Financial Services

Baltimore – October 05, 2026 -- Transamerica's pooled retirement plan assets climbed nearly 61% over five years, rising from $21.3 billion in 2021 to $34.2 billion in 2025, as the insurer marks its 25th year in the pooled plan market.

Transamerica ranks No. 1 in PEP adopting employers for second consecutive year

According to PLANSPONSOR's 2026 Recordkeeping Survey, Transamerica topped the industry in Pooled Employer Plan (PEP) adopting employers and led in multiple other pooled plan metrics, including the most MEP and PEP contracts serviced and the most MEP participants serviced. The survey also credited the company with the highest year-over-year growth rates in both pooled plan assets and participants. The number of employers adopting Transamerica's pooled plans has grown nearly 40% over the same five-year period.

New York – October 05, 2026 -- The U.S. 10-year Treasury yield traded close to 5.3% as of 8 a.m. ET on Monday, with investors positioning ahead of Wednesday's Federal Reserve minutes release from the September meeting, according to the New York Stock Exchange's daily pre-market advisory delivered by Ashley Mastronardi from the trading floor.

Traders overwhelmingly bet on a Fed pause this month

About 80% of traders expect the Federal Reserve to leave interest rates unchanged at its upcoming meeting, based on the latest data cited in the NYSE update. The Fed's September meeting minutes are scheduled for release Wednesday at 2 p.m. ET, a release market participants will scrutinize for signals on the rate path into year-end.

Paris – October 05, 2026 -- Basware, the global leader in Invoice Lifecycle Management, has completed its acquisition of payment fraud prevention platform Trustpair, finalizing a deal first announced in August 2026.

Basware extends invoice oversight to the point of payment

The acquisition closes a gap in enterprise finance controls: an invoice can be authentic, accurate and fully approved, yet still result in a fraudulent payment if the associated supplier bank account is compromised. Basware's platform validates that an invoice obligation is legitimate and compliant; Trustpair now adds verification that the supplier is genuine, the bank account matches that supplier, and funds reach the intended destination.

Singapore – October 05, 2026 -- WasabiCard, a stablecoin-powered global payment infrastructure platform, will host its TOKEN2049 Singapore side event, "STABLECOIN & PAYMENTS: FUNDS FLOW," on October 6 at Raffles Singapore, with Lotus Technology Inc. (Nasdaq: LOT) confirmed as a participant.

Lotus Tech CFO joins panel with Visa, Circle, AWS and other finance and crypto leaders

Dr. Daxue Wang, Chief Financial Officer of Lotus Tech, will speak on the panel "Stablecoins Go Mainstream: From Settlement to Real-World Payments," alongside senior representatives from Visa, Circle, Nium, Plume, Safeheron, OSL, WIDTH and AWS. The discussion will examine how stablecoin liquidity can move beyond on-chain settlement into business operations and consumer payments.

SYDNEY – October 04, 2026 -- Payward, the financial infrastructure platform behind Kraken, has partnered with Singapore Gulf Bank (SGB) to enable round-the-clock settlement for institutional digital asset clients in Asia and the Gulf region.

Payward integrates SGB Net to eliminate banking cut-off times

Payward has connected to SGB Net, the bank's real-time multi-currency clearing network, allowing institutional clients of both firms to settle transactions instantly, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The offering initially covers US dollar transactions for a select number of clients, with plans to add more clients and currencies over time. Through SGB Net, an SGB client can deposit funds with Payward and deploy them immediately, at any hour, rather than waiting on traditional banking cycles that have historically taken days.

Tokyo – October 04, 2026 -- Bloomberg has completed the first fully automated Japanese Government Bond (JGB) Market-on-Close trade, executed through a new workflow aligned to BB3P (Hikene Trading), the reference rate for JGB closing prices.

New workflow combines Bid/Offer List Trading with Rule Builder automation

The automated workflow is available through Bloomberg Electronic Markets and merges Bid/Offer List Trading functionality with Rule Builder, Bloomberg's trade automation tool. Clients can define execution criteria and automate order routing based on predefined conditions, within an integrated order and execution management workflow delivered through TSOX.

Singapore – – October 04, 2026 -- S&P Global Ratings has launched a new risk-assessment framework for digital asset lending vaults, a market that has grown to $10 billion in deposits as of September 2026 from $1.5 billion two years earlier. The Vault Risk Assessment (VRA) delivers independent, forward-looking analysis of impairment risk for investors in blockchain-based lending vehicles that pool deposits and deploy them according to defined strategies, functioning much like traditional fixed income funds.

Vancouver, BC – October 03, 2026 -- Two independent research firms diverge on the size of the global online trading platform market, with Mordor Intelligence valuing it at $11.65 billion in 2025 and projecting $18.18 billion by 2031 (7.66% CAGR), while Fortune Business Insights puts 2025 value at $10.82 billion, rising to $18.50 billion by 2034 (6.00% CAGR). Mordor Intelligence attributes 69.59% of 2025 platform volume to retail investors and 63.42% of deployment to cloud-based infrastructure, underscoring smartphones as the primary entry point for individual traders.

Seattle – October 02, 2026 -- ORSNN, an electronic trading platform for institutional whole loan markets, has named Aaron Khoo as Chief Product Officer and Werner Koepf as Chief Technology Officer, while adding Ken Plank as Senior Advisor, Credit Unions, as the company nears completion of a new capital raise.

The platform has supported $3 billion in loan offering volume to date and completed its SOC 2 Type I examination in the second quarter of 2026. The capital raise will fund continued product development, engineering execution and expansion into new markets, the company said.

Scottsdale, Ariz. – October 02, 2026 -- equipifi has grown BNPL transaction volume on its platform by 128% year over year while nearly doubling its headcount following a Series B raise earlier this year.

equipifi earns fourth consecutive Best Places to Work finalist nod

equipifi, a bank-led Buy Now, Pay Later provider, has been named a finalist for the Phoenix Business Journal's Best Places to Work in the Valley for the fourth consecutive year. The company placed second in the Extra Small category last year and will compete in a larger size category next year due to its rapid growth.