Monoup News Digest: Main Updates from Fintech Industry
Today is Friday, which means it is time for the news digest from Monoup editorial team. This week closes with a series of unpleasant events that illustrate the core vulnerabilities of the fintech industry. Revolut has found itself at the center of a data security scandal for the second time in September. Although the company itself was not at fault this time, hackers breached its partner's systems, gaining access to Revolut client data. Personal data opens up a path for extortion or targeted fraud, where victims may not even realize what is happening. Emails and calls from fake customer support have ceased to be unexpected, yet they remain a significant threat to many users.
At the same time, a presumably North Korean group hacked the Bitget exchange, stealing $351.6 million. In this case, the hackers exploited a system vulnerability to execute unauthorized transactions through spoofing.
Let’s take a detailed look at the key news right now.
The $6.9 Billion Scheme: A7 Bypassed Compliance at the World's Major Banks
An investigation by the Financial Times uncovered an unprecedented scheme to evade international sanctions against the Russian Federation, under which the organization A7 transferred over $6.9 billion through the global banking system in less than a year of operation.
To make payments, A7 built a veritable “factory” of shell entities. The network included 100 fake companies across Hong Kong, UAE, Kyrgyzstan, and Indonesia, alongside direct channels with regional banks (Eldik, Aiyl Bank, Eurasian Savings Bank). More than half of the total amount ($3.5+ billion) was sent to Chinese banks to directly pay for imports.
The most critical aspect of the investigation was compliance failure of top international institutions, including Standard Chartered, First Abu Dhabi Bank, DBS, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, and JPMorgan Chase. Standard Chartered alone processed $1.1 billion from A7-linked entities between late 2024 and August 2025, blocking only a portion of the accounts in February 2025 — after which the transaction flow simply shifted to the UAE.
Furthermore, the system bypass relied not on crypto technologies, but on classic document forgery. A7 employees systematically stamped contracts and invoices from existing corporate entities. Traditional bank AML systems proved completely incapable of detecting the scheme in time, once again highlighting blind spots in paper document verification.
Hackers Drain $351.6 Million from Bitget
Crypto exchange Bitget confirmed a major attack on its infrastructure, resulting in hackers stealing $351.6 million.
The attackers gained access to platform's internal backend services and used transaction spoofing. This allowed them to trick internal authorization algorithms and trigger a legitimate transfer signing process. Across 19 separate transactions, wallets across 7 blockchains were drained: Ethereum, XRP Ledger, BNB Smart Chain, Avalanche, Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base. A portion of the stolen funds has been promptly frozen thanks to cooperation with blockchain funds.
IP address analysis points to the involvement of North Korean hacking groups (presumably the Lazarus Group). Following the incident, CEO of Bybit offered Bitget assistance in tracking the stolen assets, drawing on Bybit's own experience in investigating similar attacks.
Binance Back Under the U.S. Department of Justice Scope
Crypto exchange Binance faces renewed pressure from U.S. regulators over suspicions of processing transactions for users in Iran in violation of sanctions.
The catalyst for this new round of scrutiny is a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit to seize $61 million in USDT involved in illicit Iranian oil smuggling schemes by Chinese companies. The investigation revealed that intermediary accounts on Binance were used in the transfer chain.
The situation is highly sensitive for the exchange: in November 2023, Binance paid a record $4.3 billion fine as part of a settlement with the DOJ, OFAC, and CFTC for similar AML compliance failures and processing $898 million in Iranian transactions. Regulators are now auditing whether the platform's actual operations align with its commitments to uphold the sanctions regime.
Second Data Leak at Revolut
British fintech giant Revolut is at the center of another cybersecurity scandal: company clients suffered a major leak of personal data for the second time in a month. This time, the point of compromise lay outside the neobank itself. The source of the issue was its partner DriveWealth — a U.S. brokerage platform that provided Revolut with the B2B infrastructure needed to offer U.S. stock trading directly within the app.
As it turned out, DriveWealth was targeted in a social engineering attack. As a result, hackers managed to bypass internal security barriers and gain unauthorized access to data stored in the brokerage system. The leak impacted archived profiles of Revolut clients from the U.S., the UK, Australia, and European Union countries who used investment and trading features prior to December 2023.
The leak exposed not only basic contact information (full names, email addresses, phone numbers, and physical addresses), but also comprehensive KYC profile data: employment details, citizenship, exact birth dates, age, and partial brokerage account numbers.
A second data breach in a single month delivers a serious reputational blow to Revolut — particularly against the backdrop of its long-standing efforts to secure full banking licenses in key global markets. While the fintech attempts to build the world’s, largest infrastructure serving millions of clients across countries, many users are growing increasingly concerned about the security of their data.
This is how this week turned out for fintech industry. You can find more news and updates on our Telegram channel, and in-depth reviews and articles in the MonoTalks blog block.
