FStech

The digital age has brought monumental changes to bank operations and how they are protected. Security tools have evolved to keep pace with increasingly sophisticated threats, but adding new tools to a fundamentally shaky system is a band-aid solution. Without a security-first culture, advanced gadgets only tick compliance boxes. Creating a security strategy that stands resilient against bad actors and instills trust in clients requires a deeper reshaping of priorities.

Customers of Costa Rica’s Banco Cathay can now make international pay-to-wallet payments thanks to a partnership between the Central American bank and fintech company Thunes. As of today, anyone banking with Banco Cathay will be able to deposit money straight into the digital wallets of people located outside of Costa Rica. This expansion in Banco Cathay’s cross-border payments capability is enabled through technology developed by Singapore-based Thunes.

Digital bank Monzo has unveiled a new tax tool in a bid to reduce the substantial and time-consuming accounting workload currently endured by sole traders and landlords. Built into Monzo’s business banking platform, the free feature will enable users to categorise transactions, track expenses by uploading receipts and set aside money to pay to the taxman at the end of each financial year.

Mathew Harvey has been appointed head of digital solutions at NatWest Markets. Harvey has been working at NatWest Markets for just under nine years, most recently as managing director - head of cross product sales and development. Before his time at NatWest, he held the role of director - markets electronic trading at Deutsche bank. NatWest Markets is a wholly-owned subsidiary of NatWest Group that offers debt financing, risk management, and trading solutions.

NatWest Markets has promoted Matthew Harvey to head of digital solutions. Harvey has been working at NatWest Markets for just under nine years, most recently as managing director - head of cross product sales and development. Before his time at NatWest, he held the role of director - markets electronic trading at Deutsche bank. NatWest Markets is a wholly-owned subsidiary of NatWest Group that offers debt financing, risk management, and trading solutions.

Visa has announced plans to acquire payments processor Prisma Medios de Pago and network infrastructure provider Newpay in Argentina. The move aims to accelerate the rollout of advanced technologies, including tokenisation, biometric authentication, intelligent risk tools and agentic commerce solutions.

The Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) has fined the Bank of Ireland UK over £3.7 million for deploying a system to send requests for Confirmation of Payee (CoP) checks 14 months post-deadline. The regulator said that as a result, the safeguard – which allows consumers to confirm the account they are sending money to is correct – was not applied to transactions involving more than 1.14 million new payees, with payments totalling roughly £6.9 billion.

Societe Generale has joined the London Stock Exchange Group’s (LSEG) model marketplace as a provider of advanced analytical models. The move forms part of the launch of LSEG’s Model-as-a-Service (MaaS), a new capability that enables financial institutions to host, distribute and analyse models through a secure and governed marketplace.

Bank of America is integrating data and analytics tools from the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) across key areas of the organisation. The move aims to support several business propositions, including advisory and investment workflows, trading, risk oversight and regulatory processes.

Singapore-headquartered DBS Bank has become the first bank in Asia Pacific to pilot Visa’s agentic commerce suite, with the move enabling AI agents to make transactions on behalf of consumers.