Author: Wamala Sipirian

Melio, the New York-based accounts payable and receivable platform owned by Xero, launched an AI agent-powered B2B payment network on 17 June 2026. The system enables buyers to execute payments directly into supplier accounts receivable systems without requiring suppliers to register on a new portal or join a separate payment network. According to the company, the network has processed more than 30,000 payments to date, recording over $100 million in annualised payment volume. Melio’s broader platform handles more than $30 billion in annual payment volume, with the company stating that a growing share of that volume is becoming eligible for…

Anchorage Digital has added custody support for CETES, a tokenized version of Mexican Federal Treasury Certificates issued by Etherfuse on the Stellar network. The move extends the federally chartered crypto bank’s product range into Latin American sovereign debt custody, adding a new asset class to its suite of tokenized real-world assets held on behalf of institutional clients. CETES are short-term instruments issued by the Mexican federal government and rank among the country’s most widely traded debt securities. The arrangement structures the offering across three distinct layers: Etherfuse tokenizes the underlying instrument under its Stablebonds framework, Stellar provides the settlement and…

The International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation (ITFC) has signed a $250 million framework agreement with the Republic of The Gambia, establishing a three-year facility directed toward trade finance, energy imports, food security, and private sector development. The agreement was executed on the sidelines of the 2026 Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) Group Annual Meetings in Baku, Azerbaijan, and was signed by Seedy K.M. Keita, The Gambia’s Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs and IsDB Governor, and Adeeb Yousuf Al Aama, ITFC’s Chief Executive Officer. The agreement illustrates the continuing role multilateral Islamic finance institutions play in sovereign trade credit for frontier…

The Financial Conduct Authority has finalised its cryptoasset regulatory framework, cutting the capital requirement for stablecoin issuance in half compared with earlier proposals. The rules, published on 30 June 2026, apply to trading platforms, custodians, intermediaries, stablecoin issuers, and firms facilitating staking operating in the United Kingdom. The finalised UK stablecoin capital requirement sets the prudential coefficient at 1 percent of the value of tokens issued, down from a proposed 2 percent. The change is the most consequential revision in the rulebook and positions UK requirements at roughly half the level mandated under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA)…

Kuwait’s Cabinet has approved a draft decree-law criminalising informal remittance systems, including hawala-style networks, as part of a broader effort to strengthen financial oversight and counter money laundering. The Ministry of Commerce and Industry confirmed the amendment on 3 December 2025, introducing a new Article (12 bis) to the Commercial Licensing Law No. 111 of 2013. The measure targets unlicensed currency exchange and value-transfer networks that operate outside regulated banking and exchange channels. According to the ministry, such systems represent one of the more significant illicit financial risks due to their limited documentation and vulnerability to misuse. The amendment is…

Millions of residents in the United Arab Emirates send money overseas each month to support family members, pay school fees, meet mortgage repayments, or transfer savings. According to data compiled by Arabian Business, currency movements mean that recipients abroad can receive more or less from one month to the next, even when the amount sent from the UAE remains unchanged. This matters because the UAE dirham, while pegged to the US dollar, fluctuates in value against other currencies based on interest rate differentials, inflation, economic growth, and broader macroeconomic conditions in destination markets. For remittance senders operating on fixed monthly…

Digital asset issuer Midas and asset manager Fasanara Capital have launched mGLOBAL, a tokenized private credit product, on Aave’s Horizon real-world asset (RWA) market. The integration, which went live on 24 June 2026, allows institutional and Web3 investors to use tokenized private credit positions as collateral to borrow stablecoins on Aave, a decentralized lending protocol that the company states holds more than $24 billion in net deposits. The launch reflects a broader trend of tokenizing real-world financial assets, including private credit and trade finance instruments, for use within decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols. This development is relevant to institutional asset managers,…

Nigeria remains Africa’s largest fintech market by both scale and influence, with digital financial products including mobile wallets, agency banking, and instant payment systems that first reached commercial scale in the country now standard across the continent. According to industry analysis, Nigeria’s fintech sector is entering a new phase in 2026, with attention shifting from startup valuations and venture funding toward infrastructure development, regulatory frameworks, and interoperability. According to the World Bank, Nigeria is Africa’s largest economy by gross domestic product and its most populous nation, with more than 230 million people and GDP per capita of approximately $1,600. The…

Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. (NYSE: BR) has appointed Mark Nichols as co-president of digital assets, a move the company says is intended to expand its institutional asset tokenization business. Nichols will share leadership of the division with existing co-president German Soto Sanchez, with responsibility for strategy, product development, and commercial execution across Broadridge’s tokenization and digital asset operations. The appointment comes as tokenized real-world assets move from limited pilot programs toward larger-scale use in financial market infrastructure, according to the company. Broadridge operates the Distributed Ledger Repo (DLR) platform, which the firm states processes $365 billion in tokenized transaction volume…

North Korea remains one of the most economically isolated countries in the world, with no venture capital sector, private digital banks, or internationally connected financial technology industry. However, reporting indicates that domestic electronic payment tools have become increasingly visible within the country, particularly in Pyongyang, despite the near-total absence of conventional fintech infrastructure. The country’s financial isolation stems from a combination of international sanctions, state ownership of economic activity, and restricted access to global financial networks. Neither the World Bank nor the International Monetary Fund publishes comprehensive economic statistics for North Korea due to limited official reporting, meaning independent estimates…