While the broader market shows signs of hesitation, GeeFi is demonstrating undeniable strength and capturing the attention of smart investors worldwide. The project’s presale has been nothing short of spectacular, with Phase 1 selling out 10 million tokens and raising $500,000 in just over one week. This incredible momentum has continued, pushing the total funds […] The post GeeFi (GEE) Makes News as Market Volatility Doesn’t Slow Down Its Daily Inflow of Over $100K appeared first on TechBullion.

Trulioo has joined Google’s Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) to provide its Digital Agent Passport and Know Your Agent (KYA) framework, creating a trusted identity layer for AI-driven, agent-led payments. AP2 establishes a common standard for how AI agents transact, and Trulioo ensures every agent interacting in the ecosystem is authenticated, authorized, and accountable before executing a payment. Agentic payments remain early but are poised to scale quickly as identity layers like KYA mature and combine with programmable settlement rails such as stablecoins and tokenized deposits, enabling safe, real-time autonomous transactions. Agentic payments are on the rise this season, and digital identity platform Trulioo is stepping up to help protect agent-led transactions. The Canada-based company has joined Google’s Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) initiative. With the launch, Trulioo is deepening its long-standing ties with Google, which leverages Trulioo’s Global Identity Platform for Know Your Customer (KYC) verification. Google launched AP2 in September 2025 to provide an open, standardized framework for digital payments. AP2 connects banks, fintechs, and merchants with its protocol that creates a common language for how AI agents can transact on behalf of users. Trulioo will bring its Digital Agent Passport and KYA framework to AP2. Together with Trulioo’s KYA framework, the Digital Agent Passport creates a verifiable trust layer within AP2, ensuring every digital agent is authenticated, authorized, and accountable before transacting. “The future of commerce belongs to agents that can think, act, and transact independently, but only if they can be trusted,” said Trulioo CEO Vicky Bindra. “By joining AP2, we’re helping define the identity backbone for autonomous payments, where verified agents transact transparently, responsibly, and at machine speed. This is the architecture, and the future, of trusted agentic commerce. We’re proud to be working with Google to bring verified identity to agentic payments.” Headquartered in Canada and founded in 2011, Trulioo has raised $475 million. The company offers global verification for both businesses and customers in 195 countries and with the ability to verify more than 14,000 ID documents and 700 million business entities while checking against more than 6,000 watchlists. Trulioo has demoed at 10 Finovate events, most recently showcasing its identity platform at FinovateEurope 2023. Trulioo launched its Know Your Agent (KYA) solution in August 2025. “KYA is a new identity layer designed for agent-led digital interactions, bringing trust and compliance to agentic commerce without compromising speed or user experience,” the company said. “This isn’t just technical infrastructure—it’s a real-time trust layer that quietly safeguards the ecosystem while letting everything move at machine speed.” Agentic payments are still in their early stages, largely because true autonomy requires more than intelligent agents. For the ecosystem to work, agentic payments require a secure, verifiable system for authorizing transactions without human intervention. As identity layers like KYA mature, consumers and businesses will become more comfortable allowing AI agents to initiate payments, execute purchases, manage subscriptions, or even negotiate transactions on their behalf. The shift becomes even more notable as agentic payments intersect with programmable settlement rails such as stablecoins and tokenized deposits. These payment methods enable real-time, programmable, and low-cost transactions that will help autonomous agents operate safely at scale. When combined, trusted agent identity plus programmable money could bring agent-led commerce into mainstream markets rapidly, especially if security layers like Trulioo’s are already in place. Photo by Czapp Árpád The post Trulioo Joins Google’s Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) to Secure Agent-Led Payments appeared first on Finovate.       

Meta has acquired the startup Limitless, which makes a which makes a small, artificial intelligence-powered pendant.

Repeated downtime raises concerns over reliability in online financial services. Highlights: Cloudflare faced a significant outage affecting various services. This marks the second disruption within a month. Financial services experienced downtime during the incident. The outage raises concerns about the reliability of cloud providers. Cloudflare suffered its second outage in a month, impacting numerous online services, including many in the fintech space. This incident caused interruptions in digital payments and other critical applications, highlighting vulnerabilities in cloud service reliability. Companies relying on Cloudflare for their infrastructure faced significant operational challenges, emphasizing the importance of redundancy and alternative service strategies. As the fintech sector increasingly relies on digital solutions, maintaining uptime is crucial for consumer trust and operational stability.

This week, we tracked more than 65 tech funding deals worth over €1.3 billion and over 15 exits, M&A transactions, rumours, and related news stories across Europe. In addition to this week's top financials, we've also indexed the most important/industry-related news items you need to know about. If email is more your thing, you can always subscribe to our newsletter and receive a more robust version of this round-up delivered to your inbox. Either way, let's get you up to speed. ? Notable and big funding rounds ?? French CRM outfit Brevo hits unicorn status following a €500M funding round ?? Black Forest Labs secures $300M Series B at $3.25B valuation ?? Shop Circle secures $100M credit facility as it positions itself as Europe’s alternative to VC funding ??‍?? Noteworthy acquisitions and mergers ?? Bending Spoons to acquire Eventbrite in $500M all-cash deal ?? Wayve acquires German startup Quality Match ?? Shiftmove acquires Ocean, expanding its European fleet technology footprint ?? FORMEL SKIN joins MANUAL to expand from skin health to whole-body care ?? KKR completes £4.7B acquisition of Spectris ? Interesting moves from investors ? Europe’s overlooked alpha: Growathon Ventures targets Venture’s biggest market failure ? SwissHealth Ventures doubles fund volume to CHF 100 million ?? Backing founders from “day zero”, Dutch VC Volve Capital closes Fund I at €9 million ?️ In other (important) news ?? Former Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billström joins Nordic Air Defence ?? New programme fast-tracks European defence innovation with controlled testing in Ukraine ? UN Development Program and Wazoku invite startups to pioneer new tech for underwater mine detection ? From heat waste to heat source: Power Mining launches shipping-container data centres for city heating ? Entrepreneurs launch European “venture studio” ? Recommended reads and listens ? The biggest European edtech deals in H1 2025 ?? Mater-AI secures £1.5M to tackle one of energy’s oldest problems: wasted heat ?? “I definitely want a European listing”, says Nvidia-backed n8n CEO ? Biotech scaleup NADMED launches $30K global award to advance innovation in cellular health ? European tech startups to watch  ?? Complir raises €1.7M to help retailers manage global compliance with AI infrastructure ??  Sky Spy lands $1.6M to fix SIGINT failures in saturated signal environments ??  Liablix secures €1.2M to modernize automotive claims analysis ?? Fronted lands $1M to modernise global hiring using AI ?? Bestie Bite raises $700,000 to reinvent restaurant choices with AI gamification ?? Lovable-built Lumoo gets €550,000 funding from Lovable CEO

Trading and investing platform eToro has rolled out its stock lending programme in the UK, allowing eligible users to earn passive income by lending out fully paid stocks. The programme follows earlier rollouts in Europe and the UAE and forms part of eToro’s plan to expand stock lending access to retail investors globally.The initiative, announced in April, expands eToro’s partnership with BNY, which acts as custodian and clearing provider, while stock lending platform EquiLend identifies borrowers and facilitates the lending process. UK Retail Investors Gain Stock LendingeToro said it is bringing a practice long dominated by large financial institutions to UK retail investors. “Launching stock lending in the UK is a key step in our mission to make passive income opportunities available to every investor,” said Yossi Brandes, VP Execution Services at eToro.The programme also expands eToro’s clearing and custody relationship with BNY, which provides the infrastructure for its fully funded stock and ETF offering across 19 global exchanges. Victor O’Laughlen, Executive Platform Owner – Global Clearing at BNY, said the collaboration combines the capabilities of eToro and EquiLend with BNY’s clearing services to “equip retail investors with an institutional-grade solution to support their investing journey.”BNY, Canada Bank Launch EquiLend PlatformBNY and the National Bank of Canada have gone live with EquiLend’s 1Source platform, a blockchain-based system that reduces manual reconciliation in securities lending by maintaining synchronized transaction records and automating lifecycle events such as recalls and rate adjustments. The platform currently covers North American equities, with plans to expand to corporate bonds and European markets. eToro has used EquiLend for six months to support its UK and European stock lending programme. The system could save the industry hundreds of millions annually through improved efficiency and fewer settlement failures. This article was written by Tareq Sikder at www.financemagnates.com.

The HSG START Accelerator held its first Demo Day on 2 December, where eight selected deeptech startups presented their business models to an audience of investors, partners, and guests. Most of the participating startups are already in advanced discussions with investors or have completed a financing round. The programme aims to connect technological excellence with entrepreneurial implementation, preparing European tech startups in the early growth phase for scaling and access to capital and markets. The initiative is a collaboration between the University of St. Gallen (HSG), the START Foundation, and the Switzerland Innovation Park East, with support from the Canton of St. Gallen, other foundations, and private donors. Over 150 participants attended the Demo Day at the University of St. Gallen’s SQUARE. Eight startups were chosen from more than 130 applications across 30 countries, representing fields such as climatetech, drones, AI, medtech, and robotics. Founders come from leading institutions including ETH Zurich, EPFL, Empa, the University of Zurich, and HSG. Nicolas Blanchard “The last few weeks have shown how the founders have sharpened their positioning and worked on their business models to become investor-ready,” said Nicolas Blanchard, CEO of the HSG START Accelerator. Around 60 experts and mentors supported the startups, helping them refine business models, develop market strategies, and connect with potential investors. The startups presenting included: Augmedi AI-based 3D learning platform for medical training. Avientus ETH Zurich spin-off offering drone logistics solutions. Dexterous Endoscopes EPFL spin-off developing a flexible surgical endoscope. Forgis AI-driven development for industrial robot systems. Ionic Wind Empa spin-off creating energy-efficient cooling technology. Iron Energy ETH spin-off producing iron-oxide-based long-duration energy storage. Neurovia EPFL spin-off developing minimally invasive implants interacting with the nervous system. TreeScatter AI platform generating detailed 3D models of forests for sustainable forestry. The independent investment committee offered funding to Dexterous Endoscopes, recognising the startup’s product, market strategy, and growth potential. Applications for the second batch, starting in March 2026, are now open for European tech startups ready for their next growth phase. Featured image credit: HSG START Accelerator The post HSG START Accelerator Holds First Demo Day for Deeptech Startups appeared first on Fintech Schweiz Digital Finance News - FintechNewsCH.

Citi has appointed Minh Ngo as the new Citi Country Officer and Banking Head (CCOBH) for Vietnam, marking the first time a Vietnamese national has held the CCO post since the bank began operations in the country 32 years ago. In addition to her country leadership role, Ngo will assume the position of General Director of Citi’s Ho Chi Minh City branch. As the bank’s most senior representative in Vietnam, she will act as the primary representative of the franchise in the local market. According to the bank, Ngo will be responsible for leading Citi’s strategy across all client segments and product lines. Her remit includes direct accountability for the financial performance of the banking business. Beyond financial oversight, Ngo is tasked with leading regulatory engagement and overseeing legal entity governance. The bank also noted that she will drive the execution of Citi’s global transformation initiatives within the Vietnamese market. Citi has maintained a presence in Vietnam since 1993. Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Singapore based on an image by ilygraphic via Freepik. The post Citi Appoints Minh Ngo as First Vietnamese Country Officer appeared first on Fintech Singapore.

Marquis said ransomware hackers stole reams of banking customer data, containing personal information and financial records, as well as Social Security numbers, belonging to hundreds of thousands of people. The number of affected people is expected to rise.