Mastercard has announced the latest cohort of fintech startups joining its Start Path New Networks program, selecting eight companies that are building solutions in open banking, embedded finance, AI-driven lending, and fraud prevention.
The Start Path initiative, which has supported over 450 startups across 60 countries, is designed to help early-stage fintechs scale their innovations through Mastercard’s network. The New Networks branch of the program, introduced to foster emerging financial infrastructure, aims to empower startups that are reshaping how consumer and business financial data is used.
The new group—Aazzur, Astrada, Carrington Labs, FairPlay, FutureBank, Impactica, Ozone API, and Trudenty—represents a global mix of fintech players working to improve access to financial services, simplify payments, and tackle fraud risks.
Why Open Banking and AI?
Mastercard’s focus on open banking and AI-powered finance reflects a broader shift in the industry, as financial institutions seek to provide more personalized services while addressing regulatory pressures around fairness, security, and accessibility.
Open banking—where financial institutions share data with third-party providers via APIs—has gained momentum globally, enabling fintechs to develop new lending, payments, and fraud detection tools. AI, meanwhile, is being used to refine decision-making, from loan approvals to compliance monitoring.
By investing in these areas, Mastercard is positioning itself at the forefront of financial technology, shaping how institutions and consumers interact with financial data.
The Eight Startups Shaping the Future of Fintech
Each startup in the new Start Path New Networks cohort is tackling a different challenge in fintech:
- Aazzur (Germany): Enables startups and enterprises to embed financial services into existing operations, pushing forward the idea of embedded finance—where financial products are seamlessly integrated into non-financial platforms.
- Astrada (US): Focuses on real-time transaction feeds to streamline spend management, reducing friction in business payments and expense reporting.
- Carrington Labs (US): Uses explainable AI to enhance lending decisions, helping financial institutions assess credit risk with greater transparency.
- FairPlay (US): Develops AI-driven tools to help companies de-bias financial decision-making, ensuring compliance and fairer outcomes for consumers.
- FutureBank (US): Offers a plug-and-play platform that simplifies the connection between traditional banks and fintech innovations, addressing the complexity of legacy banking systems.
- Impactica (US): Focuses on financial inclusion, using open banking to improve public benefits enrollment and access to essential services.
- Ozone API (UK): Provides banks with the tools needed to build compliant open banking APIs, ensuring seamless integration with evolving regulations.
- Trudenty (Global): Uses privacy-preserving data sharing to combat fraud, specifically first-party fraud and Authorized Push Payment fraud, two growing threats in digital transactions.
Mastercard’s Bet on Data-Driven Financial Services
The selection of these startups highlights Mastercard’s long-term bet on data-driven financial services—where consumers and businesses can unlock financial opportunities through better use of their data.
For instance, AI-driven lending solutions like Carrington Labs and FairPlay align with a growing demand for fair and transparent credit assessment, particularly in underserved communities. Similarly, Impactica’s focus on financial inclusion reflects broader trends where fintech solutions are being used to improve access to benefits and essential financial services.
Fraud prevention is also a key theme, with Trudenty introducing data-sharing mechanisms to detect fraud while preserving user privacy—an area of increasing concern for regulators and businesses alike.
Regulatory and Competitive Challenges
Despite the enthusiasm around open banking and AI-driven fintech, the sector remains highly regulated, particularly as concerns around data privacy and algorithmic bias grow.
Regulators in both the US and Europe have been scrutinizing how financial institutions handle consumer data and whether AI-driven decision-making is fair and transparent. Startups like FairPlay and Carrington Labs, which focus on explainable AI, could help address these concerns, though companies using AI for credit scoring will likely face continued oversight.
Meanwhile, Mastercard’s push into open banking faces competition from Visa, PayPal, and major banks, all of which are making their own investments in fintech partnerships and API-driven financial services.
The Bigger Picture
Mastercard’s latest accelerator class suggests the company sees the future of finance as increasingly data-driven, automated, and embedded in digital ecosystems.
By fostering innovation in open banking, AI, and fraud prevention, the payments giant is not only helping fintech startups scale but also ensuring its own continued relevance in an industry where traditional financial intermediaries are being challenged by decentralized solutions and API-powered finance.
Whether these startups can successfully scale their innovations—and whether regulators embrace their models—will shape how financial services evolve in the coming years. For now, Mastercard is placing its bets on a more connected, transparent, and data-centric financial system—one where consumer choice and financial accessibility take center stage.