January 18, 2024 @ 8:30 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Payhawk, a global spend management solution, is now a licensed Electronic Money Institution (EMI) in the UK. The Financial Conduct Authority reportedly granted the license “after extensive due diligence into Payhawk’s compliance, financial, and operational processes.” The new UK EMI license will allow Payhawk to… Read More

January 18, 2024 @ 8:19 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Estateguru is reporting that it saw €10.1M in loan repayments in December, with an additional €0.4M from recovered loans. As noted in a blog post by Etstateguru, total returns “amounted to €1.1M, with an average return rate of 9.5%.” Estateguru further noted that they have… Read More

January 18, 2024 @ 6:22 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Honeywell (NASDAQ: HON) announced the closing of a $300 million equity fundraise for Quantinuum, the integrated quantum computing company, at a pre-money valuation of $5 billion. The investment round is anchored by Quantinuum’s strategic partner JPMorgan Chase, with additional participation from Mitsui & Co., Amgen… Read More

January 18, 2024 @ 5:15 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Stripe, a financial infrastructure platform for businesses, announced its work with Best Buy in order “to help power the retailer’s expansion into prescription health and wellness technology products.” Stripe explains that it “provides the payments infrastructure for Best Buy’s new platform, Wellness.BestBuyHealth.com, a new convenient… Read More

January 17, 2024 @ 9:21 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

NatWest has launched an Energy Help and Support tool to help UK businesses reduce their energy usage, cut their carbon emissions and potentially “save money on their energy bills this winter.” Research from the bank has found “that 45% of small businesses say rising energy… Read More

January 17, 2024 @ 9:20 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Aisera, a pioneer of Generative AI solutions for the enterprise, announced that Dave Inc. (Nasdaq: DAVE), one of the nation’s neobanks, has “leveraged Aisera’s technology to create DaveGPT – a generative AI assistant that offers self-service customer inquiry resolution.” Customized to Dave’s specific business needs,… Read More

January 17, 2024 @ 9:18 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Gulf Binance Co., Ltd., the joint venture between Binance’s subsidiary and Gulf Innova Co. Ltd., is launching full operations of its digital asset exchange and brokerage platform in Thailand, Binance TH by Gulf Binance, “making it accessible to the general public.” This launch follows the… Read More

January 17, 2024 @ 9:16 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

HashKey Group, a digital asset financial services group in Asia, announced the completion of a Series A financing round of nearly $100 million at a pre-money valuation above $1.2 billion. In addition to the participation and commitment of existing shareholders, this financing round attracted new… Read More

January 17, 2024 @ 3:57 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Ernst & Young LLP (EY US) announced the release of its inaugural Consumer Products and Retail Executive Pulse, which shows that amid “ongoing economic pressures, CPG and retail leaders alike are planning to invest in artificial intelligence (AI), supply chain and industry convergence to tap… Read More

January 17, 2024 @ 3:52 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Visa (NYSE:V) announced it has completed its acquisition of Pismo – a global cloud-native issuer processing and core banking platform. With the transaction complete, the combination of Visa and Pismo will “provide clients with core banking and card-issuer processing capabilities across all product types via… Read More

January 17, 2024 @ 1:50 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Tether, which claims to be the largest company in the cryptocurrency industry, and rhino.fi, a DeFi bridge, have announced a strategic collaboration aimed “at enhancing cross-chain transactions and improving the user experience for USDt within the DeFi space.” This collaboration will aim to “facilitate easier… Read More

January 17, 2024 @ 1:48 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

AI [artificial intelligence] will affect almost 40 percent of jobs around the world, “replacing some and complementing others.” So that’s why we may “need a careful balance of policies to tap its potential,” according to an update shared by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In… Read More

January 17, 2024 @ 1:47 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

OakNorth – the digital bank for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs – has provided a loan to Lovett Care, the care home provider. Founded in 2009, Lovett Care specializes in “offering residential, nursing and dementia care across England and Wales.” The past three years has seen the… Read More

January 17, 2024 @ 12:25 pm By JD Alois  |  

IPO [initial public offering] activity was dismal in 2023. You have to go back to 2019, which was just before the COVID crisis disrupted the world, to find a worse year. A total of 1,429 IPOs were launched globally in 2023 a nearly 16% drop… Read More

January 17, 2024 @ 10:28 am By JD Alois  |  

Once one of the largest peer-to-peer lenders in the world, China’s Lufax (NYSE:LU) has hit an all-time low trading on the NYSE. The bid-ask of shares is around $2.17. A year ago, it was trading at over $10 a share, thus delivering a spectacular collapse… Read More

January 17, 2024 @ 8:37 am By Omar Faridi  |  

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has appointed Daniel Godfrey as chair and Julia Dreblow as vice-chair of a new working group focused on building capability in sustainable finance across the financial advice sector. The Personal Investment Management & Financial Advice Association (PIMFA) will “provide… Read More

January 17, 2024 @ 8:33 am By Omar Faridi  |  

The majority of European and UK Equity Capital Markets (ECM) leaders believe that large international companies still “see London as a destination of choice when considering listing,” according to new research from KPMG UK. When asked where large international companies “would consider listing, almost all… Read More

January 17, 2024 @ 8:25 am By Omar Faridi  |  

N26 announced the launch of a new Stock and ETF trading product that will allow all account holders to buy and sell stocks and ETFs for €0.90 per trade, directly in the N26 app. The launch of this new and comprehensive trading product will see… Read More

January 16, 2024 @ 10:29 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Australians spent nearly AUD$200 more through the latest peak sales season in 2023 compared with 2022, according to the latest Digital Economy Index from global financial platform Airwallex. The Airwallex Digital Economy Index reportedly “records year-to-date spending per adult, as well as quarter-by-quarter snapshots of… Read More

January 16, 2024 @ 3:59 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Akur8, the insurance pricing solution powered by transparent machine learning, is pleased to announce its new partnership with Quincy Mutual Group, one of the oldest and “respected” regional mutual insurance companies in the United States, “offering a wide range of insurance products to protect the… Read More