Prediction markets frenzy 📈, US stablecoin issuance 🪙, Klarna + Lufthansa ✈️

A wave of deals is propelling prediction markets into the mainstream. Exchanges are betting that "event contracts" will become a new asset class ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ 

Sign Up |Advertise|View Online TLDR Together With TLDR Fintech 2025-12-01 Payments solutions for today on a platform built for tomorrow. (Sponsor) Don't sacrifice today's stability for tomorrow's vision.  Build customer experiences that inspire and perform, with Marqeta.  See what's possible and start building 📱 News & Trends Prediction markets go from fringe to frenzy as Wall Street, Silicon Valley pile in (10 minute read) A wave of billion-dollar deals is propelling prediction markets into the financial mainstream. Major exchanges, crypto founders, and sports leagues are betting that "event contracts" will become a new asset class. Heavyweights like ICE, CME, Flutter, and even the Trump family are piling in, while Polymarket and Kalshi race to scale after reaching sky-high valuations in a regulatory window opened under the current administration. The rapid expansion is drawing regulatory scrutiny and concern about embedding gambling deeper into everyday finance, but momentum suggests the industry may grow too quickly for oversight to keep up. US Bank tests stablecoin issuance on Stellar Network (2 minute read) US Bank CEO Gunjan Kedia said in October on an earnings call that the lender was working on stablecoins, despite muted interest from customers. It has now been revealed that the bank is working with the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) and PwC to explore the safe issuance of programmable money on the public blockchain. Klarna partners with Lufthansa Group to add flexible travel payments (1 minute read) Klarna is teaming up with Lufthansa Group, via Adyen, to offer travelers flexible payment options across Europe and the US, including pay-in-full, pay-later, and installment plans at checkout. The rollout will begin across 10+ markets this month and expand to all Lufthansa Group airlines by mid-2026, marking another major travel partnership as flexible financing becomes a standard part of booking trips. 🚀 Deep Dives & Reports Multi-Layered Defence: Fraud Prevention in Digital Finance (6 minute read) Financial companies are racing to upgrade their verification systems as AI-powered fraud accelerates. 72% of US firms reported increased attacks and online fraud jumping 21% year-over-year. Biometrics, behavioural analytics, and adaptive authentication are becoming essential as deepfakes and synthetic identities overwhelm older security methods. Companies that treat fraud prevention as a strategic advantage, not just a compliance box, will be best positioned to protect revenue and maintain user trust in an increasingly hostile digital landscape. Payment Fragmentation Is Here to Stay, and Banks Must Adapt (8 minute read) For years, the payments industry has been on a seemingly unstoppable path toward global harmonisation, integration, and alignment. The most recent poster child of this trend was the shift to the ISO 20022 messaging standard, which promised to unlock interoperability and seamless value movement across borders. That somewhat utopian vision has now collided with reality. Geopolitical tensions, national security priorities, and rapid technological innovation have seen fragmentation, not harmonisation, emerge as the defining feature shaping the modern payments ecosystem. Financial Nihilism Has a Cure (10 minute read) We need financial products that will simultaneously help young people manage the cost of living, encourage long-term savings, and reshape how we pay for everything from education to healthcare. We need products for the world we're building. The only way to stop young people from betting on dog coins is to give them a game they can actually win. 💻 Launches & Products PayPal brings instant checkout to Perplexity's AI shopping experience (3 minute read) PayPal has officially integrated instant, in-chat checkout into Perplexity, letting US users move from product discovery to purchase without leaving the AI answer engine. Merchants can sync catalogs automatically and accept payments using existing PayPal setups, while shoppers get identity verification, fraud protection, and a holiday promo offering 50% back (up to $50) on their first Perplexity purchase. The partnership turns Perplexity into a fully transactional storefront and gives brands a turnkey path into agentic commerce. Bank of America launches digital 401(k) and retirement planning (4 minute read) Bank of America is rolling out a new digital system that turns employees' existing 401(k) balances into structured retirement income, giving workers clearer guidance on how to plan and draw down savings. The tool offers personalised projections, tax and cost-of-living adjustments, flexible deposit options, and real-time recalibration as financial needs evolve. By integrating this into workplace benefits, the bank aims to boost employee confidence and help employers strengthen satisfaction, productivity, and retention. 🎁 Miscellaneous Trump's mixed record: stablecoins up, open banking down (4 minute read) Trump-era policies have pushed payments forward in some ways. The Genius Act created the first federal stablecoin framework, an executive order eliminating government paper checks, and even scrapping the penny to streamline cash. However, efforts to dismantle the CFPB and stall Biden-era open banking rules risk replacing clear federal oversight with a costly state-by-state patchwork and weakening fintechs' ability to compete with big banks. Yes, you can finance a near-orbit ticket from your smartphone (7 minute read) Luxury shopping has officially gone full-digital. Everything from five-figure handbags to near-orbit space flights is now just a tap away. This year's Cyber Monday highlights include TikTok Shop pushing $11,000 Hermès bags, marketplaces listing multi-million-dollar diamonds with "buy now" buttons, and even space-tourism seats that accept credit cards and crypto. As high-end commerce blends seamlessly into everyday checkout flows, the smartphone is turning into a portal where impulse buys can range from gold toilets to private islands, all following the same simple choreography of scroll, tap, and pay. Tether, the gold whale (9 minute read) Tether's growing appetite for physical gold has quietly turned it into one of the world's largest non-central-bank holders. Accounting for a meaningful share of recent global demand, the stablecoin issuer has added more than 100 tonnes of bullion to its reserves. Its latest quarterly buying spree is estimated to amount to nearly 2% of total gold demand and 12% of central-bank purchases. While these moves may tighten short-term supply and influence sentiment, the bigger play seems to be Tether's push to make tokenised gold mainstream, a bet that retail investors will eventually prefer 24/7, blockchain-settled gold over ETFs or vault storage. ⚡ Quick Links Balderton's Revolut bet delivers a 2,050× fund-making return (2 minute read) Balderton Capital's early £1.5M seed investment in Revolut has grown into an estimated ~$6.15B stake at the neobank's latest $75B valuation, implying roughly a 2,050× return on capital. Vertical AI funding surges as $37B concentrates in defense, supply chain, and health (2 minute read) A new analysis of 143 vertical AI startups shows $37B in capital flowing heavily toward specialized sectors, with Defense ($8.6B), Supply Chain ($3.7B), and HealthTech ($3.2B) leading total funding. Want to advertise in TLDR? 📰 If your company is interested in reaching an audience of fintech professionals and decision makers, you may want to advertise with us. Want to work at TLDR? 💼 Apply here or send a friend's resume to jobs@tldr.tech and get $1k if we hire them! If you have any comments or feedback, just respond to this email! Thanks for reading, Rachita Kumar, Matt Cheung & Gabriel Sundaram Manage your subscriptions to our other newsletters on tech, startups, and programming. Or if TLDR Fintech isn't for you, please unsubscribe.