Transacta Launches No-Integration Crypto Payments for Luxury Businesses Across the U.S.
Transacta has launched its regulated crypto payment platform in the United States after seven years in Europe, targeting luxury and high‑value merchants. The service lets businesses accept crypto invoices without any technical integration, supporting multiple blockchains and offering instant settlement in fiat or stablecoins. By absorbing compliance and volatility risk, Transacta provides speed, finality and lower fees for large cross‑border transactions. The rollout opens a new channel to affluent crypto‑rich clients while preserving the premium experience expected by luxury brands.
ESMA-RBI Deal Boosts EU Access to India Clearing
European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to deepen supervisory cooperation and facilitate information exchange for recognizing Indian central counterparty clearing houses (CCPs). The MoU satisfies the EMIR...
Why Technology Funds Should Be Part of Every Investor’s Portfolio
Technology has become the backbone of the global economy, turning what was once a speculative bet into essential infrastructure. Secular growth drivers such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing and semiconductors are delivering consistent earnings‑per‑share beats, outpacing broader markets. While tech...
Inside UK Fraud and Money Laundering Investigations Today
A former City of London Police detective discusses modern UK fraud and money‑laundering investigations in RelyComply’s “Laundered” Episode 3. The conversation reveals how financial‑crime tactics have evolved, making investigations more complex, urgent, and resource‑intensive. It highlights operational constraints that shape case...
Crypto Recovery 2026: Get Your Assets Back Safely
The 2026 crypto recovery guide explains that blockchain transactions are immutable, so lost or stolen assets cannot be simply undone. Recovery possibilities hinge on whether the loss was due to external theft or loss of wallet access, each requiring distinct...
Crypto Network Mesh Reaches Unicorn Status with $1 Billion Valuation
Crypto Network Mesh announced it has reached unicorn status, achieving a $1 billion post‑money valuation after closing a $200 million Series B round. The funding was led by Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital, with participation from several sovereign wealth funds. Mesh’s decentralized protocol...
Weekly Roundup 01/30/26 (Fidelity's FIDD, Gold Rally, Worldcoin and AI Bots, Digital Alibis) (EP. 698)
Matt and Nic dissect the week’s crypto headlines, spotlighting Fidelity’s launch of the FIDD stablecoin on Ethereum and the Senate Agriculture Committee’s approval of new market‑structure legislation. They debate the macro impact of stablecoins on bank deposits, note Tether’s surge...
Is the OCC Stretching Trust Charters Too Far?
The OCC’s 2021 interpretive letter expands national trust banks’ authority to include non‑fiduciary custody, a move that has attracted crypto firms seeking trust charters. Traditional banks warn that this interpretation lets new entrants operate with lower regulatory burdens, potentially eroding...
January 2026: Top Five Fintech Funding Stories of the Month
FinTech Futures takes a look back at five of the top fintech funding stories from January.
Bitwise Says Fusaka Improves Ethereum UX But Falls Short on Revenue Expectations
Bitwise has revised its outlook on the revenue impact of Ethereum’s Fusaka upgrade, acknowledging that the anticipated boost has not materialized. The upgrade introduced a minimum fee for blob data to stabilize L2 transaction costs, but Ethereum’s soaring throughput has...
GreetEat Corporation Subsidiary WallStreetStats.io Launches Groundbreaking Financial AI Chat Agent
WallStreetStats.io, a subsidiary of GreetEat Corporation (OTC: GEAT), has launched a Financial AI Chat Agent that delivers real‑time, natural‑language answers on stocks, options, and trading strategies. The tool combines proprietary market data with AI and machine learning to replace manual...
What’s Coming for the Banking Industry in 2026
Banking Dive reports that 2025’s 181 mergers and acquisitions are set to more than double in 2026, driven by pent‑up demand and faster regulator reviews. De novo charter applications climbed from 18 in 2025 to an anticipated 25 this year, with...
GenStar Partners with ZestyAI to Sharpen Hail Risk Underwriting
GenStar has teamed with InsurTech ZestyAI to integrate its Z‑STORM AI model into the underwriting of hail, wind and severe convective storm risk for its commercial property portfolio. The partnership delivers property‑level risk analytics for complex multi‑unit assets, allowing more...
Volt Partners with ClearBank to Enhance Open Banking Offerings
Volt, the rail‑agnostic real‑time money movement platform, announced a strategic partnership with ClearBank, the UK’s first clearing bank offering embedded banking services. The collaboration integrates ClearBank’s real‑time clearing capabilities into Volt’s account‑based cash management suite. This enhancement targets customers across...
Duetto Names Tripadvisor Vet Robert Matsuoka as New Tech Chief
Robert Matsuoka will focus on the Revenue and Profit Operating System launched by Duetto last year.
InsurTech Firm Sixfold Secures $30m to Advance AI Underwriting
Sixfold, a New York‑based InsurTech, closed a $30 million Series B round led by Brewer Lane with strategic participation from Guidewire. The funding will fuel development of its “AI Underwriter,” an autonomous system designed to handle end‑to‑end property and casualty underwriting. Sixfold’s...
Cardamon Partners Microsoft to Scale Secure AI in Compliance
Cardamon, a RegTech firm specializing in secure AI for compliance, has entered Microsoft’s AI Partnership Program to deliver enterprise‑grade, auditable AI solutions to highly regulated organizations. The collaboration combines Cardamon’s rapid delivery platform, which claims to automate up to 95%...
Why Manual Regulatory Lifecycle Management Is Failing
Financial institutions are spending up to 70% of compliance resources on manually tracking regulatory updates, with some changes taking eight weeks to move through the lifecycle. The lag creates gaps between regulator expectations and the firm’s documented controls, increasing audit...
Aon Teams up with DataRobot to Streamline Onboarding with Agentic AI
Aon and DataRobot have launched a partnership to embed agentic AI into insurance onboarding and servicing workflows. The collaboration will use DataRobot's Agent Workforce Platform to automate document consolidation, certificate generation, and invoice processing while keeping human experts in charge...
Large Deals Rose by 3.9x QoQ in Q4 2025 Pushing European FinTech Funding to Reach Its Peak
European FinTech funding surged to $5.5 bn in Q4 2025, an 87% increase QoQ and the highest‑funded quarter on record. The number of deals stayed flat at 176, but large transactions exploded, with deals over $100 m rising 3.9 times QoQ to $4 bn. Zilch...
Digital Wallet Use Still Lags in the Physical Store
The PYMNTS Intelligence study shows digital wallets are twice as likely to be used for online retail purchases (16%) than in physical stores (8%). Consumer payment preferences now align more with shopping channel than with age, as e‑commerce adoption converges...
Why Fraud Doesn’t Look Like Fraud to a Data Scientist
Fraud no longer looks like a discrete incident; data scientists see it as subtle behavioral deviations across a dynamic transaction ecosystem. Traditional rule‑based defenses create excessive false declines, eroding revenue and customer trust. Visa’s shift to deep‑learning models delivers 15‑20%...
EBAday Fintech Zone Winners: Where Are They Now?
EBAday’s Fintech Zone returned for its sixth year, showcasing early‑stage startups that aim to partner with banks. The accelerator highlighted a cohort of winners whose solutions span payments, compliance, and digital identity. Follow‑up reporting now tracks each winner’s progress, noting...
January 2026: Top Five Movers and Shakers Stories of the Month
January 2026 saw a wave of senior appointments across the financial sector, with JP Morgan Payments naming former NatWest CDAO Zachery Anderson as chief data and analytics officer. Hargreaves Lansdown announced Vanguard veteran Matt Benchener as its incoming CEO, while HSBC Private...
RWA Pioneer Punkvism’s PVT Token Confirms Listing on Global Top-Tier Exchange KuCoin
Punkvism’s native token PVT will debut on KuCoin on January 30, 2026, trading against USDT. The listing follows its August 2025 debut on MEXC and aims to boost global liquidity and market reach. KuCoin’s extensive user base across 200+ countries...
Can Enterprise Data Move Faster?—Insights From an Award-Winning Data Engineering Manager
Victoria’s Secret senior data engineering leader Venkatesh Gundu outlines how cloud migration, AI adoption, and disciplined cost management can accelerate enterprise‑scale transformation. Over sixteen years he delivered more than $5 million in savings, cut infrastructure spend by 30‑35 % and built an...
UK Private Capital Markets Surge Amid Economic Recovery : Research
PitchBook reports that the UK private‑capital market rebounded strongly in Q4 2025, driven by robust venture capital, private equity, and public‑market activity. Venture funding reached roughly $6.8 bn, highlighted by Revolut’s $3 bn round, the continent’s biggest deal of the year. Private‑equity...
Binance to Shift $1 Billion User Protection Fund Into Bitcoin Amid Market Rout
Binance announced it will convert the stablecoin assets in its $1 billion Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) into Bitcoin over the next 30 days, with ongoing audits. The exchange pledged to top up the fund back to $1 billion if Bitcoin...
Profitability Over Hype: Ethos’s IPO Success Blueprint
Sequoia-backed Ethos made it to the public markets while most life insurtech rivals didn’t. The difference wasn’t hype. It was timing, focus, and an early pivot to profitability when easy money disappeared. Ethos IPO’d as a business, not a promise. In 2026,...
Europe’s Digital Genesis Fund Targets Tokenization, Web3 and AI
The Digital Genesis Fund has launched as a Luxembourg SICAV‑RAIF aimed at marrying institutional capital with Web3, tokenization and AI-driven infrastructure. Its first compartment, MILC, brings €20 million of pre‑financing and a €35 million content library to tokenized media production and distribution....
Does Finance Need a Big Picture?
In a reflective piece, Dave Wallace argues that the finance sector has lost its big‑picture perspective, becoming fixated on profit extraction rather than serving people. He recounts his own agency’s shift from strategic consulting to polishing existing processes, a move...
The Future of Digital Asset Security: Institutional-Grade Strategies for Private Investors in 2026
Digital investors face escalating cyber threats, making traditional passwords obsolete. Bexalon’s guide advocates institutional‑grade defenses, including AES‑256 encryption, segregated accounts, and a blend of cold storage with limited hot wallets. It also recommends abandoning SMS‑2FA in favor of hardware keys,...
My Experience Working With Emlrn Limited as a Growing Digital Business
A rapidly scaling digital business turned to emlrn Limited to avoid the expense and management burden of an in‑house support team. emlrn delivered a structured onboarding process that captured product nuances, brand tone, and customer profiles, effectively extending the client’s...
Bitcoin Is Going Nuts with Biggest Implied Volatility Spike Since November
Bitcoin’s volatility index (DVOL) surged to above 44 on Thursday, the highest reading since November, jumping from around 37 as traders scrambled for downside protection during a massive sell‑off. The spike coincided with heightened macro uncertainty, including U.S. government‑shutdown risk...
Cpwrt Limited Positions Customer Support as a Strategic Growth Function
cpwrt Limited repositions customer support from a cost center to a strategic growth function by offering outsourced, multi‑channel assistance for e‑commerce, SaaS, fintech and tech firms. The company handles email, live chat, phone and social media interactions, allowing clients to...
Dan Eur Supports Business Continuity Through Reliable Outsourced Customer Care
dan eur limited offers outsourced, 24/7 customer support across email, chat, phone and social channels, targeting e‑commerce, SaaS, fintech and tech firms. The provider aligns agents with each client’s systems, policies and brand voice, reducing resolution times and friction. Flexible...
Billing Support Provides Scalable Billing Support for High-Growth E-Commerce Brands
Billing Support offers high‑growth e‑commerce brands a fully outsourced, 24/7 billing help desk that handles payments, refunds, and account queries across email, chat, phone and digital channels. The service scales with demand, allowing retailers to add support capacity during peak...
Rollercoaster Bitcoin Price Moves End up Liquidating $1.7 Billion in Bullish Crypto Bets
Over the past 24 hours the crypto market saw $1.68 billion in forced liquidations, with long positions absorbing roughly 93% of the damage. Bitcoin alone accounted for about $780 million of that total, while Ether contributed over $414 million. Perpetual‑heavy exchanges such as...
How Investors Approach Crypto Presales Differently in 2026
In 2026 crypto presale investors have moved beyond hype, focusing on concrete liquidity plans, genuine token utility, and robust tokenomics. Projects that outline market‑maker partnerships, realistic trading volume forecasts, and structured vesting attract capital, while those relying solely on marketing...
Hire Developers in Argentina and Build Faster, Smarter Product Teams
US tech firms are increasingly treating Argentine developer hires as a strategic near‑shore solution rather than a cost‑only tactic. The near‑identical time zones enable real‑time sprint activities, while the cost gap with traditional offshore hubs like India has narrowed, making...
2025 Crypto Tax Changes Demand New Strategy
New tax accounting rules are taking effect for crypto. Do old tax strategies still apply? In this comprehensive @Unchained_pod episode, joins me to unpack: 🤔 What is in the 1099-DA 😬 Why 2025 crypto taxes will be “tricky” 💡 The best strategy for...
Bybit Made ‘Slow but Steady Comeback’ in 2025 After Massive Hack: CoinGecko
Bybit posted the second‑largest trading volume among crypto exchanges in 2025, reaching $1.5 trillion and capturing an 8.1% market share despite a $1.5 billion hack earlier in the year. The exchange kept withdrawals open, honored all user transactions, and secured external liquidity,...
Yuno Teams Up with Crypto.com to Enable Crypto Payments at Checkout
Yuno has partnered with Crypto.com to embed Crypto.com Pay into its payment platform, which already supports more than 1,000 payment options. The integration gives merchants instant access to Crypto.com’s 140 million‑user network and automatically converts crypto to fiat, eliminating volatility risk....
BlackRock’s BUIDL Aids Avalanche Tokenization Value Boom in Q4
Avalanche’s real‑world asset (RWA) ecosystem surged in Q4, with total value locked climbing 68.6% QoQ to $1.3 billion, a 950% year‑over‑year gain. The jump was anchored by BlackRock’s $500 million USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL) and new tokenized‑loan offerings from FIS...
Jack Henry Partners with Bud Financial to Enhance Transaction Clarity in Digital Banking
Jack Henry & Associates has integrated Bud Financial’s Enrich technology into its Banno Digital Platform, launching a transaction‑enrichment feature that delivers clearer, categorized transaction data to community banks and credit unions. The tool automatically tags merchant names, spending categories, and...
The Smarter Way to Get Paid in a Digital-First World
Digital payment requests are reshaping how businesses receive funds by offering instant, click‑to‑pay links that bypass traditional checkout hurdles. Platforms generate shareable links that can be sent via email, messaging or social media, letting customers complete transactions in seconds. The...
Top 5 PCI Compliant Hosting Providers
The article outlines the five leading PCI‑compliant hosting providers—AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, Rackspace, and specialized PCI hosts—explaining how each aligns its infrastructure with PCI DSS requirements. It emphasizes the shared‑responsibility model, where providers manage the underlying hardware while...
The Long Patience Behind a Business That Finally Made Payments Make Sense
Sabeer Nelli, founder of Zil Money, grew frustrated with fragmented payment systems that delayed payroll, vendor payments, and cash flow for his own businesses. After a processor froze his account, he realized the root problem was cultural—financial tools lacked empathy...
Only Stock Tokens Offer Real Ownership, Not Crypto
Visa: Credit Card Competition Act Not Needed
Visa CEO Ryan McInerney reiterated that the Credit Card Competition Act is unnecessary and would harm the economy, weaken security, and reduce credit access and rewards. He emphasized Visa’s role in educating lawmakers about the bill’s negative consequences. The company...