peer-to-peer-payments
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How a Forgotten Wallet Turned Into America's Verb for Money
Venmo turned paying a friend back into a social ritual - complete with emojis and a public feed. Fifteen years later, "just Venmo me" is how a generation moves money.
Ziina زينة
Ziina is a Dubai-based fintech that lets people and small businesses send, spend, and get paid from a phone. Launched in 2020 as one of the UAE's first peer-to-peer payment apps, it removes the friction of IBANs and Swift codes by moving money through a phone number, then extends into business tools: payment links, QR and NFC Tap to Pay, a checkout gateway for online stores, and an upcoming business card. Licensed by the Central Bank of the UAE as a stored value facility, Ziina has raised more than $30 million and serves tens of thousands of consumer and business customers across the MENA region.
Conor Lyden
Conor Lyden is the founder and CEO of Trustap, a Cork-born fintech that embeds escrow-style payment protection into online marketplaces so strangers can buy and sell without getting scammed. He came up with the idea at 21 as an engineering student at University College Cork, frustrated by the risk of buying football tickets from strangers, and built the concept through UCC's Ignite incubator. Since founding the company in 2016/2017, he has grown it into a global operation with offices in Cork, Dublin, London, Barcelona, Zagreb and New York, serving over 250 marketplaces across more than 100 countries and raising a $5.5m Series A led by TX Ventures.
Trustap
Trustap is an Irish fintech that provides escrow-style, milestone-based payment infrastructure for online marketplaces, ecommerce platforms and individuals. Acting as the merchant of record, it holds a buyer's funds until goods or services are confirmed as delivered, then releases them to the seller - reducing fraud, chargebacks and disputes for high-value and peer-to-peer transactions. Founded in Cork in 2017 by Conor Lyden after he was scammed buying football tickets, the company now works with 250+ partners across roughly 27 countries and is building Trustap Index, a product that makes marketplace listings machine-readable and transactable by AI shopping agents.