October 26, 2025 @ 7:44 pm By Michael Wong  |  

Open source startup Chainguard said it raised $280 million in growth financing from General Catalyst’s Customer Value Fund, adding to a rapid funding pace that includes an April Series D and brings its total secured in the past six months to $636 million, or $892… Read More

October 25, 2025 @ 6:26 pm By Michael Wong  |  

Nigeria’s central bank convened a strategic fintech roundtable on the sidelines of the IMF–World Bank Annual Meetings in Washington this week, reaffirming a collaborative, innovation-driven approach to developing the country’s financial system while pledging to preserve stability and confidence. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)… Read More

October 25, 2025 @ 4:33 pm By Michael Wong  |  

Thai authorities raided a Worldcoin-linked iris-scanning site and arrested suspects on allegations they operated unlicensed exchange services for the project’s WLD token, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said after a joint operation with the Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau (CCIB). The move is part of… Read More

October 25, 2025 @ 11:41 am By Michael Wong  |  

MultiBank Group said it has entered an exclusive worldwide joint venture with former UFC champion Khabib Nurmagomedov to build a regulated ecosystem at the intersection of finance, sport and technology, as the derivatives broker seeks to extend its brand beyond trading into real-world assets and… Read More

October 25, 2025 @ 11:37 am By Michael Wong  |  

Pave Bank, a fully licensed commercial bank built for this new financial architecture, said it has raised more than $39 million in a round led by Accel. The fresh funding will help scale what it calls the world’s first programmable commercial bank built to operate… Read More

October 24, 2025 @ 1:23 am By Michael Wong  |  

Merak Capital, a Saudi investment firm licensed by the Capital Market Authority, has made a SAR 100 million (USD 26.7 million) strategic investment in Arsann, the Kingdom’s leading operator of smart parking and mobility infrastructure. The move, according to an announcement, is aimed at advancing… Read More

October 23, 2025 @ 6:39 pm By Michael Wong  |  

Singapore-based wealth advisory and investment platform Endowus said it had closed a funding round of more than $70 million led by fintech specialist Illuminate Financial, with participation from existing backers Prosus Ventures, Citi Ventures, and Asian family offices. The raise includes $20 million in fresh… Read More

October 23, 2025 @ 6:37 pm By Michael Wong  |  

South Africa-based Bitget Wallet launched the Bitget Wallet Card in selected Asia-Pacific markets, including Malaysia, expanding the crypto firm’s payments reach in a region it says is the world’s fastest-growing for digital assets. The self-custodial card connects users’ crypto balances to Mastercard’s network of more… Read More

October 22, 2025 @ 1:10 pm By Michael Wong  |  

FalconX, an institutional digital asset prime brokerage, said on Wednesday it has agreed to acquire 21shares, the world’s largest provider of cryptocurrency exchange-traded products (ETPs), in a deal that underscores the growing convergence between digital assets and mainstream finance. The acquisition unites FalconX’s prime brokerage… Read More

October 22, 2025 @ 1:08 pm By Michael Wong  |  

Canada’s anti-money laundering regulator has imposed a record administrative monetary penalty of C$176.96 million ($130 million) on Xeltox Enterprises Ltd., the operator of cryptocurrency platform Cryptomus, for “egregious and systemic” violations of the country’s financial crime laws. The Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of… Read More

October 21, 2025 @ 10:26 pm By Michael Wong  |  

Six national payment networks from five Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries have signed a memorandum of understanding to form a common standards body for non-card instant retail payments, aiming to make cross-border transactions faster and safer while preserving national control. The George Town… Read More

October 19, 2025 @ 11:09 pm By Michael Wong  |  

UAE-headquartered M2 Capital said it invested $21 million in AVAX One, a Nasdaq-listed digital asset treasury created to accumulate AVAX, the native token of the Avalanche blockchain. The move is part of a push to support the network’s growth and the Middle East’s adoption of… Read More

October 19, 2025 @ 10:07 pm By Michael Wong  |  

HitPay, a Singapore-based payments platform, said it partnered with licensed crypto payments firm Triple-A to enable more than 20,000 merchants to accept stablecoin payments at online and in-store checkouts while receiving instant settlements in fiat currency. The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)-regulated arrangement targets small… Read More

October 19, 2025 @ 9:59 pm By Michael Wong  |  

Abu Dhabi’s International Holding Company (IHC) said it has acquired a majority stake in state-owned First Women Bank Ltd (FWBL) after Pakistan completed a government-to-government privatisation under its Inter-Governmental Commercial Transactions Act of 2022. The announcement, at a ceremony attended by Sheikh Zayed bin Hamdan… Read More

October 19, 2025 @ 4:13 pm By Michael Wong  |  

Canada has committed more than C$3 million ($2.1 million) over five years to an Industrial Research Chair in Tokenization at École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS), backing work on advanced tokenization and decentralized federated learning led by Professor Kaiwen Zhang and industry partner T-RIZE Group. The… Read More

October 19, 2025 @ 4:10 pm By Michael Wong  |  

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) launched BLOOM, short for Borderless, Liquid, Open, Online, Multi-currency, a new industry initiative to extend settlement options for financial institutions using tokenised bank liabilities and well-regulated stablecoins while applying standardised risk controls. MAS said BLOOM will work with banks… Read More

October 19, 2025 @ 10:10 am By Michael Wong  |  

KLIQ, a Saudi-built influencer marketing platform powered by proprietary AI, said it raised $2.25 million in seed funding led by Sanabil Venture Studio, a subsidiary of Sanabil Investments, in partnership with corporate venture builder Stryber. The company said the funding will help it address common… Read More

October 18, 2025 @ 10:10 am By Michael Wong  |  

The U.K.’s tax agency is turning up the heat on crypto traders, more than doubling the number of warning notices it sent to suspected underpayers in the latest tax year as digital-asset ownership swells. HM Revenue & Customs dispatched almost 65,000 so-called “nudge letters” in… Read More

October 13, 2025 @ 10:13 am By Michael Wong  |  

Berlin-based automation and AI orchestration startup n8n has raised $180 million in a Series C funding round, bringing its total funding to $240 million and valuing the company at $2.5 billion, according to a company announcement. The round was led by Accel with participation from… Read More

October 13, 2025 @ 6:38 am By Michael Wong  |  

Qantas said data belonging to 5.7 million customers stolen in a major cyberattack has been shared online, widening the fallout from a campaign tied to a third-party platform used by dozens of global companies. The airline reiterated that the compromise originated at a provider later… Read More