Clearstream, the post-trade services arm of Deutsche Börse Group, said Monday that it has expanded its cryptocurrency custody offering to include six additional digital assets. The firm has broadened access for institutional clients seeking regulated exposure to a wider range of cryptocurrencies. The new additions, Ripple (XRP), Cardano (ADA), Solana (SOL), Litecoin (LTC), Stellar (XLM) and Avalanche (AVAX), join Bitcoin and Ether, which were already supported under Clearstream’s fully regulated crypto custody service launched last year. The service operates using Crypto Finance as sub-custodian, a MiCAR-regulated entity also within the Deutsche Börse Group, ensuring the expanded offering remains compliant with the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation framework. Clearstream said the expansion caters to the “growing importance of MiCA-compliant crypto assets in institutional finance” and is designed to bridge the gap between traditional financial infrastructure and the crypto asset world.  By integrating the new currencies within its established custody infrastructure, Clearstream is positioning itself to meet increasing institutional demand for compliant digital asset services within a trusted, regulated environment. “This development further broadens client choice in the field of crypto asset integration within established, trusted custody infrastructure, bridging the gap between traditional finance and the crypto asset world,” stated Clearstream.The post Clearstream Expands Crypto Custody to 6 New Digital Assets first appeared on LeapRate | Online Trading Industry News, Broker Intelligence & Fintech Analysis.

Klarna (NYSE: KLAR), the global digital bank and flexible payments provider, has submitted applications to the Utah Department of Financial Institutions and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to establish Klarna Bank USA, a proposed Utah-chartered industrial bank. The Swedish fintech has operated as a licensed bank in Europe since 2017, but in the U.S. it has relied on partner banks to serve customers. Since 2019, Klarna has extended over $91.3 billion in credit to American consumers, saving them more than $5.1 billion in interest compared to revolving credit card debt. The company says 30 million Americans use its services annually, alongside hundreds of thousands of merchants. Sebastian Siemiatkowski, co-founder and CEO of Klarna, said the move reflects growing demand for a more transparent alternative to traditional credit products in the U.S. “Our own banking license is the natural next step, giving customers tools to borrow responsibly and build financial confidence, while bringing greater competition, innovation, and choice to consumers and merchants alike,” he said. If regulators approve the application, Klarna Bank USA would operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Klarna Inc., with its own board and governance structure, and FDIC insurance. The charter would allow Klarna to bring existing banking functions in-house, covering payments, savings, credit and merchant services. Gary Harding, formerly Chairman and CEO of Milestone Bank and President and CEO of Prime Alliance Bank, has been named President and CEO of Klarna Bank USA. The company said it will work closely with regulators throughout the review process.The post Klarna Files for U.S. Banking License, Eyes Utah Charter first appeared on LeapRate | Online Trading Industry News, Broker Intelligence & Fintech Analysis.

The Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA) has issued a public warning against six companies offering crypto-asset services in Belgium without the required authorization. The regulator named Aurum Foundation, Bank Bit, Bithf Pro, Dxago, Global Dynamic Trade, and ZeriaFunding as firms operating illegally in the country. All six have now been added to the FSMA’s list of fraudulent crypto-asset service providers (CASPs), though the authority stressed that the list is not exhaustive and is updated regularly. The warning comes under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), which took full effect at the end of 2024. Under MiCA, any firm offering crypto-asset services within the EU must hold authorization as a CASP from the competent supervisory authority in its home member state. New providers have needed this status since December 30, 2024, while existing firms were given a transitional period that expired on July 1, 2026. The FSMA urged consumers to verify a company’s authorization status through the official CASP register before using its services. It also reminded the public of the inherent risks of crypto-assets, including sharp price volatility, limited market liquidity, and misleading promotion via social media. Unlike traditional financial products, crypto-assets carry no compensation scheme for losses. The authority also warned against so-called “recovery rooms” that target previous scam victims with further fraudulent offers.The post Belgium’s FSMA Warns Against Six Unauthorized Crypto Firms first appeared on LeapRate | Online Trading Industry News, Broker Intelligence & Fintech Analysis.

Standard Chartered announced Monday the launch of a new sub-fund under its Variable Capital Company (VCC) platform, with BlackRock serving as sub-manager for the strategy. The Signature Select APAC Allocation Plus fund is an Asia-focused multi-asset strategy built to give investors broad exposure to the Asia Pacific region through a single solution. The fund invests across equities, fixed income and liquid alternatives, aiming to deliver long-term capital appreciation alongside income generation. The portfolio draws on BlackRock’s Multi-Asset Strategies and Solutions expertise, dynamically allocating across asset classes in Asia Pacific. It combines systematic equity insights with fundamental fixed income selection, seeking diversified sources of return across different market cycles. The fund will be offered to Accredited and Professional Investors within Standard Chartered’s Priority, Priority Private, and Private Banking segments in Hong Kong, Singapore, the UAE, Jersey, Malaysia, Kenya, and Nigeria, with additional markets expected to follow. Sumeet Bhambri, Global Head, Advisory and Managed Investments, Wealth Solutions at Standard Chartered, said the launch deepens the bank’s collaboration with BlackRock, combining an open architecture platform with global multi-asset capabilities to give clients an institutional-quality, diversified solution for the region. Andrew Landman, Deputy Head of Asia Pacific and Head of Asia Pacific Wealth at BlackRock, said strong economic growth prospects across Asia Pacific, alongside underappreciated assets, present compelling opportunities for active investing. Standard Chartered established its VCC platform in June 2024 to bring together leading fund managers and its own asset class specialists, delivering custom-curated strategies exclusively to its clients. This marks the bank’s eighth sub-fund launch to date and its third in 2026.The post Standard Chartered Launches Signature Select APAC Allocation Plus Fund with BlackRock first appeared on LeapRate | Online Trading Industry News, Broker Intelligence & Fintech Analysis.

TradingView has announced an expansion of its market data offering, integrating official data from S&P Dow Jones Indices (S&P DJI), one of the world’s leading index providers. The move gives traders and investors a new layer of tools to interpret market movements, spot broader trends, and refine their strategies. Indices have long served as essential barometers for market performance. Since the Dow Jones Industrial Average was introduced in 1896, investors have relied on such benchmarks to track market direction, with the S&P 500 later emerging as a standard measure of portfolio performance. Building on this legacy, S&P DJI now offers a wide array of benchmarks covering global, regional, and country-level markets. Through the new integration, TradingView users can access official S&P DJI data directly on the platform, with several benchmarks appearing on TradingView for the first time. Among the notable additions is the Dow Jones Global Titans 50, which tracks the performance of the world’s largest and most highly capitalized multinational blue-chip companies. Also included is the S&P Global 1200, a broad benchmark covering roughly 70 percent of global market capitalization, alongside numerous other indices designed to support deeper market analysis. This addition is another step in TradingView’s ongoing effort to broaden its data offerings, giving traders more comprehensive tools to put price action into context and make more informed decisions across global markets.The post TradingView Adds S&P Dow Jones Indices Data for Enhanced Market Analysis first appeared on LeapRate | Online Trading Industry News, Broker Intelligence & Fintech Analysis.

If you run a brokerage, you already know that 2026 feels harder to manage than a few years ago. The client volumes are higher. The partner networks are bigger. The trading products are more diverse. The markets are moving faster. And the technology stack you are running, built up piece by piece over the years, was never really designed to handle all of this at once. Operations genuinely are more complex in 2026, and the gap between brokers who are managing that complexity well and those who are constantly firefighting has never been wider. The difference is rarely about team quality or commercial strategy. It is almost always about infrastructure. We will walk through five operational areas where complexity is showing most clearly right now. If any of them feel familiar from your own business, the final section of this article explains what brokers who have addressed them are doing differently. One: Risk Is Moving Faster Than Your Team Can Respond When gold moves three percent in an afternoon, or a geopolitical headline drops during an Asian session, your dealing team faces a specific problem. The risk event is already happening. The exposure is already building. And the process of identifying the risk, deciding what to do, logging into the trading infrastructure, and making the change takes time that the market is not going to wait for. Most brokers are still managing this manually. A team member sees the move, makes a call, and implements a response. That person might be excellent at their job. But manual processes have a speed ceiling, and in 2026 the markets are regularly moving faster than that ceiling allows. The practical cost shows up in several ways. Stop out clusters that formed before the desk could tighten margin. Exposure that concentrated beyond the NOP limit before anyone noticed. Leverage settings that applied uniformly to a client who had grown their position from 5 lots to 50 lots without any automatic adjustment to reflect the different risk they now represented to the book. Preconfiguring rules that execute automatically when defined conditions are met is not a luxury reserved for large brokers with dedicated technology teams. It is the operational baseline for any broker who wants to manage risk in today’s markets without creating unsustainable pressure on the dealing desk. Two: Your IB Network Is Growing but Your Visibility Is Not IB networks are one of the most powerful growth channels available to a brokerage. When they work well, they drive consistent client acquisition, expand geographic reach, and generate trading volume at a cost that direct acquisition cannot match. When they scale beyond the infrastructure managing them, they become a source of operational friction that accumulates quietly until it becomes expensive. The pattern is familiar to most brokers who have been operating for more than a few years. The network grows. There are now 30, 40, 50 partners with different commission structures, different performance profiles, and different quality of client referral. The broker is managing all of it through a combination of spreadsheets, manual calculations, and periodic partner calls. The problems this creates are predictable. Commission errors that damage relationships with the partners who matter most. Overpayments to partners whose clients have low trading activity or leave quickly. No ability to see in real time which partners are sending high value, actively trading clients and which are inflating registration numbers with traffic that never converts or deposits meaningfully. The commercial consequence is significant. You are spending on partner relationships without reliable data on which ones are genuinely profitable. You are structuring incentives without visibility into which behaviours you are actually rewarding. Growing an IB network without growing the infrastructure to manage it is not a growth strategy. At some point the friction becomes expensive enough to limit what the network can actually deliver. Three: Copy Trading Is Harder to Manage Than It Looks Copy trading is a commercially attractive product. It drives platform engagement, creates a community dynamic, attracts clients who want market exposure without the burden of full active management, and generates consistent volume from follower accounts. Most brokers who offer it are glad they do. The operational challenge is that it is significantly harder to manage at scale than it is to set up. When a popular strategy provider takes a significant drawdown, every follower account experiences it simultaneously. For a broker with no real time visibility into follower concentration across strategies, this is not a risk that shows up gradually. It shows up as a simultaneous spike in withdrawal requests, margin events, and client service pressure that all arrive at the same moment, with no warning and no time to prepare a response. The broker who has real time visibility into which strategies are carrying concentrated follower exposure, and what instrument positions those strategies are holding, has options when a market reversal begins. The broker who has no visibility learns about the problem when the withdrawal requests arrive. By that point, the options are limited. Four: Bonus Campaigns Are Costing More Than You Think Bonus campaigns are active again across the global markets. Used well, they attract genuine depositing traders who go on to trade actively for months. Used without precision, they attract a different kind of client entirely: one who deposits to claim the bonus, trades the minimum required to meet the withdrawal condition, and leaves. The cost of imprecise bonus management does not appear immediately. It builds across the weeks a campaign is running, accumulating quietly in the form of bonus liability that is not generating proportional spread revenue, until a month end finance review reveals that a significant portion of the campaign budget produced no meaningful trading activity. By that point, the campaign has already run. The adjustment, if it happens at all, applies to the next one. The information to catch these patterns early exists in your trading infrastructure. It just needs to be watched in real time against your campaign terms, which requires the campaign management layer and the trading data layer to be connected in a way that most brokerages have not yet built. Five: Disconnected Systems Are Creating Invisible Costs The average forex or CFD broker in 2026 is running between five and seven separate operational systems. A trading environment on MT4 or MT5. A CRM that manages leads and onboarding. An IB and Affiliate portal that tracks partner activity. A risk dashboard. A bonus or campaign platform. A MAM or PAMM system for managed accounts. A copy trading environment. Each was chosen for a reason. Each works for the purpose it was built for. What does not work is the space between them. When your CRM does not connect to your trading activity, your retention team is making decisions with incomplete information. When your IB commission data sits in a portal that does not connect to your finance system, reconciliation requires manual work that takes time and introduces errors. When your risk data is in a dashboard that updates on a delay because it pulls from a separate system, your desk is always one step behind the market. None of these individual gaps is catastrophic on its own. Together, they represent a consistent drain on operational capacity that accumulates across every working day, in every team, across every client interaction. The cost is real. It just rarely appears as a single line item. What Brokers Who Are Managing This Well Are Doing Differently The brokers who are managing these five pressure points most effectively in 2026 are not necessarily larger or better resourced than those who are struggling with them. They have made a deliberate decision to invest in connected operational infrastructure that addresses these challenges systematically rather than managing each one individually as it surfaces. That investment is not about replacing everything that already works. It is about connecting the functions that currently operate in isolation, automating the processes that should not require human intervention, and building the visibility layer that gives every part of the business the information it needs to make good decisions without manual effort. PLUGIT works with forex and CFD brokers to understand their specific operational setup and identify the gaps that are limiting performance. If any of the five areas above resonated with what you are experiencing in your own business, we would like to have that conversation. The starting point is simple, tell us what your biggest operational challenge is right now, and we will show you what addressing it looks like in practice. Discover how leading brokers are improving operational visibility and control. Speak with a PLUGIT specialist.The post Why Brokerage Operations Are Becoming More Complex in 2026. A PLUGIT Perspective first appeared on LeapRate | Online Trading Industry News, Broker Intelligence & Fintech Analysis.

cBridge, Spotware’s standalone liquidity bridge, has partnered with Tapaas, a real-time risk intelligence platform for FX and CFD brokers. The partnership connects cBridge trading and execution data with live analytics covering exposure, execution quality, client behaviour and profitability. The partnership brings together two innovative technologies built to solve the operational pain points of modern brokers. cBridge delivers real-time price aggregation and flexible order routing across connected trading platforms and liquidity providers. Its modular architecture lets brokers scale trading volumes and maintain individual components without interrupting live trading.  Tapaas analyses risk for dozens of brokers, covering tens of trillions in trading flow in real time. According to Tapaas, a trade can be received, processed and presented on its platform in under 10 milliseconds. Beyond the technology, cBridge and Tapaas share a common view on pricing: brokers shouldn’t be penalised for growing. Neither model is tied directly to trading volume. cBridge prices the infrastructure required to run the bridge, while Tapaas prices according to the number of integrations. That matters for larger brokers dealing with significant month-to-month volume swings, and equally for newer brokers who need to keep budget free for growth, client acquisition and building out operations.  As Jonathan Squires, CEO of Tapaas, put it: “If you’re penalising one of your clients for growth, your incentives are not aligned.” For brokers, the integration connects cBridge trading and execution data with Tapaas’ real-time analytics. Exposure, open positions and PnL are visible in real time – so brokers can react faster to market movements and reduce risk events. Execution quality, flow behaviour and LP performance help trading departments make better liquidity and routing decisions. At the same time, profitability data by client, instrument and book helps brokers understand what generates or erodes revenue. The partnership benefits both scaling brokers and newer market entrants. Established brokers get the combination of Tapaas’ real-time risk intelligence and Spotware’s deep in-house expertise behind cBridge, helping their teams work through complex trading activity and catch operational issues early. Newer brokers, in turn, can start with proven technology that helps them avoid overcomplicating their infrastructure. Jonathan Squires, CEO of Tapaas, commented: “When it comes to cBridge, they have a distinct advantage over other bridges. They have a long, successful history in trading platforms. They know brokers back to front, and they know their pains, their problem areas and their bottlenecks. The product has been built by people who understand those pain points and know how the system is used in practice.” Alexis Droussiotis, co-General Manager at cBridge, added: “cBridge provides the execution and connectivity layer, while Tapaas adds the real-time intelligence brokers need to understand the risk, performance and profitability behind that flow. Together, the integration gives dealing and risk teams clearer visibility to make faster, better-informed decisions as markets move.” With Tapaas’ real-time risk analytics and cBridge’s modern bridge technology, brokers gain a stronger foundation to manage growth, stay on top of operations and keep their execution infrastructure under control. A bridge shows where a trade goes. Risk intelligence shows what happens next. About cBridge cBridge by Spotware is a fixed-price liquidity bridge, eliminating volume fees and hidden charges entirely. It is a platform-agnostic solution that connects MT4, MT5, cTrader and FIX API trading platforms to multiple liquidity providers. cBridge delivers real-time price aggregation, flexible order routing and integrated risk management controls, while providing exposure monitoring, execution management and reporting. Its modular architecture helps brokers scale as trading volumes grow and allows individual components to be maintained without interrupting trading. It uses transparent, infrastructure-based pricing, helping CFD brokerages reduce infrastructure costs.The post cBridge partners with Tapaas to bring brokers real-time risk intelligence first appeared on LeapRate | Online Trading Industry News, Broker Intelligence & Fintech Analysis.

Australia’s Federal Court has ordered ASX Limited to pay a A$20.5 million penalty after the exchange operator admitted making a misleading statement about the progress of its CHESS replacement project. The penalty follows ASX’s admission that a 10 February 2022 market announcement stating the project was “progressing well” was misleading.  Just six weeks later, ASX acknowledged there was a strong likelihood of delays, and by November 2022, the project had been paused entirely, with the exchange writing off approximately A$245–255 million in project costs. Justice Markovic said ASX, as “a gatekeeper for preserving the integrity of, and confidence in, Australia’s financial system,” should have been “setting a benchmark for accuracy and transparency in its own market disclosures” and had “fallen short of those standards.”  ASX was also ordered to pay A$3 million toward the Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s legal costs. ASIC Chair Sarah Court said listed entities “must be accurate and transparent when updating the market on significant projects, particularly where delays and risks have the potential to affect confidence, investment and decision-making across the market,” adding that the responsibility is “even greater” for market operators. The CHESS replacement project, which commenced in 2016–17 and was originally planned to go live in April 2023, aimed to replace ASX’s clearing and settlement system using distributed ledger technology. A revised two-stage solution saw clearing services go live in April 2026.The post ASX Fined A$20.5 million for Misleading Market Over CHESS Replacement Project first appeared on LeapRate | Online Trading Industry News, Broker Intelligence & Fintech Analysis.

Multi-asset CFD broker Vantage has launched XAUUSD247, a new over-the-counter gold CFD product available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, including weekends. The move comes as demand for round-the-clock precious metals trading continues to grow and as the CME Group recently announced plans to expand trading of certain gold futures contracts to 24/7.  Vantage said XAUUSD247 is a distinct OTC CFD product and is not linked to CME’s planned offering. Marc Despallieres, Chief Executive of Vantage, said the product “provides eligible clients with access to gold CFDs beyond standard market hours, supported by transparent product mechanics and clearly defined trading controls.” XAUUSD247 uses a one-ounce contract size, significantly smaller than the 100-ounce contract size of Vantage’s standard XAUUSD product, making it more accessible for retail traders.  No separate trading commission applies, though the firm cautioned that spreads, financing charges and other applicable costs may be levied. Tiered leverage of up to 100 times is available subject to position size, account type and applicable conditions. Vantage added that XAUUSD247 is available through MT5, TradingView and the Vantage App, subject to scheduled platform maintenance and regional availability.  The product page is set to go live on 6 July.The post Vantage Launches 24/7 Gold CFD Product first appeared on LeapRate | Online Trading Industry News, Broker Intelligence & Fintech Analysis.

Pepperstone confirmed on Friday the appointment of Reed Sayer as its new Head of UK. Sayer joins from XTB, where he spent more than ten years building his career, most recently holding the position of Head of UK Sales. Over the course of his decade-plus tenure in financial services, he is said to have developed in-depth expertise in online trading and financial markets and is well regarded for his client-focused approach and commercial understanding. In his new position, Sayer will lead the UK arm’s growth agenda, oversee client relationships, and advance the company’s expansion plans in the domestic market. “This is a really exciting moment for Pepperstone’s UK business, and I’m thrilled to be part of it. There’s a brilliant team here, and I can’t wait to bring my experience to the table and help take things to the next level,” commented Sayer. Marc Boever, who leads Pepperstone’s operations across EMEA, welcomed the appointment, pointing to Sayer’s proven commercial track record and established reputation within UK trading circles as key assets for the business going forward. The timing of the hire is notable, arriving shortly after Pepperstone’s UK division earned top honors across several categories in the Investment Trends Leveraged Trading Report 2026, including first-place rankings for value for money and spreads. The appointment also follows a strong financial year for the UK unit, which saw profit before tax nearly double.The post Pepperstone Names Reed Sayer as New Head of UK first appeared on LeapRate | Online Trading Industry News, Broker Intelligence & Fintech Analysis.

Italy’s securities regulator Consob has ordered the blocking of six additional websites found to be illegally offering investment services in financial instruments, according to a press release dated July 3, 2026. The blocked sites include “Mir-Partner” and its related domains, “Capital Trading Group” along with its associated page, “Gravmor” and its linked portals, White Mint Financial Company sro (operating as algosone.ai), AxiTrader LLC (operating under axi.com and related client portals), and “Trilessyum” together with its connected webtrader page. With this latest action, Consob has now blocked a total of 1,763 websites since July 2019, when it was first granted authority to order such blocks against unauthorized financial intermediaries. Of that total, 217 relate specifically to crypto-asset activities. Internet service providers in Italy are in the process of implementing the blocks, though Consob noted that technical delays mean full enforcement could take several days. The regulator urged savers to exercise caution before investing, recommending they verify that any platform offering investment or crypto-asset services is properly authorized and that a prospectus or white paper has been published where required. Consob also flagged a rise in increasingly sophisticated scam tactics, including cloned emails and websites, fake profiles impersonating public figures, and AI-generated content such as fabricated images, voices, and videos designed to manipulate investors into poor decisions.The post Consob Blocks Six Websites Over Illegal Financial Activity first appeared on LeapRate | Online Trading Industry News, Broker Intelligence & Fintech Analysis.

Standard Chartered has launched a new capability allowing institutional clients to mint and redeem USDC directly, marking the first time a Global Systemically Important Bank (G-SIB) has offered such integrated access to the stablecoin. The service was developed in partnership with Circle Internet Group, Inc. (NYSE: CRCL), the issuer of USDC. The offering allows eligible clients to access USDC through a single onboarding and service experience, removing the need to hold direct accounts with Circle. By connecting fiat banking, digital asset infrastructure and public blockchain networks, the bank aims to give institutions faster, more transparent ways to move value across traditional and digital markets. Use cases include on-chain settlement, treasury and liquidity management, with payment-related applications expected to follow. The capability is initially available to clients through Standard Chartered’s DIFC operations in Dubai, reinforcing the UAE’s ambitions as a hub for regulated digital asset activity. It represents the first phase of the bank’s broader global stablecoin strategy, with plans to expand into further markets pending regulatory approval. Roberto Hoornweg, CEO of Corporate and Investment Banking at Standard Chartered, said the launch reflects growing institutional demand for the same governance and trust standards found in traditional markets, now extended to digital assets. Kash Razzaghi, Chief Commercial Officer at Circle, said the partnership gives institutions a trusted route into blockchain enabled finance while maintaining compliance and risk standards. The launch is part of Standard Chartered’s wider digital assets push spanning banking, markets, custody and digital infrastructure.The post Standard Chartered Becomes First G-SIB to Offer Integrated USDC Access first appeared on LeapRate | Online Trading Industry News, Broker Intelligence & Fintech Analysis.

Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEX) announced on Friday that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Hong Kong Futures Exchange Limited (HKFE), has entered into a data licensing agreement with ChinaBond Pricing Center Co., Ltd. (CBPC) to support the upcoming launch of 5-Year China Government Bond (CGB) Futures in Hong Kong. Under the agreement, CBPC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of China Central Depository & Clearing Co, will license bond valuation data to HKFE and provide price calculation services. The move is intended to support the CGB Futures launch, which is targeted for 3 August 2026. Gregory Yu, HKEX Head of Markets, commented on the partnership, saying it marks an important milestone for the exchange as it works to expand its fixed income offerings and support the broader internationalisation of the RMB. He noted that the collaboration would provide critical data infrastructure for the new RMB interest rate risk management tool, while also boosting the global visibility of China’s bond valuation benchmarks. According to Yu, this should help draw greater international investor participation into China’s bond market. CBPC is regarded as a key benchmark pricing service provider within the Chinese Mainland’s fixed income sector, with its bond data widely relied upon by institutions for trading, risk management and accounting purposes. The agreement adds to HKEX’s growing suite of fixed income products and reflects its continued positioning as a connector between Chinese and international capital markets. HKEX operates a range of equity, derivative, commodity and fixed income markets, and includes the London Metal Exchange among its holdings.The post HKEX Signs Data Licensing Deal with ChinaBond Pricing Center Ahead of CGB Futures Launch first appeared on LeapRate | Online Trading Industry News, Broker Intelligence & Fintech Analysis.

Nuvei said Thursday that it has completed what it described as the first live in-agent purchase authorised across multiple issuers on Visa’s payment rails, in a proof of concept that signals a significant step forward in the development of agentic commerce. The transaction, conducted in partnership with Visa, technology provider Arvato Systems and fashion brand Kings and Priests, saw a merchant’s artificial intelligence agent initiate a product purchase on a shopper’s behalf and complete payment inside the agent, with no hand-off to a separate payment flow.  Issuing partners across Europe, including Alpha Bank, Piraeus Bank, Bank Leumi and Bank of Cyprus, took part in the exercise, with payments settled using a tokenised Visa credential within Visa Intelligent Commerce and governed by shopper-set controls, including spend caps and approved categories. Phil Fayer, Chair and Chief Executive of Nuvei, said that “agentic commerce is the next evolution of digital commerce, with AI not just finding products but initiating purchases.” Nuvei noted that agentic commerce is projected to drive $1 trillion in global transaction volume by 2030, rising to $3–5 trillion by 2035, citing McKinsey estimates.  The company is now developing what it calls Nuvei Agentic, a protocol-agnostic execution layer enabling any AI agent to initiate payments across networks, with initial availability targeted for the second half of 2026. Mathieu Altwegg, Head of Product and Solutions at Visa Europe, stated that the proof of concept “shows how those foundations can support new experiences today, with authentication continuing to evolve as the model scales.” Nuvei, Visa and participating issuing partners are now working to scale the capabilities toward production deployment.The post Nuvei Completes First Live In-Agent Payment on Visa Rails first appeared on LeapRate | Online Trading Industry News, Broker Intelligence & Fintech Analysis.

Ondo Finance has launched what it describes as the first live solution for third-party tokenised U.S. securities operating within the existing regulatory framework, partnering with Broadridge Financial Solutions to provide full voting rights for token holders. The firm revealed on Thursday that the milestone involves the tokenisation of BlackRock’s iShares Core S&P 500 ETF and Micron Technology shares on the Ethereum blockchain, following a model outlined by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in January 2026.  Under the structure, the underlying shares remain within the traditional U.S. regulated custody chain, with Ondo’s registered transfer agent minting tokens backed 1:1 by those shares. Broadridge will enable token holders to participate in proxy voting and receive regulatory disclosures through its ProxyVote.com platform, giving them the same shareholder rights and protections as those holding securities through conventional U.S. brokerage accounts. “Today’s milestone shows we can tokenise securities in ways that meet both market and regulatory requirements, for U.S. and global investors and provides a strong foundation for our expanding access to onchain investments for more U.S. investors,” commented Ian De Bode, Chief Executive of Ondo Finance.  Until now, tokenised securities have largely operated outside the U.S. or required issuer sponsorship on a case-by-case basis.  The new structure brings tokenisation inside the U.S. regulatory perimeter while preserving the safeguards and market infrastructure that underpin American capital markets. “Tokenisation will only scale when it delivers both innovation and investor confidence,” stated Doug DeSchutter, President of Broadridge’s Investor Communication Solutions business.The post Ondo Finance Launches First Custodial Tokenised U.S. Securities On Public Blockchain first appeared on LeapRate | Online Trading Industry News, Broker Intelligence & Fintech Analysis.

BBVA has successfully completed a transaction initiated by an artificial intelligence agent on behalf of a cardholder, marking a significant milestone in agentic commerce. The test formed part of a live activity that Visa is rolling out across Europe under its Visa Agentic Ready programme. The payment used real card credentials and ran through the systems of an active merchant, proving that AI agents can securely make purchases on behalf of cardholders using existing payments infrastructure. The transaction was enabled through Visa Intelligent Commerce, drawing on established security technologies such as tokenisation and real time fraud monitoring. To meet Strong Customer Authentication requirements set by the European Union, the process also incorporated Visa Payment Passkeys, a biometric authentication tool that lets consumers approve online payments without relying on passwords or SMS codes. Roberto Pagán, Head of Consumer Payments at BBVA Spain, said the bank is focused on building payment experiences that are both seamless and reliable. He added that working with Visa allows BBVA to take part in the next stage of commerce, where AI agents can act on behalf of cardholders while security and oversight remain intact. Eduardo Prieto, Country Manager of Visa in Spain, said the priority is ensuring every transaction stays secure, transparent and trusted as AI agents take on a larger role in everyday purchasing decisions. The milestone was unveiled at the Visa Payments Forum in Paris, where further demonstrations spanned sectors including retail and travel. Visa data shows that 62% of surveyed consumers in Spain already use AI tools to research products and compare prices.The post BBVA Completes First AI Agent-Initiated Payment in Partnership with Visa first appeared on LeapRate | Online Trading Industry News, Broker Intelligence & Fintech Analysis.

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has unveiled proposals to simplify how platforms, advisers and wealth managers communicate investment costs to consumers, urging firms to ditch jargon in favour of plain English. The regulator says the reforms will align investment cost disclosures with earlier product disclosure changes, creating a more consistent framework across the industry. Firms will be given greater freedom to innovate, test new formats and compete on how they engage retail investors, provided communications remain clear and accessible. The move comes amid evidence that many consumers do not understand what they are paying to invest. According to FCA research, 30% of non-advised platform users said they did not know how much they were being charged. Under the new consultation (CP26/24), distributors would need to present their own charges alongside product costs in a format consistent with the Consumer Composite Investments (CCI) regime, while also accounting regularly for the total cost of investing. The proposals also address disclosures on fees and interest paid on client cash. Lucy Castledine, the FCA’s director of consumer investments, said the changes aim to help consumers “feel confident investing” through clearer information on products and charges. Alongside the consultation, the FCA published findings from a review of pre-sale investment disclosure documents, revealing that just 6% of 132 documents examined were written in plain English, with all assessed as more complex than GCSE level. The consultation runs until 21 August, with CCI rules due to take effect from June 2027.The post FCA Proposes Overhaul of Investment Cost Disclosures to Boost Consumer Confidence first appeared on LeapRate | Online Trading Industry News, Broker Intelligence & Fintech Analysis.

CME Group, the world’s largest derivatives marketplace, announced on July 2 that its average daily volume (ADV) hit a record 30.6 million contracts in June, marking a 19% increase year-over-year. The Chicago-based exchange operator also reported its second-highest second quarter ever, with Q2 ADV reaching 29.8 million contracts. The strong June performance was driven by all-time monthly records in equity index and agricultural products. Equity Index ADV surged 54% to a record 10.1 million contracts, fueled by a record 3.2 million contracts in Micro E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures and a 39% jump in Micro E-mini S&P 500 futures to 1.5 million contracts. Agricultural ADV also reached a record high, climbing 8% to 2.3 million contracts, with Corn futures up 20% to 619,000 contracts. Interest Rate products remained a core driver, with ADV increasing 17% to 13.6 million contracts. U.S. Treasury futures and options rose 19% to 7.2 million contracts, while SOFR futures and options increased 14% to 5.8 million contracts. Cryptocurrency trading showed particularly strong growth, with ADV up 76% to 334,000 contracts, representing $10.7 billion in notional value. Micro Bitcoin futures ADV rose 46% to 77,000 contracts. International activity also strengthened, with overall International ADV up 17% to 9.3 million contracts. EMEA volumes rose 15% to 6.7 million contracts, while APAC climbed 21% to 2.2 million contracts. BrokerTec’s average daily notional value increased 17% to $1.078 trillion, and EBS Spot FX ADNV rose 7% to $68 billion, underscoring broad-based strength across CME Group’s fixed income and foreign exchange platforms.The post CME Group Posts Record June Volume, Second-Best Q2 on Record first appeared on LeapRate | Online Trading Industry News, Broker Intelligence & Fintech Analysis.

XS.com, the global FinTech and financial services provider, has announced the appointment of Maria Pesca Santos as Regional Director for Latin America, part of the company’s ongoing strategy to strengthen its global leadership team with experienced regional executives. The move reflects XS.com’s continued investment in high-caliber leadership across its key markets, aiming to pair global standards with strong local expertise. The company, which operates across multiple regulated jurisdictions and is backed by institutional-grade liquidity and advanced trading infrastructure, says the approach supports a scalable operating model for long-term expansion. In her new position, Pesca Santos will oversee XS.com’s operations across Latin America, focusing on strengthening execution frameworks, optimizing regional workflows and developing scalable operational systems. She will also work closely with global leadership to align regional execution with the company’s broader institutional standards. Pesca Santos brings more than 15 years of experience in regional operations, commercial structuring and multi-market execution across Latin America and North America, including work on organizational transformation, operational governance and cross-functional system integration. “I am pleased to join XS.com at a time when the company continues to strengthen its global leadership structure and invest in operational excellence,” Pesca Santos said, adding that she looks forward to building scalable regional capabilities and supporting sustainable growth. Wael Hammad, Group Chief Commercial Officer at XS.com, said the appointment “reflects our commitment” to aligning with accomplished regional executives who can translate global standards into strong local execution as the company expands internationally.The post XS.com Appoints Maria Pesca Santos as Regional Director for Latin America first appeared on LeapRate | Online Trading Industry News, Broker Intelligence & Fintech Analysis.

Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE: ICE) and compute exchange NATIVX announced plans Wednesday to launch GPU compute futures contracts based on NATIVX’s COIL Index. The COIL Index tracks tokenised GPU compute prices in an energy-normalised framework designed to strip out regional power cost disparities, providing market participants with a consistent basis for comparison.  The new contracts will be US dollar-denominated and cash-settled, with a launch expected later this year, subject to regulatory approvals. Trabue Bland, Senior Vice President of Futures Markets at ICE, said the contracts “will offer price discovery for customers globally through a hedgeable index that will benefit from trading alongside ICE’s natural gas and power futures contracts.” The partnership is said to reflect the growing convergence of compute and energy markets. Power represents a major input cost for large-scale AI infrastructure, and listing compute futures alongside ICE’s established power and natural gas contracts is intended to create an integrated hedging environment where operators can manage GPU exposure in the same venue where they hedge underlying energy costs. Cole Crawford, Founder and Chairman of NATIVX, said: “AI’s continued growth depends on turning compute from a fragmented, unpredictable operating cost into transparent and manageable market infrastructure. Compute is now an asset class, and like every asset class, it needs a public price and a market.” NATIVX describes itself as a public exchange for compute, with its COIL Index auditable at every step and built to reflect both compute and connectivity normalised to a single stable unit.The post ICE and NATIVX to Launch GPU Compute Futures Contracts Tied to Energy-Normalised Index first appeared on LeapRate | Online Trading Industry News, Broker Intelligence & Fintech Analysis.