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Read by executives at JP Morgan, Coinbase, Blackrock, Klarna and more
In fintech, most people chase what’s next.
The next big launch. The next big raise. The next flashy app, interface, card design, or viral use case.
But while the spotlight swings back and forth between generative AI and tokenization and real-time rails, something else is happening. Something quieter, more gradual—and arguably more strategic.
It’s not coming from the usual suspects. And it’s not being shouted from the rooftops.
But this past week, if you read the right headlines, you might have noticed it.
$20 Million in Mongolia
One of the stories that might have flown under the radar: LendMN, Mongolia’s first fully digital lender, just raised $20 million in debt financing from Lendable.
It’s the largest-ever funding round for a Mongolian fintech. That alone would make it newsworthy. But what makes it meaningful is what the funding will do: scale digital financial services for micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in a country where roughly 90% of businesses fall into that category—yet fewer than 10% access bank financing.
LendMN’s growth isn’t about pushing product. It’s about building systems. Its Flexi Business Loan product is Mongolia’s first fully digital, collateral-free financing solution. As of today, it’s already supported over 3,800 MSMEs with $70 million in disbursements.
For a market long considered a frontier, this isn’t just capital. It’s momentum.
$100M for Crypto’s Next Chapter in Asia
Meanwhile in Asia, another big play was unfolding. Astra, a fintech investment firm, announced a $100 million commitment to fuel Solana's growth across the region.
We covered this in-depth: even as global headlines continue to ask whether crypto is "dead," smart money is still flowing—just more selectively, and often more strategically.
In this case, the investment isn’t just about infrastructure. It’s about positioning. Solana has outperformed many major chains in the past 12 months and has quietly become a go-to ecosystem for payment protocols and stablecoins in parts of Asia.
Astra's move isn't a hype bet. It’s a regional scaling strategy. And the size of the commitment speaks volumes about how seriously some players are taking next-gen blockchain use cases—even without headline buzz.
Mexico’s Unicorns Push for a Next Act
Latin America has long been seen as a fintech frontier—and for good reason. But even in high-growth markets like Mexico, the narrative is shifting.
This week we highlighted how companies like Clara, Stori, and Plata are maturing, and how Mexico is beginning to grapple with the challenge of turning early momentum into long-term systems.
There are now nine fintech unicorns in Mexico, and yet much of the population remains outside the formal banking system. The problem isn’t necessarily innovation. It’s infrastructure and regulation. Mexico’s fintech law from 2018 was seen as visionary at the time, but it hasn’t evolved. And as founders now push for an update, the challenge is clear: how to support fintech at scale.
What’s promising is that the pressure is coming not just from regulators, but from the fintechs themselves. Plata’s founders, for instance, are advocating for broader inclusion through deposit-taking capabilities—an unglamorous but essential step to closing the gap between digital banking and daily financial life.
As one founder told the FT, the pieces are finally in place. Now it’s a matter of how fast it can happen.
Fiserv in Kansas: a Signal
The company’s $675 million investment in a new Kansas hub—and 2,000 new jobs—is a powerful reminder of what fintech infrastructure really means.
Fiserv sits at the foundation of payments and financial systems for thousands of banks and merchants. But when a company like that chooses to invest nearly $700M in domestic infrastructure, it’s a strong counter-narrative to the idea that the U.S. fintech space is in a slowdown.
It also highlights something often overlooked: fintech’s next phase isn’t about capturing attention. It’s about earning trust—from regulators, from institutions, and from users who don’t want another shiny card. They want tools that work. Period.
Sovereign Wealth, Bitcoin, and a Shift in Tone
John D’Agostino, Head of Strategy at Coinbase Institutional, noted that sovereign wealth funds and major institutions were accumulating Bitcoin in April. Not for speculation. For hedging.
That may not sound new. But the timing is important.
Retail interest has cooled. ETFs and spot markets show outflows. But institutional holders are leaning in. Why? Because Bitcoin is now being treated less like a tech bet, and more like an economic hedge against inflation and geopolitical instability.
When you zoom out, that shift feels important. And it ties directly to everything above: a move away from flash, and toward fundamentals.
A Pattern Emerging
These stories don’t seem connected on the surface. One is about credit in Mongolia. One is about Solana. One is a payments company in Kansas. One is crypto in state treasuries.
But the pattern is there.
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Less flash. More structure.
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Less hype. More utility.
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Less chase-the-trend. More build-the-rails.
For a long time, "frontier" fintech was shorthand for risky bets. Unproven markets. High volatility. Small ticket sizes.
Now? Frontier fintech might be the future. Because it’s not about who launches the next unicorn. It’s about who survives. Who scales. Who builds something that works in the long term.
What’s playing out in Mongolia, Mexico, Asia, and Kansas isn’t noise. It’s the quiet hum of real systems being built.
And that’s something worth watching.
