1. There will be agreement that the unregulated crypto experiment has failed

With the collapse of FTX, the ‘crypto winter’ and the breaking of Terra UST’s peg – 2022 has been a challenging year for the cryptocurrency sector. Consumers were attracted to this volatile asset class which offered steep returns compared to traditional markets. But the collapse that followed served as a potent reminder of why we have financial regulation in place to protect people.

In 2021, UK losses to authorised push payment (APP) scams reached £583.2 million. This 39 per cent year-on-year increase in losses shows how inventive and active scammers can be. FICO is hosting a round table on 8 February 2023 at The Shangri-La in The Shard, London, to discuss what can be done to tackle this threat to financial stability.

Adyen, the global financial technology platform of choice for leading businesses, today announces that it has partnered with Autocanteen, the touchless self-checkout solution which improves checkout efficiency for the hospitality industry.

Vestd has launched a new simplified version of its market-leading equity management platform to help startups, SMEs and investors organise, manage and track shareholders and ownership. 

This week Zopa Bank has crossed the £3 billion deposits milestone, while our customers have collectively opened 150,000 accounts to grow their savings faster in today’s challenging environment. 

Zopa’s ambition is to make the hundreds of billions in “zombie money” sitting idle in UK current accounts work harder. 

Fello, India’s first gamified savings platform, designed for the Gen-Zs and young millennials of India, has raised $4 million in their latest funding round led by US-based Courtside Ventures, with participation from, Entrepreneur First, Ycombinator, Kube Venture and Upsparks. Angel investors, Kunal Shah, Founder of Cred, Lalit Keshre, Co-founder of Groww, Charlie Songhurst, Dafeng and Alan Rutledge participated in this round.

LenDenClub, India's largest Peer-to-Peer Lending platform, with its vision to drive financial inclusion, is building a formidable leadership team as it prepares for its next growth phase. To this effect, the RBI registered NBFC-P2P has made a key leadership appointment and hired Nirmal K. Rewaria as its Chief Business Officer - Investments.

21% of Brits don’t expect to carry a physical wallet or purse in the next five years, rising to 34% of Gen Z and 38% of Millennials.
Demand for wallets diminishing as young people embrace digital payments - more than half (55%) of 18-34-year-olds would rather just carry their phone in place of a wallet or purse.
Research, undertaken in partnership with fashion communication graduates of Central Saint Martins, shows wallets in decline, and are increasingly seen as a site of a personal archive rather than vessels for cash and cards.

Temenos today announced that Next Commercial Bank (Next Bank), a new digital bank backed by Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan’s largest telecom operator, has gone live on Temenos core banking platform, opening to customers during 2022.

Mercurity Fintech Holding Inc., a digital fintech group powered by blockchain technology, today announced that, on December 29, 2022, the Company’s Board of Directors (the “Board”) has approved to proceed with: 1) the share consolidation and simultaneous change of the ADR ratio; 2) the transfer of the register of members of the Company; and 3) the termination of the deposit agreement.

The Share Consolidation and Change of the ADR ratio