Uganda’s Taxation of Smartphones, Mobile Money Dents Financial Inclusion Quest
Uganda’s drive toward a digital economy is being hampered by taxes on mobile‑money withdrawals and entry‑level smartphones. A 0.5% excise duty on the full value of withdrawals and combined 10% import duty plus 18% VAT on low‑cost phones raise device prices by up to 28%. The Civil Society Budget Advocacy Group warns that these levies have already curbed mobile‑money usage by 40% and stalled smartphone penetration at 33%, jeopardizing the National Development Plan IV targets. Reforming the tax structure could unlock significant revenue and economic growth.
The Fintech and Wider Digital Overview of Japan in 2026
Japan’s fintech sector in 2026 is evolving through disciplined, incremental reforms rather than radical disruption. Cashless payments now account for about 45% of all transactions, reflecting steady consumer adoption backed by government incentives. Over 100 banks have deployed open API...
OpenAI Makes Second Move Toward RIA Business with Catch-and-Kill of Financial Planning Website, Hiro; Artificial Intelligence Is Powerful, and Sam...
OpenAI announced the acquisition of Hiro Finance on April 14, promising to cease Hiro's operations by May 13 and delete its client data. Hiro, which used an AI chatbot to manage budgeting scenarios for more than $1 billion in retail assets,...
Russia Introduces Bill to Criminalize Unregistered Crypto Services
Russia’s lower house has received a draft bill that would criminalize any crypto‑related service operating without a Bank of Russia licence. Violators could face fines up to 1 million rubles (about $13,100) and imprisonment of four years, with harsher penalties –...
X Generates $1 Billion in Trading Volume Days After Launching Cashtags Feature: X
X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, reported that its newly launched cashtags feature generated roughly $1 billion in global trading volume within days of the pilot’s start. The functionality lets users trade stocks and cryptocurrencies directly from the social feed,...
Oracle Brings Agentic AI Platform to Corporate Banking
Oracle announced an expansion of its agentic AI platform for corporate banking, delivering pre‑built AI agents across credit, trade finance, treasury and lending workflows. The new tools automate data extraction, memo creation and risk assessment, enabling faster decision‑making without additional...
Ally's Auto Credit Improves, Despite Tough Backdrop
Ally Financial reported a stronger first‑quarter auto‑loan portfolio despite higher gas prices and broader consumer affordability pressures. 60‑plus‑day delinquencies fell $10 million year‑over‑year to $842 million and net charge‑offs dropped $21 million to $424 million. Loan originations rose 13% to $11.5 billion, driving total revenue...
US Senator Asks for Binance Monitor Update Amid Scrutiny of Iran Sanctions
U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal wrote to the Justice Department and FinCEN demanding an update on Binance’s compliance with the anti‑money‑laundering monitoring program imposed after its 2023 settlement. The settlement required Binance to pay $4.3 billion and subjected the exchange to strict...
Why MTN and Airtel Temporarily Suspended Airtime Lending in Nigeria
Nigeria’s two largest telecoms, MTN and Airtel, have temporarily halted their airtime‑and‑data credit services—MTN’s Xtratime and Airtel’s similar offering—to align with the Digital, Electronic, Online or Non‑Traditional Consumer Lending Regulations introduced by the FCCPC in 2025. The regulator clarified it...
Why Swift Is Pushing New Standards for Cross-Border Payments
Swift is introducing a new retail cross‑border payment framework that promises transparent fees, real‑time FX rates, and predictable processing times. The initiative, backed by more than 25 banks across 11 corridors, aims to give consumers the same experience they enjoy...
Zenskar Secures $15 Million Series A
Zenskar, an AI-native billing and revenue automation platform, announced a $15 million Series A financing round. The round was led by Susquehanna Venture Capital with participation from Bessemer Venture Partners, Shine Capital, Rho, Rocketship, J‑Ventures, Future Back Ventures, and Converge. The capital...
The IMF’s Warning to Banks: Share Data to Beat AI Fraud
The International Monetary Fund released a Technical Note at its 2026 Spring Meetings urging banks to break long‑standing data‑sharing taboos. It argues that fragmented transaction and threat data hampers AI‑driven fraud detection, and recommends collaborative exchange via APIs and ISO 20022...
CEO Interview: Payall
Payall’s CEO Gary Palmer defines the company’s market as financial institutions that originate, process, or receive cross‑border payments, including correspondent and intermediate banks. He notes that the total volume of such payments through banks is roughly $180 trillion, underscoring a massive...
SCB X Focuses on Tech as Conflict Drives up Costs
SCB X, the fintech arm of Siam Commercial Bank, has locked in low‑cost technology investments before the Middle East conflict drove up global prices for AI, cloud and data‑center services. CEO Arthid Nanthawithaya said the group will continue an AI‑first investment...
Kredete Partners with Visa Africa to Advance Stablecoin-Backed Card Innovation Across Africa and the Gulf Cooperation Council
Kredete was highlighted at Visa Africa Fintech Accelerator Cohort 5 Demo Day for launching Africa’s first stablecoin‑backed credit card, co‑developed with Visa. The USDC‑powered card lets users in 50 African countries spend at over 150 million merchants worldwide, eliminating high FX fees...
Payments Weekly: Top 5 Stories You Might Have Missed
PaySpace Magazine’s weekly roundup highlights five pivotal developments in payments. India’s central bank has tightened data‑localization rules, imposing a dual compliance burden on fintechs. Airwallex announced a card‑issuing service aimed squarely at Stripe’s physical‑payments business. Senator Elizabeth Warren publicly questioned...
Fifth Third Gets Mission Ready for Comerica Conversion
Fifth Third is gearing up to migrate roughly 500,000 Comerica retail customers to its platforms by Labor Day weekend, following its February acquisition that added about $294 billion in assets. The bank’s consumer‑digital chief, Pat Saad, likens the effort to a...
Figure Clashes With Short Seller Over Blockchain Lending Claims
Figure Technology Solutions, a $7.7 billion HELOC fintech, is locked in a public dispute with short‑seller Morpheus Research, which claims the company exaggerates its blockchain usage. Morpheus, holding short positions, labeled Figure a “risky home‑equity lender masquerading as a blockchain innovator”...
Singapore Gulf Bank Launches In-Bank Settlement for USDC on Solana
Singapore Gulf Bank (SGB) has launched an in‑bank stablecoin mint and redeem service that lets corporate and high‑net‑worth clients swap fiat for USDC on Solana directly within their SGB accounts. The offering supports transactions above $100,000 and is built into...
Ramp Is Telling Investors It Is About to Hit $1.4 Billion in Revenue a Year, as the Company Prepares to...
Fintech startup Ramp says it will hit a $1.4 billion annual recurring revenue run rate this quarter, up from the $1 billion announced in September. The company, which offers a corporate charge card and expense‑management software, reports a 70% year‑over‑year increase in...
Africa Runs on Digital Payments. Now It Must Build for Reliability
Africa’s digital payments ecosystem, driven by mobile‑money platforms, now processes over 80 billion transactions a year and is growing at roughly 35% annually. The continent’s digital economy is projected to reach $1.5 trillion by 2030, shifting focus from consumer adoption to enterprise‑grade...
Naira Volatility Cost His Family. He Built an FX Platform for Businesses.
Shalom Osiadi launched Esca Finance in 2023 to give African firms a hedge against volatile local currencies using stablecoins and crypto‑backed FX services. After pivoting from a food‑delivery platform, Esca now offers automatic conversion of naira, cedi and other emerging‑market...
TradingView Makes CFI Codes Available to Its Users
TradingView has added ISO 10962 Classification of Financial Instruments (CFI) codes to its platform, covering equities, debt securities and collective investment vehicles. The six‑letter identifiers now appear on symbol pages, in the chart info panel, and as columns and filters in...
Interac, Kijiji Partner to Raise the Bar on Trust in Peer-to-Peer Commerce
Interac and Kijiji have teamed up to embed Interac Verified identity checks into Canada’s biggest peer‑to‑peer marketplace. The integration lets users confirm their identity via participating banks, with a document‑verification option slated for later this year. Kijiji, which hosts over...
India Needs a UPI Moment for Gold
India’s cultural love for gold drives massive imports, yet households hold a huge idle stock. The article proposes a UPI‑style digital infrastructure—Electronic Gold Receipts (EGRs)—to convert physical gold into instantly tradable, dematerialised assets. By linking refiners, fintech platforms and regulated...
Napier AI Names Top Markets for AI-Driven AML Compliance
Napier AI’s AI/AML Index 2025‑2026 spotlights the UK, US and France as the most advanced markets for AI‑driven anti‑money‑laundering compliance, while Hong Kong lags due to high upfront costs. Regulators in Europe, especially Germany and France, are issuing explicit guidance...
FinTech Funding Continues Strong Run with over $800m Raised This Week
FinTech activity remained robust this week with 22 deals raising a total of $806.2 million, a sharp drop from the previous week’s $2.17 billion surge driven by RegTech and CyberTech. WealthTech dominated, accounting for seven deals and delivering $505 million across two marquee...
Tulupay Announces the Prelaunch of Its Pan African First Financial Operating System (FOS) for High Interoperability of Africa’s Financial Ecosystem
Tulupay, a pan‑African fintech backed by Estonia‑based Fintech Inclusion Holdings, announced the pre‑launch of its Financial Operating System (FOS), a unified API layer that connects traditional banks, mobile money, digital wallets, stablecoins, CBDCs and blockchain networks across Africa. The platform...
How EWA Improves Workers’ Lives
Earned wage access (EWA) lets workers tap wages they have already earned, offering an interest‑free, on‑demand alternative to traditional pay cycles. Industry data shows users understand fees, use the service responsibly, and experience higher take‑home pay without added overdraft costs....
India Fintechs Scramble for Access to Anthropic Mythos
Indian fintechs including One97 Communications, Razorpay and Pine Labs are lobbying Anthropic for early access to its restricted AI model Mythos, which can identify software flaws far beyond human experts. Anthropic has kept Mythos under wraps, deeming it too dangerous...
CaixaBank Launches GlobalView Wealth Aggregator
CaixaBank has introduced GlobalView, a wealth‑position aggregator that consolidates holdings from over 600 financial institutions across 33 countries. Developed with fintech firm Flanks, the service automatically pulls and standardises data, then feeds it into the bank’s GPS platform powered by...
Alpaca, Wallace Finance Partner to Launch Direct Indexing and ETFs Platform for Retail Investors
Wallace Finance has teamed with Alpaca to launch a retail‑focused platform that offers AI‑driven direct indexing and fully customizable ETFs. The service lets everyday investors modify index constituents, adjust weightings, or build original strategies using plain‑language prompts. Alpaca’s Broker API...
Why the Future of Cross-Border Payments Will Be Built Through Partnership
Cross‑border payments in Canada are growing as SMEs and consumers demand faster, cheaper, and more transparent international transfers. Legacy correspondent‑banking networks cause hidden fees, delays, and manual interventions, prompting 70% of loyal bank customers to consider switching providers over friction....
PayPoint and Handepay Hit £100m Business Lending Milestone Following Record Year
PayPoint and Handepay have crossed the £100 million ($127 million) mark in total business financing delivered to UK merchants, following a record‑breaking year. In the 2025/26 financial year they funded £33 million ($42 million), a 39% increase over the prior year’s £23 million ($29 million). The...
Zenskar Raises $15 Million Series A to Expand Agentic Capabilities for B2B Revenue Automation
Zenskar announced a $15 million Series A round led by Susquehanna Venture Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Shine Capital and Rho. The funding will accelerate its agentic capabilities, especially the Agents Marketplace that lets finance teams deploy AI‑driven billing agents without engineering effort....
Consumers Are Putting More Financial Decisions in AI’s Hands
A new Plaid study shows more than half of U.S. consumers relied on AI tools to manage their money in the past year, and a similar share believes manual financial management will soon feel outdated. Younger users lead the shift,...
Bybit Card Reaches 3 Million Users and Other Digital Transactions News Briefs From 4/17/26
Bybit announced its Mastercard‑branded Bybit Card has reached three million users, a milestone achieved just over three years after launch. The card lets holders spend both fiat and digital currencies, bridging crypto and traditional payments. Meanwhile, Doxo’s Cost of Bills...
FinTech Futures: Top Five News Stories of the Week – 17 April 2026
OpenAI has acquired AI‑driven personal‑finance startup Hiro, expanding its foothold in consumer finance. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority issued the city’s first stablecoin licences to HSBC and the Standard Chartered‑Anchorpoint joint venture, paving the way for HKD‑pegged tokens. CredAble appointed former HSBC...
France's Finance Minister Calls for More Euro Stablecoins in Sign of Government Policy Shift
French Finance Minister Roland Lescure urged the EU banking sector to expand euro‑stablecoins and explore tokenized deposits, backing the Qivalis consortium’s plan to launch a euro‑pegged stablecoin in late 2026. He criticized the current low volume of euro‑stablecoins compared with...
In Finance, Intelligence Is Human Before It Is Artificial
Over the past two years, a wave of AI‑powered "copilots" has flooded the finance sector, yet adoption remains sluggish and productivity gains modest. The core issue is not data scarcity but a mismatch between AI capabilities and the industry’s demand...
Remitly App Launches in ChatGPT
Remitly Global, Inc. has launched its money‑transfer app inside OpenAI’s ChatGPT, becoming the first cross‑border remittance provider on the AI chat platform. The integration lets users browse real‑time exchange rates and compare delivery methods—bank deposit, cash pickup or mobile wallet—without...
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MTN Ghana's Fintech Business Audits MoMo Agents
MTN Ghana’s MobileMoney Fintech has placed temporary restrictions on a subset of MoMo agent accounts while conducting compliance audits. The measures, ranging from warnings to permanent termination, aim to meet regulatory standards under Ghana’s Payment Systems and Services Act and...
Building a GenAI Governance Framework for FinTech Firms
Generative AI has moved from experiment to core operations in financial services, prompting FINRA’s 2026 oversight report that applies existing supervisory rules to AI‑driven activities. The regulator flags hallucinations, bias, concept drift, autonomous agents, and data‑sensitivity as top risks for...
EBANX Expands Into Southeast Asia and Turkey as Cross-Border Demand Grows in $610B Market
EBANX, Brazil's leading cross‑border payments platform, announced its entry into Southeast Asia and Turkey, adding six new country operations to its portfolio. The move targets the $610 billion global cross‑border e‑commerce market, which is expanding at double‑digit rates. EBANX will offer...
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Exclusive: CredAble Appoints Ashutosh Taparia as CEO of Its Fintech Business
CredAble has promoted Ashutosh Taparia to CEO of its fintech business as it prepares a global scaling push. The Mumbai‑based firm, which runs a cloud‑native working‑capital platform for banks and corporates, currently supports over 175 large corporates, 100 financial institutions...
UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Turing Institute Introduce Synthetic Dataset to Fight Money Laundering
The UK Financial Conduct Authority, the Alan Turing Institute and Plenitude Consulting have created a synthetic anti‑money‑laundering (AML) dataset that mirrors real‑world retail banking transactions while protecting privacy. Advanced generation techniques, including the Adaptive and Iterative Mechanism and differential‑privacy safeguards,...
AI Drives ‘Always-On’ Compliance in the UAE as Azakaw Named IDC Innovator
Azakaw, a compliance operating system built for the MENA region, has been named an IDC Innovator in the IDC Innovators: Middle East Regulatory Technology Providers, 2026 report. The platform consolidates KYC, KYB, AML screening, transaction monitoring and corporate compliance into...
Tether Launches tether.wallet
Tether announced tether.wallet, a self‑custodial digital wallet that puts its USD₮, USA₮, XAU₮ and Bitcoin infrastructure directly in users’ hands. The wallet eliminates complex blockchain addresses by using human‑readable identifiers like name@tether.me and allows fees to be paid in the...
Funding Rounds, Unicorns & Tokenized Bonds: The Startup Deals That Defined This Week
This week’s fintech funding spotlighted Mexico’s Plata securing a $405 million Series C that lifted its valuation to $5 billion, while Europe’s regtech startup Spektr raised $20 million to embed AI in compliance. Gen‑Z‑founded Slash Financial closed a $100 million Series C, achieving unicorn status at...
Coordinating Tax, Finance, and IT for Successful E-Invoicing Implementation
E‑invoicing initiatives often stall because tax, finance, and IT work in isolation, turning compliance mandates into operational bottlenecks. Aligning these three functions around shared data ownership, unified workflows, and joint decision‑making creates a cross‑functional operating model that can handle real‑time...