MoneyGram has announced it is joining the Solana network as an active validator, marking a significant step in the global payments company’s deepening commitment to blockchain-based financial infrastructure. The Dallas-headquartered firm will contribute directly to the security, integrity, and performance of the Solana proof-of-stake network by staking SOL, processing transaction blocks, and participating in consensus at the protocol level. The move positions MoneyGram alongside other institutional players helping to underpin one of the world’s highest-performing blockchains. MoneyGram has also joined the Solana Developer Platform, an AI-ready, API-driven platform designed to help institutions build and scale compliant financial products on Solana. The company joins as an early adopter alongside institutions such as Mastercard. Luke Tuttle, Chief Product and Technology Officer at MoneyGram, said the validator role places the company at the heart of Solana’s network operations. “We help run the rails we move money on,” Tuttle noted, adding that the firm is simultaneously innovating to make money movement seamless regardless of where users are or what form of money they use. Sheraz Shere, General Manager of Payments and Commerce at the Solana Foundation, welcomed the development, highlighting MoneyGram’s global scale and experience as key assets as more payments activity moves onchain. For MoneyGram, the announcement builds on more than five years of integrating blockchain and stablecoin capabilities into its core payments platform. The company serves over 60 million active customers through nearly half a million retail locations worldwide. Chairman and CEO Anthony Soohoo framed the move as part of a broader vision, stating that the future of global money movement will be built on open, interoperable stablecoin rails accessible to everyone, everywhere.The post MoneyGram Becomes Solana Validator in Major Blockchain Infrastructure Push first appeared on LeapRate | Online Trading Industry News, Broker Intelligence & Fintech Analysis.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis publishes May personal income and outlays on Thursday, and for once the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge arrives loaded. It is the first PCE print since 17 June, when Kevin Warsh’s first meeting as chair held rates at 3.50 to 3.75% but rewrote the projections around them. The median dot moved to a year-end 3.8%, flipping an implied 2026 cut into a lean toward a hike, with 17 of 18 participants placing the risks to inflation on the upside. With the committee split right at the current range, and a chair who has stripped out forward guidance so the data does the talking, this is the release that moves the odds. Consensus has headline PCE up about 0.5% on the month, lifting the annual rate toward 4.1% from April’s 3.8%, with core near 0.3% and around 3.4% on the year, up from 3.3%. The headline will mislead. May is the month that fully captured triple-digit oil, before the 14 June peace memorandum theoretically reopened the Strait of Hormuz and pulled crude back, so this print carries the energy spike and none of the relief. The base effects turn in June and July, not Thursday. A 4-handle headline is the Iran war showing up late, not a fresh acceleration, and the desks that trade the surprise rather than the level will read it that way. Strip the energy out and the picture can invert. May core CPI already cooled to 0.2% on the month even as the headline ran to 4.2% on the year, the tell that this is an energy shock sitting on a core that is easing, not a broad reacceleration. A core PCE that says the same, near or below 0.3%, hands the argument to the camp, JP Morgan among them, reading the oil move as a one-off supply shock the Fed can look through. A core that runs hot says the shock is bleeding into the rest of the basket, and the nine dots already pencilling a hike begin to look like a majority in waiting. The tension to watch is with the Fed’s own hand: May’s expected headline sits above the 3.6% the committee pencilled in for year-end, which reconciles only if the post-deal fall in oil does the heavy lifting in the second half. The print cuts cleanly in two. A hot core prices the hike in: the dollar firms, the front end sells off, EUR/USD leaks into the European close, and gold, already shedding its war premium and leaning on the monetary bid, loses another leg as real-yield expectations climb. A soft core does the opposite, revives the look-through case, caps the dollar and gives gold a reason to hold. EUR/USD is the cleanest dollar expression, gold the read on real yields, and the two-year the scoreboard for the hike debate. The same session brings the final Q1 GDP estimate, but it bites only if it misses badly enough to dent the Fed’s solid-pace story. Whatever prints, the monthly core is the figure the 17-of-18 upside-risk vote turned on, and the one that frames the run into the late-July meeting. One footnote that raises the stakes on every release from here: Warsh withheld his own dot and has put the projections themselves under review, so the dot plot that anchors this trade may not see out the year.The post US PCE: the first test of Warsh’s hawkish Fed first appeared on LeapRate | Online Trading Industry News, Broker Intelligence & Fintech Analysis.

HIFI, the stablecoin infrastructure company, DRW Cumberland and Marex have completed an onchain repurchase agreement on the Canton Network. The transaction settled both legs simultaneously, the cash leg and the U.S. Treasury collateral leg, in real time, with HIFI providing the cash side via USDC and USDCx, DRW supplying the Treasuries, and Marex acting as prime broker. The trade was executed through Tradeweb’s RFQ protocol, following the standard electronic dealer-to-client repo market structure. The U.S. repo market averages $12.6 trillion in daily outstanding exposures, making it one of the largest and most systemically important funding markets in the world. It is also consistently ranked as the top candidate for tokenisation: many financial institutions name repo as their highest-priority tokenisation use case, ahead of OTC derivatives margining and securities lending. What has historically blocked onchain repo from institutional adoption is not technology; blockchain settlement for bilateral transactions has been technically feasible for years. The obstacle has been market structure. Institutional participants do not execute repo through novel pipelines; they use the frameworks they trust: competitive price discovery via RFQ, intermediation by a prime broker, and the legal certainty of established clearing relationships. This transaction replicates all three of those elements onchain for the first time. The cash-leg flow in this transaction moved from fiat via real-time payments (RTP) into USDC, then into USDCx for settlement on Canton. At maturity, the flow reversed along the same path, automated end-to-end. That architecture eliminates the “fail risk” between legs that occurs in traditional repo when legs settle separately, and compresses the settlement window from the T+0 same-day end-of-day cycle that currently defines most repo markets to near-instantaneous atomic settlement. For institutions outside the US time zone, particularly those in Asia and the Middle East, the implications are material. These institutions hold dollar assets and U.S. Treasuries, but operate in windows where U.S. markets are closed. Atomic onchain repo running on Canton’s 24/7 infrastructure allows them to access dollar funding and mobilise Treasury collateral outside conventional New York hours without the overnight funding gap that currently forces them to pre-fund or leave collateral idle. The transaction settles on Canton, described as a public, permissionless blockchain built specifically for institutional finance. Canton combines privacy with interoperability, payment flows, counterparty relationships and transaction amounts in this repo were not exposed to the network, a requirement that would make most institutional participants immediately reject a conventional public blockchain. The network has participation from major global financial institutions and governance facilitated by the Canton Foundation. This is a proof-of-concept at institutional scale, not a live clearing migration. The next step that would signal genuine adoption is a standing facility — multiple transactions per day, multiple counterparty pairs — rather than one publicised demonstration trade. Watch for Tradeweb’s RFQ platform announcing expanded Canton integration, and for Marex as prime broker reporting additional onchain repo transactions into the clearing record. The SEC’s approved extended trading sessions for U.S. equity exchanges and the move of clearing infrastructure toward near-continuous operating hours are the structural tailwinds that give this architecture its policy alignment; any rulemaking from SIFMA or the SEC on clearing-house operating hours that explicitly contemplates 24/7 settlement will be an important accelerant.The post HIFI, DRW and Marex complete onchain repo on the Canton Network first appeared on LeapRate | Online Trading Industry News, Broker Intelligence & Fintech Analysis.

Euronext and BNY have announced a strategic collaboration that connects Euronext Clearing to BNY’s $7.8 trillion Global Collateral Platform, with BNY acting as triparty agent across asset classes with a focus on cleared repo. The deal, disclosed on 17 June, allows clearing members to manage margin, default-fund contributions and collateral substitution through a single integrated platform spanning both cleared and uncleared exposures. BNY will handle selection, valuation and substitution of eligible collateral on behalf of Euronext Clearing members, using its Global Collateral Platform as the settlement and optimisation layer. For members, the practical gain is the ability to manage cleared repo positions, initial margin, variation margin and default fund, alongside their bilateral uncleared book on one interface, rather than operating separate collateral workflows for each. This matters in a European repo market under structural pressure; Basel III final implementation and EMIR margining requirements have raised the cost of holding unoptimised collateral. The ability to pledge, substitute and optimise through a single triparty infrastructure directly addresses that cost centre. The deal is part of Euronext’s stated objective of expanding its cleared repo franchise beyond Italian government bonds, the historical core of Euronext Clearing, into a wider range of asset classes. Euronext intends to onboard international banks and institutional clients who need a European CCP with multi-asset collateral capability, rather than a single-sovereign specialist. This puts Euronext’s clearing ambitions more directly in competition with LCH and Eurex Clearing, both of which offer broader European repo clearing with established triparty relationships. BNY’s $7.8 trillion platform is the credential Euronext needed to make a credible pitch to those international clients. Camille Beudin, Chief Diversification Officer at Euronext, said the arrangement “[enables] clients to manage collateral more efficiently, optimise capital usage and access deeper liquidity pools.” Gesa Johannsen, BNY’s Executive Platform Owner for Global Collateral Platform, cited the ability for clients to “seamlessly optimise collateral across cleared and uncleared obligations on a single, integrated platform.” For clearing members already using BNY’s Global Collateral Platform for their bilateral book, most tier-1 and tier-2 European banks, the integration offers operational efficiency: one platform, one view of collateral, one substitution workflow. The potential reduction in duplicate pledging across cleared and uncleared positions is material for balance-sheet management teams running large repo books. For prime brokerage desks routing client repo activity through Euronext Clearing, the relevant question is whether improved collateral flexibility translates into better margin terms or more competitive repo pricing. That outcome depends on the pace of uptake and whether Euronext’s asset-class expansion brings enough new counterparties into the cleared market to deepen liquidity materially. Euronext has not disclosed a specific onboarding timeline beyond the “Innovate for Growth 2027” frame. The next meaningful indicator will be the first international bank announcement joining the expanded clearing offering. Watch also for competitive responses from Eurex Clearing and LCH; this deal accelerates a collateral-capability race among Europe’s major CCPs. Any change in cleared repo pricing visible through interdealer broker screens will be the early market signal that the collaboration is delivering for members.The post Euronext taps BNY’s $7.8 trillion collateral pool to scale European repo clearing first appeared on LeapRate | Online Trading Industry News, Broker Intelligence & Fintech Analysis.

Trace Finance, the regulated financial infrastructure company powering cross-border payments and stablecoin settlement, has closed a $32 million Series A led by CoinFund, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Haun Ventures, Jump Crypto, Valor Capital, Paxos and HOF Capital. Strategic backers include Chainlink Labs, SNZ Capital, Sean Neville (co-founder of Circle), Anatoly Yakovenko (co-founder of Solana Labs) and Ricardo Villela Marino, partner and vice chairman of Itaú Unibanco, Latin America’s largest bank. The raise was announced on 17 June 2026. The infrastructure thesis Trace is not a stablecoin issuer. It is the regulated plumbing layer between onchain settlement and local banking systems in markets where compliance requirements are highest. The company’s initial proving ground was the US–Brazil corridor. Brazil has classified virtual-asset cross-border flows as foreign exchange operations, effectively requiring institutional volume to move through bank-grade infrastructure rather than unlicensed rails. Trace built to that standard and has processed more than $10 billion in institutional cross-border volume, making it the main infrastructure provider for the top four global payment companies operating in LatAm, including dLocal. The Series A will be used to extend that stack internationally: deeper product capabilities across FX, bank connectivity, compliance and stablecoin settlement, and an expanded regulated footprint across Brazil, the US, APAC and additional priority jurisdictions. CEO Bernardo Brites was direct about the model: “Stablecoins alone do not solve cross-border payments. Stablecoins plus regulated local bank infrastructure does.” Why brokers and their PSPs should pay attention Several of the frictions that Trace solves are the same ones broker operators experience in LatAm and APAC corridors. Settlement in high-compliance jurisdictions tends to be slow, expensive and operationally intensive. PSPs serving the high-risk merchant segment – including online trading businesses – typically rely on a patchwork of local partners for Pix connectivity, FX conversion and compliance operations. Trace bundles all three under a single regulated infrastructure layer and targets the largest payment companies as customers, meaning the layer can appear underneath a broker’s existing PSP relationship rather than requiring a direct integration. The dLocal connection is material. dLocal is an established payment route for brokers operating in emerging markets; Trace being the infrastructure provider for dLocal and equivalent platforms represents a significant position in the payment chain that broker deposits and withdrawals may already pass through. Einar Braathen, Partner at CoinFund, framed the investment in settlement-efficiency terms: “Brazil is one of the largest and most operationally complex payment environments in the world, and Trace has built the regulated infrastructure that global blue-chip businesses are using to scale, while saving time and costs compared to legacy alternatives.” The GENIUS Act, which passed in the US in July 2025 and established a federal regulatory framework for stablecoin issuers, has accelerated institutional capital into the compliant layer of the stablecoin stack. Trace’s funding follows State Street’s Rule 2a-7 stablecoin reserves money market fund (launched 16 June) and Fidelity’s equivalent (15 June) – three separate institutional moves in the same week pointing at the same structural shift: regulated stablecoin infrastructure is being capitalised at scale. What to watch Trace’s APAC timeline: the company has named APAC as a priority corridor alongside LatAm and the US. For brokers with significant client bases in South-East Asia, where stablecoin adoption among retail traders is high and local banking connectivity is complex, the launch timing matters. Paxos participation: Paxos, a regulated stablecoin issuer and payments infrastructure provider, backs the round. Any product integration between Paxos stablecoin rails and Trace’s banking network would broaden the settlement options available to broker payment partners. Regulatory treatment of stablecoin-converted deposits: MiCA is live in the EU, the GENIUS Act in the US. How each jurisdiction classifies a stablecoin-funded client account remains a live compliance question for brokers expanding their payment optionality. The post Trace Finance raises $32m Series A to bridge stablecoins and regulated bank rails first appeared on LeapRate | Online Trading Industry News, Broker Intelligence & Fintech Analysis.

Dukascopy Bank has officially unveiled its new flagship mobile application, marking a significant milestone in the Swiss bank’s ongoing digital transformation. Built for the bank’s growing global client base of more than 400,000 users, the new Dukascopy Bank App consolidates banking, payments, cards, foreign exchange, investments and more into a single, streamlined mobile platform. The launch follows a strategic decision by management to completely overhaul its mobile ecosystem. The new app replaces the bank’s legacy Connect 911 and Swiss Mobile Bank applications, bringing the full spectrum of Dukascopy services under one roof. Clients can now open accounts remotely via secure video identification, order and manage virtual or physical Visa, Mastercard and Chinese payment cards, send and receive international payments, exchange currencies at competitive rates, and buy, sell and manage investments around the clock. Multilingual human customer support is also available 24/7 through secure encrypted chat. Andre Duka, CEO of Dukascopy Bank, said the launch reflects the bank’s longstanding commitment to innovation. “For 20 years, Dukascopy has been recognised as a technological pioneer in fintech and online trading. Our new flagship app reflects our vision of making Swiss banking more accessible, more intuitive, and more powerful than ever before.” Dukascopy has confirmed the app represents only the first phase of a broader mobile evolution, with regular feature updates and new digital services planned in the coming months. A dedicated next-generation trading application for JForex accounts is also in development.The post Dukascopy Bank Launches New Flagship Mobile Banking App first appeared on LeapRate | Online Trading Industry News, Broker Intelligence & Fintech Analysis.

SBI Holdings has announced a co-lead investment in Pints AI, a Singapore-based provider of agentic artificial intelligence built specifically for financial institutions operating under strict privacy and compliance requirements. The investment was made through the SBI-NTU-Kyobo Digital Innovation Fund, a Singapore-based early-stage vehicle established by SBI Group alongside NTUitive and Kyobo Securities. Pints AI develops “Autothought,” an AI platform designed to help banks and insurance companies automate manual-heavy processes such as underwriting, insurance claims processing, and new client onboarding. The platform generates traceable audit trails for AI-assisted decisions and is built on a proprietary agent orchestration framework that routes tasks to the most suitable language model, from small purpose-built models to more powerful ones, across a single governed system. This architecture is also intended to give institutions model sovereignty, reducing dependence on any single AI provider. Since its founding less than two years ago, Pints AI has been deployed by 12 financial institutions across Singapore, India, Hong Kong, and the United States. Early results have been notable, with some clients cutting underwriting times by 40% and new client onboarding times by 70%, generating a combined cost saving of approximately 10 million USD. The new capital will fund expansion across the Asia Pacific and the Middle East, grow the company’s engineering team, and support the development of “Autothought Studio,” a toolset enabling institutions to build and manage AI applications internally.The post SBI Holdings Backs Pints AI in Early Funding Round for Compliance-First Agentic Platform first appeared on LeapRate | Online Trading Industry News, Broker Intelligence & Fintech Analysis.

The US Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) has formally closed the book on New York broker-dealer Reid & Rudiger LLC, expelling a firm that was already on its way out of the industry. FINRA expelled the firm from membership and barred its cofounders, Clifford Reid and chief executive Edward Rudiger Jr, from associating with any member firm, after finding they churned and excessively traded customer accounts in breach of Regulation Best Interest (Reg BI) and FINRA rules. The firm had been winding down for some time. It filed a broker-dealer withdrawal request at the end of April, and FINRA cancelled its registration in early June after it failed to pay industry fees. The expulsion, settled this month, formalises that exit and attaches permanent bars to the two men who ran the business. According to FINRA, the firm and its cofounders excessively traded 20 customer accounts, several of which were also churned, over a period of nearly six years. The conduct cost clients around $2 million in commissions and trading costs and produced approximately $2.7 million in losses. The firm’s business centred on a high-volume, high-cost market-timing strategy marketed largely to high-net-worth investors reached through cold calling, an approach FINRA said made it “virtually impossible for customers to make a profit”. The harm showed up clearly in the firm’s trading metrics. FINRA recorded annualised turnover rates ranging from 6.92 to 17.33 and annualised cost-to-equity ratios of between 34.9% and 111%. At the top of that range, one account would have needed to generate a 111% return simply to cover commissions and costs and break even. Two further accounts carried cost-to-equity ratios of around 69% and 67%, with losses of more than $345,000 and nearly $400,000 respectively. FINRA also took action against the firm’s supervisors. Majority owner Marc Harrison and chief compliance officer Kelli Mezzatesta were each suspended for three months in all principal capacities, fined $5,000 and required to complete 20 hours of supervision-related continuing education. FINRA found they failed to act on repeated red flags of excessive trading, did not factor customers’ cost-to-equity ratios into their supervision, and did not use the exception reports available to them. The firm and Rudiger, as CEO, were found to have failed to maintain a supervisory system capable of detecting and acting on churning. Reid & Rudiger operated from 40 Wall Street and had been in business since 1999. The matter was resolved through a 43-page settlement, with the firm, Reid, Rudiger, Harrison and Mezzatesta consenting to FINRA’s findings without admitting or denying them. FINRA’s underlying complaint was filed in March 2026. FINRA framed cost-to-equity ratios and turnover rates as key metrics for identifying excessive trading and churning, a reminder to member firms that supervision systems are expected to monitor and act on those figures rather than treat them as background data.The post FINRA expels Reid & Rudiger and bars cofounders over six-year churning scheme first appeared on LeapRate | Online Trading Industry News, Broker Intelligence & Fintech Analysis.

The FCA-regulated firm spent close to two years in filing default and survived a compulsory strike-off, regularising only alongside a change of control and a £3.8 million recapitalisation. EBC Financial Group (UK) Ltd, the FCA-regulated London arm of the EBC broking group, has filed its long-overdue accounts for the 18-month period to 30 September 2023, roughly two years after they fell due. The belated accounts disclose a £747,000 write-off, which the company attributes to the misappropriation of funds. The filing closes a prolonged period of default. The accounts had been outstanding since the middle of 2024, and in October 2024 the company received a first Gazette notice for compulsory strike-off. That action was discontinued the following month, yet the accounts themselves remained unfiled for a further eighteen months, leaving the company on the register but persistently behind on its statutory reporting. The position was resolved only in the spring of 2026. Over a matter of weeks the company underwent a change of control, completed a £3.8 million recapitalisation that lifted its issued share capital to £7.395 million, and finally brought its filing record up to date with the submission of the outstanding accounts. Those accounts set out the scale of the strain behind the delay. The group recorded a loss of about £1.53 million for the period, within which the £747,000 write-off sits. EBC’s UK entity operates as a matched-principal CFD broker, routing client trades to liquidity providers rather than taking market risk itself.The post EBC’s UK broker files long-overdue accounts disclosing a £747,000 write-off first appeared on LeapRate | Online Trading Industry News, Broker Intelligence & Fintech Analysis.

Two of the three gave up their Cyprus licences voluntarily. Only Conotoxia was pushed, for no longer meeting the conditions of its authorisation. The Investor Compensation Fund has withdrawn the membership of Conotoxia Ltd, TTCM Traders Trust Capital Markets Ltd and OBR Investments Ltd under paragraph 6 of Directive DI87-07, on 17 June. The step follows CySEC’s earlier withdrawal of each firm’s CIF authorisation and does not extinguish covered clients’ rights to compensation for business conducted before the membership lapsed. Only one of the three left under pressure. Conotoxia (CIF 336/17) lost its authorisation on 5 June, on a board decision of 22 December, after CySEC concluded it no longer satisfied the conditions on which the licence had been granted. The regulator cited the suitability of a board member and of a shareholder, the requirement for at least two people to effectively direct the business, and deficiencies in the firm’s organisational arrangements. TTCM (CIF 107/09) and OBR Investments (CIF 217/13) went the other way. Both requested renunciation of their licences, TTCM on a decision of 14 May and OBR back in February, with no breach findings attached to either exit. The pattern here is the steady churn rather than a clampdown. CySEC has been working through a stream of CIF departures, voluntary more often than not, and the ICF removals are the administrative tail of that process.The post CySEC removes Conotoxia, TTCM and OBR from compensation fund first appeared on LeapRate | Online Trading Industry News, Broker Intelligence & Fintech Analysis.

ASIC calls the penalty the strongest scam wake-up call yet to the banking industry, after the bank admitted systemic failures that left customers carrying the losses. The Federal Court has ordered HSBC Bank Australia to pay an AUD35 million penalty after the bank admitted serious failures in protecting customers from scams, in a case ASIC describes as one of the first of its kind globally. Sitting in Melbourne on 18 June, Justice Bennett also ordered HSBC to publish adverse publicity notices across its website, its app and in letters to affected customers. ASIC, which commenced the civil penalty proceedings in December 2024, brought the case under the ePayments Code it administers. Between January 2020 and August 2024 HSBC received more than 1,000 reports of unauthorised transactions totalling about AUD34.6 million, with reports surging roughly 380% across 2023 and 2024 as impersonation scams escalated. The admitted failures are the substance. HSBC had scam controls on some payment systems but not on the internal transfer rail where the majority of customer losses occurred. It took an average of 144 days to investigate scam reports, did not apply the ePayments Code rules governing when the bank rather than the customer should bear a loss, and lacked adequate systems to restore customers’ banking access after they had been scammed. Justice Bennett found the Code failures widespread and systemic, and held that HSBC’s delays compounded the distress of affected customers. ASIC Chair Sarah Court framed the result as a signal to the whole sector, calling the penalty “the strongest scam wake-up call yet to the banking industry” and saying banks must now ensure their dealings with scam victims help rather than hinder. HSBC has established a remediation programme that has paid around AUD21.5 million in compensation so far, with further payments due before the end of July 2026, and has recovered and returned a further AUD6.5 million to customers.The post Federal Court fines HSBC AUD35m in global-first ASIC scam-liability case first appeared on LeapRate | Online Trading Industry News, Broker Intelligence & Fintech Analysis.

A ten-year ban from credit and financial services and the cancellation of Freedom Wealth Services’ licences, after ASIC found the adviser used forged client signatures and inaccurate file notes to justify ongoing fees. He is appealing. ASIC has banned financial planner Brett Anthony Newbound from all credit and financial services activities for ten years and cancelled the Australian financial services licence and Australian credit licence of his firm, Freedom Wealth Services Pty Ltd. ASIC found that, in three instances, Newbound relied on service agreements carrying client signatures the regulator determined the clients had not provided, and created or caused file notes that it found did not accurately reflect client interactions, in order to justify charging ongoing service fees. On that basis ASIC concluded he did not meet the statutory test to be a fit and proper person to operate in the credit and financial services industries. Fabricated fee justifications cut to conduct the sector has been under sustained pressure to stamp out since the Hayne Royal Commission’s fee-for-no-service findings, which makes a ten-year exclusion a predictable response rather than a surprising one. Newbound was an authorised representative of AMP Financial Planning between August 2011 and February 2021, and over the same period was the sole director of corporate authorised representative Logic Financial Services. Both the ban and the licence cancellations took effect from 1 May 2025, and the ban is recorded on ASIC’s banned and disqualified register. Newbound is the sole director and responsible manager of Freedom Wealth Services and was an authorised representative of the firm until 17 June 2026. The matter is contested. Newbound and Freedom Wealth Services have appealed to the Administrative Review Tribunal, with no hearing date yet set. Their application for a stay of ASIC’s decision and for confidentiality orders was opposed by ASIC and dismissed by the Tribunal on 16 June 2026.The post ASIC bans financial planner Brett Newbound first appeared on LeapRate | Online Trading Industry News, Broker Intelligence & Fintech Analysis.

Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing said Thursday that it has renewed its Memorandum of Understanding with China Financial Futures Exchange. The exchanges have reaffirmed their commitment to deepening collaboration and supporting the development of financial markets in both Hong Kong and Shanghai. The updated agreement was signed in Shanghai by HKEX Head of Markets Gregory Yu and CFFEX Executive Vice President Cai Xianghui, witnessed by HKEX Chief Executive Bonnie Y Chan, CFFEX Chief Executive Zhang Xiaogang, and Shanghai Municipal Financial Services Office Deputy Director Cao Yanwen. Under the renewed MOU, HKEX and CFFEX will enhance cooperation across product and business development, share research and market expertise, and facilitate personnel exchanges and training programmes between the two organisations. Both exchanges said they will continue to explore new areas of collaboration, leveraging their respective strengths to enhance mutual market connectivity and support the broader development of China’s capital markets. The renewal builds on an existing relationship between the two exchanges and reflects continued efforts to strengthen financial market links between Hong Kong and mainland China.  HKEX operates one of Asia’s most internationally connected financial markets, while CFFEX serves as China’s primary venue for financial futures and derivatives, covering equity index, treasury bond and foreign exchange futures.The post HKEX and China Financial Futures Exchange Renew Cooperation Agreement first appeared on LeapRate | Online Trading Industry News, Broker Intelligence & Fintech Analysis.

Euroclear said Friday that it has appointed Eric Lombard to its Board of Directors as a non-executive director, marking a return for the former French Minister of Economy, Finance and Industrial and Digital Sovereignty. Lombard previously served on the board between November 2022 and December 2024. Lombard has more than four decades of experience spanning finance, public sector leadership and government.  He served as France’s Economy and Finance Minister from 2024 to 2025, and prior to that led Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations, one of France’s foremost public financial institutions, as Chief Executive from 2017 to 2024.  He currently serves as President of Halmahera, an investment company. “His extensive experience across the private and public sector combined with his strategic perspective will be of great value,” said Francesco Vanni d’Archirafi, Chairman of the Euroclear Board. “Having previously served as a member of the Board, he is already well acquainted with Euroclear and how we operate.” Lombard said he is pleased to rejoin the board at a time when resilient market infrastructure and sound governance are more important than ever, adding that Euroclear is well positioned to contribute to the European Union’s Savings and Investments Union objective.The post Euroclear Welcomes Back Former French Finance Minister Eric Lombard to Board first appeared on LeapRate | Online Trading Industry News, Broker Intelligence & Fintech Analysis.

A nine-year sentence for the founder of an AI marketing startup once pitched at a AUD1 billion valuation, and a pointed signal from ASIC on director misconduct. The Federal Court of Australia has sentenced David Fairfull, former chief executive of AI marketing company Metigy, to nine years’ imprisonment, with a non-parole period of five years and four months, following an ASIC investigation and a CDPP prosecution into investor deception and self-dealing. Fairfull, who pleaded guilty in November 2025, was convicted on one count of making false or misleading statements to investors, contrary to ss 1041E(1) and 1311(1) of the Corporations Act, and one count of dishonestly using his position as a director, contrary to s 184(2). The court imposed seven years and six months on the first count and three years on the second, with 18 months to run concurrently. The conduct sat behind a fundraising run that, on paper, made Metigy one of the more celebrated names in Australian martech. Per ASIC, three capital raises between October 2018 and October 2020 brought in about AUD23.4 million, and a July 2021 secondary share sale a further AUD15.7 million, with investors committing just over AUD39 million on the strength of accounts that misstated the company’s revenue and income. A further AUD50 million raise was in prospect. In November 2021 Fairfull used his directorship to cause Metigy to lend him AUD7.7 million to fund a personal purchase of residential real estate. Metigy collapsed into administration in July 2022, roughly 20 months after a AUD20 million Series B led by Cygnet Capital and a valuation that had reportedly touched AUD1 billion. Sentencing him, Justice Abraham characterised the conduct as deliberate, premeditated and sophisticated, and as dishonest acts designed for personal gain. She framed the harm in market terms, finding that offending of this kind “undermines the integrity of Australia’s financial markets and system of corporate regulation.” ASIC Chair Sarah Court used the result to restate that director-duties enforcement is an enduring priority and that the regulator will act on serious governance failures.The post Ex-Metigy CEO David Fairfull jailed for nine years in ASIC director-duties case first appeared on LeapRate | Online Trading Industry News, Broker Intelligence & Fintech Analysis.

iFOREX Financial Trading Holdings Ltd (LON: IFRX) has appointed Daniel Shalom as Chief Operating Officer of the group, with immediate effect. Shalom takes responsibility for the group’s day-to-day operations, a brief that spans business operations, customer experience, product and technology. He joins with more than 20 years of experience scaling global businesses and data-driven technology platforms. Shalom spent eight years in senior executive roles at Amdocs, the global software and services provider to the telecommunications, media and financial services industries, where as Vice President of Data and AI he led a 500-person team serving Tier 1 customers. He most recently served as chief information officer at Yad Vashem, Israel’s World Holocaust Remembrance Center, where he oversaw a large-scale technology transformation programme. Group CEO Itai Sadeh said the appointment would strengthen iFOREX’s ability to keep developing its proprietary platform and “deepen AI-driven personalisation across our global client base.” Shalom said his priority would be to build on that foundation and support the group’s further growth. The appointment comes as the London-listed broker looks for catalysts to revive a share price that has seen little trading activity since February.The post iFOREX appoints Daniel Shalom as Chief Operating Officer first appeared on LeapRate | Online Trading Industry News, Broker Intelligence & Fintech Analysis.

The second FINRA censure of the Bank of America unit in under a fortnight, and in both cases the weakness FINRA landed on was the same: supervision. Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated has been censured and fined $175,000 by FINRA over a near three-year failure to give self-directed clients time-of-trade disclosures on municipal securities bought at a market discount. The action lands within a fortnight of a separate $225,000 FINRA censure of the same firm for failing to report more than 1,600 customer complaints. Two settlements, one regulator, one firm, and in each case a supervisory system FINRA found was not fit for purpose. Per the AWC, between January 2021 and September 2023 Merrill executed 4,181 municipal purchases worth roughly $87 million in principal across 1,072 self-directed accounts without flagging the non-de minimis market discount, and so without putting clients on notice that the accreted discount would be taxed as ordinary income rather than at the capital gains rate. FINRA treats that as material information owed at or before the point of trade. The findings turn, as they often do, on supervision. Merrill maintained no written procedures to ensure those time-of-trade disclosures reached its self-directed platform, and no process to test whether they were being made at all, breaching MSRB Rules G-47 (time of trade disclosure) and G-27 (supervision). The firm has since issued the missing disclosures and offered remediation to clients who can show the omission cost them in tax. Merrill settled without admitting or denying the findings.The post FINRA censures Merrill Lynch again, $175,000 this time, over muni bond disclosure failures first appeared on LeapRate | Online Trading Industry News, Broker Intelligence & Fintech Analysis.

Broadridge Financial Solutions has joined Project Glasswing, an initiative led by AI company Anthropic focused on using frontier artificial intelligence models to help secure critical software infrastructure and strengthen cyber defence across key industries. The initiative is said to bring together organisations that build or maintain software for critical infrastructure, including financial services, to address an evolving cybersecurity threat landscape.  Participants are expected to use Claude Mythos Preview, Anthropic’s unreleased frontier model, to bolster defensive security efforts across foundational systems that collectively represent a significant portion of the world’s shared cyberattack surface. Broadridge believes its participation demonstrates its commitment to supporting the security and resilience of the financial services industry, in which it operates as a core infrastructure provider across capital markets, corporate governance and investor communications. “Cybersecurity is fundamental to the resilience of financial markets,” said Tim Gokey, Chief Executive of Broadridge. “We are participating in Project Glasswing to apply frontier AI models to our own systems, helping us stay ahead of emerging threats and supporting a safer financial ecosystem.”The post Broadridge Joins Anthropic’s Project Glasswing to Strengthen Cyber Defences first appeared on LeapRate | Online Trading Industry News, Broker Intelligence & Fintech Analysis.

Euronext said Thursday that it has launched IPOgo, a new listing solution designed to give small and medium-sized enterprises a simpler, faster and more cost-effective route to public markets via Euronext Growth. The firm noted that the solution is made possible by the adoption of the EU Listing Act. IPOgo is said to offer simplified admission documentation modelled on the EU Growth Prospectus, combined with an end-to-end digital execution process built on Euronext’s proprietary digital distribution infrastructure.  Furthermore, they stated that the solution is designed to shorten the listing timeline significantly, with Euronext describing the process as twice as fast as existing routes. For companies seeking to raise up to €12 million, IPOgo is also designed to broaden retail investor participation in IPOs. In France, where Euronext Growth hosts around 250 companies, firms using IPOgo will be able to open up to 100% of their offering to retail investors. Euronext Growth currently hosts more than 550 listed companies across Europe with a combined market capitalisation of around €40 billion, supported by an institutional investor base of more than 600 institutions across 29 countries.  Trading volumes on the market reached their highest level since 2021 in 2025, with close to a third of traded volume coming from retail investors. “With IPOgo, Euronext is taking another step to reconnect European savings with the financing needs of SMEs,” said Mathieu Caron, Head of Primary Markets at Euronext. “We are making IPOs twice as fast, simpler, and more cost-effective.” Since 2018, around 70 companies have transferred from Euronext Growth to Euronext regulated markets. Following the introduction of the Listing Act, companies listed on Euronext Growth can seek admission to regulated markets after 18 months using a simplified prospectus.The post Euronext Launches IPOgo to Fast-Track SME Listings on Euronext Growth first appeared on LeapRate | Online Trading Industry News, Broker Intelligence & Fintech Analysis.

MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (Nasdaq: MKTX) has announced the launch of TraX Tape, a new data solution designed to deliver a clean, consolidated view of bond market activity enriched with real-time insights and contextual analytics. The launch arrives as UK and EU transparency reforms continue to reshape how bond trading data is reported and interpreted. While the reforms have increased the availability of market data, they have also introduced new layers of complexity. TraX Tape aims to address this by offering a single, standardised feed that consolidates and enhances market data, allowing clients to analyse trading activity more efficiently and with greater confidence. Built on the existing MarketAxess TraX data infrastructure, the solution aggregates information from a global network of dealers and clients and applies proprietary data cleansing processes developed over a decade. It then enriches regulatory transparency data with additional analytics, including trade direction signals and pricing context drawn from the firm’s AI-powered pricing engine, CP+. Key features include directional indicators on each trade, de-duplicated data, a single-connection view of global bond trading activity, expanded coverage, and integrated yield and spread calculations to support execution analysis. Dean Berry, Group COO and CEO of EMEA and APAC at MarketAxess, said: “Market participants have more data than ever but turning that data into actionable insight remains a challenge. TraX Tape is designed to deliver a clearer and more complete view of market activity, helping clients make more informed trading decisions.”The post MarketAxess Launches TraX Tape to Bring Clarity to Bond Market Data first appeared on LeapRate | Online Trading Industry News, Broker Intelligence & Fintech Analysis.