Finance, Banking & Insurance

Manama – November 01, 2026 -- SICO BSC (c) has won approximately USD 1.6 billion in new business from institutional and individual investors during 2026, the Bahrain-based asset manager, broker and investment bank announced at the Gateway Gulf 2026 Forum.

Mandates span three SICO divisions, mostly in public markets

The total aggregates new mandates across SICO's Asset Management, Wealth Management and Investment Banking businesses. Most of the volume sits in public markets, with the remainder in private markets.

USD 1.4 billion flows into SICO-managed funds and portfolios

About USD 1.4 billion of the total is new inflows and investments into public and private funds and portfolios managed by SICO. The remaining portion, more than USD 200 million, covers transactions and mandates across public and private markets and alternative investment products.

MANAMA – November 01, 2026 -- Investcorp recorded US$11.1 billion in aggregate fundraising, capital deployment and exit activity in the first nine months of 2026, with total assets under management reaching US$65.2 billion as of September.

Investcorp raises US$4.8 billion and deploys US$3.7 billion between January and September

The alternative investment manager disclosed the figures at the Gateway Gulf 2026 forum in Bahrain. It raised US$4.8 billion from its global investor base, deployed US$3.7 billion in new investments and booked US$2.6 billion in exits across its investment businesses.

Its North America Private Equity and Strategic Capital platforms secured more than US$2.3 billion in aggregate commitments over the period.

HONG KONG – November 01, 2026 -- RD Technologies is building stablecoin-backed settlement routes between Ghana and Asia with Stanbic Bank Ghana and Transika, and will support RDUSD, a US dollar stablecoin issued by Anchorage Digital Bank N.A., as a new settlement option in its ecosystem.

Stanbic Bank Ghana will explore a bank-led stablecoin settlement solution

The two companies will assess a cross-border trade settlement solution supported by stablecoin technology. The initial focus is legitimate business-to-business payments from Ghanaian companies to suppliers in Asia.

Technical validation and any controlled pilot depend on regulatory no-objection. Darwin Mireku, Head of Strategy Enablement at Stanbic Bank Ghana, said customer needs, compliance and risk management will guide the design and testing of the solution.

Singapore – – November 01, 2026 -- Thunes now routes instant cross-border payouts of up to $10,000 per recipient per day to UnionPay cards in mainland China, covering 79 major banks, after deepening its alliance with UnionPay International (UPI).

Single API connects Thunes' network to UPI

The integration links Thunes' Direct Global Network to UPI through one API. Financial institutions, payment service providers and money transfer operators in the Thunes network can send real-time consumer payouts without high setup costs, strict eligibility hurdles or ongoing technical maintenance, according to the company.

Higher daily limit targets a long-standing remittance bottleneck

Cross-border remittances into mainland China have been constrained by low daily transaction caps. Senders had to split larger personal transfers across several days or endure complex manual processing.

HONG KONG – November 01, 2026 -- HashKey On-Chain and RD Technologies will deploy the RDUSD US dollar stablecoin on HSK Chain, an institutional-grade Ethereum Layer 2 network, as the first step of a partnership targeting cross-border trade, corporate payments and institutional finance.

The collaboration will span digital asset on-chain trading, settlement, treasury management and asset tokenization. The aim is to extend RDUSD beyond digital asset trading into real-world business use.

Anchorage Digital Bank N.A. issues RDUSD under GENIUS Act design

RDUSD is supported by RD Technologies and issued by Anchorage Digital Bank N.A., described in the release as the first federally chartered digital asset bank in the US. The stablecoin is designed to comply with the US GENIUS Act regulatory framework.

NEW YORK and LONDON – November 02, 2026 -- Lazard, Inc. (NYSE: LAZ) has completed its acquisition of Campbell Lutyens and launched Lazard CL, a private capital advisory unit that Lazard expects to generate about $500 million of combined revenue and to add to earnings in 2027, before synergies.

Lazard CL becomes the firm's third global business with 300 advisers in 19 offices

Lazard CL combines Lazard's private capital advisory operation with Campbell Lutyens, with more than 300 advisory professionals across 19 offices worldwide. The deal was first announced on April 30, 2026. Lazard says the combined platform has advised on more than $1 trillion of primary capital raised and secondary transaction volume across approximately 1,300 mandates over four decades.

Tel Aviv – November 02, 2026 -- Harel Insurance Investments and Financial Services (TASE: HARL), Israel's largest insurer by the company's own description, will publish its third-quarter 2026 financial statements on Monday, November 23, 2026. The group reports about NIS 630 billion (USD 218.5 billion) in assets under management and annual premiums and deposit inflows of NIS 45.7 billion (USD 15.2 billion).

Harel hosts a Hebrew-language results call at 1:00 p.m. Israel time

The call begins at 1:00 p.m. in Israel, which is 11:00 a.m. in the UK and 12:00 CET. Participants must register in advance through the conferencing provider Veidan.

Management will present the results in Hebrew. A recording and an English translation will be posted afterward on the group's investor relations website.

NEW YORK – – November 02, 2026 -- WealthFeed, an AI-powered growth platform for financial advisors, has added Form 5500 data covering more than 780,000 retirement plans, extending its prospecting tools from individuals and households to plan sponsors.

Advisors can search the plans and receive alerts when new filings show changes that may point to a business opportunity. Because the data sits inside the existing platform, advisors can run the same automated outreach they use for individual prospects.

The launch follows growing advisor interest in the 401(k) market. February 2026 research from FUSE Research Network found that 65% of surveyed advisors said converting retirement plan participants into wealth management clients was easier than acquiring clients through traditional marketing or referrals.

New York – November 02, 2026 -- Loews Corporation reported third-quarter 2026 net income of $306 million, or $1.50 per share, down from $504 million, or $2.43 per share, a year earlier. A $125 million after-tax long-term care reserve charge at CNA Financial, weaker Property and Casualty underwriting and higher catastrophe losses drove the decline.

CNA's net income contribution drops to $180 million from $371 million

CNA's core income fell to $203 million from $409 million. The annual long-term care reserve assumption update accounted for the $125 million hit, measured after tax and noncontrolling interest. Loews expects higher investment yields from recent portfolio actions to offset the charge almost entirely, with the benefit flowing through investment income over time.

LOS ANGELES – November 02, 2026 -- Raising the Community Reinvestment Act small-bank threshold to $10 billion in assets would leave more than 2.6 million additional people in census tracts where no bank is evaluated for community development, according to a new interactive map from NAAHL and FairPlay AI.

The NAAHL CRA Coverage Map is publicly available and built on FairPlay's CRAi platform. It shows how the rule proposed by the OCC and the FDIC would change the number of banks evaluated for community development in each census tract. NAAHL used the same analysis in comments it filed with the agencies on October 13.