Manchester Digital has launched a Manifesto for the Northern Tech Economy ahead of the mayoral elections that will take place on May 2nd.

Spain’s CaixaBank is the latest lender to start issuing cards made from recycled plastic and biodegradable components.

Ahead of Sibos 2022, Finextra spoke to Baldev Prakash, managing director and CEO of one of the oldest private sector banks in India, Jammu & Kashmir Bank, about their technology roadmap, the subcontinent’s economic recovery and the geopolitical implications of the Russia-Ukraine conflict despite being a smaller bank.

Standard Chartered has become the first global systemically important bank to offer digital asset spot trading to institutional clients.

Tempo France claims it is the the first fintech in the money transfers market to suspend classical remittances in order to focus exclusively on decentralised finance (DeFi).

ABN Amro has joined an $80 million funding round for Fenergo which values the Dublin-based fintech firm at about $800 million.

Founder of ResponsibleRisk, Richard Peers, moderated a session at Sustainable Finance Live called ‘What is the role of impact and ESG data in ensuring economic profit of nature capital in the marketplace?’, with speakers Cain Blythe, founder of Ecosulis and Credit Nature; Simon Crichton, head of nature, food, and resource at Triodos Bank; Giles D’Souza strategic business lead in remote sensing and GIS at Planet; James Lockhart-Smith, VP sustainable finance at Verisk Maplecroft; and Donna Lyndsay, strategic market lead environment and sustainability at Ordnance Survey.

UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves detailed the financial services strategy launching in March 2025, which will focus on bolstering growth, developing fintech and sustainable finance sectors.

In a first for England, from next year the University of Sussex is introducing a BSc Finance and Technology (Fintech) degree.

JPMorgan Chase is planning a broad roll out of biometric payments with US retailers by early next year, enabling shoppers to make purchases by scanning their palms or faces.

Mastercard is turbocharging its fraud detection technology with generative AI that can scan a trillion data points to predict whether a transaction is likely to be genuine or not.

Citi is the latest big-name traditional financial services player to invest in stablecoin infrastructure platform BVNK.

Latin American cross-border payments platform dLocal is expanding in the UK after securing an authorised payment institution licence from the FCA.

Banking-as-a-Service player Synctera has raised $15 million in funding and signed online checkout giant Bolt as a customer.

NatWest, CIBC, ITAU and NAB have joined forces to create a blockchain-based marketplace where firms can buy and sell carbon offsets.