The Monday Roundup: what we are watching this week | Dec 15th

By Puja Sharma

The Monday Roundup sets the scene for the week’s biggest news stories, industry deals, and upcoming events. For Prime subscribers only.

ATMs are getting a makeover

Capital Bank has adopted Diebold Nixdorf’s multivendor self-service software, VCP-Pro 7, to deploy the platform on Microsoft Windows 11-powered ATMs in the Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa (APMEA) region.

The implementation, delivered in partnership with local systems integrator JBS, forms part of Capital Bank’s broader digital modernisation and Windows 11 migration programme. The bank plans to upgrade its entire ATM network to VCP-Pro 7, positioning self-service infrastructure as a core channel for delivering more personalised and flexible customer experiences.

VCP-Pro 7 is part of Diebold Nixdorf’s Vynamic Connection Points software suite and works alongside Vynamic Transaction Middleware. The platform is designed to support out-of-the-box customer journeys through a modular architecture, enabling faster deployment, simplified maintenance and lower operational complexity across multivendor ATM estates.

For Capital Bank, the move reflects a strategic shift towards reducing legacy system constraints while accelerating product innovation. Earlier this year, the bank went live with VCP-Pro and Vynamic Transaction Automation across its ATM network, enabling capabilities such as card issuance and customer preference personalisation across different ATM models an approach that remains uncommon in the local market.

Sporta, an AI-native challenger bank targeting the sport, leisure and wellbeing sectors, has closed a crowdfunding round on Crowdcube, raising £122,923 from community investors.

The raise forms part of Sporta’s second seed round and was structured to allow individuals, clubs and early supporters to invest at smaller ticket sizes, extending participation beyond traditional angel and institutional investors. According to the company, many contributors were drawn from stakeholders engaged during its early market research phase. Sporta is positioning itself as a purpose-built bank for the UK’s sports ecosystem, which it estimates as a £100 billion economy encompassing around 43 million participants, but one that lacks dedicated financial infrastructure. The company describes its approach as AI-native, with technology designed from inception to support the financial needs of organisations and individuals across sport, leisure and wellbeing.

Management framed the crowdfunding round less as a capital-raising exercise and more as a mechanism to build trust and community ownership ahead of its regulatory journey. Sporta completed its initial seed round in May 2025 and plans to submit its UK banking licence application and develop its minimum viable product during 2026, with a target for licence approval in the third quarter of that year.

Contactless now runs the checkout

Swiss crypto bank Amina has expanded its collaboration with Ripple by adopting Ripple Payments for cross‑border transfers. The bank says the technology enables businesses to move money without traditional payment rails, improving speed, cost efficiency, reliability, and transparency. This builds on their July partnership, when Amina integrated Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin, which later saw a 20% price jump. Ripple calls Amina the first European bank to use its licensed end‑to‑end payments system, which supports most major FX markets and handles over $95 billion in volume. Amina recently also secured a MiCA‑aligned CASP licence in Austria.

Mastercard has formed a partnership with TerraPay to expand global acceptance of digital wallets by enabling contactless payments across Mastercard’s vast merchant network. Through this collaboration, TerraPay will link mobile money operators, FinTechs, and banks to Mastercard’s infrastructure, allowing wallet users to make NFC payments at more than 150 million acceptance points worldwide.

Wallet providers will also benefit from enhanced technology and faster deployment through TerraPay’s Xend interoperability platform. Mastercard noted that around 70% of its in‑person transactions are now contactless, which are significantly faster and tend to drive higher spending.

What is the Buzz

Singapore Gulf Bank (SGB) has unveiled a new stablecoin minting and redemption service, allowing clients to issue and redeem USDC and USDT directly on the Solana blockchain.

The move signals a growing push by regulated financial institutions to integrate blockchain-based payment rails into mainstream banking services, particularly for cross-border and treasury use cases. SGB said the service is designed to support faster and more efficient transaction flows between the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and Asian markets, a corridor that has seen rising trade, investment, and digital asset activity.

As part of a launch programme aimed at accelerating adoption, SGB will waive transaction and gas fees for clients minting and redeeming stablecoins on Solana. The bank said the zero-fee structure is intended to reduce friction for corporate users testing and scaling blockchain-based settlement models. The stablecoin service will initially be available to SGB’s corporate clients, with a focus on transaction processing and treasury management. The bank plans to extend access to personal banking customers at a later stage. SGB said it has processed more than $7 billion in transactions since launching operations in March this year. The addition of stablecoin minting rails is positioned as a complementary layer to its existing infrastructure, enabling near real-time settlement and improved liquidity management across jurisdictions.