There were nearly 500 fintech financing and M&A deals in the first quarter of 2024, with insurtech, crypto and blockchain proving hot areas, according to data from Royal Park Partners (RPP).

JPMorgan is shutting down the payments business it acquired from Volkswagen in 2021 after concluding that it cannot generate a profit, according to Bloomberg.

Ireland’s largest financial services provider, AIB, has appointed SME and sustainable infrastructure investment manager, Foresight Group, to manage a new SME equity fund, targeting €75 million. The fund will support businesses looking to accelerate Ireland’s low-carbon transition.

On the 8th of February 2023, the US Department of the Treasury launched a report addressing regulatory guidance on the use of cloud in the private sector. Speaking on digital transformation in relation to concerns raised in the report, Prakash Pattni, managing director for financial services digital transformation at IBM, observes how financial institutions are adapting to the guidelines put forward by the US Treasury.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has finalised its Framework for Recognising Self-Regulatory Organisations for the Fintech Sector (SRO-FT), after inviting feedback for a draft framework in January thus year.

Banco Santander has hired former Google exec Aiaz Kazi to fill a newly-created role as chief platform officer with responsibility for helping the bank to improve the way it delivers products and services to customers.

The executive director of Green Digital Finance Alliance, a partnership between Ant Financial and the UN Environment Programme, has told Finextra Research about the mixed picture in being able to harness new technology to collect and tap into the data required to drive investment for sustainable goals.

NatWest has become the first UK bank to enable Mastercard’s Click to Pay for all of its customers.

To successfully engage in digital transformation in the transition to the cloud, financial firms are looking for creative methods to approach their cloud strategy. In doing so, companies are dealing with issues of cost, security, and scalability. The first stage of the conference explores how companies are making strategic on visibility, data ownership, cloud providers, and more.

Polish identity verification vendor Authologic has closed on an $8.2 million Series A funding round.

As part of Finextra’s fifth Sustainable Finance Live conference, a concurrent Hackathon is taking place. The collaborative event will take place from the 29th of November to the 2nd of December and teams will have access to workshops, panels and the necessary technology to develop projects in real-time.