Ripple targets post-quantum readiness for XRP Ledger by 2028 The roadmap is made up of four phases, beginning with post-quantum recovery if classical cryptography breaks, to enable safe recovery for account owners. Phase two is proactive planning and experimentation to assess the full impact of post-quantum cryptography on XRPL, while phase three will explore post-quantum primitives.

📡 Ripple maps a four‑phase roadmap to make the XRP Ledger post‑quantum ready by 2028, shifting from contingency recovery plans to native post‑quantum cryptography and signalling that quantum security is becoming a core competitive battleground.
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UK fintech backed to embrace future payments technology The UK’s payments sector is to be equipped for the future of rapid financial innovation through a new package announced today during Fintech Week in London.

💷 UK Government sets out a payments reform package to modernise rules for payment services, e‑money, stablecoins, tokenised deposits and AI‑driven payments, while boosting Open Banking and tokenisation to keep UK fintech competitive.
www.gov.uk/government/n...

European banks tap Fireblocks for MiCA-compliant euro stablecoin A consortium of 12 European banks led by Qivalis has selected digital asset custody provider Fireblocks to provide infrastructure for a Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA)-compliant euro…

🪙 A 12‑bank consortium led by Qivalis is using Fireblocks to build a MiCA‑compliant, 1:1‑backed euro stablecoin for institutional settlement and treasury, aiming to cut reliance on dollar‑pegged tokens in European on‑chain payments.
www.tradingview.com/news/cointel...

Visa and TikTok launch 'creator card' The new Creator Card gives users access to tools designed to better separate business and personal finances. Th card and business account enable users to access their earnings faster and spend money straight away.

💳 VVisa and TikTok’s UK Creator Card links TikTok LIVE rewards to a business debit account, helping creators access income faster, separate business and personal spend, and turn irregular payouts into usable working capital.
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Voice morphing attack blends identities to bypass voice biometrics: study | Biometric Update A new research paper explores a signal-level approach to voice morphing attacks that exposes vulnerabilities in biometric voice recognition systems.

🗣️ New research shows a single fake voice can convincingly imitate more than one person, letting criminals reuse one “master” voice to bypass strict voice checks and speed up attacks on multiple accounts.
www.biometricupdate.com/202604/voice...

FCA announces second cohort for AI Live Testing Speaking at UK FinTech Week, Jessica Rusu, chief data, information and intelligence officer at the FCA, has confirmed the second group of firms selected to join AI Live Testing.

🤖 FCA picks Aereve, Coadjute, Barclays, Experian, GoCardless, Scottish Widows, UBS and Palindrome for its second AI live testing cohort, signalling it will set AI expectations through supervised real‑world trials under existing rules, not a new AI rulebook.
www.fca.org.uk/news/press-r...

MoJ launches digital ID scheme to reduce prison release errors | THINK Digital Partners : THINK Digital Partners The Ministry of Justice has unveiled an £82 million programme to modernise prison and court processes, using digital identity, biometrics and automation to reduce mistaken prisoner releases and…

🛂 MoJ’s £82m Justice ID programme gives each offender a single digital identity, expands biometrics and digitises workflows to cut prison release errors, but its precise relationship to the wider UK national digital ID scheme remains unclear.
www.thinkdigitalpartners.com/news/2026/04...

Visa Expands Payment Orchestration Pact With Dubai’s MoneyHash | PYMNTS.com Visa has expanded its partnership with MoneyHash, a payment orchestration/infrastructure platform for emerging markets. The expanded collaboration, the

🧩 Visa is expanding its partnership with Dubai-based MoneyHash to enable Cybersource across its orchestration platform, helping MENA and global merchants improve payment success, cut costs and launch faster via a single integration.
www.pymnts.com/partnerships...

Meow taps BVNK for stablecoin play BVNK will power Meow’s stablecoin and crypto payments globally, adding new currencies and providing access to the Swift network, enabling customers to move seamlessly between fiat and digital assets, reducing costs and delays in cross-border payments.

🌐 Meow partners with BVNK to power stablecoin and crypto payments for global business clients, helping AI-led and multinational teams move between fiat and digital assets more efficiently while cutting cross-border costs and delays.
www.finextra.com/pressarticle...

World ID 2.0: Sam Altman’s Digital Identity Play Expands Beyond the Orb A redesigned identity system introduces new tools and partnerships to help distinguish real users from bots across digital platforms.

🧿 World upgrades its World ID into a standalone, account based “proof of human” app, adding recovery and non Orb checks while integrating with Tinder, Zoom, DocuSign and concerts to fight bots and deepfakes across mainstream digital services.
cryptonews.com.au/news/world-i...

CP26/13: Cryptoasset perimeter guidance We’re consulting on our proposed perimeter guidance for the UK’s future crypto regime.

🪙 The FCA is consulting until 3 June 2026 on draft guidance that sets the UK crypto perimeter, clarifying which activities like stablecoin issuance, trading platforms, custody, dealing and staking will need authorisation ahead of the 2027 regime.
www.fca.org.uk/publications...

FCA and Turing Institute develop synthetic dataset to combat money laundering The aim of the project is to replicate real money laundering situations and support regulators and financial institutions in developing anti-money laundering strategies.

🧪 The FCA and partners are building synthetic UK retail banking datasets that mimic money laundering to let firms test new AML tools in the Digital Sandbox, aiming to strengthen financial crime defences and industry innovation.
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Fed consults on FedNow cross-border payments Says the proposal: "The Board believes this change could support private-sector cross-border payment solutions, among other potential use cases, by allowing FedNow participants to leverage an intermediary (for example, a correspondent bank) for the international portion of a cross-border transaction and use the FedNow Service for the US."

🌎 The Fed is consulting on allowing FedNow banks to use non‑Fed intermediaries for cross‑border legs, potentially speeding international instant payments but leaving big questions on FX, compliance, adoption and who becomes the key intermediary.
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Binance launches prediction markets feature Now app users have one-click access to prediction markets, allowing them to trade using their Binance Spot and Funding Account balances, with all trading and settlement transaction fees sponsored by Binance Wallet.

🎯 Binance is adding a prediction markets feature in its app, letting users in supported regions trade yes/no shares on real‑world events using existing balances, with on‑chain trades and gas fees sponsored to drive adoption.
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HSBC granted Hong Kong stablecoin issuer licence Eddie Yue, chief executive, HKMA, says: "We hope their promotion of regulated stablecoins will address pain points in financial and economic activities, create values for both individuals and businesses, and support the healthy development of digital assets in Hong Kong.”

HSBC has won one of Hong Kong’s first HKD stablecoin licences, plans to launch a retail‑facing coin via PayMe and HSBC apps, and will hold fully backed reserves alongside fellow licensee Anchorpoint Financial.
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US launches cybersecurity sharing channel for crypto firms Eligible US digital asset firms and industry organisations that meet Treasury’s criteria will be able to receive, at no cost, the same actionable cybersecurity information regularly shared with traditional financial institutions.

US Treasury is giving eligible US crypto firms free access to the same actionable cyber threat intelligence as banks, pushing the sector towards bank‑grade resilience and stronger consumer protection.
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Stablecoins gain traction in B2B payments B2B flows now account for approximately $226 billion, or 60% of identifiable real-economy stablecoin volume. Of corporate users, 41% report cost savings of at least 10%, while 77% of corporate stablecoin adopters cite supplier payments as their primary use case.

💵 Stablecoins now settle $33 trillion a year, with B2B volumes at $226 billion and rising, as corporates adopt them for cheaper, faster supplier payments and treasury, signalling a shift from pilots to core payment infrastructure.
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Europe Gets Serious About Age Verification Online The search for an age-verification system that protects user data may begin and end in the EU.

🧿 Europe tests privacy‑preserving mini‑wallet for age checks, using cryptographic yes/no proofs tied to future EU digital identity wallets so adult sites & platforms can block minors without collecting full IDs, though workarounds like borrowing adults’ devices remain.
www.wired.com/story/europe...

Lloyds tests quantum computing to crack money mule networks The experiment tested multiple quantum algorithms to see whether patterns of known money mule behaviour could be identified within a larger transactional graph. The team used anonymised data on one of IBM’s 156-qubit quantum computers.

🧪 Lloyds is testing quantum computing with IBM to detect complex money mule networks, successfully spotting a planted mule in anonymised data and hinting at future quantum‑enhanced financial crime prevention.
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Businesses ready to embrace AI-to-AI commerce, consumers more wary - Visa survey Businesses appear to be enthusiastic, with 53% willing to permit AI agents to negotiate directly with other AI agents, 71% willing to optimise products, offers and experiences specifically for AI agents, and 77% already using or piloting AI in their operations. Meanwhile, 88% are willing to provide pricing or inventory data to enterprise AI systems and 55% are already familiar with the concept of B2AI commerce.

🧠 Visa’s survey shows over half of US businesses are ready for AI‑to‑AI commerce, but consumers mostly want AI to compare prices and apply discounts, keeping tight controls on autonomous spending and trusting bank‑ or network‑backed AI most.
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Coinbase wins conditional approval for national trust bank charter Coinbase says a charter will bring "federal regulatory uniformity to the custody and market infrastructure business we have been building for years".

🏦 Coinbase has secured conditional US approval for a national trust bank charter, gaining federal oversight for its custody and market infrastructure business and enabling new payments services, while stressing it will not become a retail, fractional‑reserve bank.
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SoFi launches fiat and crypto business banking platform | The Paypers SoFi has launched Big Business Banking, enabling enterprises to manage fiat and crypto operations within a single regulated US bank.

🏦 SoFi has launched Big Business Banking, a regulated US platform that unifies fiat accounts, 24/7 API payments and SoFiUSD stablecoin rails so institutional and crypto‑native firms can manage traditional and digital assets in one place.
thepaypers.com/crypto-web3-...

South Korea and Indonesia launch cross-border QR payments | The Paypers The Bank of Korea and Bank Indonesia have launched a QR-based cross-border payment service enabling local currency transactions between the two countries from April 2026.

🌏 South Korea and Indonesia have launched a bilateral QR payment service letting travellers pay in won or rupiah at physical stores, cutting FX costs today and laying groundwork for online expansion and broader ASEAN local‑currency QR links.
thepaypers.com/payments/new...
#crossborder

The payments sovereignty debate in the UK and Europe With geopolitical tensions rising over recent months, the topic of payments sovereignty in the UK and Europe has gathered a lot of steam - find out more.

🌍 Europe pushes digital euro, Wero and Pay-by-Bank while the UK upgrades rails without calling it sovereignty, pointing to a long transition where cards, instant A2A, and new schemes co‑exist rather than a quick break from Visa, Mastercard and Swift.
www.fintechfutures.com/paytech/paym...

CommBank mobile app to scan password chip for fast account onboarding The change, which uses near-field communication to scan the passport's encrypted chip in the bank's mobile app, has been tested since January, with more than 2700 people signing up for accounts using their passports.

📲 Commonwealth Bank of Australia now lets e‑passport holders open accounts in about a minute by scanning the passport chip and a selfie in its app, replacing multi‑document KYC and easing onboarding for visitors, migrants and students.
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NAPAS and Ant International launch Vietnam–China QR payments | The Paypers NAPAS, Ant International, and Vietcombank have launched cross-border QR payments between Vietnam and China, settling in local currencies.

🌏 NAPAS, Ant International and Vietcombank have enabled Chinese visitors in Vietnam to scan VIETQRGlobal codes with Alipay and pay in local currencies, boosting tourism and SME sales as Southeast Asia’s cross‑border QR network continues to expand.
thepaypers.com/payments/new...

UnionPay launches Agentic Payment Open Protocol framework | The Paypers UnionPay has released its Agentic Payment Open Protocol framework, providing identity management, intent verification, and authorisation standards for AI-initiated payments globally.

👍 UnionPay launches its Agentic Payment Open Protocol as an open standard for secure, interoperable AI‑initiated payments, showcased by a live Hong Kong taxi booking via Evonet and Hoppa, signalling low‑friction, intent‑driven agentic commerce.
thepaypers.com/payments/new...

Nium launches dual-network stablecoin card issuance platform Nium also promises to make this possible in days, helping firms save months on building custom infrastructure. The platform handles chain-of-conversion complexity, cross-border settlement constraints, and card network compliance in a single managed layer.

💳 Nium’s new platform lets firms turn stablecoin balances into spendable Visa and Mastercard cards via one API, handling crypto‑to‑fiat conversion, compliance and settlement so deployment takes days, not months.
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Mastercard Completes its First Live Agentic Transaction in Hong Kong This milestone builds on Mastercard’s growing leadership in agentic commerce across Asia Pacific, following earlier authenticated agentic transactions completed in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, India, South Korea, and Taiwan.

🚕 Mastercard has completed its first live Agent Pay transaction in Hong Kong, with an AI agent booking and paying for a hoppa airport ride using tokenised cards and Payment Passkeys, as it rolls out trusted agentic commerce use cases across Asia Pacific.
www.mastercard.com/news/ap/en-h...

Ramp and Visa Deepen Partnership to Power the Next Era of Autonomous Finance /PRNewswire/ -- Ramp, the leading financial operations platform, is expanding its partnership with Visa, a global leader in digital payments. The partnership...

🤖 Ramp is deepening its Visa partnership, using Visa Intelligent Commerce and Trusted Agent Protocol to power AI agents that automate corporate bill pay and enforce real-time spend controls for 50,000+ business customers under a renewed multi-year issuing deal.
www.prnewswire.com/news-release...