October 18, 2026 @ 4:41 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) services from fintechs such as Affirm (NASDAQ: AFRM) and Klarna (NYSE: KLAR) are reshaping deferred-payment options across retail and everyday commerce. These platforms let shoppers split the cost of goods and services into smaller, scheduled installments, often without interest on… Read More

October 18, 2026 @ 4:15 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Anthropic, the developer of the Claude series of models, has been privately circulating a draft bill to lawmakers on Capitol Hill that would establish federal rules for frontier AI systems. According to reporting by Politico, which obtained the confidential proposal and spoke with three people… Read More

October 18, 2026 @ 3:14 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Turkish Justice Minister Akın Gürlek has officially confirmed that Richard James Schueler, the U.S. citizen widely known as Richard Heart and the founder of the Hex and PulseChain cryptocurrency projects, was taken into custody in Istanbul. The detention took place on October 14, 2026, during… Read More

October 18, 2026 @ 2:00 pm By Michael Wong  |  

Egypt trained 10,485 university students in eight technology disciplines through a government-backed summer programme, as the country seeks to strengthen its digital workforce and prepare graduates for jobs in the information and communications technology (ICT) industry. The 2026 programme was jointly implemented by the Information… Read More

October 18, 2026 @ 12:16 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Toronto police have charged seven men, including three members of the Canadian Armed Forces reserves, in connection with a July abduction in which a cryptocurrency exchange owner was forcibly taken in an attempt to seize control of his digital assets. The incident unfolded on July… Read More

October 18, 2026 @ 2:17 am By Omar Faridi  |  

South Korean brokerage Meritz Securities has entered a strategic memorandum of understanding with the Canton Foundation, marking a significant step toward exploring the tokenization of domestic financial assets and their potential integration into worldwide institutional markets. The agreement, formalized earlier this month at Meritz’s headquarters… Read More

October 18, 2026 @ 1:41 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Uniform Labs, the company behind Multiliquid, has completed a seed funding round led by Polychain. The round also drew participation from Strobe Ventures, CMT Digital, Metalayer Ventures, Generative Ventures, and Circle Ventures. Combined with earlier capital, the company has now raised a total of $8… Read More

October 17, 2026 @ 10:44 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Mastercard (NYSE: MA) has unveiled a new infrastructure offering designed to blend conventional financial tools with digital assets. On October 15, 2026, the company, together with BVNK, introduced the Mastercard Global Money Platform. This marks the first significant product combination following Mastercard’s acquisition of the… Read More

October 17, 2026 @ 8:25 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Sweden’s central bank has formally asked lawmakers to begin preparatory work on legislation that could enable a digital version of the krona, citing rapid changes in the payments landscape driven in part by the European Central Bank’s advancing it central bank digital currency (CBDC) project…. Read More

October 17, 2026 @ 6:24 pm By Michael Wong  |  

Southeast Asia’s fintech sector attracted $2.3 billion in funding in the first nine months of 2026, more than triple the amount raised a year earlier, according to a report by data intelligence firm Tracxn. The rise in fintech funding comes as a handful of large transactions… Read More

October 17, 2026 @ 4:18 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Binance.US, the U.S.-focused cryptocurrency trading platform, is reportedly exploring a new private capital raise of as much as $100 million that would value the company at approximately $1 billion. According to people familiar with the confidential discussions, the potential round is intended to strengthen the… Read More

October 17, 2026 @ 2:22 pm By Michael Wong  |  

Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India has led a $29 million Series B funding round in RapidCanvas, an enterprise artificial intelligence startup seeking to help businesses deploy AI applications at scale. The round also included Hitachi Ventures, alongside existing investors Accel, Peak XV Partners, Valley… Read More

October 17, 2026 @ 1:50 pm By Michael Wong  |  

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has introduced a framework to guide the responsible use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the banking sector. The move comes as as financial institutions explore AI systems capable of planning and executing tasks with greater autonomy. The “ART” Framework… Read More

October 17, 2026 @ 12:55 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

TD Cowen increased its price target on Strive, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASST) by about 27 percent, from $44 to $56, while retaining a Buy rating. Analysts Lance Vitanza and Jonnathan Navarrete cited the firm’s bitcoin buying activity, which has already surpassed their projected total for the full… Read More

October 17, 2026 @ 10:12 am By Omar Faridi  |  

The People’s Bank of China granted Visa (NYSE: V) approval to begin formal preparations for a bank card clearing institution through its local subsidiary, Visa Information Technology (Beijing) Co. Ltd. The decision allows the U.S. payments company to advance toward handling renminbi-denominated card transactions inside… Read More

October 17, 2026 @ 6:57 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN) has released a detailed set of technical priorities aimed at guiding Bitcoin’s shift toward quantum-resistant security. In a blog post dated October 13, 2026, the digital assets focused firm emphasized the need for proactive steps on signature scheme upgrades and the gradual… Read More

October 17, 2026 @ 6:11 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Brooklyn prosecutors have dismantled the core online infrastructure of a far-reaching cryptocurrency investment fraud that preyed on Russian-speaking residents of the United States, with a disproportionate number of victims in Brooklyn itself. District Attorney Eric Gonzalez disclosed on October 14, 2026, that his office’s Virtual… Read More

October 17, 2026 @ 3:59 am By Omar Faridi  |  

HSBC (NYSE: HSBC) and Ant Digital Technologies announced the successful completion of a technical verification exercise exploring how artificial intelligence agents could handle both service interactions and payments in a single automated flow. The pilot demonstrated an end-to-end process in which software agents identified digital… Read More

October 17, 2026 @ 1:09 am By Michael Wong  |  

Canada’s development finance institution FinDev Canada has signed a $50 million loan to Mongolia’s Golomt Bank, with 30% of the proceeds earmarked for climate and nature-related projects and the remainder allocated to MSMEs. The financing marks FinDev Canada’s first transaction with a designated nature finance… Read More

October 17, 2026 @ 1:07 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Ripple has announced two significant developments that expand its role in institutional finance. On October 14, 2026, the company formed a partnership with DriveWealth, a brokerage-as-a-service platform that supplies infrastructure to more than 100 partners worldwide, including fintech firms, digital wallets, and financial institutions offering… Read More