Global

June 7, 2025 @ 12:42 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Metro Bank has launched a new commercial mortgage, offering an 85% loan-to-value (LTV) for loans up to £5 million. The loan is open to all businesses in England and Wales “with at least two years trading history.” Metro Bank also launched its 75% LTV commercial… Read More

June 7, 2025 @ 12:41 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

British shoppers refuse to be parted from physical payments cards, despite the popularity of digital services like Apple Pay and Google Pay, new figures from ad enabled payments company Zilch reveal. The research findings from a Zilch poll come as Zilch launches its “first physical… Read More

June 6, 2025 @ 5:31 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Thunes, the so-called “Smart Superhighway” to move money around the world, announced it has secured the 50 licenses it requires to operate in the United States. This marks a milestone following its recent Series D funding round and reinforces Thunes’ commitment to “scale at pace… Read More

June 6, 2025 @ 5:30 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

In a bid to accelerate the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) across the bank, CommBank has completed migrating its data platform to Amazon Web Services (AWS), its cloud provider. The scalable data platform will integrate with other channels across the bank to help “drive faster,… Read More

June 6, 2025 @ 4:06 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

CertiK noted that earlier this year, the U.S. Treasury Department made a groundbreaking decision to lift sanctions on Tornado Cash, an Ethereum-based cryptocurrency mixing service that had been a lightning rod for controversy since its sanctioning in 2022. Originally blacklisted by the Office of Foreign… Read More

June 6, 2025 @ 3:23 pm By JD Alois  |  

Wise (LSE:WISE), a leading UK-based Fintech, published annual results this week, showing a 23% increase in cross-border volume to £145.2 billion, driven by customer growth and greater adoption of the Wise account. Wise started as a platform for transferring money globally, aiming to be a… Read More

June 6, 2025 @ 1:26 pm By JD Alois  |  

Mexican Insurtech Crabi has raised $13.6 million in a funding round led by Kaszek and Ignia. Other investors include 30N, Redwood, Carao, Azuro, Newtopia, and certain unnamed insiders. Crabi is pursuing an insurance model for Autos, which is said to be AI-driven. Crabi noted that… Read More

June 6, 2025 @ 11:41 am By Omar Faridi  |  

TransactPay, a provider of UK & European BIN sponsorship and modular payment, debit, credit and prepaid services, has partnered with Griffin, the UK’s bank for fintechs and platforms. This partnership strengthens TransactPay’s banking infrastructure and enhances its “product offering for card programs in the UK.”… Read More

June 6, 2025 @ 10:22 am By Omar Faridi  |  

PEXA, the digital property exchange platform, announces the completion of the UK’s fully digital Purchase transaction. The transaction took place as part of the testing of PEXA’s Sale & Purchase proposition “ahead of its full launch and wider market roll out later this year.” It… Read More

June 6, 2025 @ 9:52 am By JD Alois  |  

Perhaps this is emblematic of the global venture market, but in France, the funding of startups “collapsed” during the month of May. According to a report in JDN, just €199 million was committed to tech startups in May – the lowest number since March 2020. This represents a… Read More

June 6, 2025 @ 9:34 am By JD Alois  |  

The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is erasing its ban on crypto-based Exchange Traded Notes (ETNs) as government policy aims to support digital asset innovation. ETNs are different from ETFs in the US. A breakdown of the assets is available here. In a release, David… Read More

June 6, 2025 @ 8:18 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Trustly, the global enabler of Pay by Bank, announced a partnership with The Swedish Postcode Lottery (Svenska Postkodlotteriet). This collaboration is set to enhance “the way people participate in one of Europe’s charity-based lotteries by providing seamless, secure, and fast payment processing solutions.” The Swedish… Read More

June 6, 2025 @ 8:15 am By Omar Faridi  |  

TransferMate, the world’s provider of embedded B2B payments infrastructure as a service (IaaS), announced a partnership with Deutsche Bank. The partnership will see TransferMate work with Deutsche Bank in various countries, “enabling TransferMate to provide in-country collections, cross border payments, and the ability to store… Read More

June 6, 2025 @ 8:12 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Cashflows, the platform that makes it easy for businesses to accept payments, and Cardstream Group, the UK’s independent Fintech provider, have entered into a partnership to “accelerate Cashflows embedded payments solutions for Independent Sales Organisations (ISOs), software platforms, Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and Payment Facilitators… Read More

June 6, 2025 @ 8:04 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Digital asset banking group Sygnum announces it has raised a total of USD 58 million in its oversubscribed Strategic Growth Round, giving it a post-money valuation of more than 1 billion. Fulgur Ventures, cornerstone investor in the final close of Sygnum’s Strategic Growth Round, is… Read More

June 5, 2025 @ 11:40 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

The blockchain ecosystem continues to face significant security challenges, as highlighted by SlowMist’s May 2025 Security Report and their analysis of unrestricted large language models (LLMs) posing new risks to cryptocurrency security. According to the SlowMist Hacked Archive, May 2025 saw Web3 security incidents resulting… Read More

June 5, 2025 @ 11:11 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

In a rapidly evolving global economic landscape, understanding U.S. trade policy and its implications is critical for investors, businesses, and policymakers. The Citi Institute’s recent update, part of its Invest USA series, offers a deep dive into the current U.S. tariff regime, ongoing trade negotiations,… Read More

June 5, 2025 @ 10:37 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

The UK economic outlook could brighten over the next two years as the economy stands to benefit from easing trade tensions and lower uncertainty arising from potential trade agreements with some of its key trading partners according to KPMG’s European Economic Outlook. A temporary pick… Read More

June 5, 2025 @ 7:38 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

In the face of persistent macroeconomic pressures, Australia and New Zealand’s private capital markets have demonstrated resilience, with venture capital (VC) and private equity (PE) sectors navigating a complex landscape of normalizing valuations and shifting investment dynamics. According to the 2025 Australia & New Zealand… Read More

June 5, 2025 @ 7:01 pm By JD Alois  |  

In general, celebrities and influencers are typically most beneficial when others are telling them what to do and how to act. Otherwise, they really should be ignored. This is even more important when it comes to policy and financial advice. Well, the UK Financial Conduct… Read More