By Andrew Quinn, Managing Director & Co-Founder at FIDEO Global Something quietly shifted in financial services in the first half of 2026. Not a single event. Not one regulation. Not one technology launch. More like a tightening of the atmosphere. AI moved from experimentation to governance. Instant payments moved from infrastructure project to customer expectations. Stablecoins moved from crypto sidebar to sovereignty debate. Fraud moved from operational loss to a trust cris

Circle Internet Group (NYSE: CRCL) has received final approval from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to establish a national trust bank, converting a conditional charter granted in December 2025 into an operating federal banking licence. The entity, chartered as First National Digital Currency Bank, N.A. and trading as Circle National Trust, becomes the mechanism through which USDC, the largest regulated dollar stablecoin, moves into a federally supervised c

Europe's new anti-money laundering authority issued live guidelines this week. Australia widened the AML perimeter. And the compliance industry got a very serious reminder that "agentic" is no longer a slide-deck word. Compliance officers who spent the first half of 2026 asking "when does the new EU regime actually start?" got their answer this week. As of this week, the Authority for Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism has issued its first substan

The Financial Conduct Authority has published the Mills Review, the first regulator-initiated study of its kind globally, concluding that AI is on course to become a defining force in retail financial services and setting out a seven-point roadmap for how the regulator, industry and government should prepare. Released on 6 July 2026 and led by FCA executive director Sheldon Mills, the review examines how AI could restructure the sector for consumers, firms, markets and regula