Flutterwave, Africa's leading payments technology company, has acquired Mono, a pioneer in open banking infrastructure across the continent. The transaction deepens Flutterwave's long-term commitment to building a connected, interoperable financial system for Africa and positions open banking as a core pillar in the evolution of alternative payment methods across the region.

Cowbell, a leading provider of adaptive cyber and specialty insurance solutions for global small and mid-market organizations, today announced the next cycle of its organizational journey, focused on sustained growth, operational profitability, and continued global expansion. Following the company's recent expansion to Australia, Cowbell is accelerating its global growth while advancing profitability and scale.

Global data and technology company, Experian, today announces that its market leading commercial data information is now available for the first time via its Ascend platform.

Experian commercial data offers in-depth, granular information on the borrowing and repayment history of more than eight million UK businesses, giving lenders, businesses and other organisations an accurate view of performance and enabling them to make improved, more accurate, and faster lending decisions.

Arab Financial Services (AFS), A premier digital payment and fintech solutions provider in the Middle East and Africa, is pleased to announce that its Egyptian subsidiary has received a SoftPOS license from the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE). This regulatory approval has enabled the company to launch the service nationwide, making AFS Egypt one of the first in the country to bring a fully licensed SoftPOS solution to market.

Bitget, the world’s largest Universal Exchange (UEX), has officially opened its TradFi trading suite to all users, following a private beta that drew overwhelming interest and delivered standout trading activity across gold, forex, and global macro assets.

Fiserv, Inc.  and Mastercard  are extending their partnership to advance agentic commerce for merchants. Fiserv will be one of the first major payment processors to leverage Mastercard’s Agent Pay Acceptance Framework at scale, raising the bar for secure, intelligent and interoperable agentic commerce and empowering merchants to confidently embrace the era of AI-driven payments.

Supporting Merchant Acceptance Through Agent Pay

Convr AI®, the leading modularized artificial intelligence (AI) underwriting, data, and intelligent document automation workbench company serving commercial insurance organizations, is enabling Zurich North America to better serve its customers through the power of Convr’s AI-powered underwriting workbench. Zurich is expanding its relationship with Convr for underwriting efficiency after first collaborating in 2017.

KAST, the global financial platform built on stablecoin rails, has expanded Global Payouts, allowing users to convert and spend stablecoins around the world. This expansion further enables KAST users to earn globally and send locally in one place.

UK’s leading tech retailer Currys announces a new partnership with Stripe, the programmable financial services company. The retailer will install thousands of next-generation Stripe payment terminals across its nearly 300 UK and Ireland stores, creating the infrastructure to rapidly adopt emerging technologies – from seamless mobile payments to AI-powered shopping experiences – and deliver faster, more flexible checkouts.

As another year dawns, many will be thinking about how to improve their financial well-being in the year ahead, from saving more and reducing debt, to improving their credit scores.

Equifax UK data1 reveals a clear seasonal uptick of consumer spending in November and December, including across jewellery, fashion, health, beauty and groceries, and with rises of over 50% and 30% in toy shop and electrical store spend respectively.