Daily News

Revolut Gets Closer to Launching in Argentina

Revolut Gets Argentina's Green Light

Hey Digital Banking Fanatic!

Revolut is getting another step closer to launching in Argentina. 👀

The company has received approval from the Central Bank of Argentina to acquire Banco Cetelem Argentina from BNP Paribas Personal Finance.

Once completed, Banco Cetelem Argentina will become Revolut Bank Argentina, giving Revolut a regulated banking entity as it prepares for its local launch.

And the demand is already there: 150,000+ consumers are on the waitlist, while Revolut builds out its local team and infrastructure. 🇦🇷

The deal also gives us a closer look at how Revolut is building its banking footprint across Latin America, from the acquisition itself to the local leadership and launch plans.

As Revolut expands, fraud risks are evolving too. Incognia reports that 81% of financial institutions are seeing more mule account handovers, while just 16% detect them before suspicious transactions occur.

Let’s get into the rest of today’s digital banking stories. 👇

See you tomorrow!

Cheers,

Marcel

INSIGHTS

💡 Incognia: 81% of Financial Institutions Say Mule Account Handovers Are Rising. Incognia’s new research, based on a survey of 511 fraud, risk and AML professionals, finds that mule account handovers are becoming harder to catch, with only 16% of institutions detecting them before suspicious transactions occur. The report also finds that 64% have suspected or confirmed cross-border cases, while 53% say handovers are harder to detect than most other types of fraud. The bigger problem? 83% are still detecting them reactively, after suspicious activity or funds have already started moving. Read the full report here.

NEWS

🇦🇷 Revolut receives central bank approval to acquire Banco Cetelem in Argentina, marking a significant step in the company's Latin American expansion. The approval allows Revolut to operate as a licensed bank in Argentina for the first time.

🇭🇺 Revolut is bringing ATMs to Hungary, expanding physical cash access for its customers in the country. The rollout will allow Hungarian Revolut users to withdraw cash at dedicated Revolut ATMs across the country.

🇧🇩 VEON joint venture receives a digital bank license in Bangladesh, granted by Bangladesh Bank to a joint venture between VEON Digital Financial Group and Square Group. The approval enables VEON to expand digital banking services for mobile users across Bangladesh, building on Banglalink's existing payments infrastructure.

🇨🇭 Bitget partners with Sygnum Bank for off-exchange custody, becoming the latest major crypto exchange to use the Swiss digital asset bank's services. The arrangement allows Bitget to secure assets through regulated custody infrastructure while maintaining trading flexibility.

🇺🇸 Narmi launches an open AI marketplace for community banks, giving smaller institutions access to AI tools through its digital banking platform. The marketplace aims to help community banks deploy AI capabilities without building them in house.

🇬🇧 NatWest Group unveils next-generation AI tools including an industry-first generative audio-visual Spending Insights tool and a new Fraud Triage Agent within its Cora assistant. Powered by proprietary Small Language Models, the tools let customers explore spending through natural voice conversations and reach fraud support faster.

🇺🇸 Feedzai unveils Farol, an embedded AI agent designed to slash fraud investigation times and sharpen threat detection across banking risk operations. Integrated directly into Feedzai's RiskOps Studio, Farol delivers conversational intelligence and automated rule analytics within existing analyst workflows.

🇺🇸 The U.S. Federal Reserve proposes new stablecoin rules covering banks and non-banks that issue dollar-denominated stablecoins. The proposal sets out requirements for reserve backing, redemption rights, and risk management across stablecoin issuers.

🇫🇷 BNP Paribas partners with Google Cloud to bring AI deeper into banking, signing a five-year deal to expand its use of Gemini models and Google Cloud infrastructure. It will also deploy AI agents across workflows including corporate credit memos, sales, trading and research, while keeping strict controls around sensitive data.

🇧🇷 Guilherme Lago, former CFO of Nubank, has joined Latin American VC firm Kaszek as a partner. Kaszek, an early Nubank backer, is closing its seventh fund at an expected $600M according to reports.