Singapore Gulf Bank Gains J.P. Morgan Clearing Network Access
Singapore Gulf Bank (SGB) has opened a correspondent banking account with J.P. Morgan, gaining direct access to the firm’s extensive USD clearing network. The partnership introduces J.P. Morgan Payments’ Wire 365 solution, delivering near‑real‑time, 365‑day USD clearing for cross‑border transactions. By merging this capability with its proprietary SGB Net platform, SGB offers omnichannel settlement and improved liquidity management for clients. The move positions SGB as a pioneering digital bank linking the Gulf and Asian markets.
Benji Pays Unveils Integrated Payment Solution with Adyen Partnership
Benji Pays launched Benji Payments, an integrated payment solution built on Adyen for Platforms. The offering lets SMBs and managed service providers choose a turnkey system or connect existing gateways, while adding automated reconciliation, customizable surcharging, and in‑app merchant onboarding....
Crypto Bank Anchorage Digital Eyes $400M Raise with IPO in Sight: Report
Anchorage Digital, the first federally chartered crypto bank, is targeting a $200‑$400 million capital raise ahead of a planned 2025 IPO. The funding will support its expanding stablecoin issuance platform and broader institutional services. CEO Nathan McCauley aims to double the stablecoin...
PNC Says Automation Added 30 Points of Operating Leverage Since 2022
PNC Financial Services Group reported that automation delivered 30 basis points of operating leverage across its retail and care‑center operations between 2022 and 2025. CEO Bill Demchak said the bank expects another 40 points of leverage from AI between 2025...
Department of Education Delays Involuntary Collections on Federal Student Loans
On Jan. 16, the U.S. Department of Education announced a temporary pause on involuntary collections for federal student loans to allow implementation of repayment reforms under the Working Families Tax Cuts Act. The reforms introduce simplified repayment plans and a...
Pay.com Adds Paysafe as a Recommended Acquirer for Card Transactions
Pay.com has expanded its payment orchestration platform by adding Paysafe as a recommended acquirer for card transactions, alongside the integration of Paysafe’s Skrill, Neteller, and PaysafeCard eCash solutions. The partnership gives merchants access to Paysafe’s extensive network, which processed $152 billion...
Animoca Brands Expands Web3 Portfolio with Acquisition of SOMO
Animoca Brands has completed its acquisition of SOMO, a crypto‑collectibles and interactive entertainment startup. The deal adds gacha‑style on‑chain games to Animoca’s portfolio, which already includes The Sandbox, Open Campus and the Moca Network. By integrating SOMO’s technology, Animoca aims...
Apex Fintech Solutions Partners with Allfunds to Boost Global Offshore Investment Opportunities
Fintech firm Apex Solutions has partnered with European wealth‑tech provider Allfunds to embed its fund distribution platform into Apex’s AscendOS infrastructure. The integration will give U.S. broker‑dealers, RIAs and fintech companies a single point of access to offshore mutual funds,...
Gould Floats Bare-Bones Resolution Planning Revamp
Comptroller Jonathan Gould urged the elimination of Covered Insured Depository Institution (CIDI) resolution plans, arguing they lack a clear statutory basis and effectively outsource the FDIC’s receiver role to banks. He highlighted that such plans failed to prevent the 2023...
Earnings Show Banks Turning Transaction Banking Into a Platform Business
The 2025 earnings season showed major U.S. banks turning transaction banking into a digital platform rather than a back‑office utility. Investments in cloud‑native cores, APIs and event‑driven architectures now deliver real‑time cash visibility and faster cross‑border settlement. Executives highlighted revenue...
Crypto Exchange BTCC Claims to Have Booked $5 Billion in Tokenized Gold Trading Volume
Vilnius‑based crypto exchange BTCC announced it traded $5.72 billion in tokenized gold during 2025, surpassing the $5 billion milestone. The fourth quarter alone generated $2.74 billion, an 809 % increase from Q1. BTCC also reported $53.1 billion in total tokenized gold futures volume, driven by...
US Lender Newrez to Accept Crypto Holdings in Mortgage Approval
Newrez will treat eligible cryptocurrency holdings—including Bitcoin, Ether, spot ETFs and US‑dollar‑backed stablecoins—as qualifying assets in its mortgage underwriting, beginning in February for non‑agency home purchase, refinance and investment loans. The assets must be held on US‑regulated exchanges, fintech platforms,...
Ingenico, Samsung, and Talus Introduce Mobile Business Operating Solution in North America
Ingenico, Samsung, and Talus have launched a joint Mobile Business Operating Solution (MBOS) for North American merchants. The platform fuses Samsung’s Galaxy hardware, Ingenico’s payment processing stack, and Talus’s cloud‑based back‑office services into a single, app‑driven point‑of‑sale system. It supports...
Top 5 Gift Card Purchase Categories
The episode examines the top five categories where U.S. consumers purchase gift cards, revealing that mass merchandisers (43%) and online-only retailers (41%) lead, followed by fast‑food chains, coffee shops, and supermarkets. Data from Javelin Strategy & Research’s 2022‑2029 prepaid card...
PNC's Demchak Vows to Bring the Fight From Coast to Coast
PNC Financial Services Group announced that its $4.2 billion acquisition of FirstBank will add roughly $850‑$900 million of net interest income by 2026, fueling a broader push for national scale. CEO Bill Demchak emphasized that the deal, combined with a $2 billion branch‑expansion...
How AI-Powered Phone Systems Are Disrupting the Restaurant Industry
AI-driven phone answering platforms are reshaping restaurant operations by eliminating the costly inefficiency of missed calls. Restaurants typically forfeit $80,000‑$150,000 each year as 20‑30% of inbound calls go unanswered, a loss magnified across the 660,000 U.S. establishments. Solutions like Bonnie...
JPMorgan Chase Forms Team Focused on Helping Companies Raise Private Capital
JPMorgan Chase announced the formation of a Private Capital Advisory and Solutions team to help companies raise private financing, including early‑stage equity, preferred stock and convertible bonds. The unit will link investors with firms seeking capital and explore secondary fund...
Improved Credit Quality at M&T Helps Push Earnings Higher
M&T Bank posted a fourth‑quarter net income of $759 million, up 11.5% year‑over‑year, and earnings per share of $4.67, comfortably beating the $4.44 consensus. The results were powered by a sharp decline in non‑accrual loans, which fell 26% to $1.25 billion, delivering...
Meet Gustavo Oduber-Quigley: The Founder Bringing A.I.-Driven Growth to Local Businesses
Gustavo Oduber‑Quigley founded OQ AI Creative Media to bring enterprise‑grade artificial intelligence to small‑ and medium‑sized businesses. His platform deploys custom‑trained AI receptionists that handle calls, messages, bookings and follow‑ups, delivering 24/7 customer engagement without extra staff. Powered by the...
Mid Minnesota Federal Credit Union Partners with InvestiFi on Digital Investing
Mid Minnesota Federal Credit Union has teamed with InvestiFi to embed a full‑stack InvestTech platform into its online banking suite. The integration will let roughly 60,000 members trade more than 6,500 stocks and ETFs, plus over 25 digital assets, directly...
TS Imagine Data Shows Rapid Acceleration in Fixed Income E-Trading
TS Imagine’s TradeSmart platform reported a 44% year‑over‑year rise in fixed‑income trading activity for 2025, led by a 76% jump in government‑bond volumes. Portfolio‑trading transactions exploded 607%, while RFQ responses grew 109% and Click‑to‑Trade usage increased 81%, signalling deeper buy‑side...
China-Backed Cross-Border Payments Platform Has Processed 3.48 Billion Transactions
Project mBridge, a China‑backed cross‑border payments platform, has processed 3.48 billion transactions worth $55.49 billion as of November 2025, up from just 160 transactions in October 2022. The digital yuan now accounts for over 95% of settlement volume, reflecting its growing role...
Tokenised Rewards Reshape Digital Loyalty Economics
Tokenised loyalty programs are converting static points into portable, programmable digital assets that give customers true ownership via secure wallets. This shift enables rewards to move across apps, creating network effects and simplifying partner integrations. For growth teams, tokenised incentives...
Senator Probes BNY for More Epstein Info
Senator Ron Wyden has sent a letter to BNY Mellon demanding answers about the bank’s handling of wire transfers linked to Jeffrey Epstein. The inquiry highlights that BNY failed to file suspicious activity reports on 18 million‑dollar transfers until 2019,...
How Borrowers Assess Whether Quick Loans Are the Right Choice
Quick loans have surged as a fast‑cash solution for urgent expenses, offering approval within hours. However, they carry higher interest rates and fees compared with traditional bank financing. Borrowers are urged to evaluate the genuine need, scrutinize loan terms, assess...
Private Equity Portfolio Management Software: A Deep Dive Into FundCount
Private equity firms face complex fund structures and reporting demands, prompting a shift from spreadsheets to specialized software. FundCount offers an integrated platform that combines partnership accounting, portfolio accounting, and reporting, supporting multi‑currency and intricate ownership structures. The solution automates...
Crypto Bridge Swap Alternative: Why IronWallet Changes Everything
IronWallet launches a non‑custodial wallet that eliminates gas fees for swaps on five major blockchains, including Ethereum, BSC, Polygon, Solana, and Tron. The platform supports over ten thousand tokens across more than ten networks, allowing users to manage diversified portfolios...
Flanks and finReg360 Launch EDX to Standardise Financial Data Exchange
Flanks and finReg360 have unveiled EDX, Europe’s first standardized financial data exchange protocol, designed to securely transmit comprehensive position data among custodian banks, wealth managers and advisory firms. The platform tackles Europe’s fragmented data infrastructure by replacing manual reconciliation with...
Securing Funds Using Gold Collateral: A Reliable and Time-Tested Financial Strategy
Gold‑backed financing lets borrowers pledge physical bullion, coins or bars as collateral to secure loans without selling the asset. Lenders typically extend 60‑80% of the gold’s market value, offering lower interest rates and faster approvals than unsecured credit. The structure...
InRento CEO Gustas Germanavicius’ 3 2026 European Proptech Investing Trends
European real‑estate is at a crossroads as land scarcity and abundant household savings drive investors toward income‑generating assets. InRento CEO Gustas Germanavicius identifies three 2026 trends—sustainability mandates, building conversions, and fractional ownership—that will reshape the market. Stricter ESG rules are...
How CIOS Is Reshaping Digital Wealth Advice in 2026
Fincite’s CIOS platform has introduced over 70 new features in 2026, targeting the core pain points of wealth‑management advisers. The Strategic Asset Allocation tool uses algorithms to auto‑optimise client portfolios and visualise changes instantly. An ad‑hoc instrument creation module lets...
HR Services Provider Gusto Taps Zerohash to Speed up Global Payouts with Stablecoins
Gusto, the payroll and HR platform serving over 400,000 small businesses, has launched a beta program with crypto infrastructure provider Zerohash to enable stablecoin payouts for international contractors. The new option lets eligible workers receive U.S. dollar‑denominated stablecoins with settlement...
PNC Bank CEO Says Stablecoins Must Choose: Be a Payment Tool or a Money Market Fund
PNC Bank CEO Bill Demchak told investors that stablecoins must be classified either as payment tools or as money‑market‑fund‑like investment products. He warned that offering interest blurs that line and would subject tokens to the same strict oversight applied to...
The Next Retail Advantage Is Hiding in Merchants’ Payments Systems
Merchants are hitting conversion walls because legacy checkout systems can’t keep up with mobile traffic and buy‑now‑pay‑later demand. Adobe’s Payment Services, built into Adobe Commerce and Magento Open Source, offers a unified payments layer that simplifies adding digital wallets and...
Crypto Card Spending Hits $18 Billion Annualized as Stablecoin Use Shifts to Everyday Payments
Crypto credit and debit cards have surged from roughly $100 million in early 2023 to over $1.5 billion monthly by late 2025, creating an $18 billion annualized spend that nearly matches peer‑to‑peer stablecoin transfers. The market grew at a 106 % compound annual growth...
Bill CFO Reflects on PayPal Tenure
Rohini Jain, newly appointed CFO of Bill Holdings, brings a decade‑long tenure at PayPal where she helped grow revenue from $10 billion to $30 billion. Her career spans GE, Walmart, eBay and PayPal, giving her deep fintech, operational and manufacturing expertise. Jain...
Early 2026 Tailwinds for Bitcoin Miners as Hashrate Falls, Profitability Improves: JPMorgan
JPMorgan reports that U.S.-listed bitcoin miners added $13 billion in market value during the first two weeks of 2026, bringing the sector’s total capitalization to roughly $62 billion. A modest rise in Bitcoin price combined with a 2 % drop in network hashrate...
To Forecast Agentic Commerce Adoption, Look to Biometrics and Digital IDs
The episode explores how the rollout patterns of biometric authentication and digital ID cards can inform expectations for agentic commerce adoption, noting that none of these technologies are yet ubiquitous but will see broader real‑world pilots in 2026. Analyst Christopher...
Web3 Revenue Shifts From Blockchains to Wallets and DeFi Apps
Revenue in crypto is increasingly captured by user‑facing DeFi applications rather than base‑layer blockchains. Data from Real Vision and DeFiLlama shows DeFi fees are five times higher than blockchain fees, with stablecoin issuer Tether alone generating $563 million in the last...
Huione-Linked Tudou Guarantee Winds Down Amid $130M USDT Refunds: Bitrace
Tudou Guarantee, a Telegram‑based escrow tied to Cambodia’s Huione Group, has refunded more than $130 million in USDT since early 2026 and announced it is winding down operations. The refunds, which peaked at $18.1 million in a single day, signal a retreat...
FinTech Futures: Top Five News Stories of the Week – 16 January 2026
President Donald Trump announced a temporary one‑year 10% cap on U.S. credit‑card interest rates, targeting the 20‑30% rates prevalent under the previous administration. B4B Payments co‑founder Paul Swinton stepped down as executive chair, remaining as a strategic director. Stablecoin‑focused platform...
Adempi Hires Lorraine Mouat to Lead Payments Practice
Adempi, a specialist FCA compliance consultancy, has hired Lorraine Mouat as a Partner to lead its payment services and e‑money practice. Mouat brings deep experience guiding payment service providers and electronic money institutions through FCA authorisations, safeguarding, and data‑protection challenges. The...
PhotonPay Partners ClearBank to Expand Access to UK Payment Rails
ClearBank has teamed up with AI‑driven fintech PhotonPay to provide the latter’s business clients indirect access to the UK’s core payment rails. Leveraging ClearBank’s API‑based infrastructure, PhotonPay will issue virtual accounts and connect to Faster Payments, BACS and CHAPS in...
Finunion Makes Crypto Payments Actually Work for Businesses
Finunion has launched a live B2B crypto payments platform that lets companies invoice, collect and manage crypto transactions without extra integrations. The system supports one‑time and recurring invoices, generates payment links, and consolidates all activity in a single dashboard. Payments...
TZERO, North Capital to Unveil ATS Connector Agora
tZERO Group and North Capital Investment Technology have launched Agora, a technology network that links alternative trading systems (ATS) to broaden market access for tokenized and private securities. The platform lets securities listed on one ATS be traded by qualified...
Upstate NY Lender to Buy Bank with Funeral-Planning Focus
Community Financial System of Syracuse agreed to acquire ClearPoint Federal Bank & Trust for $40 million in cash. ClearPoint, a niche bank focused on funeral‑planning trusts, reported a 2.31% return on assets, well above the 1.27% industry average. The acquisition will...
6 Legal & Financial Tips Every Tech Enthusiast Needs to Know
The article presents six essential legal and financial tips for technology enthusiasts, ranging from understanding regional legal obligations to protecting intellectual property, securing online presence, planning tech‑related investments, complying with privacy regulations, and seeking professional counsel. It stresses proactive compliance...
The Inflation Hedge in Your Browser: Utilizing Cashback Extensions for Micro-Investing Strategies
Inflation is eroding fiat purchasing power, prompting investors to seek new hedges beyond traditional assets. Browser‑based cashback extensions turn everyday spending into a micro‑investing engine, automatically recapturing value that would otherwise be lost. Platforms such as ReBITme extend this model...
DDC Enterprise Buys 200 Bitcoin in First 2026 Treasury Move
DDC Enterprise announced the purchase of 200 Bitcoin, bringing its total holdings to 1,383 BTC and pushing the company to the 44th‑largest public Bitcoin holder. The acquisition was made at an average cost of $88,998 per coin, resulting in a...
Belarus Creates Legal Framework for ‘Cryptobanks’ in New Presidential Decree
Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko signed Decree No. 19 establishing a legal framework for “cryptobanks,” which are joint‑stock companies that can combine token‑based operations with traditional banking services. The decree requires cryptobanks to obtain resident status in the state‑backed Hi‑Tech Park and to register with...