Kord, a UK-headquartered FinTech offering a single platform for client onboarding, identity checks and payments, has closed a £6.4m Series A round to tackle AI-enabled fraud and streamline transactions across regulated sectors. Guinness Ventures headed the investment, which also drew backing from Beringea, SFC Capital and a group of angel investors. The raise lifts Kord's cumulative funding to £9m, with...

Applied Systems, an insurance software provider, has launched a submissionless commercial insurance quoting capability with The Travelers Companies as its first carrier partner, using agentic AI to streamline the renewal process. The technology is powered by Cytora, the AI platform for insurance carriers acquired by Applied Systems in 2025, and enables participating insurers to send renewal quotes directly into Applied...

Tangos AI, an autonomous AI platform for financial crime investigations, has secured $20m in seed funding as it looks to tackle one of compliance's most stubborn bottlenecks. Red Dot Capital Partners led the round, joined by Leaders Fund, Clarim, Venture Israel, Signal Fire, Clutch Capital and Selah Ventures, alongside a strategic cheque from Bright Data. The raise arrives against a stark...

Vertafore, a Denver-based insurance technology provider, has launched an AI-powered submission processing agent designed to help managing general agents (MGAs) reduce manual intake processes and accelerate underwriting decisions. Vertafore provides technology solutions for insurance agencies, MGAs and carriers, including platforms supporting distribution, compliance and workflow management. The Velocity AI Submission Processing Agent is built on Vertafore’s Velocity AI Platform and integrates...

South Africa loses an estimated R100bn a year to financial crime, yet the institutions meant to stop it still work in silos. Organised crime does not. According to RelyComply, its networks are coordinated, executing multiple financial crime typologies at once and at scale, while regulators, law enforcement and financial firms lack any standardised, interconnected risk management system. As criminals accelerate...

Regulated businesses are under mounting pressure to prove that AML compliance is continuous, evidenced and proportionate to risk. Regulators worldwide, including the FCA and FATF, now expect firms to maintain a live, documented view of customer risk across the entire client lifecycle rather than solely at onboarding. According to KYC360, the scale of recent enforcement action underlines the point: Nationwide...

Quensus, a smart water management technology company, has been awarded funding through the first round of the Water Efficiency Lab (WEL1) to deliver The WIN Initiative, a project designed to root out concealed water waste across commercial buildings. The initiative, formally titled Enabling Non-Household Water Reduction through an Action-Driven Water-Insurance Nexus, will pair live water consumption figures with occupancy intelligence...

ThetaRay, a provider of AI infrastructure for financial crime compliance, has named Luis Pinedo as its new chief strategic customers officer, a move designed to embed tier-one banking expertise at the heart of its product roadmap. Pinedo arrives from Santander Bank, where he spent 16 years and most recently served as group VP of compliance. During that period he directed...

Banyan Software, an acquirer and long-term operator of software companies, has taken a majority stake in WIZE, a Geneva-headquartered WealthTech that provides an all-in-one wealth and asset management platform. Under the deal, the equity holdings of WIZE's senior leadership will remain unchanged, with the team partnering with Banyan to support the business's next phase of growth. WIZE provides an integrated wealth...

Qualified trust service providers (QTSPs) are under no illusions about what 2027 will bring. Awareness of the eIDAS 2.0 deadlines is not the issue. The real danger lies in operational readiness, and it is here that many organisations are quietly falling behind. According to Hopae, Technical literacy across the market is already high. Most teams have a firm grasp of...