July 16, 2025 @ 10:49 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Ripple, a firm that provides digital asset infrastructure for financial institutions, has today announced a partnership with Ctrl Alt, a tokenization infrastructure platform. The partnership sees Ctrl Alt using Ripple’s institutional-grade digital asset custody technology to “support the Dubai Land Department’s (DLD) Real Estate Tokenization… Read More

July 16, 2025 @ 10:39 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Xero, a global small business platform, has announced a partnership with Plaid, which seeks to eventually triple the number of high-quality bank feeds available to customers in the United States. For many small businesses, access to community-focused finance providers is crucial, given the vast number of… Read More

July 16, 2025 @ 5:21 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

ICBA Payments, a subsidiary of the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA), announced the renewal of its four-decade relationship with Visa. Together, the organizations are deepening their efforts “to equip local financial institutions with the modern payment tools and support they need to grow and… Read More

July 16, 2025 @ 4:05 pm By JD Alois  |  

Welp, it seems like the votes weren’t there again. Yesterday, the House of Representatives voted on a procedural measure to advance crypto legislation. Embarrassingly, the vote failed. President Trump corralled the Representatives who voted against the measure and last night claimed on Truth Social –… Read More

July 16, 2025 @ 3:40 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Digital bank OakNorth has provided $79 million of new funding to New York-based lending platform S3 Capital. Founded in 2013 by Joshua Crane and Robert Schwartz after they recognized a significant “lack of institutional quality, middle market construction lenders in NYC, the firm has since… Read More

July 16, 2025 @ 3:33 pm By JD Alois  |  

How times have changed. It was reported earlier today that Vanguard has emerged as the largest investor in Microstrategy (NASDAQ:MSTR) [now called Strategy], the company that pretty much wrote the book on becoming a Bitcoin treasury play. The Street shares that according to new data… Read More

July 16, 2025 @ 2:59 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

More than half of U.S. companies (57%) reported declining gross margins as a direct result of tariffs, according to the new KPMG Tariff Pulse Survey. As tariffs continue to reshape the global trade landscape, American businesses are already feeling “negative impacts, while anticipating that they… Read More

July 16, 2025 @ 2:53 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

OKX is reporting that it has integrated PayPal as a payment method on its platform, making cryptocurrency access and payments more accessible to customers across Europe. Customers across the European Economic Area (EEA) can now purchase crypto on OKX directly “using any available funding source supported by PayPal,… Read More

July 16, 2025 @ 11:27 am By JD Alois  |  

The One Big Beautiful Bill, signed into law on July 4th, made the Trump tax cuts from 2017 permanent. While opposition leaders have made claims that these tax cuts benefited the wealthy, they really supported the middle segment of society and, most importantly, smaller firms…. Read More

July 16, 2025 @ 11:08 am By Omar Faridi  |  

IsraJets, a boutique private aviation company operating in the United States, Israel and Cyprus, has partnered with Airwallex, a global payments and financial platform for growing businesses. Through the partnership, IsraJets has adopted Airwallex’s financial infrastructure to “improve the speed and efficiency of its global… Read More

July 16, 2025 @ 10:56 am By JD Alois  |  

DealMaker, a tech-enhanced broker-dealer offering online capital formation services, has announced the acquisition of Rally On Media. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. According to a statement distributed by DealMaker, Rally On Media has supported over $250 million in online investments since 2020…. Read More

July 16, 2025 @ 10:48 am By JD Alois  |  

Yesterday, the House of Representatives stalled several cryptocurrency bills in a key procedural vote, causing the House to move to recess and regroup on the legislation. Three crypto bills are in the queue for approval in the House: the CLARITY Act (HR 3633), the GENIUS Act… Read More

July 16, 2025 @ 10:14 am By JD Alois  |  

NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) solidly hurdled the $4 trillion in market cap hurdle this past week as news emerged that the AI chip firm will resume shipments to China. NVIDIA is the first and only publicly traded firm to achieve this valuation. It was not that long… Read More

July 16, 2025 @ 9:49 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Smart Pension, one of the UK’s workplace pension providers, has appointed Raj Mody as a Trustee Director of the Smart Pension Master Trust Board, taking on the role of Chairman from 1 September 2025. Raj brings  a wealth of experience in “the pensions industry, spanning… Read More

July 16, 2025 @ 9:40 am By Omar Faridi  |  

In an evolving financial services ecosystem, payment modernization has emerged as a critical focus for banks across the EMEA region. According to the latest Volante Technologies research report, The Big Survey 2025: Modernising Payments, an overwhelming 99% of EMEA banks plan to implement new payment… Read More

July 16, 2025 @ 9:31 am By JD Alois  |  

The UK Office for National Statistics reported today that the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rose by 3.6% in the 12 months to June 2025, up from 3.4% in the 12 months to May.  Expectations had been for the rate to remain unchanged. Core CPI (CPI… Read More

July 16, 2025 @ 8:59 am By Omar Faridi  |  

OakNorth, a digital bank for entrepreneurs, has provided a $53m loan to DAC Developments and Melrose Ascension Capital. Founded in 2016, DAC Developments is a Chicago-based real estate development company “with a focus on multifamily residential and mixed-use ground up developments.” With 85 projects completed… Read More

July 16, 2025 @ 8:56 am By Omar Faridi  |  

PensionBee, a Fintech in the consumer retirement market, is calling again for the urgent introduction of a legally mandated 10-day pension switch guarantee, as new consumer research “reveals the UK’s pension transfer system is failing millions of savers.” Ending Pension Purgatory builds on this year’s… Read More

July 16, 2025 @ 8:51 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Deloitte announced a series of new artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities within Omnia, Deloitte’s global cloud-based Audit & Assurance platform, designed to evolve the audit and assurance experience, “advancing Deloitte’s effort to drive innovation with enhanced technology.” As the external landscape and client businesses transform, these… Read More

July 15, 2025 @ 10:12 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

ZBD, a Fintech creating a payment experience for interactive entertainment, and ClearBank, an enabler of real-time clearing and embedded banking, have announced a new partnership, coming on the heels of ZBD being granted an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) license in the Netherlands. ZBD was one… Read More