More than 1,000 senior financial leaders from over 40 countries convened at Oradea Fortress in Romania on 17 and 18 June for the fifth edition of the UNCHAIN Festival, where the digital euro, AI governance, and stablecoin regulation dominated an agenda built around Central and Eastern Europe's claim to a defining role in the future of European financial services. The anniversary edition drew roughly 170 speakers and central bank and supervisory representatives from more than

From a Japan-to-US remittance debut to Nairobi's Inclusive FinTech Forum and LSEG's sustainability data push, the 'beyond banking' story is no longer hypothetical — it's distribution infrastructure.

Six months after switching on recurring payments through Brazil's instant payment rail, Nord Security is processing more than a quarter of its Brazilian payment volume via Pix Automático, a result that quantifies how quickly account-to-account recurring billing is displacing cards in the country. The cybersecurity firm, working through emerging-markets payments platform EBANX, reports that the feature accounts for 28% of its total payment volume in Brazil and has been taken u

With AMLA holding its first conference in Frankfurt, DORA's grace period over, and perpetual KYC becoming the de facto default, the compliance industry is no longer a cost centre. It's the operating model.

As the world's biggest post-trade utility wires institutional securities to a public blockchain, Europe sprints toward an October 2027 T+1 deadline that suddenly feels much closer.

UK wealth managers and advisers now have a practical playbook for the FCA's non-financial misconduct rules, which take effect on 1 September 2026. PIMFA, the trade body for UK wealth managers and financial advisers, published guidance on 23 June 2026 developed with the Chartered Insurance Institute, the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment and law firm Clyde & Co. The document translates principles-based regulation into worked scenarios, a fitness-and-propriety fra

Challenger bank Bankaktiebolaget Nordiska has signed Finastra to gain direct access to Sweden's central payment rails, ending its reliance on partner banks to reach central bank money. The Stockholm lender will use Finastra's Swift Service Bureau to connect straight to the Swift network and to Riksbank's RIX real-time gross settlement system, with instant payments via RIX-INST to follow as regulation allows. For a bank that only secured its full banking licence from the Swedi

This week WealthTech got serious — Citi tokenized private shares, Schwab rolled out client-facing AI, and eToro hunted M&A targets.

Trace Finance closes a Series A backed by CoinFund, Coinbase Ventures, and Haun Ventures to scale the compliance and bank connectivity infrastructure that stablecoin payments still require to work inside institutional corridors. Trace Finance, a regulated cross-border payments and stablecoin settlement provider, has closed a $32 million Series A led by CoinFund, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Haun Ventures, Jump Crypto, Valor Capital, Paxos, and HOF Capital. The r