Over the last few weeks, I’ve been working with something that felt like magic.

At first, it felt like a toy. Then like software. And then, without really noticing, I started treating it like an employee.

That moment is the entire story.

“No one wants agentic payments”

I recently came across a Worldpay report on agentic payments that surveyed around 8,000 consumers to measure interest and trust. According to the report, very few people want AI to complete purchases on their behalf. That is hardly surprising.

The problem is not the data. It is the framing.

Asking people what they want in a completely new paradigm rarely works. New paradigms create new behaviours, and people struggle to imagine behaviours they have never experienced. Early research captures discomfort with the idea, not behaviour once the tool exists.

What matters far more is what people do once they start using new systems. How quickly they delegate, where they draw boundaries, and which shortcuts they adopt tell us much more about where things are heading than stated preferences ever will.

Over the last few weeks, that gap between opinion and behaviour became very tangible to me through hands-on use of a personal agent. Watching how it was used, and how quickly trust and responsibility shifted, offered a much clearer signal than any survey.

That experience starts with OpenClaw.

OpenClaw - personal assistants are here

OpenClaw (also known as Moltbot or Clawdbot), took over the tech world over the past few weeks. For good reason. It delivered one of those rare “magic” moments, on par with the first time you used ChatGPT.

At its core, it is a personal assistant that runs AI agents on a computer and uses the operating system itself as a tool. You give it a personality, an objective, and some constraints, and it gets to work. Browsing the web, using apps, running commands, and coordinating across tools - all autonomously.

Our operating systems are incredibly powerful. Anything you can do manually with a keyboard and mouse through a graphical interface can also be done programmatically through the command line in the terminal. Read. Write. Execute. That already covers an enormous surface area.

Now combine that with an AI model of your choice, access to the internet and open-source libraries, and controlled access to your apps and data. That’s where delegation becomes possible.

And you do not need to sit in front of the machine. You can control the agent remotely, for example via Telegram, exactly as you would speak to a human assistant.

“Get me hotel options for my trip to Paris.”

“Set up a meeting with Jon tomorrow to discuss the Q2 roadmap.”

From there, the agent figures out how to do the work. It uses the same apps you already rely on. It can browse, compare, draft emails, check calendars, and even negotiate availability with another human over WhatsApp before sending a calendar invite. The agent can even design and build its own tools if needed.

At that point, you are no longer interacting with software. You are delegating outcomes. How the work gets done matters less, as long as you can monitor progress and set clear boundaries when needed.

Watching how people interacted with OpenClaw revealed a set of recurring patterns. Not in controlled demos or polished product flows, but in real, messy, everyday use.

What makes this relevant for fintech is not the assistant itself, but the behavioural change it triggers once money, identity, and authority enter the picture. That change challenges how payments, identity, and risk have traditionally been designed.

Innovation can come from anywhere

One of the most striking aspects is where this came from.

OpenClaw was built by a single person in Austria, working from a bedroom. Meanwhile, thousands of heavily funded AI startups are struggling to produce anything close to this level of impact.

Working in tech can feel defeating at times. This is a reminder that leverage has changed dramatically.

Security problems are inevitable - and solvable

Unsurprisingly, bad actors moved fast. Prompt injection, misuse, and unsafe behaviours surfaced almost immediately.

What matters is what happened next. A highly engaged community identified vulnerabilities, proposed mitigations, and shipped fixes in near real time.

This pattern will repeat. Agentic systems will not launch bulletproof. They will become secure through use, exposure, and iteration - much like browsers, operating systems, and payments infrastructure before them.

From software to employee

The most important shift was psychological.

People started cautiously. Isolated environments. Separate devices. Limited permissions. The now-famous Mac mini setups.

Then value became obvious.

Despite explicit warnings, users began granting broader access - personal files, emails, credentials, even card details. The mental model changed. The agent stopped being software. It became an employee.

Giving a trusted employee access and a corporate card is not reckless. It is an enabler. It removes friction, reduces delays, and unlocks productivity. The same logic applies here.

Privacy & local models

As permissions widened, another realisation followed. Just how much personal data was flowing to centralised AI platforms.

The response was telling. Many users moved sensitive workloads to local, on-device models. And it turns out you do not need giant, general-purpose models for most tasks. Smaller, specialised models perform remarkably well - privately.

Agents also change expectations around speed. They work asynchronously, 24/7. Many personal tasks do not require instant responses. That reduces the need for powerful hardware. A Mac mini is often enough.

Open, local, private and composable AI wins

My view is simple. Open, local, private and composable AI wins.

Large platforms are chasing all-in-one models that do everything. I am not convinced that is the right path. Smaller, specialised models with clear responsibilities, orchestrated intelligently, are more efficient, more controllable, and better suited to local execution.

GPU performance will keep improving. Open models will keep getting better. Context compression and memory techniques are advancing quickly. It is already possible to run fully autonomous agents on Raspberry Pi-class hardware.

Build for agents, not humans

As discussed previously on one-fs, it is becoming clear that everyone will have multiple personal agents - admin, finance, travel, shopping.

These agents will run on operating systems that can do everything a human can do on a computer. Crucially, they are controlled by the end-user and act in their interest.

The most efficient interfaces for agents are not human ones. They are MCPs and CLIs. Clean, structured, deterministic access beats closed dashboards every time.

A new internet for agents is emerging

An early but important signal is the rise of markdown-only websites built for agents. No images. No layout tricks. No marketing noise. Just structured information in a plain text file.

Pages shrink from megabytes to kilobytes. Straight to the point.

A parallel, machine-readable internet is emerging. Businesses that are not present on it will become invisible to agents.

Agents will talk to other agents

Agent-to-agent interaction is already appearing. Experiments like Moltbook are crude and messy today, but the direction is clear.

Expect agent-native social platforms and trusted review networks to emerge, likely with cryptographic verification. Just as Google Reviews influence purchasing today, agent-generated reviews will influence future decisions.

These reviews will be factual, logical, and experience-driven. No persuasion. No emotion. Just data.

Let’s be clear about what not to build

There is a lot of noise right now.

Staged demos of agents embedded in merchant apps, making payments with cards on file, miss the point entirely.

If I want to buy shoes, my agent already knows my preferences, size, style, and budget. It can search any online store, shortlist options, perform due diligence, ask for approval, and execute.

For repeat purchases, I should be able to say “get me my usual pizza”, and the agent will compare platforms, find the best option, and place the order.

This challenges intermediaries. It makes direct-to-consumer easier for merchants. It also enables rational adoption of new payment methods. If a merchant offers a discount for stablecoin payments, an agent can act on that logic instantly.

Build agentic capabilities

None of this is a reason to wait.

Internal agentic capabilities matter. Operations, support, analysis, compliance - the gains are real. Externally, businesses can expose structured data, proprietary insights, and pre-built skills that plug directly into customer-controlled agents.

In fintech, the opportunity is not to own the agent.

It is to be useful to it.

About Dom Monhardt, founder of one-fs.com

I am a French technologist and product leader living in Dubai, with 15+ years of experience in building cutting-edge and innovative digital experiences.

I am interested in the intersection of business, design, and technology and am deeply passionate about the fintech and digital banking world.

Follow me on Linkedin

The end of last year was intentionally slower for me.

I spent time on personal projects, stepped away from the usual pace, and enjoyed proper family time over the holidays. Coming back to one-fs, I reread what I wrote in 2025 with a bit of distance.

What stood out was not which posts did well, but which ideas kept resurfacing. The same themes appeared again and again, often from different angles, and in hindsight they describe a fairly clear direction.

This post is a short recap of those ideas.

PS: I’ve temporarily removed the paywall of all 2025 posts, so you can safely click on any link and enjoy its content 🙂

AI agents quietly became the interface

At the start of 2025, most fintech conversations were still framed around apps, features, and screens.

At the same time, AI systems were getting better at understanding intent and executing tasks. That raised a simple question I kept coming back to: if an AI can do the work, why should the user still navigate the interface?

That thinking showed up across several posts:

• AI agents handling actions, not just answers

• Banking interactions shifting from flows to conversations

• Products needing to be operable by machines, not only humans

Over the year, this stopped sounding abstract. Agentic checkout, task execution, and conversational finance began to ship in real products.

The implication remains straightforward: products that cannot be used by an agent will feel increasingly indirect.

MCPs became plumbing, not a talking point

When I wrote about Model Context Protocols and experimented with one for Wio, MCPs were still unfamiliar to most teams.

The focus at the time was on prompts and chat interfaces. Less attention was given to how AI systems would safely call real banking functions, or how financial products should expose structured, permissioned capabilities.

That gap closed quickly.

By the middle of the year, MCP-style integration became the expected way to connect AI to action. Not because it was trendy, but because it was necessary.

This reinforced a recurring belief of mine: meaningful experience changes usually follow infrastructure change, not UI refreshes.

Stablecoins shifted from concept to utility

Stablecoins were another theme that evolved quickly over 2025.

Early discussions often treated them as experimental. As the year progressed, they showed up in places that mattered: Stripe’s acquisition of Bridge, Shopify enabling stablecoin payments, platforms using them for settlement and cross-border flows.

What became clear is that stablecoins work best when they fade into the background.

They are useful because they reduce friction, speed things up, and make certain products possible. Once they do that reliably, they stop being a headline and start being infrastructure.

Onboarding and growth made expectations visible

Comparing onboarding experiences like N26 and Stables highlighted something that is easy to overlook.

Users do not compare you to your direct competitors. They compare you to the fastest, cleanest experience they have had anywhere.

The same applies to growth mechanics.

Revolut’s referral engine works because it is part of the product, not an add-on. It is designed, measured, and iterated like any other core capability.

These examples reinforced a simple idea: onboarding and growth are product problems before they are marketing problems.

Design still matters when everything gets automated

One of the quieter pieces I wrote last year focused on Jony Ive and the idea of building with care.

It felt important to include that perspective alongside all the discussion about AI, protocols, and automation. As products become more invisible and agent-driven, it becomes easier to lose intentionality.

Trust, clarity, and care are still felt, even when no one is tapping through screens.

Possibly even more so.

Where this leaves me going into 2026

Looking back, 2025 helped clarify a few things for me:

• Interaction is shifting from navigation to intent

• Infrastructure decisions shape experience more than most design choices

• AI becomes useful when it can act, not just analyse

• Programmable money enables new product categories

• Care and craft do not disappear in automated systems

Most of what I wrote last year was an attempt to make sense of changes as they were unfolding, rather than reacting once they were obvious.

That’s still the goal for one-fs.

More soon.

If this sparked ideas – or raised questions - I’d love to hear from you. Hit reply or DM me.

Until next time - Dom 👋

About Dom Monhardt, founder of one-fs.com

I am a French technologist and product leader living in Dubai, with 15+ years of experience in building cutting-edge and innovative digital experiences.

I am interested in the intersection of business, design, and technology and am deeply passionate about the fintech and digital banking world.

Follow me on Linkedin

This week I’ve been deep in AI experiments - building agents, automating flows, and running everything locally on my 80 GPUs (just flexing a little 😆). It’s been a reminder that the best way to cut through AI hype is to build and see for yourself. If there’s enough interest, I might run a workshop on this soon.

Now, onto something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately: the future of banking.

If you’ve followed me for a while, you’ll know my core beliefs:

• Mobile apps will disappear

• AI tools will replace apps (your fintech or bank will become a tool)

• Operating systems will generate interfaces on demand

• The web won’t be visited by humans

• Boring tasks will be outsourced to invisible systems

• Life will be managed by AI

• On-device AI and memory will replace cloud AI for privacy

Some of this may sound far off, but the trendlines are getting clearer every month.

The signal: OpenAI hires the ROI team

OpenAI recently acquired the team behind ROI, a fintech app that tracked and optimised your net worth. They didn’t buy the product itself, but the people - their mindset, vision, and approach to consumer experience.

Both ROI co-founders came from Airbnb, not finance. That matters.

They weren’t burdened by “how things are done” in banking – exactly the kind of fresh perspective OpenAI values.

ROI had two core features:

1️⃣ Financial aggregation: connecting banks, fintechs, crypto wallets, and even offline assets like art or collectibles.

2️⃣ Command centre for trading: where users could follow portfolios of investors and hedge funds, with ROI orchestrating trades across brokers.

One app, one interface, all your money.

ROI’s values

Their company values said it all:

• We win when you win

  • We want the best possible outcome for you. Your success is our success.

• Remove barriers

  • Provide access to the knowledge, opportunities and tools needed to reach your goals.

• Always private and secure

  • We treat your data like we want ours to be treated, simple as that

• Tailored to you

  • There is no one size fits all. Roi is built for your financial future, no matter who and what your goals are.

This mindset is gold for what comes next.

OpenAI’s next move: Life Management

OpenAI isn’t just building chat models anymore. It’s quietly assembling the components for Life Management - a layer that connects your data, tools, and goals into an intelligent personal operating system.

To make that work, three things are needed:

1. Connected data and tools - integrations across every domain of your life.

2. Powerful models and agents - to interpret and act on that data.

3. An AI-first product team - focused on experience, not features.

With ROI’s DNA, OpenAI has strengthened the third piece.

The end of interfaces

In my last piece, I showed how OpenAI has already begun replacing merchant interfaces. ChatGPT now pulls product data directly, handles checkout via its agent, and never sends you to a merchant’s site.

Next will be banks.

Bank connectors and MCPs (like the one I built for Wio) will become standard. Soon, ChatGPT, Claude, and others will embed financial interactions natively - checking balances, transferring funds, or reviewing your portfolio without opening a banking app.

The interface won’t be an app. It will be a conversation.

Financial widgets inside ChatGPT

OpenAI recently introduced UI widgets inside ChatGPT. These allow you to visualise and interact with structured data directly in chat – a big leap beyond plain text.

Soon, we’ll see financial widgets that summarise your net worth, spending, or investments on request.

“Show me my monthly expenses.”

“Invest the leftover cash in my long-term portfolio.”

No bank app. No login screen. Just your assistant handling it.

Financial recommendations as daily dialogue

ChatGPT’s new “Pulse” feature - where it starts your day with a summary - will likely evolve into personalised briefings:

“You’ve overspent on dining this month. Move AED 2,000 from your travel budget to savings?”

“Your mortgage renewal is due next week - here are better rates.”

That’s when banking becomes invisible.

What it means for fintechs

Fintech products will stop being standalone destinations. Instead, they’ll power layers within someone’s personal AI ecosystem. The new competition isn’t who has the best app, but who can integrate most seamlessly into the user’s life management agent.

To stay relevant, fintechs will need to:

• Focus on deep integrations, not flashy UIs

• Build APIs and orchestration layers ready for AI agents

• Prioritise privacy, context, and trust – since AI assistants will hold financial memories

Banking will no longer be a destination. It’ll be a background process that simply works.

What do you think?

If this sparked ideas – or raised questions - I’d love to hear from you. Hit reply or DM me.

Until next time - Dom 👋

About Dom Monhardt, founder of one-fs.com

I am a French technologist and product leader living in Dubai, with 15+ years of experience in building cutting-edge and innovative digital experiences.

I am interested in the intersection of business, design, and technology and am deeply passionate about the fintech and digital banking world.

Follow me on Linkedin

OpenAI just launched Instant Checkout in ChatGPT, powered by the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP). Shoppers in the US can already buy from Etsy inside ChatGPT, with Shopify support following. No tabs. No forms. Just chat, choose, pay and voila 🤙

It is the start of mainstream agent-native commerce.

Some stats:

• ChatGPT now claims 700 million weekly active users.

• AI platforms drove 1.13 billion referral visits to the top 1,000 sites in June, up 357% year on year. Early days versus Google, but the curve is steep.

The six stages of AI use (and where we are now)

1. Static AI - trained data only, stuck at cutoff.

2. AI + browsing - fetch fresh info.

3. Research agents - scan, summarise, compare at scale.

4. 👉 Operate and act - complete tasks on your behalf. We just crossed this line with Instant Checkout and ACP.

5. Unified agent layer - memory across tools and tasks.

6. Personal autonomy - agents that anticipate and fulfil.

What changes for you

The classical funnel compresses. Awareness, interest, consideration and conversion increasingly live inside AI interfaces. You keep control of retention and advocacy. Everything upstream will be mediated by agents that prise facts, speed, structure and fit for purpose.

Example: “Find a great toy for my 7-year-old nephew, budget £30, fastest delivery.” The agent scans reviews, videos, forums, then finds the best price and delivery, and checks out. All inside chat.

👉 “Without the website ever opening.”

The job now: make your fintech agent-ready

Below is a concrete checklist. It is biased to what agents need, not what humans like.

1) Access

• Remove walls. If an agent cannot reach it, it does not exist. Avoid “call us for details” and “create an account to view fees”.

• Publish public, crawlable versions of pricing, eligibility, fees, limits, SLAs, FAQs, and constraints.

• Ship a Products & Policies feed. Treat it like a merchant feed for AI: machine-readable, complete, updated hourly.

2) Speed

• Aim for <200 ms on read endpoints and docs. Agents time out like humans bounce.

• Move heavy logic to APIs. Pre-compute common answers and make them fetchable.

3) Structure and navigation

• Mark up every important page with structured data and consistent headings. Keep URLs stable.

• Offer JSON and CSV mirrors for key tables, rate cards, corridor lists, and feature matrices.

4) Information quality

• Write for LLMs and humans. Short sentences, explicit labels, definition lists, FAQs, examples, edge cases. Kapa’s best-practice guide is an excellent baseline for “scraper-friendly” docs.

5) Integrate with ACP

• Implement the Agentic Commerce Protocol so agents can quote, reserve, and purchase without brittle scraping. Stripe and OpenAI are co-developing ACP and have opened the spec. Start with Instant Checkout primitives even if you are not a retailer. Think “apply”, “quote”, “bind”, “pay”, “activate”.

6) Bot traffic, the smart way

• You will see more automated traffic. Do not nuke the good with the bad.

• Replace captchas with invisible bot detection on critical routes like signup, quote, checkout and LLM endpoints. Vercel’s BotID is built for this pattern.

7) Loyalty, brand and real-world touch

• Double down on loyalty mechanics, bundles and personalised pricing. Agents will optimise for value on behalf of users.

• Make your values legible. Agents will favour products that align with user preferences.

• Create memorable offline moments you fully control. People still advocate based on how you made them feel.

A simple agent-readiness scorecard

Score each item 0-1. Anything <7 needs attention.

1. Public fees and eligibility are complete and crawlable.

2. Structured product feed exists

3. Site returns core facts via HTML without JS.

4. Docs follow AI-friendly writing guidelines.

5. Quote and pricing APIs exist and are public or partnerable.

6. ACP pilot is scoped and resourced.

7. Invisible bot protection live on critical routes.

What to stop doing

• Gating prices, content and eligibility behind forms or phone calls.

• Long hero copy that hides facts.

• Throwing captchas at everything. Use invisible detection on the few routes that matter.

Why this matters now

OpenAI’s Instant Checkout is day one for agent-native commerce, with ACP as the common language between agents and merchants. The usage and referral data show the direction of travel. Teams that make their products legible to agents will win more often, with less spend, across more channels.

There’s so much more I want to say but I’ll stop here for now. Let me know if you have any tips or resources on this subject!

If this sparked ideas – or raised questions - I’d love to hear from you. Hit reply or DM me.

Until next time - Dom 👋

About Dom Monhardt, founder of one-fs.com

I am a French technologist and product leader living in Dubai, with 15+ years of experience in building cutting-edge and innovative digital experiences.

I am interested in the intersection of business, design, and technology and am deeply passionate about the fintech and digital banking world.

Follow me on Linkedin

This week we’re unpacking Revolut’s viral growth machine. You’ll see how the company doubled its user base in two years, why 65% of new customers now come through referrals, and what makes its member-to-member loop both defensible and hard to copy. We’ll break down the exact flow, the levers behind it, and the lessons fintech builders can borrow.

What’s inside:

📈 Revolut’s latest growth and revenue numbers.

📣 How referral campaigns are promoted and timed.

📱 The step-by-step flow of a member-to-member referral.

🎚️ The levers that make it fraud-resistant and defensible.

📘 Practical lessons you can borrow for your own growth loop.

Let’s go!

Inside Revolut's Viral Growth Engine

Revolut is the talk of the town.

In Dubai, Revolut announced that they finally secured a license from the Central Bank of the UAE (Stored Value Facilities and Retail Payment Services Category II), roughly a year after I posted about their move into the Middle East:

➡️ But the bigger story is about Revolut’s growth over the last 2 years.

The company has doubled its growth in the last two years and 65% of new retail customers are arriving via word-of-mouth referrals. Revolut is adding users at a rapid pace and converting them into spenders fast.

We’re going to break down its most important component:

A highly tuned, time-boxed member-to-member referral loop that turns friends into activated cardholders.

It’s measurable, defensible, and hard to copy without real product depth.

The latest numbers

• 52.5m customers by year‑end 2024 - almost 15m added in the year, and the total user base has doubled in the last two years alone.

• Revenue up ~72% to $4.0bn - with strong contributions from card payments, FX, subscriptions, wealth, and interest.

• Net profit ~$1.0bn; Profit Before Tax ~$1.4bn; fourth consecutive profitable year.

• Customer balances ~$38bn; transaction volumes approaching $1.3tn.

• 65% of new retail customers came via word‑of‑mouth/referrals.

No vanity metrics here - acquisition is compounding, activation is high, and the unit economics support meaningful rewards without bleeding cash.

How the referral is promoted

• A smart banner on the dashboard.

• Push notifications timed to campaign milestones.

• Emails that are relentlessly A/B tested.

In fact, I received over 46 referral emails in 2025 alone. They fall into a set pattern:

• First email: “Earn £XX for each friend that joins Revolut” - simple and direct.

• Follow-up email (12 days later): “Only X days left to earn £XX” - adds FOMO and urgency.

The cash amount in these emails is dynamic and fully synced with the app, banners, and notifications. Campaign emails are typically sent in 21‑day batches, with follow‑ups on day 12. Most drop on Thursdays at 8am, with some Tuesday sends - Revolut rarely deviates from these timings.

Back in 2019, the bonus was £6 each (referrer + referee). Today it’s a variable reward usually between £40 and £70 per referee, credited only to the referrer.

How the member‑to‑member referral works (typical flow)

Terms and cash amounts vary by country and campaign - the app always shows the live offer and deadline.

1. Open referral screen
   This can be done from various places, either from the push notification, email, dashboard banner or by tapping on the profile. The referral screen automatically shows the live campaign, reward, rules, cap, and deadline.

   

2. Referrer shares their unique link
   Each user has a personalised referral URL, e.g. https://revolut.com/referral/?referral-code=xxxx.

   
   Tap Invite to bring up your link and share via your preferred channel.
   
   Note: Revolut can access the phone contacts (after granting permission)

   

3. Invitee signs up (new to Revolut)
   The referree must open a Personal account using the referrers link, complete KYC, and be a first‑time customer.
   

4. Add money from an external source
   A card top‑up, Apple/Google Pay, or bank transfer works. Transfers from another Revolut account don’t count.
   

5. Order a physical card
   Required for eligibility. This costs around £4.99 for the referee.
   

6. Make 3 purchases of £5 each
   The app shows the requirement and countdown. Certain categories (currency exchange, gambling, gift cards, P2P transfers) don’t count.
   

7. Track progress in‑app
   Each step ticks green as it’s completed. The referrer also receives real‑time push notifications whenever the referee completes a step, alongside a visible countdown.
   

   

8. Get paid
   When all steps are completed within the time limit, the reward is credited within 2 days (up to 5 business days) to the referrer’s Revolut balance. Most campaigns are one‑sided - only the referrer is paid.
   
   No gimmicks here, the promised cash is added to the balance without any hidden terms or complex withdrawals journeys.

Campaign levers you’ll notice

• Time‑boxed - clear deadline to create urgency.

• Capped - a max number of paid invitees per campaign.

• Variable rewards - usually £40-70, changing by market, time and other factors such as how much rewards were previously earned.

• Eligibility checks - first‑time customers only, external top‑up, physical card ordered, legitimate purchases.

• Referrer involvement - real‑time progress updates and countdowns encourage them to actively guide referees through the funnel.

Why this works so well

• It pushes to real activation - sign‑up alone is worthless. Requiring a top‑up, physical card, and three purchases turns referrals into engaged customers.

• Progress UI + real‑time notifications - the checklist removes ambiguity and creates urgency for both sides.

• Trust compounds - a friend vouches for the product, then the first purchases and card arrival reinforce trust again. That’s two conversion moments, not one.

• Referrer as buddy - because the referee gets no incentive, the referrer essentially “coaches” them through the steps to ensure completion.

• Fraud‑resistant by design - excluding easy‑to‑game transactions and requiring first‑time users keeps CAC honest.

• Flexible unit economics - variable rewards and country‑level settings let Revolut price acquisition to local LTV - while a diversified revenue mix means payback isn’t dependent on a single line.

• Distribution everywhere - referral tile, push, email, banner. When 65% of new customers arrive via organic or referrals, every cohort seeds the next.

• Modern architecture - the second a step is completed it reflects instantly in the referrer’s dashboard and notifies them. I’ve seen a 3rd payment update within one second.

What to borrow if you’re building this

• Make results measurable - show a live checklist and when rewards will arrive.

• Time‑box campaigns - urgency beats a perpetual trickle. Rotate creative and rewards by market.

• Anchor on activation, not sign‑ups - require actions that correlate with value in your model.

• Engineer defensibility - add fraud guardrails and a per‑campaign cap.

• Price to LTV - let rewards flex by geography, segment, and seasonality.

• Tell a story, then show a path - mix social proof with a visible next step from the home screen.

• Leverage your architecture - instant progress updates make the loop feel rewarding and alive.

If this sparked ideas – or raised questions - I’d love to hear from you. Hit reply or DM me.

Until next time - Dom 👋

About Dom Monhardt, founder of one-fs.com

I am a French technologist and product leader living in Dubai, with 15+ years of experience in building cutting-edge and innovative digital experiences.

I am interested in the intersection of business, design, and technology and am deeply passionate about the fintech and digital banking world.

Follow me on Linkedin

After a month in the UK with family (and my first proper break from one-fs), I feel fully recharged for a new season ahead 💪

Here’s what you’ll find in this edition:

🇬🇧 SumUp’s rise across UK merchants

😗Toss FacePay scaling in South Korea

🛤️ Stripe’s new blockchain, Tempo

SumUp on the streets of Britain

Even on holidays, I keep an eye out for payments in the wild. This time, I noticed a clear shift - more small businesses in the UK are accepting contactless payments. Taxis, food trucks, market stalls. And a lot of them using SumUp.

The SumUp Air reader was the most common - small enough to fit in a pocket, pairing with a phone via Bluetooth and the SumUp app. I also came across the SumUp Solo, a sleek device made entirely of an e-ink screen that runs independently with a SIM card.

The app itself feels well-designed: minimal, monochrome, and fast. No gimmicks. Just works.

SumUp says it already supports over 4 million UK businesses, making it a clear rival to Square.

Toss bets big on FacePay

On the other side of the world, South Korea’s Toss is ramping up its FacePay service after a successful pilot, aiming for 1 million stores by next year.

The system works by simply looking at the terminal - with a claimed 99.99% accuracy in under a second. Toss wants FacePay “to become the most widely used and frequently chosen payment method” across the country.

At the moment, FacePay has 400k registered users - a fraction of Toss’s massive 24 million active base - but it’s early days.

Toss is one of the most impressive East Asian fintechs I’ve seen: an ecosystem that blends banking, investing, insurance, and payments in one smooth package. It feels closer to what Revolut aspires to be than most Western players.

➡️ Want to read more about Toss? Check out my previous article (no paywall)

👀 All eyes on Stripe’s Tempo, a blockchain built for payments

The big news this week is Stripe’s new venture with Paradigm: Tempo, a blockchain purpose-built for payments and stablecoins.

Why another blockchain? Because existing ones were never optimised for payments (shocking, I know!)

• Ethereum is powerful but turns checkouts into a gas station stop - extra tokens for fees, and delays when NFT traders clog the network.

• Solana is fast but still general-purpose, with payments sitting in the same queue as everything else.

Tempo focuses on one thing: moving stablecoins like real money. Instant, predictable, and with the rails merchants need - memos, batching, compliance hooks.

Built-in clarity

One standout feature is Tempo’s structured memo field. Unlike a standard ERC-20 transfer, where all you see is an address and an amount, Tempo lets you attach structured details directly to the payment. Think order IDs, invoice references, or even short notes that mirror the ISO 20022 format banks are adopting worldwide.

For merchants, this means automatic reconciliation. For customers, clear receipts in their wallets. A crypto transfer that finally looks like a proper payment message.

Revolut, Shopify and even Visa are involved

Tempo is being co-designed with some of the biggest names in payments and commerce - Revolut on the fintech side, Shopify on the merchant side, and Visa representing the card networks. Their expertise is influencing Tempo’s architecture around real-world payment flows, compliance needs, and merchant operations.

➡️ It gives Tempo a shot at solving the boring but critical parts of digital money that other blockchains have mostly ignored.

A permissionless blockchain

At its core, a blockchain is just a shared ledger that lots of computers (validators) keep in sync. Validators check each transaction, group them into blocks, and agree on the order so nobody can cheat.

In a permissionless network, anyone can run a validator, which keeps the system open and resistant to control. But blockchains can be centralised too - if only a handful of approved parties run the validators, then power sits with them.

Tempo says it wants to be permissionless in the long run, but at launch its validators will be run by partners like Stripe, Shopify and Visa, which means it will look more like a managed network until it opens up.

The open questions

Tempo has promise, but doubts remain:

• Can it really scale to handle payment traffic at global volume?

• Will wallets, liquidity, and merchant adoption follow quickly enough?

• And do we truly need another chain, when stablecoins like USDC already run across Ethereum, Base, Solana, and Tron?

The test will come when real payments start flowing.

If this sparked ideas – or raised questions - I’d love to hear from you. Hit reply or DM me.

Until next time - Dom 👋

About Dom Monhardt, founder of one-fs.com

I am a French technologist and product leader living in Dubai, with 15+ years of experience in building cutting-edge and innovative digital experiences.

I am interested in the intersection of business, design, and technology and am deeply passionate about the fintech and digital banking world.

Follow me on Linkedin

Today I’m sharing a deep dive into something I’ve been building and testing - a Model Context Protocol (MCP) for Wio Bank - and why it points to a very different future for fintech.

Here’s what you’ll find in this edition:

🧩 A quick explainer on what MCPs are and why they matter

🏦 The beta MCP for Wio and the tools it unlocks

🤖 Why AI chat apps like Claude and ChatGPT are becoming the new hubs for financial interactions

✅ Real examples of how MCPs work in practice - from checking a single transaction to analysing your takeaway habits 🍔

➡️ What this means for banks, fintechs and the next wave of customer experience

I built an MCP for Wio Bank
A glimpse into the future of banking

Back in March I wrote my first MCP post. Since then many of you have been asking questions, trying to understand how it really works in practice.

There’s a lot of confusion around MCPs - and a fair bit of hype too. Outside developers already using MCPs in tools like Cursor, most people haven’t yet understood how they work in the real world.

The easiest way to think about an MCP is as a “tool” for your AI. Whether you use AI in a chat app like ChatGPT or Claude, or from within another piece of software like Cursor, an MCP gives that AI extra abilities.

The easiest way to think about an MCP is as a “tool” for your AI.

Take web search. It’s now a standard AI tool, but remember that ChatGPT didn’t have it for two years. Before then, the model could only rely on its training data, which quickly became out of date. I learned that the hard way when I first used ChatGPT to code a banking app. The API I wanted to use had changed, and the generated code didn’t work.

It soon became obvious that AI chat apps needed to plug into external tools to stay relevant and take action.

I’ve long believed AI would fragment into smaller, specialised tools rather than one big monolith - a marketplace of connectors and integrations.

The MCP launch

In November 2024, Anthropic (the team behind Claude) introduced a standard way to connect these tools. They called it the Model Context Protocol - MCP. The idea is simple: use a common format so any AI app can plug into any tool with minimal effort.

Fast-forward to today and over 300 apps already support MCPs, including OpenAI and Microsoft, who recently announced native MCP support across Windows.

So what does this mean for your fintech or digital bank - and for customers?

Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, put it bluntly:

“People in college use ChatGPT as an operating system.”

It’s a shift worth paying attention to. More and more people are staying within AI chat apps to research, plan and act. With voice mode and the ability to share media or even your whole screen, we’re edging towards personal assistants that can optimise every area of life - including finances.

I expect app usage (outside entertainment and social) to drop sharply in the next few years, much as online banking gave way to mobile banking.

The wio bank mcp

A quick note: the MCP I created isn’t official. Wio Bank didn’t build it. I chose Wio for this personal experiment because I rate their team and their tech. I also used Claude as my main chat app, though I often use ChatGPT too.

Wio is one of the most advanced digital banks in the UAE, on par with global leaders like Revolut. My MCP connects via Wio’s CSV exports - a workaround until open banking is fully available in the UAE. It’s also possible to the SMS automation I built for my first banking app, reading Wio’s SMS alerts and centralising them in a database.

How to connect the MCP

In Claude, MCPs live under Settings > Connectors. You’ll see Web and Desktop extensions. I built a desktop extension that behaves like a web connector.

We’re still early, so you won’t find many connectors yet. But popular fintech MCPs already exist - Plaid, Square, Stripe, PayPal. Soon, every fintech will need one.

My Wio MCP is a beta, built with a SQLite3 database (where the wio data goes into) and a simple Python server defining each tool’s function.

If Wio created an official MCP, you’d just click their connector. No setup. Just like this PayPal example, there will be a page similar to an app store page where you can learn about the mcp functionalities.

The 10 tools I’ve built so far:

Get balance
Returns the latest balance for the first matching account

Get transactions
Returns recent transactions (optional limit/date/description/card filters)

Get total spend
Returns total spending amount (optional date/account filters)

Get total income
Returns total income amount (optional date/account filters)

Get spend by merchant
Returns total spending for a specific merchant

Get top merchants
Returns top merchants by spending amount

Get monthly summary
Returns monthly income and spending summary

Get transaction types summary
Returns summary by transaction type

Get interest earned
Returns interest and dividend transactions with smart pattern matching

Get total interest earned
Returns total interest and dividend earnings

These tools allow the chat app to access and act on your data. Future tools could handle payments, transfers, card management, investments - all gated by strong authentication (for example, approving a high-value transfer through the mobile app, much like 3DS on cards).

Once connected, your AI app instantly knows how to use these tools. No extra training required. Just ask:

“How much did I spend at Noon yesterday?”

“What’s my total takeaway spend this month?”

In my tests, it pulled answers right away.

See it in action here:

I started by asking about a specific transaction, then followed up with an analysis of my spend at that merchant, and finally asked for a summary of my takeaway spends 🍔.

Spoiler alert – Claude was not impressed 😆

Why this matters for fintechs

Consumers are already giving these AI tools extraordinary trust. A user could ask for a spending analysis and get a tailored credit card recommendation - and apply, instantly, via your MCP.

This changes everything. Even if a bank builds AI chat into its own app, customers will choose to interact in their hub of choice - Claude, ChatGPT and others - where everything else already lives and where they trust their interests are prioritised.

AI chat apps carry an extraordinary amount of context. You can talk for hours, build tailored plans, explore strategies and refine ideas. The real power comes when multiple tools combine - finances become just one touchpoint while planning a trip to Kyoto, researching flights, hotels and activities along the way.

In my own case, I asked Claude to find the price of a specific iPad I was considering, then checked if my balance could cover it. A simple example, but it shows the point clearly: everything stays within context, in one place, and the friction of navigating traditional app interfaces simply vanishes.

The takeaway

MCPs are the next step for fintechs. They’re the bridge between your systems and the AI operating systems your customers are already using.

If this sparked ideas – or raised questions - I’d love to hear from you. Hit reply or DM me.

Until next time - Dom 👋

About Dom Monhardt, founder of one-fs.com

I am a French technologist and product leader living in Dubai, with 15+ years of experience in building cutting-edge and innovative digital experiences.

I am interested in the intersection of business, design, and technology and am deeply passionate about the fintech and digital banking world.

Follow me on Linkedin

As my friend Martin debunks marketing fairytales over at Uncharted, I thought it was time to tackle one of design's own. This week we're unpacking what it really takes to build a great fintech experience. Not just good design, but proper alignment between tech, product and UX. Because design alone can’t save you from a slow backend or a confusing product structure.

In this edition:

➡️ Why UX alone can't carry a broken product or tech stack
➡️ The most common (and invisible) experience blockers in fintech
➡️ The real job of a Chief Experience Officer
➡️ How Spotify and Duolingo align design, product and tech with a clear North Star
➡️ A practical checklist to audit and orchestrate your experience

❤️ If you enjoy this one, give it a quick like - helps more fintech friends discover it.

Let’s get into it.

UX isn’t magic: What great fintech experiences really depend on

Most fintech teams know UX matters. They invest in sleek interfaces, run usability studies, and hire top designers. But too often, they hit a wall: even with a strong UX team, the experience still feels broken.

Here’s the truth. UX alone can’t fix:

• ⚙ A sluggish backend

• 🧮 A fragmented product logic

• 🧶 A reliance on white-labelled tools stitched together with duct tape

If you want to create a standout experience, design is just one piece. The others are product and tech - and they need to move in sync.

What kills fintech UX?

Start with the basics: latency, third-party dependencies, broken data models. These aren’t design problems - they’re engineering ones. But the user doesn’t care. If they’re waiting 4 seconds for their balance to load, the experience is broken.

Now think about the typical fintech tech stack. APIs on top of APIs, often including a mix of white-labelled features to save time. But stitching products together this way creates friction. Authentication issues, lost context, and duplicated data entry become normal. That’s not a design failure. It’s an orchestration failure.

Then comes product

A bloated product structure will confuse even the smartest users. Too many steps. Invented terminology. Too many choices. Clever flows that hide fees or limits. Design can’t untangle business logic that’s fundamentally user-hostile.

Product teams often optimise for internal incentives: profitability, retention, or activation. That’s fine. But the way they execute often adds mental load to users.

Good design can smooth things out, but it can’t rewrite the product logic or fix a disjointed flow across screens. Only tight collaboration can do that.

What great experiences depend on

A three-way alignment: smart product logic, solid tech, and intuitive design. All three need to work together - not in isolation.

That’s what makes the difference between a “usable” experience and a “wow” one. The experience team’s job is to orchestrate how everything fits together, not just how it looks.

Who owns the experience?

Ideally someone who understands all three layers. Someone who can talk to engineers, challenge product trade-offs, and guide design with context. A Chief Experience Officer should know their way around APIs and architecture, understand business logic, and value usability.

You don’t have to be a specialist in every field. But you do need to speak the language. And today, AI makes it easier than ever to bridge those gaps - if you have the curiosity and foundation.

How do you fix a broken experience?

Let’s get practical.

1. Define a North Star and an experience principle

Start by defining your North Star. A clear definition of success that aligns your team around long-term value for users. That’s your “what”.

Then define your “how”: the Experience Principle. This guides how features should feel.

Spotify’s North Star was "Time Spent Listening". Their experience principle was "Personalisation at scale". That made magic-feeling discovery a design and product priority.

Duolingo’s North Star is "Weekly Active Learners". Their principle: "Make learning feel like a game". That’s why streaks, gems, and animations are everywhere.

Once you have a clear North Star and one strong experience principle, define 3-5 more to support it. These shape trade-offs, priorities, and what 'great' means for your team.

2. Audit your current experience

Look at your end-to-end user journey. Where are the seams? Where is the user forced to do the work? Where are you blaming design for what’s actually a tech or product limitation?

Good audits don’t just flag UI issues. They trace them back to root causes - often deeper in the stack or logic.

3. Orchestrate across functions

Break down the walls between product, tech, and design. Bring engineers into user interviews. Let designers into architecture reviews. Encourage PMs to prototype.

You’re not just designing screens. You’re shaping systems. And that requires shared context.

Until next time - Dom 👋

Thanks for reading. Hit reply if you’ve got thoughts – or DM me here if you’re on the web.

About Dom Monhardt, founder of one-fs.com

I am a French technologist and product leader living in Dubai, with 15+ years of experience in building cutting-edge and innovative digital experiences.

I am interested in the intersection of business, design, and technology and am deeply passionate about the fintech and digital banking world.

Follow me on Linkedin

And while most are packing up for some well-deserved travels, I’ve been thinking about product craft. Not the glossy kind, but the quiet, thoughtful details that make a fintech product feel effortless.

This week’s guest gets that better than most. Robin Harb, CPO of Sarwa, joined me for a conversation on what it really takes to build trust-first products in a regulated space - and why clarity often beats cleverness.

We cover onboarding friction, tiny UX wins, and how Sarwa has scaled from robo-advisor to full trading platform without losing its core. If you’re into product thinking, this one’s for you.

PS - if you missed the previous Q&As, you might also like Careem Pay’s fintech playbook and Ziina’s journey to becoming a UAE fintech unicorn.

PPS — Don’t miss the bonus at the bottom of the article

There’s a treasure trove of 7 internal Sarwa documents shared by CEO Mark Chahwan - including their Series A deck, Growth Strategy, and a guide on how to get a UAE fintech licence. It’s gold for anyone building in fintech.

🇦🇪👌 How Sarwa Built One of the UAE’s Smoothest Fintech Products

Meet Robin, Sarwa’s CPO

Robin Harb is Chief Product Officer at Sarwa, where he leads the vision and evolution of the platform - from robo-advisory roots to its full-featured investing and trading capabilities. Before this, he spent over two years at McKinsey & Company as a consultant. Robin brings a structured, craft‑first approach to building regulated, trust‑focused fintech in the UAE market.

You can connect with him on LinkedIn.

Sarwa’s interface feels both simple and smart. How do you make UX decisions when clarity and complexity collide?

Our core principle is clarity without clutter. We ensure that every screen includes all the essential information a user needs but nothing more. Tooltips are used to explain financial terms without overwhelming the primary interface. If a screen feels crowded, we haven’t simplified enough.

For example, in our options trading feature, when placing an order we clearly explain technical terms like "stock collateral" or "cash collateral" and display the relevant values available to the user. The goal is for the user to feel fully informed without being overloaded even in more advanced products.

Your onboarding stands out for its ease. What did you choose to leave out - and why?

While most of our onboarding requirements are defined by regulation, we obsess over how that information is presented.

We simplify data entry through:

• Sliders and tappable options over text inputs

• Breaking forms into multiple short screens with smooth transitions

• Progress indicators that help users feel in control

The goal is to remove any friction so users can easily go through a regulated onboarding flow that might otherwise feel like paperwork.

You’ve talked about the power of micro UX touches. What’s one tiny interaction you’ve obsessed over that paid off?

One example is the animated chart transitions when switching timelines. A small touch, but users have directly messaged us about how smooth and "premium" it feels a reminder that users do notice details.

Another is the "Trade" button interaction. Tapping it triggers a micro-animation that expands into buy, sell, and options choices. It turns a functional action into a delightful one.

We also use Lottie animations to explain order types when a user places an order for the first time. Visual storytelling reduces friction and improves understanding where terms can get intimidating quickly and could be more difficult to understand.

Investment platforms need trust. What product decisions helped you earn it?

We focus on three pillars to build trusts:

• Transparency → All fees and product mechanics are clearly explained in the app.

• Simplicity → If users understand what’s happening, they’re more likely to trust the platform.

• Education → Through in-app tips, content, webinars, and community sessions.

I believe that at Sarwa, given we started as a robo-advisor first, we always have the mission to build long-term wealth for our customers. That trust carried over as we launched Sarwa Trade and other products users already knew our mission was aligned with their best interest of building wealth through time.

Outside of product building we also carry those principles as we've been sharing more and more information about Sarwa as a business and educational content via our different channels and building a trustworthy customer excellence team. To build trust it is important to have a holistic approach from the product, to the content.

PS - If you’re into real lessons from fintech founders…

Mark Chahwan, Sarwa’s co-founder and CEO, recently launched a newsletter sharing behind-the-scenes reflections from building one of the UAE’s most trusted investment platforms.

Each week, he drops sharp, unpolished insights from real founder conversations, product calls, and tough decisions. No fluff. No trend-chasing. Just honest takes from someone in the trenches.

👉 Subscribe to Mark’s newsletter here if you’re building, investing, or just curious about what it actually takes.

Mark Chahwan

I’m building a category-defining investing platform. Subscribe to learn from the journey.

When you decide what to build next, how do you balance feedback, data, and gut feel?

We balance three elements:

1. Strategic goals e.g., increasing addressable market, customer satisfaction, revenue etc.,

2. Impact vs. effort What’s the reach (how many user want this improvement? which type of user want it?), what is the impact (what is the customer experience if we don't have this feature? what is the business impact? Does it help us have a competitive advantage?).

3. Customer voice Collected through surveys, interviews, app store reviews, and our CX team

We look at both qualitative and quantitative feedback, depending on the goal. I’m also a superuser of Sarwa myself using the product daily. That first hand experience sharpens my intuition and helps me empathize deeply with customers when prioritizing and relating to their feedback.

Sarwa operates in a tightly regulated space. How do you stay product-led without slowing down on compliance?

We maintain a close, proactive relationship with regulators. That means:

• Engaging them early before launching new features

• Aligning incentives focusing on products that genuinely serve customers

• Building in safeguards e.g., limiting access to advanced tools until the user demonstrates understanding

This approach allows us to move fast while staying compliant and building a good relationship.

Everyone talks about product-market fit. When did you know Sarwa had it?

We’ve felt it in three waves:

1. MVP Robo-advisor Launch → Users were willing to fund accounts via international wires just to access it. We ran a survey asking if they’d be disappointed if Sarwa disappeared and over 40% said “very disappointed.” That was an early sign of PMF.

2. Local Funding → A game-changer. Monthly deposit volume nearly doubled, and engagement spiked. It validated how small infrastructure changes can unlock big growth.

3. Sarwa Trade Launch → Adoption on day one was very high. Existing users jumped on it immediately, showing that people wanted a unified platform for long-term investing and active trading.

How has the UAE audience shaped the product?

The UAE is a unique market with a majority-expat population and a strong appetite for global investments.

That shaped our roadmap in several ways:

• International-first approach → US ETFs and global equities were prioritized over local assets

• Halal offerings → Addressing regional demand for faith or ethically guided investment options

• Localization → English and Arabic UI to different language preference

Understanding the expat mindset wanting stability, long-term growth, and global access helped us craft a more relevant experience.

If you had to give one piece of advice to product teams building trust-first fintech products, what would it be?

Focus on Simplicity. The more clearly users understand your product, the more they’ll trust it.

This goes beyond UI, it includes how you tell your story, how your brand shows up, and how your support team talks to users.

💜 Special Bonus

Sarwa CEO Mark Chahwan is a strong believer in building in public, transparency, and giving back. Over time, he’s shared a treasure trove of practical resources - invaluable for any fintech founder. Here are a few of the best:

Sarwa’s Series A Deck: the deck that helped Sarwa raise their $8.4M Series A, and the hard lessons that came with it

Sarwa’s playbook on acquiring their first 1000 customers

Sarwa’s growth strategy deck (The strategy they took to go from $1M to $10M ARR)

Sarwa’s playbook on how to get a UAE Fintech license (spoiler: it only took them 8 weeks)

Sarwa’s complete brand guidelines

Sarwa’s investor day full deck (a rare insight into their strategy)

Sarwa board meeting pre-read template

Until next time - Dom 👋

Thanks for reading. Hit reply if you’ve got thoughts – or DM me here if you’re on the web.

About Dom Monhardt, founder of one-fs.com

I am a French technologist and product leader living in Dubai, with 15+ years of experience in building cutting-edge and innovative digital experiences.

I am interested in the intersection of business, design, and technology and am deeply passionate about the fintech and digital banking world.

Follow me on Linkedin

The new-age checkout is here. And it’s FAST.

In the last edition, we looked at Uber’s stablecoin play. This week, Shopify - the world’s largest ecommerce platform after Amazon - announced a major upgrade: USDC payments are now available for its 1.7 million merchants, powered by Coinbase.

Let’s break it down.

Stablecoins meet Shopify

Coinbase just unveiled a new product: Coinbase Payments. It’s the most complete stablecoin payment stack we’ve seen so far. And Shopify is its first launch partner.

To recap:

• Coinbase Payments enables fast, feeless USDC payments at checkout.

• It supports over 480 wallets, including Coinbase Wallet, MetaMask, Phantom, and Trust Wallet.

• It’s mobile-native and works like Apple Pay - just tap, confirm, done.

• And crucially, it runs on Base, Coinbase’s Layer 2 chain, for sub-second, low-fee processing.

What used to be a clunky process on shady websites now feels familiar and seamless. You’ll see a new button at checkout: “Crypto: USDC”. Tap it, select your wallet, approve - and that’s it.

No browser extensions. No wallet copy-pasting. No jargon.

Optimised for conversion

What’s particularly impressive about Coinbase’s new checkout is the speed. Transactions settle in under a second on Base, and the entire flow feels closer to Apple Pay than anything we’ve seen in crypto so far.

That matters.

According to Baymard, every extra second at checkout cuts conversion by up to 7%. Most card flows introduce unnecessary friction - think 3DS redirects, OTP delays, or failed issuer auth. By contrast, Coinbase Payments confirms the transaction directly in the user’s wallet, with no detours.

The 3 layers of Coinbase Payments

Here’s how it works under the hood:

1. Stablecoin Checkout

A fast, gasless (means no fees) checkout flow optimised for mobile. You pick your wallet and confirm in a few taps.

2. Ecommerce Engine

An API layer that handles authorisation, capture, refunds, ledgering, subscriptions - without needing to know how blockchains work.

3. Commerce Payments Protocol

Open-source smart contracts running on Base. Think programmable refunds, delayed captures, even escrow logic - all baked into the rails.

It’s the Stripe-for-stablecoins moment we’ve been waiting for.

Coinbase Payments is the first full-stack stablecoin payment solution built for commerce platforms at scale. It abstracts away the blockchain so you can offer crypto-native payments without needing crypto-native teams. We built it to power seamless USDC payments with faster settlement, lower fees, and global reach.

Pros & Cons of USDC Payments on Shopify

Pros:

• Faster than card rails (sub-second settlement on Base)

• Lower fees (no interchange or 3DS processing costs). Currently Shopify absorbs all the fees, but otherwise, you’re talking 0.01%–0.1% for a $100 payment (vs $3-4 for card payments).

• Global reach (wallets in 170+ countries)

• Shopify incentive: 1% cashback in USDC for early adopters

• No chargebacks (which plague card-based merchants)

Cons:

• Volatility perception: customers still associate crypto with risk

• UX isn’t perfect on desktop (QR codes for wallet approval)

• Wallet familiarity: mainstream users still need education

• No chargebacks - as much as it is a pro for merchants, it is a con for customers. Although I personally never managed to rightfully win a chargeback, many think this is a deal-breaker.

Why this matters: The $180B question

Global ecommerce is expected to hit $6.5 trillion this year. Most of that flows through card networks, which charge ~3% in processing fees.

That’s $180 billion siphoned off by intermediaries.

Stablecoins flip this model. By settling on-chain with no intermediaries, merchants can recover significant margins - and pass some of those savings back to customers.

That’s what Shopify and Coinbase are betting on.

It’s also what Stripe saw when they acquired Bridge earlier this year for $1.1B to future-proof their payment stack around stablecoins .

Until next time - Dom 👋

Thanks for reading. Hit reply if you’ve got thoughts – or DM me here if you’re on the web.

About Dom Monhardt, founder of one-fs.com

I am a French technologist and product leader living in Dubai, with 15+ years of experience in building cutting-edge and innovative digital experiences.

I am interested in the intersection of business, design, and technology and am deeply passionate about the fintech and digital banking world.

Follow me on Linkedin

It was another busy week in the fintech and digital banking world! Money20/20 took over Amsterdam with the usual flurry of product launches, partnerships, and bold predictions - plus 150 banks, a Formula 1 car, and even a few LEGO sets up for grabs courtesy of Visa. Hot topics this year: real-time payments, AI in financial services, and stablecoins edging closer to the mainstream.

Here are 5 quick highlights from the event:

1. Deutsche Bank x Mastercard - launching ‘Pay by Bank’ across Europe with real-time open banking payments.

2. BVNK x LianLian Global - stablecoin payments for merchants in 100+ countries, with near-instant settlement.

3. Revolut x Wero - adding support for the European wallet Wero, starting in France, Belgium and Germany.

4. Klarna x Visa - a new debit card that lets you pay now or later at 150M+ Visa merchants.

5. FIS x Episode 6 - unveiled its International Issuing Hub to help banks modernise faster.

Uber x Stablecoins

Elsewhere, some interesting announcements popped up - including Uber’s foray into stablecoins. As a global business operating in 70+ countries, the move makes total sense from a treasury ops perspective. Just three months ago, the company was under fire for charging riders in local currency - but quietly adding a 1.5% “convenience” fee for currency conversion.

But switching to stablecoins isn’t just a back-office win. The real impact will be felt by gig workers who can now get paid instantly (instead of waiting 2–3 days), and it opens the door to a stablecoin checkout option for riders. With 161 million active users, these changes will make a difference - and other super apps will be watching closely.

Catchup

AI, stablecoins… nothing new for the one-fs reader. We’ve been covering these themes long before they hit the mainstream. If you’ve missed any of it, here are a few past reads worth revisiting:

N26 vs Stables | How to Onboard in 2025

This week, I put two very different onboarding experiences to the test. I signed up with N26, one of Europe’s leading digital banks, and Stables, a crypto-native alternative built around stablecoins. Traditional fintech vs. the new wave.

Both claim to be simple, fast, and user-friendly - but the reality tells a more nuanced story. Here’s what onboarding looks like in 2025.

Stables: how to onboard in 30 seconds ⚡️

I expected fast – but not that fast.

Technically, the whole thing including KYC took a bit more than 30 seconds. But honestly, I felt onboarded by second 30, and that’s what really matters.

Here’s how the sign up went:

• Download the app

• Tap “Get Started” & enter mobile number

• Verify mobile (code via SMS or WhatsApp)

• Enter email

• Allow Face ID (no password here)

• Turn on notifications (optional)

The app feels smooth, fast, and the micro-interactions are delightful 🤩

The key strength Stables has nailed here is early gratification - something you’ve heard me talk about before. Get the user a sense of accomplishment, fast. It doesn’t matter if they can’t do much right after that first milestone. This is about perception. A strong first impression implies the rest of the journey will be just as easy - no headache, no second guessing.

And since you’re really just creating a user account at this stage, there’s not much to ask for beyond contact details.

No legal jargon 𐄷

There were no legal disclaimers interrupting the flow. It’s all on the website, clearly stating that by downloading and using the app, you accept the terms. Clean and frictionless.

No outdated password policy 🔒

It’s refreshing not to be hit with the usual bank password ritual. A good next step would be supporting passkeys – but leveraging device biometrics is already a great move.

Cool look and feel 👌

Gone are the days of shady Web3 apps filled with jargon and dark-web aesthetics. Stables is slick – large fonts, colourful animations, and a tone that signals this isn’t a boring banking app. It’s something you’ll actually enjoy using.

Nanomoments 🐟

They say Gen Z has the attention span of a goldfish – 8 seconds, to be exact. A short, snappy signup flow fits perfectly. Users don’t have to worry about losing progress; they instinctively know they can leave and pick up later.

Read how I’ve used this strategy before when concepting the Middle East’s first digital bank.

Stables KYC process: “Verify your account”

Now that the user feels comfortable, the serious part can begin.

Stables follows a bank-like KYC process, but they’ve broken it down into 5 clean steps after you select whether you’re opening a personal or business account:

1. Enter personal details (first & last name)

2. Enter address (with Google Maps auto-complete)

3. Enter source of funds

4. Add a few extra bits (date of birth, expected monthly payments, and whether you plan to send or receive euros)

5. Verify identity (powered by Onfido - upload official ID, front & back, and take a selfie)

It took me around 5 minutes – mostly because, like Gen Z, I also have the attention span of a goldfish and got distracted midway 😅

Realistically, with only two fields to type (first & last name) and three pictures to take (ID front, back, and selfie), this can be done in under 2 minutes.

What Stables got right

The account setup screen is spot on. It clearly outlines the 5 steps required to activate your account. Starting with your name isn’t just logical - it’s strategic. It gives the user another quick win, reinforcing the feeling of progress from the first tap.

Using Onfido for identity verification is also a smart choice. It just works - and it works globally. With support for over 2,500 document types across 195 countries, it’s ideal for an international user base.

Sidenote: Stables uses Stripe-owned Bridge to issue virtual USD and EUR accounts - another sign they’ve made thoughtful infra choices under the hood.

Even though the onboarding is already supah fast, there’s still room to shave off a few seconds. For example, entering your name or date of birth feels redundant - both are already on your official documents and could be auto-filled via document scanning.

All in all, Stables is definitely on the right track to delivering on their promise: “The stablecoin account replacing your bank.”

Now let’s see how the legit bank stacks up in comparison ⬇️

N26: 25 minutes of hardship 😓

They say a picture tells a 1000 words. So here’s the picture:

If you don’t know N26, it’s one of Europe’s leading digital banks, valued at around $9 billion. With over 5 million users, they reached profitability last year with roughly €440 million in revenue.

Now, as you can probably tell from the screenshot - with around 80 steps and a good 25 minutes to get through - the onboarding felt… draining. To be fair, starting with Stables first probably didn’t help. 😅

But that’s exactly the point. A new wave of financial solutions is emerging - like Stables - setting fresh expectations for what onboarding should feel like. Sure, Stables probably won’t win first place at the compliance awards. I’m sure more checks will be layered on as they expand and roll out more features.

I won’t break down N26’s onboarding step by step - you can zoom into the screenshot or DM me if you want the full play-by-play. But it’s not the journey I’d recommend.

Yes, N26 gives you a fully fledged bank account, and to some extent, it’s not a fair apples-to-apples comparison with a stablecoin wallet. But from a user’s perspective, those comparisons will start happening.

Stables is a great example of a new kind of challenger - one that’s now disrupting the banks that once disrupted traditional banking. A new era is clearly taking shape.

Thanks for reading. Hit reply if you’ve got thoughts – or DM me here if you’re on the web.

About Dom Monhardt, founder of one-fs.com

I am a French technologist and product leader living in Dubai, with 15+ years of experience in building cutting-edge and innovative digital experiences.

I am interested in the intersection of business, design, and technology and am deeply passionate about the fintech and digital banking world.

Follow me on Linkedin

Back from a short break – and what a couple of weeks it’s been.

First, a strong showing at the Dubai Fintech Summit. Great to meet many of you there. You could feel it - the UAE and the wider region are building something special.

Here’s what’s been catching my eye lately:

Saudi’s $40B bet on AI 🇸🇦

Saudi Arabia launched Humain, a national AI company backed by a staggering $40 billion. They’ve partnered with AWS and Nvidia to build 500-megawatt AI factories across the Kingdom.

⚡️ UAE responds with a 5-gigawatt data cluster

Not to be outdone, the UAE unveiled Stargate UAE, a 10-square-mile AI supercluster in Abu Dhabi. Backed by OpenAI, G42, Nvidia, Cisco and Oracle, it’ll host up to 5 gigawatts of compute – 10x Saudi’s capacity 🤯

Free ChatGPT access for all UAE residents

In a move to democratise AI, the UAE also announced free access to ChatGPT nationwide. Details still fuzzy on the plan level, but the intent is clear - get everyone onboard, fast. See my Linkedin post about it.

Google IO’s “Buy For Me” changes the game

At Google IO, AI took centre stage. The headline: “Buy For Me” - a new feature that delegates ecommerce checkouts to your AI assistant. From address forms to expired coupon codes, the agent now handles it all.

Let’s dive deeper to understand what is happening ⬇️

Do X For Me - A New Paradigm

If you’ve been reading one-fs for a while, this won’t come as a surprise. Back in November, I wrote about the coming wave of agentic AI - how websites must adapt for agent traffic rather than human users.

Human visits are slowly being replaced. The web is shifting from being mobile-responsive to being AI-responsive.

Here’s what that means in practice.

What is AI-Responsive Design?

It’s not about pretty UIs. It’s about structure and access.

• ✅ Can an AI scrape and extract structured information quickly?

• ✅ Can it perform actions without friction or noise?

• ✅ Can it complete a full flow without hitting a CAPTCHA?

The parallels with the mobile era are clear. Just as brands once scrambled to make sites mobile-friendly, fintechs today must optimise for AI agents.

That means ditching complexity, embracing transparency, and building for speed. Especially in fintech, where user agents will increasingly act on behalf of real customers.

Check also this previous one-fs post on this subject: https://www.one-fs.com/i/154092281/a-new-paradigm

Google’s “Buy For Me” and the death of the funnel

This week’s Google IO showcased what’s coming: the end of clunky ecommerce checkout.

Buy For Me strips the final step of friction. The AI adds your size, applies the promo code, fills in your card and confirms the order. All without your input.

Yes, it opens up new risks (wrong orders, chargebacks, disputes: “It wasn’t me, it was my agent”). But the broader signal is stronger:

The boring bits are being outsourced.

Welcome to the agentic web.

And the generational gap is real. Older users still don’t trust mobile for big purchases. Gen Z and Alpha, however, are already comfortable letting AI do the buying.

People are using AI as their OS

Sam Altman put it best:

“Older people use ChatGPT like Google. People in their 20s use it as a life advisor. People in college use it as an operating system.”

This matters because Gen Z now makes up 30% of the global workforce. They’re earning, spending, and shaping expectations. Fintechs that build for them will win.

What It Means to Be AI-Responsive

Here’s your checklist:

• Know your site might never be seen by a human.

• Favour speed and information clarity above all else.

• Avoid shady tactics and dark patterns – transparency is king.

• Minimise clicks. Bundle everything on one page.

• APIs > apps. Let agents plug in, not just humans.

• Consider building an MCP (Model Context Platform) server for deep integration.

• Don’t compete with AI agents. Don’t build chatbots that only talk to other bots.

And perhaps most critically:

Don’t block AI traffic. Drop the CAPTCHAs unless absolutely necessary.

That’s my take on it!

Thanks for reading. Hit reply if you’ve got thoughts – or DM me here if you’re on the web.

About Dom Monhardt, founder of one-fs.com

I am a French technologist and product leader living in Dubai, with 15+ years of experience in building cutting-edge and innovative digital experiences.

I am interested in the intersection of business, design, and technology and am deeply passionate about the fintech and digital banking world.

Follow me on Linkedin

This week has been packed.

Stripe hosted their annual conference - Stripe Sessions - a three-day event with top-tier keynotes including Mark Zuckerberg and Sir Jony Ive. The focus: the future of payments.

We’ve seen phenomenal data on stablecoin growth and AI’s rising impact in fintech and banking (I shared more on this here with the latest stats).

Coinbase announced x402 - a protocol that could reshape payments for AI agents - responding directly to Visa and Mastercard’s recent moves (catch up here if you missed it).

Also in San Francisco, Figma held their annual conference Config for product builders and designers.

There were quite a few interesting releases such as:

• Figma Sites (delightful websites designed, coded and hosted with Figma)

• Figma Make (think of it as a v0 competitor to create coded product prototypes using AI)

• Figma Buzz (a new marketing solution tailored around brand asset production).

And on another personal note, this week I also received my new Mac Studio 👨‍💻🥳⚡️

This AI beast lets me run models privately on my personal data (emails, docs, photos) without hitting the cloud. One cool tool I discovered is Kerlig.com that embeds AI across the OS (think of it as a AI spotlight, which works with your local models). Local-first AI is a game changer. More on that soon.

But today I want to zoom out from AI, APIs and protocols to something more timeless: Why and how we build.

At Stripe Sessions, Apple’s Jony Ive sat down with Patrick Collison for a rare, beautiful conversation, a meditation on care, design, and our responsibility as builders.

That message hits especially hard in fintech and digital banking, where it’s so easy to get buried in metrics, growth charts, and NPS scores. We end up optimising for efficiency, forgetting the soul of the product: the people. The customer behind the transaction. The team behind the code.

As Jony put it:

"When you make something with love and with care... it's a way of expressing our gratitude to the species."

That one line could be a manifesto for product teams.

10 Lessons From Sir Jony Ive For Every Fintech Builder

Sir Jony Ive is the design mind (and genius) behind some of the most recognisable products ever made, the iMac, iPod, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and more.

With Steve Jobs as a close friend and mentor, he spent nearly three decades at Apple designing tech with a focus on simplicity and stunning materials. After Apple, he founded LoveFrom, continuing to influence design for Apple but also other firms such as Airbnb or more recently OpenAI.

I highly recommend listening to the whole chat with Patrick Collison (link below). I wrote some of my top quotes and snippets from the session. To me, these lessons are vital. When understood and applied, they will give you an unfair advantage.

Let’s go.

"What we make stands testament to who we are."

Design isn’t a wrapper. It's an expression of values. Every product is a mirror to the mindset of its creators.

"Make things for each other. It makes you more vulnerable. It makes others grateful. That’s a lovely place to build from.”

It starts within your team. Jony shared how his team at Apple used to take turns making breakfast for each other every Friday. That small act created culture. Care scaled with the product.

"If you build something with love and care, even for someone you’ll never meet, they can feel it."

He described obsessing over the way a cable was coiled inside packaging. Why? Because millions of people would experience it. If uncoiling it felt easy, seamless, thoughtful, then they'd sense someone gave a damn.

"It’s not about breaking things. It’s about creating something better."

Jony pushed back on the glorification of disruption. Progress isn’t about chaos. It’s about thoughtful, shared evolution.

"You sense carelessness. So it’s reasonable to believe you also sense care."

Even when you don’t meet your users, the work speaks. A good cabinet maker paints the back of the drawer, even if no one will see it (something I learned from a young age

"The lie is: because we spend all our time talking about what we can measure, that’s all that matters. And that’s a lie."

Fintech folks: this one’s for us. We love a KPI. But the magic lives in the unmeasurable: trust, delight, connection.

"If I’m consumed with anxiety, that’s how the product will feel."

Your mindset as a builder is embodied in the product. Tense, rushed teams ship tense, rushed products.

"Trust and love each other. Because if you do, you might actually listen."

He warned of environments where people talk to be heard, not to listen. "Opinions aren’t ideas," he said. Big difference.

"Beauty evolves. It takes time."

He reflected on Bauhaus and early modernism - how energy often precedes refinement. Don’t rush the beauty.

"It's our obligation to care for one another. Not a byproduct. A responsibility."

This sums up his worldview: work is love made visible. Building is how we serve.

Upcoming events 🎤

If you are based in Dubai (or visiting) you must check out “Scaling Product Excellence: Lessons from the Best – How Challenger Banks Reached 10M Users”.

Hosted at Huspy Dubai, this panel features insights from leaders at Monzo (Fernando Fanton, Monzo CPO), Oak North, Finom, Allica, and Vision Bank.

It’s a must-attend for anyone interested in fintech product strategy and growth. Learn more and register here.

And again, if you’re heading to the Dubai Fintech Summit tomorrow or Tuesday, drop me a note. It’s shaping up to be an amazing event with 5-star fintech minds, ministers, and builders. Full agenda here

Thanks for reading, and see you next week on one-fs.

About Dom Monhardt, founder of one-fs.com

I am a French technologist and product leader living in Dubai, with 15+ years of experience in building cutting-edge and innovative digital experiences.

I am interested in the intersection of business, design, and technology and am deeply passionate about the fintech and digital banking world.

Follow me on Linkedin

HODL Summit Dubai 2025 lands in a city where Web3 policy, capital, and talent already intersect. More than 100 speakers, global investors, and a new wave of blockchain startups will meet under one roof.

The event offers a concentrated view of how digital economies are being built today. Policies are live, product…

Read more

It follows PayPal’s move during Dubai AI Week to launch merchant-facing AI agents. If you missed it, catch up here.

AI agents can now spend money. Think: ask ChatGPT to find your ideal Airbnb for your next trip, and when you’re ready, say, “book it.” The agent handles payment on your behalf. Not bad.

In this article, we’ll break down:

💳 Visa and Mastercard shipped - and what’s just marketing gloss.

➡️ Why smart contracts are the more natural fit for AI spending agents.

🔎 How AI’s relentless cost optimisation puts every payment rail under pressure.

📱 What cards still do better (for now), and where they’re vulnerable.

Hey there, Dom here 👋

A quick note to welcome all the new subscribers - I still have to pinch myself each week seeing this community grow.

It’s a real pleasure having you here.

And to everyone who’s reached out lately - thank you. Your messages, encouragement, and feedback mean more than you know.

Alright, let’s get into it ⬇️

Agents care about maths, not logos

Ask an agent to buy a 34‑inch monitor for the lowest cost. It will crunch shipping, FX, taxes - and increasingly, payment fees too, as they become more visible to agents evaluating cost‑to‑serve in real time. If a stablecoin bridge or Pay‑by‑Bank rail beats the card total, that is the path it will pick. No offence to the schemes - the agent just picks what’s cheapest and clearest.

What Visa and Mastercard actually shipped

• An “agent” flag on network tokens so disputes don’t swamp support desks.

• Spend caps you can set or pause in real time.

• For Mastercard, a central list of approved bots. Visa leaves vetting to issuers.

Decent, but it reads like a virtual card with metadata.

Why smart contracts are the AI‑native fit

Smart contracts spell out every rule before a penny moves - amount, currency, delivery etc. They settle in seconds, expose the fee up front and remove the middlemen who add cost but no extra trust. Agents can simulate those contracts, confirm they meet the brief, then execute without asking anyone’s permission.

That determinism matches how software thinks. Cards were built for 1966’s America. Wrapping them in tokens helps, but it cannot change the fundamental flow of clearing and interchange.

Where cards still score (for now)

• Global acceptance - roughly 150 million merchants already plugged in.

• Built‑in consumer protection - chargebacks, zero‑liability, instant freeze.

• Banks are already on the rails - they can market an “AI‑ready” feature without lifting a finger, and the incentives on scheme fees are familiar.

• Ready to go - compliance, settlement and dispute journeys are battle‑tested.

The optimisation lens

AI tools are relentlessly optimising things. Agents are built to streamline and optimise.

Every extra basis point a rail shaves off cost, or every second it saves on settlement, shifts the probability that the agent picks it next time. In an open marketplace of payment APIs the leanest rail keeps winning until incumbents match the numbers or invent new value the code rails lack.

The AI age turns every purchase into a background API call. Intermediaries survive only if they add unique value. Visa and Mastercard own a superb risk engine and a global acceptance grid. Smart‑contract rails, meanwhile, deliver cost, speed and transparency that feel built for software.

Both camps will run in parallel for a while. The question is whether the existing network can bend its fee model enough before agents make the choice for us.

One more thing

For a deeper dive on why programmable money beats static rails, see my Money 2.0 piece.

About Dom Monhardt, founder of one-fs.com

I am a French technologist and product leader living in Dubai, with 15+ years of experience in building cutting-edge and innovative digital experiences.

I am interested in the intersection of business, design, and technology and am deeply passionate about the fintech and digital banking world.

Follow me on Linkedin

As you know, one-fs.com is a proud partner of this year’s Dubai AI Festival, and yesterday was a strong start.

Good conversations, sharp sessions, and great to meet some of you in person!

The day opened with H.E. Essa Kazim, Governor of DIFC, sharing what the Dubai financial free zone has been up to:

• Over 180 AI companies now operating from the Dubai AI Campus (part of DIFC)

• 20+ active AI initiatives with public and private sector partners

• A new data protection law designed specifically for autonomous systems

• And 26 DIFC services now fully automated, with 15% of all requests handled end-to-end by AI

But the foundations being built here are wider than finance. It’s to make Dubai a centre for AI across sectors and geographies.

Don’t Walk the AI Road with a Red Flag 🚩

H.E. Omar Sultan Al Olama, UAE Minister of AI (yes, we have an AI minister since 2017!), followed with a cautionary message on regulation.

His story about 19th-century UK Red Flag Act (that required someone to walk ahead of vehicles with a red flag) made the point well. It was a reminder not to regulate new technologies based on old assumptions.

His Excellency also referred to a popular story previously told by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, ruler of Dubai:

“Each morning, a lion knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle, or it will go hungry. And each morning, a gazelle wakes knowing it must outrun the fastest lion, or it won’t survive.
In the UAE or in Dubai, I don't care if you are a lion or a gazelle. When you wake up, you better start running,”

The lesson? No matter who you are or where you stand, progress and survival demand relentless movement, innovation and adaptability.

And today, he adapted the story to AI:

“In the age of AI, it doesn’t matter if you’re a lion or a gazelle. When the sun comes up, you better start running.”
H.E. Omar Sultan Al Olama

The UAE’s approach is straightforward: regulate when necessary, but build space to move fast. That framing felt both grounded and ambitious - useful context for anyone launching or scaling AI in the region.

Amazon CTO: AI, Operationalised ⚙️

Werner Vogels, CTO of Amazon, brought the operational lens. Amazon has been building with AI since long before it was fashionable, as they pioneered eCommerce ML models to deliver a great customer experience (i.e. recommendation engine), for decades.

But they also use AI for:

• Intelligent route planning for logistics

• Autonomous mobile robots in fulfilment centres

• Personalisation features like “customers also bought” that are now baked into e-commerce

• Same-day delivery windows in Dubai that are genuinely among the best in the world

For builders, he highlighted tools like Amazon Bedrock (access high-performing foundation models on AWS through APIs) and the company’s broader push on AI education, including ml.aws and the AI & ML Scholarship programme.

🤝 PayPal’s AI Agenda: Making AI Practical for Merchants

In the afternoon, Suzan Kereere, PayPal’s President of Global Markets, took the stage with a refreshingly clear view on what AI means for the future of commerce. Her starting point: small businesses.

While large firms have the data, engineers, and infra to experiment freely, smaller businesses often get left behind. PayPal is aiming to flip that.

“AI isn’t just a department. It’s infrastructure. It’s a mindset.”

Rather than pushing shiny new tools, PayPal is building agentic AI - interfaces and workflows designed to act more like teammates than dashboards:

• A virtual agent to suggest the right time to market a product

• A tool to guide dynamic pricing strategies based on changing demand

• Market expansion helpers that provide tailored local insights for cross-border merchants

And it’s being rolled out right now.

Under the Hood

PayPal is already running over 600 AI models across the business, many focused on risk and fraud prevention. That capability helped them maintain some of the lowest loss rates in the industry during the volatility of COVID.

• 80% of customer support is now handled by AI agents

• Personalisation engines are improving conversion by adapting offers to buyer behaviour

• A new Agentic Toolkit lets merchants embed AI directly into their own systems and channels

Internally, the company has rolled out AI tools across teams to improve decision-making, automate processes, and support faster iteration.

Inclusion Built In 👨‍🍳

Kereere spoke often about AI’s role in creating more inclusive digital economies. For PayPal, this means supporting those who haven’t historically had access to enterprise-grade tools: micro-merchants, side hustlers, youth-first markets, local wallet users.

From AI-powered receipts and checkout experiences to trust-building tools and stablecoin adoption (like PYUSD), the goal is to make commerce feel more personal, more relevant, and more portable.

“No one wakes up wanting to buy something. They wake up wanting to have an experience.”

That lens - experience over transaction - is shaping how PayPal is building its next generation of products.

PayPal’s AI strategy spans risk, personalisation, customer support, product guidance, and internal tooling. It’s designed to scale across the 80+ countries it now serves, and it’s deeply tied to its presence in policy-forward markets like the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

It’s a full-stack transformation.

The company is betting on small businesses, and making AI accessible and relevant at the edges of the market is what will drive the next phase of growth.

Go Paypal! 💪

About Dom Monhardt, founder of one-fs.com

I am a French technologist and product leader living in Dubai, with 15+ years of experience in building cutting-edge and innovative digital experiences.

I am interested in the intersection of business, design, and technology and am deeply passionate about the fintech and digital banking world.

Follow me on Linkedin

You’ve heard of vibe coding (if not open this in a new window) - the idea that with the right AI tools, anyone can build software by describing what they want.

But something bigger is about to happen: people building financial tools, workflows and even banks.

Scary, right?

In this article, I explore how vibe coding is bleeding into fintech - from personal experiments to full-on financial automation. We’ll look at the rise of user-built apps, the growing need for open APIs, why aggregation platforms like Micro matter, and what fintech leaders should be doing before they get worked around.

I’ll be at the Dubai AI Festival - Come say hi!

9 days to go! The Dubai AI Festival will take place on 23–24 April at Madinat Jumeirah in Dubai.

➡️ There’s only a few passes left with a special one-fs discount with code ONEFS15

Get one-fs discounted pass

🌊🏄‍♂️Vibe Finteching: How AI Is Reshaping Who Builds What

8 years ago, I helped building the first digital bank in the Middle East. The engineering team was over a dozen people and it took a year to ship the first version.

Two years ago, I built a personal banking app over a weekend and on my own using ChatGPT.

Last week, I built a Mac app in under 10 minutes 👨‍💻⚡️

Things get democratised. That’s just what we do as humans. When the need is obvious, people figure out ways to make it mainstream - and it just happens with everything.

When I learned design 20 years ago, it was something rather niche, even in a country like France with a deep creative heritage. In Paris, many of us in design knew each other, or at least knew someone who knew the others - whether they came from Les Gobelins, Estienne, or Penninghen. It was a small world, and if you weren’t trained, you probably weren’t doing any design at all, it was something left to the designers.

But design got democratised over the years.

First, people started doing horrendous cliparts in Word but slowly, new tools came out with the ability to make things less ugly with ready-made templates and tools with direct manipulation that doesn’t require years of training.

I remember designers laughing at Canva, a design tool for non-designers (“this thing is a toy!”). Far from being a toy, the platform turned millions of non-designers into creators (220 million monthly active users today).

Meet the builder-user

The same thing is now unfolding with code.

This week, Canva, announced Canva Code. It allows creators to generate dashboards, web apps, tutorials and interactive content through natural language prompts. You describe what you want, and Canva handles the logic, design, and deployment.

It’s a signal.

If the company that democratised design is now coming for software, it means the tools have caught up. You no longer need to know how to build - just what you want to exist.

And with that, we’re seeing a new class of users: the builder-user.

Tools like Lovable, Replit, v0 and Manus are also accelerating this. Lovable calls itself a “superhuman full stack engineer” that lets you go from prompt to production-ready app in minutes. Manus handles even more - generating, testing, deploying, and hosting entire applications from a single instruction. Replit now has over 30 million users, and with its Ghostwriter assistant, even beginners are building software by chatting, not coding.

This isn’t theory. I’ve seen it firsthand. Two years ago, I used ChatGPT and some Python to consolidate my bank SMS notifications into a single personal finance dashboard. It took a weekend and a fair bit of back and forth. Last week, I built a Mac utility to automatically sort and categorise my personal files - in under 10 minutes. Far less debugging, cleaner code, and it ran properly on first build. That felt like a jump in capability, not iteration.

There’s a lot of AI noise right now, and it can feel disconnected from people’s day-to-day. But the change is happening. Just this month, I’ve seen friends with 0 coding background present me with fully working web apps. No courses. No tutorials. Just an idea and a prompt. That was a moment of realisation for me - this isn’t about future potential. It’s already happening.

The great financial aggregation

Which brings us to fintech.

Because once users can build their own tools, they stop waiting for product updates. They stop asking for features. They start solving things themselves. We’ll start seeing a rise in personal fintech stacks - reconciliation tools, auto-transfer bots, AI-powered spend summaries, all created outside the walls of traditional providers. They’re powered by APIs (opened or private), glued together with GPT, and shipped by users who wouldn’t dared open a terminal window.

And the next wave? Aggregation.

There’s growing momentum in the AI community around tools that can offer a complete view - across data, tasks, platforms, and money. One recent example is Micro.so, a platform aimed at stitching everything together using AI. The logic is simple: once creation is solved, the next step is context.

A 360° view across personal systems, including financial data, is no longer a luxury. It’s becoming a basic expectation. From net worth tracking to cash flow forecasting, spending analysis to reconciliation, aggregation is the unlock.

Yes tools like Monarch (no relation!), YNAB or Kubera already exist - along with a growing list of open banking aggregators like Tink, Plaid or Lean in the Middle East. But just as chatbots existed before ChatGPT, these are about to see significant growth.

It will become a hygiene factor. Institutions that offer APIs - especially “expert APIs,” like Robinhood did with Cortex for investor research - support open standards, and build composable infrastructure will thrive.

You can already see this unfold with things like MCP (Model Context Protocol) - a standard that enables AI models to interact directly with financial APIs and instantly become expert about your products / services. It’s what I’ve called USB-C for finance. MCP removes the friction. If your service is compatible, AI agents can start pulling in data, performing actions, and generating insights - in milliseconds.

If you want to learn more about MCP, this article is worth checking out 👇

Business users will be the first to benefit. The ones managing complex data workflows or financial ops already feel the pain of disconnected tools. But consumers won’t be far behind. The appetite for clean, consolidated, intelligent views of money is there - it just needs the right interfaces.

And the interfaces are coming.

Fintechs need to prepare for a new type of user. One who doesn’t request features but writes their own logic. One who doesn’t ask for integrations but expects endpoints. And one who is increasingly comfortable having a conversation - not with their bank, but with the agent that’s building their own version of it.

We used to think of engineers as the builders. Then it was product teams. Now, the user is becoming the builder. That’s not a risk to fintech - it’s the biggest opportunity we’ve seen in years.

All you have to do is open the door. And let them build.

📘 Dom’s reading list: The Worlds I see by Fei-Fei Li

This week I read The Worlds I See by Fei-Fei Lim, it’s a superb book for anyone working in AI or just trying to make sense of how we got here.

With nearly 30 years in the AI field, Fei-Fei shares her journey as an immigrant who arrived in the US with nothing, helped run her family’s dry-cleaning business, and somehow ended up building the foundations for modern AI with ImageNet - one of the cornerstone projects in advancing computer vision and deep learning research.

It’s a story about resilience and pushing boundaries. It’s fascinating to hear how she got ImageNet off the ground, an idea too ambitious for anyone else, shut down by almost everyone. She kept going and eventually, cracked it by using Mechanical Turk to crowdsource 15 million labelled images - a move that changed the trajectory of AI research forever.

There’s plenty of AI history too, including details about how French Scientist Yann LeCun (now Chief AI Scientist at Meta) first applied computer vision in the 1990s to help the US Postal Service read handwritten ZIP codes. One of the first concrete use of AI vision.

It’s also one of the few books I’ve read that deals seriously with the emotional side of building things: doubt, stress, family illness, personal compromises. She doesn’t romanticise the work, she tells the real cost.

Every AI scientist today is standing on the shoulders of giants. Fei-Fei is one of them.

Highly recommend.

About Dom Monhardt, founder of one-fs.com

I am a French technologist and product leader living in Dubai, with 15+ years of experience in building cutting-edge and innovative digital experiences.

I am interested in the intersection of business, design, and technology and am deeply passionate about the fintech and digital banking world.

Follow me on Linkedin

That focus hasn’t changed. But the scale has.

Today, Wise moves over £100 billion a year, serves 10 million customers, and runs a platform used by banks, fintechs, and businesses around the world. Behind the scenes, it’s quietly building the rails for how money moves globally.

This week, we look at how Wise is evolving from consumer app to global infrastructure – and what its disciplined, product-led approach can teach the rest of fintech.

The AI Moment for Fintech? Dubai Thinks So.

At this year’s Dubai AI Festival (23–24 April), the spotlight isn’t just on models and algorithms - it’s on what AI means for economies.

In a region pushing hard on economic diversification, fintech is front and centre. Expect sharp insights from:

• DIFC leaders on how AI is being deployed to reshape financial infrastructure and reduce dependency on oil

• Fintech CEOs building AI-native products across payments, lending, and wealth

• Venture capitalists betting on the next wave of AI start-ups solving real-world inefficiencies

This is where finance meets frontier tech - and where policy, capital, and product collide.

If you're tracking the future of fintech in emerging markets, Dubai is worth your attention.

We’ll be there. Stay tuned.

Dubai AI Festival

↗️ Wise’s Trillion-Pound Trajectory

Not every fintech grabs headlines. Some just quietly scale, stack profit, and chip away at the banks until one day they’re everywhere.

Wise is one of those.

Founded in 2011 to solve one problem - overpriced, opaque international transfers - Wise has spent the last 14 years doing just that. But its ambitions now stretch far beyond consumer remittances.

Under the hood, Wise has been building infrastructure. Not just for itself, but for others. It's no longer just a fintech product. It’s a platform.

📈 Wise by the Numbers

Let’s start with the scale. Wise isn’t just growing fast - it’s growing profitably.

• Revenue: £1.2 billion in FY24, up 24%

• Profit: £194 million after tax, up 92%

• Active customers: 10 million+, up 29% YoY

• Transfers: £118 billion moved globally last year

• 15.5M active customers

• £21B customer holdings

• Operating margin: 22.6%

For context, that’s a better margin than many listed banks - and without lending, credit risk, or a heavy cost base.

This is not a growth-at-all-costs story. Wise is a cash-generating infrastructure business hiding in plain sight.

A journey to trillions

Wise sees a £32 trillion opportunity in global money movement - made up of £3T moved annually by individuals, £14T by small and medium businesses, and £15T by large enterprises.

To go after it, they’ve mapped a clear trajectory:

• Near term: Deliver the best cross-border experience on the market

• Medium term: Become the go-to international account for both people and businesses

• Long term: Build the world’s leading correspondent infrastructure – quietly moving trillions behind the scenes

It’s an ambitious path, but it’s grounded in what Wise already does best: solving for speed, cost, and trust at global scale.

Wise’s growth algorithm ⚙

A great customer experience isn’t magic. It’s the result of multiple systems working in sync. You can’t design your way out of poor infrastructure, and you can’t scale without product-market fit. Sustainable growth comes when all the gears - product, tech, design, operations - move together.

Wise is a textbook example.

• High Speed: 95% of payments complete within 24 hours, with 65% arriving instantly

• Low cost: Average transaction fee of just 56bps

• Resilient: Handles 2.5m transactions a day

• Scalable: 99.9%+ uptime with 24/7 support

• Network: 46% transactions run through direct payment connections

💳 A Fintech That’s Actually Product-Led

Wise didn’t get here by selling hype. It built a product that solves a very specific job - and solves it exceptionally well.

✅ Real mid-market FX rates
✅ Low, transparent fees
✅ Speed and clarity baked into the UX
✅ A multi-currency account that just works

It’s also avoided the distractions many others couldn’t resist. No crypto detours. No super app bloating. No buy now, regret later.

Instead, they focused on being useful. Most customers discover Wise through search or word of mouth. And they stick around because the product keeps delivering.

62+ NPS | 70%+ Word-of-mouth | 5x return LTV/CAC

What’s impressive about Wise’s product story is how deliberately it’s unfolded. No shortcuts, no pivots for the sake of growth. Just a steady, mission-led expansion that built on real user needs.

They started with transfers. Then came the Wise account to hold balances. From there, they added local account details. And once the infrastructure was in place, they introduced multi-currency cards for spending. Each step made the next one possible.

It’s a rare example of product discipline in fintech - evolving naturally, without losing sight of the original mission.

Wise business growth

Build the only account you need to scale your business globally

Wise also has a business proposition available in 79 countries, with over 600k active customers. Today it represent 23% of Wise’s total revenue.

It started as an alternate FX account for business but quickly became a primary account for small businesses pay, get paid, manage accounts payable and receivables, earn an interest and simplify accounting.

The business offering has grown significantly with advanced features such as multi-entity management and access, multi-currency invoices, payment approvals, api payments, batch payments, employee cards and 15+ accounting integrations.

What’s Cooking at Wise 👀

Despite the simplicity of its mission, Wise is not standing still. A few of the most interesting recent developments:

• Wise Checkout: A new B2B product allowing merchants to accept payments directly from customers’ bank accounts in local currencies. Think Stripe Checkout, but optimised for cross-border. Aimed at reducing card fees and FX friction for global e-commerce.

• Assets expansion: Wise lets customers earn interest on their balances through government-backed money market funds. That’s now expanding beyond GBP, USD, and EUR into other currencies - and a business version is on the way.

• Treasury tools: Targeting larger businesses and platforms, Wise is building treasury features for holding, moving, and managing funds across currencies with automation and yield.

• Infrastructure enhancements: Faster payments, deeper API capabilities, and improvements across its own network to support platform partners with more speed and control.

All of it aligns with the same core mission: move money across borders, cheaply, transparently, and instantly.

🔌 Plug In and Go: Wise as a Service

The most important - and underappreciated - part of the business? Wise Platform.

This is Wise’s B2B infrastructure layer. It lets banks, fintechs, payroll platforms, accounting software, and marketplaces plug Wise’s cross-border payments directly into their own products.

Partners like Monzo, N26, Xero, Google Pay, and Deel already use it. So do traditional banks like Crédit Agricole in France. Wise handles the compliance, the FX, the speed - and the partner gets a better customer experience without building it all themselves.

Wise Platform processed £124 billion last year - that’s more than a third of Wise’s total volume.

It’s also high-margin, low-acquisition-cost growth. Wise doesn’t need to fight for every end user when it can power the products people already use.

This is how Wise scales without bloat. Smart.

🧠 What Other Fintechs Can Learn

Wise didn’t grow by chasing trends. It grew by making one job effortless: moving money globally.

Here’s what stands out:

1. Transparency is a feature and a moat
   Wise doesn’t hide fees in FX spreads. That builds trust - and forces banks to play catch-up.

2. Infrastructure wins
   Owning your stack (or enough of it) lets you control costs, deliver speed, and differentiate.

3. Platform > Product
   The biggest fintechs aren’t just apps - they’re infrastructure providers. Think Stripe, Adyen, and now Wise.

4. Boring is underrated
   Wise doesn’t need to be flashy. It just needs to work. In fintech, that’s rare - and valuable.

🤝 Not a Threat to Banks. A Platform for Them

While early headlines framed Wise as a bank killer, the reality is different.

Wise doesn’t want to replace banks. It wants to work with them.

That’s why they built Wise Platform - to let banks plug into Wise’s infrastructure and give their customers better FX and cross-border payments.

CEO Kristo Käärmann was clear: “We built Wise Platform so our product could be used by banks.” They’re not trying to steal customers. They’re trying to power the ecosystem.

For many banks, it’s cheaper and faster to partner with Wise than to rebuild their own global payments stack. That’s the genius of it.

About Dom Monhardt, founder of one-fs.com

I am a French technologist and product leader living in Dubai, with 15+ years of experience in building cutting-edge and innovative digital experiences.

I am interested in the intersection of business, design, and technology and am deeply passionate about the fintech and digital banking world.

Follow me on Linkedin

At its second annual keynote, The Lost City of Gold, CEO Vlad Tenev and the Robinhood team unveiled their biggest product launch yet:

✅ Robinhood Strategies - AI-powered investment management at a fraction of the cost of traditional advisors.

✅ Robinhood Cortex - An AI-driven research assistant that filters market noise and helps users make smarter trades.

✅ Robinhood Banking - A full digital banking experience, complete with 4% APY savings, joint accounts, transfers & remittances, real-time net worth tracking, and even on-demand cash delivery.

In my view, it’s a masterclass in how to make banking an extension of an existing fintech product.

In this article, we’ll break down:

🏦 Why Robinhood’s shift into banking isn’t a pivot, but a natural evolution.

🔑 How Robinhood Gold turns a simple subscription into an entire financial hub.

🤖 Why AI-powered investing and research are key to making banking services more engaging.

📱 How Robinhood is replicating the private banking experience for the masses - and what that means for the future of fintech.

✨ The blueprint for how fintechs can expand beyond transactions and into full financial relationships.

Robinhood’s Masterclass: Expanding from Fintech to Full-Service Banking

This week, Robinhood hosted its second annual keynote, The Lost City of Gold, with a distinct Indiana Jones feel - recorded live at the historic San Francisco Mint. Against the backdrop of a building that once held a third of the U.S. gold reserves, Chairman and CEO Vlad Tenev, along with Robinhood’s leadership, unveiled the latest AI-driven tools and banking services shaping the future of Robinhood Gold.

More than just product launches, this event was a masterclass in how a fintech can successfully expand into banking.

With the introduction of 2 AI agents: Robinhood Strategies (Investment Advisor) and Robinhood Cortex (Research assistant), and a new banking product suite, Robinhood is setting a new standard for AI in fintech and the future of digital banking.

At the heart of it all is Robinhood Gold, their $5/month premium subscription service, now evolving into a full financial ecosystem, seamlessly integrating investment management, research, and banking under one subscription.

Here’s how Robinhood is reshaping the financial landscape - and why this might be its most ambitious move yet.

Robinhood’s Vision: Bridging Two Financial Systems

Vlad Tenev started the keynote by framing how traditionally, finance has been divided into two systems:

• One for the wealthy, who have access to financial teams, advisors, and exclusive services.

• One for everyone else, where financial tools are often limited, expensive, or inefficient.

Robinhood’s vision is to remove this gap by digitising and scaling the private banking experience - something no one has successfully done before (according to Vlad).

Through AI, they are introducing three 24/7 financial experts that replicate the services of the ultra-wealthy but make them available to all users: a research investment, an investment advisor and a private banker.

1. Robinhood Strategies - Your AI-Powered Investment Advisor

Many customers want hands-off portfolio management with low fees.

But the wealthy typically have investment advisors who require six or seven figures in assets just to work with them.

Robinhood Strategies democratises this by making professional-grade investment management available to everyone - whether they have $50 or $50M.

A hybrid approach: Combines the best of human expertise and technology to anticipate investment questions before they are asked.

Another cool feature is the FUTURE button, that uses real-time data to project the true path of returns over time - not just a simple compounding tool.

➡️ But here is the game changer: ultra-low management fees at 0.25% AND capped at $250 per year for Gold members - a game-changer for investors managing over $100K.

According to Steph Guild, Robinhood Strategies President, the offering goes far beyond the traditional robo-advisor model which is easy & low cost but provides generic portfolios of etfs and mutual funds without much guidance or explanation.

Robinhood Strategies is available now live for Robinhood Gold members.

2. Robinhood Cortex - Your AI-Powered Research Assistant

Access to high-quality market intelligence, available 24/7.

It filters out noise - delivering only valuable investment signals.

It’s focused on solving the most complex pain points in options trading.

How it works

Data aggregation: Combines top resources, such as Options, Futures & Other Derivatives, with real-time market trends, breaking news, company fundamentals, and investing behaviour.

Stock Digest: Instant, AI-generated explanations for why a stock has moved.

Trade Builder: Helps construct options trades step-by-step with AI assistance. The UI Robinhood created for this feature is truly unique 👌

Side-by-Side Options Chain: A new way to fine-tune trading strategies.

Robinhood Cortex is Free for Gold members.

3. Robinhood Banking - Your Digital Private Banker

Here comes the main event. Robinhood declared that private banking is no longer reserved for the ultra-wealthy.

Robinhood Banking is built by the same team behind the Robinhood Gold credit card (Siddharth Batra & Deepak Rao).

The experience

• Instant onboarding: Existing Robinhood customers can open accounts in seconds, including the ability to move their direct deposits instantly.

• Live net worth tracking: Includes real estate, stocks, savings, and liabilities - all in one seamless view.

• Joint accounts: Designed for spouses and families with savings goals (4% APY!)

• Trust creation: Set up a family trust directly in the app.

• Money transfers: A beautifully simple, fast, and smooth experience. I love the swipe up experience 👌

• Exclusive perks: Members get access to premium experiences (e.g., Met Gala, Formula 1, Coachella).

• On-Demand Cash Delivery - Cash That Comes to You, as easy as ordering Uber or Postmates. A really cool feature - hopefully well thought through in terms of security.

A special mention to the UI of the Robinhood Banking experience. I love the dark mode and its distinct look. The Indiana Jones - Lost City of Gold theme might age quickly, but it’s well-crafted and, more importantly, serves as a consistent visual reminder of the private, exclusive feel they aim to provide.

Robinhood Banking is set to launch Q3 2025.

Robinhood Gold - The Power of Subscription Economics in Fintech

A Genius Model: The $5 Per Month “No-Brainer” Subscription

Robinhood Gold is a smart fintech growth strategy. At just $5 per month, the price is low enough that users barely notice it, making it an easy, low-friction decision.

However, once subscribed, users gain access to premium financial tools that entice them to consolidate their finances within Robinhood, ultimately increasing their engagement and lifetime value.

Traditional banks and investment firms rely on transaction fees, advisory percentages, or account minimums to make money. Robinhood flips this model, making financial services accessible at a flat, predictable cost.

➡️ Low Price = No-Brainer Signup with Unmatched Value

• $5/month feels negligible compared to traditional advisory fees.

• Wealth management is expensive elsewhere: Professional advisors typically charge 1% of assets under management, meaning a $50K portfolio costs $500/year in fees.

• Robinhood Strategies under Gold caps management fees at $250/year.

• The combination of low cost + premium service makes Robinhood Gold an obvious choice for investors.

➡️ More Features = More Engagement

Gold unlocks exclusive access to:

• Robinhood Strategies (AI-powered investment advisor)

• Robinhood Cortex (AI-driven research assistant)

• Robinhood Banking (full-service digital banking)

• Robinhood Gold Card (3% cashback, luxury perks)

Once inside the ecosystem, users begin leveraging more financial services, reinforcing loyalty and stickiness.

➡️ Gold Becomes the Gateway to Full Financial Management

Here’s a typical journey:

1. A casual trader subscribes to Gold for lower trading fees.

2. They try Robinhood Strategies, automating part of their portfolio.

3. They see value in passive investing, leading them to move more funds into Robinhood.

4. Eventually, they start using Robinhood Banking, integrating direct deposits, savings, and bill payments.

5. Over time, Robinhood transitions from an investing app to their primary financial hub.

Robinhood Gold grew from 1.5M Gold subscribers to 3.2M from 2024 to 2025.

A Masterclass in How a Non-Banking Fintech Launches a Banking Service

Most fintechs struggle to pivot into full banking services because they lack direct deposits, credit lines, and full customer financial engagement. Robinhood cracks this problem by using its Gold subscription as a Trojan horse to gradually transition customers from trading into full banking relationships.

Banking features feel like an extension of an existing service rather than a separate product.

Direct deposits and financial tools are integrated into a familiar UI, reducing friction.

No need for expensive marketing campaigns - Gold subscribers naturally explore new financial features.

Subscription model ensures long-term retention, allowing Robinhood to monetise not just transactions, but the entire financial relationship.

With Robinhood Gold as the central gateway, users can trade, bank, invest, and build wealth inside one ecosystem. This seamless transition from fintech to full banking platform is a blueprint for how other fintechs can evolve into dominant financial players.

About Dom Monhardt, founder of one-fs.com

I am a French technologist and product leader living in Dubai, with 15+ years of experience in building cutting-edge and innovative digital experiences.

I am interested in the intersection of business, design, and technology and am deeply passionate about the fintech and digital banking world.

Follow me on Linkedin

Meet the new UAE Dirham

No, it’s not the Dom Coin (I wish! 😆)

It’s the new UAE Dirham currency symbol. The Central Bank of the UAE just unveiled the new symbol for the Dirham, marking a big step in its push to strengthen the currency’s global standing.

Designed for both physical and digital use, the new symbol reflects stability and national identity, incorporating elements inspired by the UAE flag.

More than just a design update, this move ties into the country’s broader financial ambitions - including the Digital Dirham, a blockchain-powered currency set to roll out later this year. With this, the UAE is doubling down on its vision to become a global leader in digital finance.

“Inspired by National Identity. Rooted in the essence of the UAE’s national identity, this concept reimagines the lines of the flag, seamlessly integrating them into the design of the letter “D”, for Dirham. The result is a powerful emblem of strength, unity, and progress.

UAE Central Bank

Overall guidelines

If you are a fintech that operates in the 🇦🇪 United Arab Emirates (or is in the process of entering the market), you will be expected to use the new symbol in your product instead of the ISO code “AED”.

The guidelines are simple:

• Always left-align the symbol to the numerals (even on an RTL layout).

• Keep a space between the symbol and the numerals.

• Do not stretch or alter the geometry of the symbol (this goes without saying).

The symbol currently comes in one thickness, but it’s expected that font designers will be allowed to create various weights for better integration into different font styles, allowing for more customisation in designs.

⬇️ Here is the official guideline document:

Official UAE Dirham Guidelines

⬇️ And here is the official symbol:

Official UAE Dirham Symbol (vector)

⬇️ UAE Central Bank Press Release

UAECB New Dirham Symbol Press Release

Font support for currency symbols

We rarely think about currency symbols - they just work. Open any Google Font, and you’ll see $ ¥ € seamlessly included.

That’s because fonts rely on Unicode, a universal encoding standard managed by a consortium of major tech players like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Adobe, Meta, and IBM. When designers create fonts, they assign characters to Unicode to ensure proper display across systems.

💬 The Challenge With the New UAE Dirham Symbol

Unlike established currency symbols, the new UAE Dirham symbol isn’t yet part of Unicode.

Getting a symbol approved is a slow process - the most recent addition was the Kyrgyzstani som in 2021. Even after approval, font adoption lags. Case in point: Bitcoin’s symbol was approved in 2017, yet it’s still missing from many fonts today.

➡️ Bottom line: It’ll be a while before you can just type the Dirham symbol in your favourite font.

A Quick Fix: The Custom AED Font 🎉

To help anyone transition in using the new UAE Dirham symbol, I’ve created a handy font that automatically converts any mention of AED to the new symbol.

How It Works

• The custom font contains only three characters: A, E, and D.

• A & E are blank, while D contains the new symbol.

• When assigned to the AED letters, the new symbol automatically appears - without changing the UI structure.

• If the font fails to load (e.g., in emails), AED remains as a readable fallback.

This quick workaround ensures seamless integration while we wait for official Unicode support.

Note: it is also possible to add the symbol in your existing font, not as an official currency symbol but by adding it as a custom character. But for this you might need the help of a typographer.

You can download the custom font here:

Download the New AED Font

Be sure to forward this email to your design & engineering team. It will save them hours of work. 🚀

New to one-fs?

I write independent, unbiased, industry-leading articles, featuring interviews with fintech leaders, CEOs, and experts across technology, product design, strategy, and more. I also share expert insights on industry trends, helping you stay ahead in fintech and digital banking.

The Digital Dirham Wallet App

As part of the new UAE National Currency Symbol, the Central Bank of the UAE has announced the completion of the design phase for the Digital Dirham Wallet App.

This secure and integrated digital wallet will allow individuals and businesses to transact seamlessly using the Digital Dirham - a blockchain-powered, tokenised version of the national currency.

Designed for efficiency, security, and inclusivity, the wallet supports retail and wholesale payments, cross-border transactions, money transfers, and instant smart contract execution.

With advanced encryption and compliance with global financial standards, the Digital Dirham Wallet aims to reinforce the UAE’s position as a leading fintech hub while unlocking new opportunities for businesses and consumers in the digital economy.

one-fs x Dubai AI Festival

Another major partnership secured for one-fs! 🕺🚀

The Dubai AI Festival, happening on 23-24 April 2025, is a flagship AI event bringing together:

🦄 20+ global unicorns revolutionising industries with cutting-edge AI innovations

🌎 20+ government agencies/ministries collaborating to drive AI adoption in governance

💼 20+ global enterprises presenting transformative AI solutions

💵 20+ top venture capitalists exploring AI investment opportunities

It’s an honour for one-fs to be selected as a partner for this event, organised by the Dubai AI Campus, in collaboration with the DIFC and the UAE’s Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence.

I’m particularly excited about this event’s strong AI & Fintech focus - two of my key areas of interest. Stay tuned for exclusive insights!

Dubai AI Festival

About Dom Monhardt, founder of one-fs.com

I am a French technologist and product leader living in Dubai, with 15+ years of experience in building cutting-edge and innovative digital experiences.

I am interested in the intersection of business, design, and technology and am deeply passionate about the fintech and digital banking world.

Follow me on Linkedin