HBX Group (HBX.SM), a leading independent B2B travel technology marketplace, and Mastercard have announced the launch of a new virtual payment programme designed to bring greater efficiency, flexibility and security to travel payments worldwide.

Airwallex, a leading global financial platform for modern businesses, today announced it will inject $590 million [£436M] into its UK business across the next five years (2026 to 2030) to drive local and regional growth.

Prediction 1: The Year AI Goes to Work

The first few years of AI experimentation have passed and companies will shift from learning to measuring. Measuring the cost, benefits, and trade-offs associated with adopting innovation early. There is still plenty of room for exploration, but there will be increased pressure for exploitation to achieve positive ROI. 

Prediction 2: The Reckoning of AI Experiment Technical and Operational Debt

Three quarters of UK couples (74%) are speaking different ‘money languages’, with different communication styles causing conflict for two-thirds of couples (66%) and delaying major life milestones such as home ownership and starting a family.

As a result, financial compatibility has become a top three priority for people when looking for a partner, alongside sexual compatibility and shared interests, and above shared political and religious beliefs.

Mastercard has joined forces with TerraPay, a global money movement company, to equip its wallet partners including mobile money wallets, fintechs, and banks, with the latest digital payment capabilities. 

Following close behind its previous announcement that it had achieved Digital Accessibility Centre (DAC) certification for its mobile SDK and Hosted Payment Page, inclusive global payments platform, Ecommpay has now gained full DAC compliance across its website and product pages. This follows a rigorous three-strand testing process by the DAC to ensure it meets the WC3 (World Wide Web Consortium) WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) 2.2 AA standard for accessibility. 

New research from Checkout.com reveals that Christmas 2025 will mark a turning point for agentic AI adoption, as consumers increasingly turn to intelligent digital agents to manage the stress, cost and complexity of peak-season shopping. With 47% of consumers planning to use an AI agent for their Christmas shopping and a third saying they planned to rely on agentic tools over Black Friday, this year’s festive season could be the first in which automated shopping becomes a mainstream behaviour.

The UK is experiencing rapid AI adoption in financial services, with 75% of financial firms now using artificial intelligence, up from 58% in 2022, as reported by the Bank of England and Financial Conduct Authority (2024 report). But new research from FIS, a leading provider of financial technology, reveals that consumer confidence is failing to keep pace with innovation, creating a widening AI trust gap and an imperative for banks to educate and build trust with their customers. 

Ant International, HSBC and Swift today have completed a successful Proof of Concept (POC) for the cross-border transfer of tokenised deposits using ISO 20022 standards. The initiative leverages Swift’s global messaging network and HSBC’s recently launched Tokenised Deposit Service, combined with Ant International’s blockchain technology.

Pension-finding platform, Raindrop has joined forces with some of the UK’s largest financial providers to track down over £1 billion in lost pension pot savings for UK savers since launch.  

In total, Raindrop’s pension-finding technology has recovered over 100,000 individual pots with an average value of over £11,000.