outpacing consumer growth as enterprise adoption matures.
• Trust and experience are the twin engines
Credential protection, intent capture, and “Know Your Agent” (KYA) are what let businesses delegate to AI agents with genuine confidence.
Curated News
💳 Payments
Razorpay Launches India’s First AI-Powered Payments Foundation Model
Razorpay has launched what it describes as India’s first AI-powered payments foundation model, designed to support digital payments and financial services. The move shows payment companies increasingly building proprietary AI capabilities rather than treating AI as an add-on.
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Rain Launches Alliance for Agent-Driven Commerce
Rain has launched the Agentic Payments Alliance to help shape the future of payments made by AI agents. The initiative reflects growing industry interest in enabling autonomous software to discover, authorize and complete transactions.
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Paymentology Brings Apple Pay to GoTyme Bank
Paymentology is powering GoTyme Bank’s Apple Pay integration in the Philippines. The launch expands contactless payments for GoTyme customers while strengthening the bank’s digital payments proposition.
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Digital-Native Consumers Become the Largest Remittance Sender Group
Zepz says digitally native consumers have become the largest group sending remittances, highlighting changing habits in the global money-transfer market. The shift underscores the growing importance of mobile-first experiences and digital channels in cross-border payments.
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SwipeSimple Adds ACH Payments for Merchants
SwipeSimple has added ACH payment capabilities for merchants. The expansion gives businesses another account-to-account payment option and could help reduce reliance on card-based transactions.
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Mobile Payments Keep Rising as Cash Decline Slows
Mobile payments continue to gain ground, although the decline in cash usage is slowing. The trend suggests consumers are becoming increasingly comfortable with digital payments while cash remains resilient in some markets.
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🏦 Banking
Lloyds Customers Hit by Online and Mobile Banking Outage
Lloyds customers experienced disruption to online and mobile banking services. The incident highlights how heavily consumers now depend on digital banking infrastructure and how quickly outages can affect customer experience.
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Personetics and Plaid Team Up on Open Finance Intelligence
Personetics and Plaid are partnering to help banks strengthen account primacy using open-finance intelligence. The collaboration shows how banks are increasingly using external financial data to deliver more personalized customer experiences.
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GXS Bank Launches Credit Card With Grab and Singtel
GXS Bank has launched a new credit card in partnership with Grab and Singtel. The collaboration combines banking, technology and consumer ecosystems to expand digital credit offerings.
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PicPay Brings Financial Information Into ChatGPT
PicPay is integrating with ChatGPT to give customers a new way to access their financial information. The move shows how conversational AI could become another interface for interacting with financial services.
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💼 Fintech
Synchrony Brings Offers Into ChatGPT
Synchrony has launched a ChatGPT plugin designed to promote offers to consumers. The initiative shows financial companies experimenting with AI assistants as a new channel for customer engagement and commerce.
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Noggin HQ Raises £2.3M to Disrupt UK Credit Referencing
UK fintech Noggin HQ has raised £2.3 million in seed funding to develop its credit-referencing business. Its FCA licensing gives the startup a regulated foundation as it targets innovation in the UK’s credit-data market.
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Y Combinator Backs AI Startup Kita
Y Combinator has joined a $4.5 million funding round for U.S. AI startup Kita. The investment highlights continued investor appetite for AI startups developing new financial and business applications.
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Quartr Raises $18M for Investor Relations Data Platform
Quartr has raised $18 million to expand its first-party investor-relations data platform globally. The funding gives the company additional firepower to build out financial information infrastructure for investors and markets.
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🪙 Crypto
Cash App and MoonPay Team Up on Crypto Purchases
Cash App and MoonPay are partnering to offer crypto purchases. The collaboration brings crypto access closer to a mainstream consumer-finance platform and could make digital-asset purchases more accessible to everyday users.
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Ripple Partners With South Korean Bank on Remittances
Ripple is partnering with a South Korean regional bank on remittance services. The collaboration highlights continued efforts to use blockchain infrastructure to improve cross-border payments.
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Bitcoin Wallet Maker BitBox Finds Critical Firmware Flaws With AI
BitBox says AI helped identify severe vulnerabilities in its wallet firmware. The development highlights both the growing security capabilities of AI and the increasingly sophisticated threats facing crypto infrastructure.
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📈 WealthTech
TMX Group Completes Acquisition of RAFI Indices
TMX Group has completed its acquisition of RAFI Indices from Research Affiliates. The deal expands TMX’s index capabilities and strengthens its position in the global financial-data and investment-infrastructure market.
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⚖️ Regulation
Bank of Italy Finds Stablecoins Aren’t Cheaper for Remittances
A Bank of Italy study found that stablecoin-based remittances are not necessarily cheaper than traditional remittance methods. The findings challenge some of the industry’s claims about stablecoins’ cost advantages in cross-border payments.
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