Reform leader Farage urges BofE to drop Britcoin plans
Nigel Farage, the leader of UK populist party Reform UK, has urged Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey not to introduce a central bank digital currency, according to The Guardian.
Deluxe agrees $625m acquisition of payment processor Celero
Deluxe, the company that invented the chequebook, has agreed a $625 million cash deal to buy payments processor Celero Commerce.
Crypto
China’s Z.AI Releases GLM-5.2: A Model That Rivals Claude Opus—Using Zero Nvidia Chips
Z.ai's GLM-5.2 sits within 1% of Claude Opus 4.8 on long-horizon coding benchmarks, runs entirely on Huawei silicon, and undercuts Western frontier models by up to 82% per token.
Crypto
Midjourney Pivots From AI Images to Medical Imaging, Aiming to Build a Better MRI Alternative
Image generation company Midjourney is developing a full-body imaging system that combines ultrasound tech with AI smarts.
Dollar hits over one-year high as hawkish Fed overshadows U.S.-Iran peace deal
A 2 A.M. Alert, a Bad Night’s Sleep and a £25 Revolut Payout
A complaint over late-night app alerts has resulted in a compensation payment and an ombudsman ruling for Revolut, after a customer said notifications disrupted his sleep and affected his workday.Complaint and Initial ResponseThe case, reviewed by the UK Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS), involved a
Prediction Markets Are About to Go Mainstream, and Prop Firms Know It
Institutional money is edging into prediction markets, with a slice of derivatives firms already trading event contracts and many more preparing to follow, according to research firm Acuiti. Nine percent of institutional derivatives participants now trade prediction markets, the firm said, while a f
Commodities
Canadian dollar falls to 14-month low on Fed rate outlook
America’s Exchanges Rethink Time Through Tokenization
A US exchange is pushing forward with plans to bring tokenized equities into regulated trading, as 24X National Exchange filed a proposal with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The move would allow certain stocks and exchange-traded funds to trade in tokenized form, marking another step in tes
What is the Seychelles FSA Doing in Limassol?
If one walked the exhibition floor at the ground level of the iFX EXPO International in Limassol’s lush City of Dreams Mediterranean, one might be forgiven for doing a double-take at a booth that, much like the old Sesame Street song, was “not like the others.” While the floor was a sea of liquidity
Banking
MidFirst Bank to buy Dallas-based commercial bank
The proposed deal, expected to close in the second half of this year, follows MidFirst’s 2024 acquisition of six Houston-area locations from Amerant Bank.
Santander-Webster deal gets OCC approval
The $12.3 billion acquisition, which also needs a green light from the Federal Reserve and European Central Bank, got the OCC’s go-ahead 74 days after the application was submitted.
JPMorgan blocks Claude for Hong Kong employees - FT
JPMorgan Chase is the latest Wall Street giant to remove access to Anthropic's AI models for its bankers in Hong Kong, according to the Financial Times.
Banking
Lenders ramp up scam defenses to confront elder fraud
Fifth Third Bank and Star One Credit Union are among the financial institutions implementing strategies aimed at detecting scams earlier and being more proactive.
Commodities
Sterling today: Pound hits lowest since April as BoE hold, hawkish Fed lift dollar
U.S. shortdated yields hold at one-year highs on Fed rate-hike fears
Major currency option expiries set for New York cut today
EBAday 2026: Zooming in on AI and digital assets as the key themes of the event
The two final panels at EBAday 2026 explored how AI systems are rapidly evolving from passive tools to autonomous agents, and recapped the highlights of this year’s events.
Hong Kong pilots wholesale application of CBDC in a live market environment
Hong Kong is piloting the use of a central bank digital currency for advance margin payments in after-hours derivatives trading.
EBAday 2026: Correspondent banking and liquidity management in a real-time world
As real-time schemes and digital assets reshape banking, how do the realities of correspondent banking and liquidity management change?