Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has fined a responsible officer at a licensed securities firm HK$1m and handed down a four-and-a-half-year industry ban following findings of serious misconduct linked to matched trading and undisclosed accounts. MCO (MyComplianceOffice), which unifies compliance functions in a single system, recently explored how SFC enforcement highlights trading oversight gaps. This disciplinary action stems from...

The financial advice industry has spent a decade asking the wrong question. According to analysis from Kidbrooke, the debate over whether automated systems will replace human advisors fundamentally misunderstands what both are capable of and the firms winning right now are the ones that have stopped picking sides. Pure robo-advisors made a compelling entrance. Algorithmically managed portfolios at a fraction...

Generative AI has long dazzled with its technical capabilities, but the real economic question, as analysts at Prometeia point out, is whether it can translate those capabilities into broad, measurable productivity gains across firms, sectors and workers. Early empirical evidence is promising. Research cited by Prometeia shows that in tasks such as writing, coding and text analysis, generative AI can...

Global ETF assets climbed to $21.24 trillion by February 2026, up 7% year-to-date, as investors continue pouring capital into both traditional and alternative strategies, according to a report from LSEG Data & Analytics. Among the fastest-growing corners of this market are alternative ETFs, which attracted nearly $130bn in net inflows during 2025 alone, cementing their position as the third largest...

UnblockPay, a Brazil-founded stablecoin-native banking and payments platform, has closed a $4.5m seed funding round to fuel its international growth and product development. The round was led by Prelude, with additional backing from Plug and Play, Wintermute, Reverie, Signature Ventures, Triaxis Capital, and Crescera Capital. Angel investors from Stone, Zoop, and iFood also took part in the raise. The fresh capital...

Zamp, a sales tax compliance platform positioning itself as the operating system for sales tax, has raised a total of $30m to accelerate the development of its platform and expand its accounting firm partnerships. The most recent funding round was led by Acrew Capital, with participation from Thomson Reuters Ventures and a number of Zamp's accounting firm partners. They join...

eToro, the trading and investing platform, has launched an upgraded version of its Club Subscription, giving users in the UK and EU immediate access to its Platinum+ membership tier, benefits previously reserved for those holding a balance of $50,000 or more. The new subscription is priced at £14.99 per month or £149.99 annually, with a seven-day free trial available. The...

BridgeWise, a global AI-driven WealthTech firm, has announced a strategic partnership with X to deliver institutional-grade social sentiment analysis across thousands of securities to investors and financial institutions worldwide. The collaboration leverages an API integration that feeds X's real-time data stream directly into BridgeWise's intelligence engine. The platform processes this unstructured social data through the company's proprietary S-Factor™ framework to...

Wealth portfolios have grown dramatically more complicated over the past decade. Across family offices, private banks and asset managers, investments now stretch well beyond traditional equities and bonds. Private equity funds, real estate projects, infrastructure holdings and a range of alternative assets increasingly sit alongside public securities within the same portfolio. For the professionals responsible for overseeing that wealth, the operational...

The Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) has fined Bank of Ireland UK £3,779,300 after the lender failed to implement Confirmation of Payee (CoP) by its regulatory deadline, leaving more than a million customers without a key anti-fraud safeguard for over a year. According to Alessa, the fine, issued on 19 February 2026, came after the bank activated CoP send functionality in...