News/Finance
European fintech rebounds as VC funding recovers from 4-year slump
European venture capital investment in fintech is surging back to life after a three-year slump, with 2025 already reaching €6.3 billion—more than 70% of last year's total—according to PitchBook data. This resurgence reflects a fundamental shift in the European fintech landscape, where companies are now being built with resilience as a priority, operating in a more stable environment with normalized valuations and clearer regulatory frameworks. The revival signals not just recovery but transformation, as artificial intelligence and crypto regulation reshape the future of financial technology across the continent. The big picture: Europe's fintech sector is experiencing its strongest investment momentum...
read May 13, 2025AI-powered crypto trading bots still face major hurdles
Researchers have discovered a new attack that manipulates AI chatbots to steal cryptocurrency by implanting false memories, demonstrating a significant security vulnerability in autonomous AI agents. The exploit targets ElizaOS, an experimental framework designed to enable AI-powered agents to perform blockchain transactions based on predefined rules. This security flaw highlights the potentially catastrophic risks of deploying AI agents with financial capabilities before thoroughly addressing their inherent vulnerabilities. The big picture: The "context manipulation" attack allows adversaries to trick AI agents into redirecting cryptocurrency payments by simply typing a few sentences that create false memories within the system. The attack works...
read May 12, 2025Google and eToro debut AI-driven advertising partnership
eToro's collaboration with Google marks a significant milestone in AI-powered advertising with one of the first campaigns using Google DeepMind's Veo 2 technology. This partnership demonstrates how generative AI is transforming creative marketing production, enabling brands to create cinematic-quality videos from text prompts with realistic physics and expressions. The campaign represents a convergence of cutting-edge AI technology with traditional marketing strategies, potentially setting new standards for future advertising production. The big picture: eToro partnered with Google to create one of the first advertising campaigns using Veo 2, Google DeepMind's advanced AI video generation technology. The campaign features two 30-second videos...
read May 9, 2025American Express AI chief reveals strategy for lifestyle brand innovation
American Express is strategically modernizing its technology operations around AI and customer-focused innovation to differentiate itself in the financial services industry. The company's CIO outlines a progressive approach to leveraging generative AI while maintaining rigorous governance frameworks, revealing how American Express balances technological advancement with its core brand identity as both a payments company and lifestyle brand. The big picture: American Express CIO Radhakrishnan emphasizes technology's central role in delivering on the company's brand promise while working to establish the financial services provider as a technology differentiator. His comprehensive technology operation supports American Express as an integrated payments company that...
read May 9, 2025World Bank boosts Uttar Pradesh’s economy toward $1 trillion goal
Uttar Pradesh is launching an ambitious agriculture and AI initiative with World Bank support, targeting digital skills development and agricultural transformation in underserved regions. The dual programs represent a strategic push to leverage technology for economic growth while addressing regional disparities, positioning India's most populous state for participation in emerging technology sectors. The big picture: The Uttar Pradesh government has launched two major World Bank-backed initiatives – 'UP AGREES' and 'AI Pragya' – designed to revolutionize agriculture and build AI capabilities across the state. The UP AGREES project will deploy Rs 2,737 crore ($365 million) over six years to transform...
read May 7, 2025TransUnion’s AI-driven platform transformation led by Venkat Achanta
TransUnion is transforming from a traditional credit bureau into a modern platform enterprise by consolidating its fragmented technology infrastructure. Under the leadership of Venkat Achanta, who joined after the $3.1 billion Neustar acquisition, the company has developed OneTru—a unified platform that standardizes operations across its global network spanning 30 countries and 13,000 associates. This technology modernization represents a strategic shift for the $4.5 billion company as it evolves beyond data provision to becoming an insight-driven organization powered by advanced analytics and emerging AI capabilities. The big picture: TransUnion's technology infrastructure had become unwieldy with over 20 different tech stacks resulting...
read May 6, 2025AI firms Musk’s xAI, TWG Global and Palantir target finance industry
Elon Musk's xAI is forging a strategic partnership with Palantir Technologies and TWG Global to capitalize on surging AI demand within the financial services sector. This collaboration represents a growing trend of tech companies forming alliances to integrate advanced AI capabilities into enterprise operations, particularly in finance and insurance where data-driven decision making is becoming increasingly critical. The big picture: xAI is partnering with data analytics firm Palantir Technologies and investment firm TWG Global to develop AI solutions specifically for the financial services and insurance industries. The collaboration will integrate xAI's Grok family of large language models and its Colossus...
read May 5, 2025Agents with expense accounts? How AI may soon access your Visa card data
Visa is pioneering a significant shift in electronic payments by connecting its vast financial network directly with AI agent technology. Through partnerships with leading AI developers like OpenAI, Microsoft, and Anthropic, Visa aims to enable autonomous AI models to handle consumer transactions based on user preferences and budget constraints. This development represents a major step toward AI-mediated commerce that could fundamentally change how consumers interact with financial services. The big picture: Visa's "Intelligent Commerce" initiative connects its payment infrastructure directly to AI systems from major tech companies, allowing AI agents to make purchases without human intervention. After six months of...
read Apr 30, 2025NVIDIA data scientist Benika Hall turns fantasy sports into fraud detection
Benika Hall's journey from fantasy sports enthusiast to senior data scientist at NVIDIA showcases how passion projects can evolve into professional expertise with real-world impact. Her story illustrates the increasing integration of AI in financial services and highlights how diverse backgrounds contribute to innovation in tech. Hall's work in graph neural networks and knowledge graphs represents cutting-edge applications of AI that are transforming fraud detection and information retrieval in the financial industry. The big picture: Hall's career path demonstrates how specialized knowledge in AI can transfer across industries, from sports analytics to banking and technology. While pursuing graduate degrees in...
read Apr 24, 2025AI powers Chinese tech giant ZTE’s Q1 results, company reports
Chinese tech giant ZTE is leveraging artificial intelligence across its business segments to drive financial growth and expand its market position. The company's Q1 2025 results demonstrate how strategic AI integration is helping technology providers diversify revenue streams beyond traditional telecommunications infrastructure, particularly as global demand for AI-powered solutions accelerates across enterprise and consumer markets. The big picture: ZTE reported CNY 32.97 billion ($4.50 billion) in Q1 2025 revenue, representing a 7.8% year-over-year increase as the company successfully capitalized on AI-driven market opportunities. Net profit reached CNY 2.45 billion, reflecting the company's successful execution of its AI strategy across multiple...
read Apr 23, 2025Visa boosts security with AI-powered data retrieval
Visa's enterprise-level deployment of generative AI showcases how financial giants can implement cutting-edge technology while maintaining strict security protocols. By building a protected, multi-model AI environment behind its firewall, Visa has accelerated critical business processes while addressing the natural tensions between innovation, security, and regulatory compliance in the financial sector. The big picture: Visa has developed a secure generative AI system that operates within its company firewall, allowing employees to use AI tools while protecting sensitive financial data. The company's "Secure ChatGPT" runs internally on Microsoft Azure, featuring controlled input and output screening to prevent data leakage. This implementation addresses...
read Apr 17, 2025AI boosts accuracy in predicting European Central Bank decisions, study finds
A new study reveals that artificial intelligence can significantly improve forecasting accuracy for European Central Bank policy decisions, providing a technological edge in predicting monetary moves. By analyzing ECB communications through specialized text analysis, researchers have developed a model that extracts valuable signals from central bank language, demonstrating how AI can decode the carefully crafted messaging that shapes financial markets. The big picture: AI text analysis models can boost the accuracy of ECB interest rate prediction from 70% to 80%, according to research from the German Institute for Economic Research DIW Berlin. How it works: Researchers created a specialized AI...
read Apr 16, 2025TCS CEO addresses uncertainty without panic in tech sector
TCS is reporting strong order bookings despite economic uncertainties, with AI-related projects emerging as a bright spot in client spending. The IT services giant's CEO K. Krithivasan points to solid demand from North America and the banking sector, indicating that while some caution exists, clients remain committed to technology investments, particularly those focused on artificial intelligence capabilities. The big picture: TCS closed its latest quarter with an impressive $12.2 billion order book, suggesting continued strength in enterprise technology spending despite economic headwinds. Key details: While some client programs are temporarily on hold, the TCS chief executive reports no widespread cancellations...
read Apr 13, 2025Report: Global regulators warn AI could enable unprecedented market manipulation
Global financial regulators are sounding the alarm about artificial intelligence's potential to destabilize capital markets through unprecedented forms of market manipulation and systemic risk. The International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) has identified critical vulnerabilities where AI could enable sophisticated market abuses that current regulatory frameworks aren't equipped to detect or prevent. This warning is particularly significant for AI safety researchers concerned about superintelligence scenarios where control of financial markets could be a pathway to catastrophic outcomes. The big picture: IOSCO's comprehensive report outlines how AI technologies present novel risks to global financial market integrity through their potential to enable...
read Apr 10, 2025Deloitte launches Zora AI platform to automate finance and business tasks
It's Zora the Financial Explora! Deloitte launches Zora AI, a new agentic platform that can autonomously complete tasks across finance, human capital, supply chain, and other business functions. This latest development reflects the growing enterprise adoption of agentic AI, with PwC estimating that generative AI could contribute up to $4.4 trillion annually to global GDP by 2030. The Nvidia-powered platform aims to facilitate collaboration between AI agents and human employees while maintaining ethical safeguards through Deloitte's Trustworthy AI principles. The big picture: Deloitte's Zora AI platform offers specialized digital agents that can work autonomously across multiple business functions while integrating...
read Apr 9, 2025Palantir partners with TWG Global to streamline AI for financial services
Palantir is expanding its AI reach into the financial services sector through a strategic joint venture with TWG Global, the investment firm of billionaires Mark Walter and Thomas Tull. The partnership aims to transform how financial institutions deploy AI by offering a comprehensive solution that replaces the current fragmented approach where banks and asset managers use multiple AI vendors. This collaboration signals Palantir's ambition to capture market share in one of the most lucrative technology customer segments. The big picture: Palantir Technologies and TWG Global announced a joint venture Wednesday that aims to "redefine AI deployment" across the financial services...
read Apr 7, 2025SoftBank acquires Ampere Computing for $6.5 billion to boost AI infrastructure
SoftBank's $6.5 billion acquisition of Ampere Computing marks a strategic expansion of its AI infrastructure investments, advancing the semiconductor giant's computing capabilities at a critical time for AI development. The all-cash transaction, which will see Ampere become a wholly-owned subsidiary while maintaining its brand identity, represents another major semiconductor play for SoftBank following its $32 billion Arm acquisition in 2016. The big picture: SoftBank Group is acquiring silicon design company Ampere Computing for $6.5 billion in an all-cash transaction, further strengthening its position in AI computing infrastructure. Upon completion, Ampere will continue operating under its existing name as a wholly...
read Apr 7, 2025Survey: One-third of employees pay for AI tools out of pocket for work
A third of employees are paying out of pocket for AI tools at work, highlighting a grassroots adoption trend that organizations should recognize and formalize. This "bring-your-own-AI" movement demonstrates the immediate productivity value workers see in generative AI, particularly in industries like financial services and healthcare where creating and manipulating words, images, numbers, and sounds (WINS) represents a significant portion of work. The big picture: Employee-driven AI adoption is creating a shadow IT ecosystem as workers independently invest in productivity-enhancing AI tools despite lack of formal corporate support. The survey by writer.com reveals 35% of employees personally pay for AI...
read Apr 7, 2025NatWest partners with OpenAI to transform UK banking with AI-powered services
NatWest's new partnership with OpenAI marks a significant milestone in the UK banking sector's adoption of artificial intelligence for customer service and fraud prevention. The collaboration gives the British bank early access to OpenAI's technology pipeline and specialized consulting services, positioning NatWest at the forefront of AI integration in financial services. This strategic alliance comes as banks globally seek to leverage AI to reduce operational costs, enhance customer experience, and combat the rising threat of financial fraud. The big picture: NatWest and OpenAI have formed a first-of-its-kind partnership in the UK banking sector to enhance digital assistants and customer support...
read Apr 7, 2025Cheshire East Council eyes £60 million AI savings amid financial struggles
Cash-strapped Cheshire East Council is exploring artificial intelligence as a potential financial lifeline, with an internal report claiming AI implementation could save the local authority between £40-60 million over five years. This initiative comes at a critical time for the council, which has faced ongoing financial difficulties requiring exceptional government support for two consecutive years, making AI adoption a potentially significant strategy in its broader transformation plan. The big picture: An internal assessment by Cheshire East Council identifies artificial intelligence as a source of substantial potential savings across multiple service areas. The report suggests AI implementation could generate between £40-60...
read Apr 4, 2025Why AI FinOps is becoming essential for controlling generative AI costs
The rapid adoption of artificial intelligence, particularly generative AI, is reshaping enterprise operations while introducing significant financial challenges. As AI services become essential business tools, organizations face complex cost structures across cloud platforms that demand strategic management. Financial Operations (FinOps) practices are emerging as a critical framework for maintaining cost efficiency while maximizing AI's business value. The big picture: The resource-intensive nature of AI services requires organizations to develop comprehensive FinOps strategies to prevent runaway costs while still leveraging AI's transformative potential. Cloud providers like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud offer extensive AI capabilities that consume substantial CPU/GPU resources and...
read Apr 3, 2025India’s AI regulation for securities markets falls short, putting retail investors at risk
Dabba-Dabba-Do...something, about the state of Indian finance. India's securities market regulator SEBI has shifted responsibility for AI outcomes to market participants, but this regulatory approach falls far short of addressing the enormous risks in a market where retail investors lose billions and "dabba" trading flourishes outside regulatory oversight. The sheer scale of India's derivatives market—with NSE being the world's largest derivatives exchange—combined with poor retail investor outcomes creates a volatile environment where AI-driven disruptions could significantly impact India's economic growth and stability. The big picture: SEBI's February 2025 amendment to its Intermediaries Regulations holds regulated entities accountable for outcomes generated...
read Apr 3, 2025SaaStr 2025 CFO summit to explore how AI is transforming finance leadership
The 2025 SaaStr Annual CFO Summit will explore how autonomous AI is redefining finance leadership, shifting the role from traditional controlling to strategic orchestration of growth and automation. As agentic AI increasingly handles back-office tasks, this exclusive gathering of 200+ finance leaders and AI experts will examine how smaller teams, faster decision-making, and automated processes are becoming competitive advantages in modern finance. The big picture: The May 2025 event positions finance automation as a transformative force that's fundamentally changing the CFO role into something closer to a Chief Automation Officer. The summit will bring together elite financial leaders including OpenAI's...
read Apr 1, 2025Slow, controlled burn: Experian’s 20-year AI strategy expanded credit access to 26 million Americans
Experian's multi-decade AI strategy has transformed the credit bureau into an AI-powered platform company, leveraging advanced capabilities long before generative AI became mainstream. The company's methodical approach to AI integration has improved business operations while expanding financial access to approximately 26 million previously excluded Americans—demonstrating how strategic, long-term AI development can create both business value and positive societal impact. The big picture: While many enterprises rushed to adopt AI following ChatGPT's 2022 debut, Experian has been methodically building AI capabilities for nearly 20 years, creating a foundation that enabled rapid capitalization on recent generative AI breakthroughs. The credit bureau has...
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