North Korea-linked hackers reportedly stole $6.3bn from Binance, sparking $4.72bn in net outflows, about 2.8% of platform assets.
Mastercard partners with OpenAI on Agent Pay and agentic commerce, with Shopify among the first Shop Pay deployments.
Revolut secures New Zealand's first digital-only banking licence, committing NZ$120m over five years.
North Korea-linked hackers steal $6.3bn from Binance
Guest interviews
Clive Summerfield, CEO of FARx. Clive Summerfield says the cryptography held and the people and processes broke, with billions concentrated behind a handful of privileged engineers . Banks have moved such sums for decades with dual controls, while approvals today check a device and a login but not the live human, a fixable design choice . He cites Arup's $25m deepfake fraud and predicts Agent Pay will resemble credit cards in ten years .
Wincie Wong, founding member of Tech She Can. Wincie Wong says fraud is about people rather than technology, and criminals move bank to bank hunting vulnerabilities . She notes 2.8% of Binance deposits left while 97.2% stayed, possibly because depositors were trapped in the ledger, and compares it to Northern Rock's 2007 run . She says agentic commerce is coming fast and expects the most meaningful value in B2B .
James A. Brown, CEO of Leeds Credit Union. James A. Brown says he is not shocked by the Binance hack and expects more, arguing CEOs holding other people's money must invest in guardrails . He welcomes Revolut's entry to a New Zealand market long dominated by Australian-owned banks and price heavy for consumers . He says agentic payments free up time, citing his wife's conversion to Monzo .
Binu Paul, consultant at SavvyKiwi. Binu Paul says the licence is big news locally and follows Revolut's Australian licence . He says approval requires local governance and risk systems, and that four Australian-owned banks long dominated the sector .
News
North Korea-linked hackers steal $6.3bn from Binance. Hackers used fake job interviews and a compromised internal AI tool to steal $6.3bn, about £4.7bn . Net outflows hit $4.72bn, around 2.8% of assets held on the platform .
Mastercard partners with OpenAI on agentic payments. The partnership covers Agent Pay for tokenized transactions and Verifiable Intent, which records what customers authorized . Shopify is among the first deployments through Shop Pay, and CEO Michael Miebach says transaction volumes remain small .
Revolut becomes New Zealand's first digital-only bank. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand licence is Revolut's seventh worldwide and fifth this year, across 34 markets . Revolut commits NZ$120m over five years and offers an instant access savings account, with deposits up to NZ$100,000 protected .
HSBC builds Hong Kong AI institute for 2027. The AI and emerging technology institute opens in early 2027 with the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, covering AI fraud prevention and post-quantum cryptography . It is HSBC's second AI hub after Singapore .
UK raises tax-free trading allowance to £3,000. From April 2027 the allowance rises from £1,000 to £3,000, benefiting up to 1.4m people . Around 400,000 will save an average £380 and 100,000 will no longer report trading income to HMRC .
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