The finance sector’s decision to ape Big Tech and adopt platform business models enabled and powered by the mass acquisition and manipulation of data is creating new risks for society, warns a report from the Finance Innovation Lab.

UAE-based Optasia, a AI-powered fintech, has listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) in one of the country’s biggest IPOs in recent years.

Italy’s Sella Group is trialling a a biometric recognition credit card that allows people to make payments by using their fingerprint.

Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken is working with Mastercard to allow customers in the UK and Europe to spend their crypto at over 150 million merchants worldwide.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has announced the completion of the open banking roadmap on the fifth anniversary of PSD2, which mandated open banking as a regulatory requirement in the UK.

WealthTech firm InvestCloud has appointed former Fiserv CEO Jeff Yakubi as CEO and chairman.

Under its £100 billion Climate and Sustainable Funding and Finance ambition, NatWest is now providing tools, via an online Climate Hub, to help small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) go green.

A research report by University College London (UCL) has examined the varying environmental impacts of six different distributed ledger technologies (DLT), finding that Hedera Hashgraph boasts the lowest overall energy consumption of the group.

The central bank of Latvia is bolsterings its credentials as a fintech innovation hub by launching free pre-licencing consultations for crypto-asset service providers looking to pursue the EU MiCA licence.

American trading app Robinhood is buying WonderFi, the Canadian crypto operator of Bitbuy and Coinsquare, for around C$250 million in cash.

Plaid has announced it will enable its identity verification and KYC solutions in Canada, to help users comply with Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) requirements.

Police have arrested 37 members of a criminal gang that operated a phish-for-subcription Website that duped up to 70,000 UK victims into entering their bank details at fraudulent internet sites.

JPMorgan Chase is planning to expand in Dubai as part of a push to collaborate with more Middle Eastern businesses.

The bar to meet customer expectations across industries has continued to rise. Digital innovation is changing how companies engage their customers in every interaction, particularly how they deliver information as well as products and services.

The UK’s Payment System Regulator (PSR) has stepped back from imposing financial penalties on Visa and Mastercard scheme and processing fees, despite evidence that the firms are running an effective duopoly in the supply of services to merchants.