AlHuda Centre of Islamic Banking and Economics (CIBE) has projected a promising outlook for the Islamic finance industry in 2025, with assets anticipated to surpass the $5 trillion milestone. This forecast underscores the resilience and growing significance of the Islamic finance ecosystem amidst evolving global financial landscapes. Despite slower progress in Islamic microfinance over the last two to three years, 2025 is expected to mark a turning point.

British Business Bank CEO, Louis Taylor, has been awarded a CBE for services to Business and Trade in the King’s New Year honours list 2025.  

In addition, Catherine Lewis La Torre, former CEO of the Bank’s commercial subsidiaries, British Patient Capital and British Business Investments, and interim CEO of the British Business Bank has also been awarded a CBE for services to Business.

iDenfy, a leading global RegTech company specializing in Know Your Customer (KYC), Anti-Money Laundering (AML), and Know Your Business (KYB) verification solutions, has announced its achievement of SOC II certification with the submission of an independent auditor’s report. This milestone confirm iDenfy’s position as a trusted partner in the US market, ensuring that its data handling practices meet rigorous standards of security and confidentiality.

Klarna, the AI-powered global payments network, and shopping assistant has expanded their partnership with Woo, the flexible, open-source ecommerce solution built on WordPress, by making Klarna a default payment option for merchants using WooPayments.

Under the expanded partnership Klarna will become a network of choice, offered as a default payment method to WooPayments’ merchants globally, alongside traditional card payments.

WooCommerce is one of the world's leading e-commerce platforms, powering more than 4 million online shops.

Fiserv, Inc., a leading global provider of payments and financial services technology, announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Payfare Inc. , a provider of program management solutions with a particular focus on new economy workforces. The transaction is subject to obtaining shareholder and court approvals and other customary closing conditions and is expected to close in the first half of 2025.

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged registered broker-dealer Deutsche Bank Securities Inc., a subsidiary of Deutsche Bank AG, for failing to file certain Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) in a timely manner. Deutsche Bank Securities has agreed to pay a $4 million civil penalty to settle the SEC’s charges.

Over nine million people across the UK are expecting to end up in debt due to the high cost of Christmas this year, according to research from responsible lender, Creditspring.

The findings reveal that young people will be the worst hit – a quarter (25%) of those aged 18-34 say Christmas will put them into debt compared to 17% of the whole UK population.

Varo Bank, the first all-digital nationally chartered bank in the U.S., today announced a collaboration with Green Dot Corporation (NYSE: 

Visa, a global leader in digital payments, today announced its first Retail Spend Monitor, from Visa Consulting & Analytics (VCA), which analyses holiday season retail spend for the 7-week period starting on November 1, 2024, across the U.K. The findings show overall holiday spend in the U.K. increased 2.3% year over year, in nominal terms.