We have officially entered the final week of June, which marks the ending of the first half of 2026. As we close out the first six months of this year, here’s a look at the top news headlines for this week. We’ll continue to add more announcements as the week progresses.
Payments
Nuvion teams with Visa Direct to strengthen real-time global payout capabilities for businesses operating across borders.
Bankaktiebolaget Nordiska (Nordiska) partnered with Finastra’s Swift Service Bureau to enhance access to the global Swift network and Sweden’s central payment rails.
E-commerce, banking, and payments ecosystem Bir teams up with payments platform Paysend to launch international money transfers in Azerbaijan.
Investing
BitDelta Pro selects Iress to power multi-asset trading platform.
AI in Banking
Lloyds targets more than 1,000 new AI roles as it expands agentic AI capability.
Santander empowers employees with AI in order to generate €1 billion in business value.
Embedded finance
Embedded B2B payments infrastructure provider TransferMate inks a strategic partnership with AI-native, agentic, source-to-pay spend management platform Raindrop Systems.
Debt markets
9fin appoints Amit Lalwani as Chief Revenue Officer to lead next phase of global growth.
Small business banking
Rippling launches Business Banking for same-day payroll processing.
DeFi
Blockchain data platform for enterprises Allium raises $40 million in Series B funding.
Ripple receives preliminary approval for its Crypto Asset Service Provider (CASP) license in the EU.
Open finance
Open finance infrastructure provider Spare announces a strategic partnership with UAE-based property technology platform Rewa.
Lending
AI-native loan origination platform for community and regional banks Lama AI raises $20 million in Series A funding.
Credit unions
Jordan Credit Union chooses Mahalo Banking for its Thoughtful Banking platform.