Kudos has raised $10.2 million in a Series A funding round led by QED Investors for its AI-powered smart wallet and shopping assistant.

Digital Europe, a digital technology trade association, has warned the EU against overregulating in its upcoming AI bill in a letter this week.

The Co-operative Bank is hiring more than 100 IT and digital specialists in its North West England base as part of a major technology investment plan.

Donald Trump says he is appointing former PayPal chief operating officer David Sacks as “White House AI and Crypto Czar”.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia has rowed back its decision to cut 45 contact centre jobs after finding that the AI-powered “voice-bot” designed to reduce calls actually led to an increase in work for humans.

UnionPay International (UPI) is piloting a cross-border QR payment linkage between China and Indonesia.

Hala, a Saudi Arabian fintech that provides embedded financial services to micro, small and medium enterprises, has raised $157 million in a Series B funding round.

Fintech’s international expansion plans are being thwarted by a fragmented regulatory landscape, according to recently published research designed to promote the role of international finance centres (IFCs).

Equity derivatives clearing organisation OCC has selected Axoni to help it replace its securities lending infrastructure with distributed ledger technology.

Wealth management platform FNZ has acquired German credit institution Fondsdepot Bank.

Day two of Singapore Fintech Festival kicked off with Ravi Menon, managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore on the global plenary stage highlighting that innovation and digitalisation of financial services has marched on, gathered pace, and has become more pervasive.

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority is to set up a ‘Supercharged Sandbox’ to help firms experiment with innovative AI applications.

New challenger SilverRock Bank has been granted banking authorisation with restrictions by the Prudential Regulation Authority following the completion of a £50m funding round.

Manchester fintech Frost has raised £1.87 million from a crowdfunding campaign on Seedrs.