The government is pushing for a sharper divide between Alipay and Ant Group’s loan business by making the latter spin off the division—which includes short-term loan product Jiebei and virtual credit card Huabei—into a standalone app.

With Pay Later, SMBs can apply for short-term loans and pay them in equal installments—helping Veem carve out a piece of the BNPL market through B2B payments.

NAB’s Citigroup deal bulks it up further as Afterpay/Square looms: The Australian banking giant’s unsecured loan book will get a big boost from the proposed deal. That and a platform upgrade adds even more heft to NAB in any face-off against Afterpay and Square.

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) now requires entrants to offer income-producing products, like loans, and to have an exit plan. This will scare off some neobanks—but those that have launched, or are about to, may benefit.

Starling’s maiden tie-up takes it deeper into lending: The challenger’s £50 million ($64.1 million) deal for specialty lender Fleet Mortgages lets Starling put its deposits to work and takes it into a space that’s not crowded with UK neobanks.

The profitable fintech is expanding its product suite and will create its own loan-servicing platform—an IPO figures in its long-term roadmap.

The planned acquisition of Provide—which caters to healthcare providers with loans and savings products—gives the US regional bank access to a large market and a professional niche.

Synchrony and American Express are among the issuers interested in taking over the etailer’s cobranded card business, which is currently managed by JPMorgan Chase and contains an estimated $15 billion in loans.

Goldman Sachs’ direct bank is partnering with working capital platform C2FO to offer unsecured loans to SMBs—and its latest expansion in the SMB space could bolster its bottom line.

eBay rolls out lending to UK SMBs: The ecommerce giant is partnering with embedded finance platform YouLend to extend loans to its sellers—giving the former a chance to make itself stickier for platform sellers and the latter access to data and loan growth.

A key UK pandemic SMB loan program turns 1: The Bounce Bank Loan Scheme provided £46.53 billion ($59.67 billion) to strapped businesses and offered neobanks a chance to grow their books—but lenders now have to deal with repayments and keeping the borrowers.

ER visits are plunging patients into debt