Finance, Banking & Insurance

New York – September 21, 2026 -- Guideline, a global provider of advertising intelligence and media plan management technology, has introduced Guideline Signal, a platform delivering ticker-level advertising data, KPI forecasts and market intelligence to investment professionals ahead of quarterly earnings. The platform becomes generally available on October 1, 2026.

Signal draws on a dataset already used by more than 50 of the world's largest hedge funds

The underlying dataset reflects roughly $200 billion in annual transactional advertising spend, sourced directly from every major holding group and numerous large independent media agencies. Because the data is captured at multiple points before a company reports quarterly results, investors can track shifts in advertising demand for a given ticker before earnings are announced.

Doha – – September 21, 2026 -- Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) and J.P. Morgan Asset Management (JPMAM) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to build a USD 20 billion strategic partnership spanning public and private markets in equities and credit.

QIA Allocates $15 Billion To Customized Global Equity Mandates

The larger of the two tracks is a USD 15 billion public equities mandate under which JPMAM will manage bespoke global equity portfolios for QIA, drawing on the firm's active equity capabilities, global investment platform and research infrastructure.

$5 Billion Private Credit Push Targets U.S. Middle-Market Firms

A second USD 5 billion initiative will see QIA and JPMAM jointly provide senior financing to established middle-market companies in the United States, with sector focus on industrials, services, healthcare and technology.

Chicago – September 21, 2026 -- FutureSports has signed an exclusive agreement with Major League Baseball to build rules-based performance indexes on all 30 MLB clubs, clearing the path for CME Group to list cash-settled futures contracts tied to the sport for the first time.

MLB Data Feeds New CME FSPI Benchmarks Covering All 30 Clubs

Under the agreement, MLB will supply FutureSports with Official League Data, which the index administrator will convert into CME FutureSports Performance Indexes (FSPI) tracking cumulative team performance. CME Group plans to list weekly, monthly and quarterly cash-settled futures contracts on the benchmarks, subject to regulatory review.

Hong Kong – September 21, 2026 -- Yeahka Limited (9923.HK) announced that YeahPay, its international payment arm, has expanded online merchant acquiring to seven markets through infrastructure built on Stripe. Businesses incorporated in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong SAR, Japan, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States can now be onboarded directly by YeahPay for online acquiring in their home market.

YeahPay unifies online and in-store payment acceptance for the first time

The company already provides in-store payment acceptance in Hong Kong SAR and Singapore. The latest expansion merges those in-store capabilities with online acquiring on a single integration, drawing on more than a decade of experience building payment acceptance for small and medium merchants across mainland China.

Shanghai – September 21, 2026 -- Huawei has launched its Fintelligent AI Solution worldwide, targeting the security, scalability, and sustainability barriers that have limited large-scale AI deployment across the global financial industry.

The announcement came at the Global Finance Summit held during HUAWEI CONNECT 2026, where Jason Cao, CEO of Huawei's Digital Finance BU, delivered a keynote titled "Owning Your AI, Advancing Agentic Banking." Cao told financial customers that competition in financial AI is shifting from model capability to enterprise-wide AI system capability, and that institutions must be able to choose, operate, replicate, and evolve their AI independently rather than relying on isolated applications or single vendor models.

New York – September 21, 2026 -- Infrastructure Capital Advisors has expanded its SPYC exchange-traded fund into Europe, securing listings on the London Stock Exchange, Deutsche Börse Xetra and Borsa Italiana while registering the product across 11 European markets.

SPYC pairs S&P 500 equities with a covered-call overlay to generate monthly income

The fund combines actively selected S&P 500 stocks with a flexible covered-call options strategy, aiming to produce monthly income distributions while preserving upside potential for capital growth. Infrastructure Capital designed the structure to monetize elevated volatility across S&P 500-listed companies through active options management.

Boston – September 21, 2026 -- Global M&A value climbed 15% year over year in the first eight months of 2026, exceeding the ten-year average by 11%, according to a new report from Boston Consulting Group (BCG). The number of megadeals worth $10 billion or more rose to 37 from 24 a year earlier, surpassing 2021's record of 32.

Megadeal surge masks a narrower recovery below the top of the market

Transactions valued at $1 billion or more are running above longer-term norms, but deal volume for small-cap and midcap transactions remains below historical levels even before inflation adjustments. BCG's M&A Sentiment Index rose to 83 from 79 at the start of the year, still well below its long-term average of 100.

New York – September 21, 2026 -- Africa's push for greater control over its resources and a stronger voice in global governance took center stage as business leaders, heads of state, and investors gathered for the fifth edition of Unstoppable Africa, held alongside the 81st UN General Assembly session at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square.

Guterres calls for Africa's permanent UN Security Council seat

UN Secretary-General António Guterres told delegates that Africa needs a permanent presence on the UN Security Council to contribute to global dialogue and action. He urged reforms so the continent's critical minerals generate local value and jobs rather than being exported raw.

London and St Helier, Jersey – September 21, 2026 -- Bloomsbury Money Group has appointed Thomas Holst, a former SAP health-technology engineer with more than a decade of experience, as Chief Technology Officer to lead the build-out of its multi-jurisdiction banking platform.

Holst will unify fiat, digital assets and payment rails onto one platform

Holst joins from SAP's health technology ecosystem in Germany, where he spent 13 years building data-intensive, privacy-critical software for hospitals and research institutions and the cloud infrastructure supporting it. At Bloomsbury Money, he will oversee technology strategy, engineering and platform architecture as the group consolidates its multi-currency accounts, foreign exchange, cross-border payments and regulated virtual asset services onto a single infrastructure designed to operate under one standard of control across multiple regulatory regimes.

Hong Kong – September 21, 2026 -- Reap has launched Sentry, a managed fraud and risk service that eliminates the need for card-issuing clients to build in-house fraud teams or license separate monitoring tools.

Global card fraud losses hit $33.41 billion in 2024, Nilson Report data shows

Payment card fraud losses worldwide totalled USD 33.41 billion in 2024, tied to global card volume of USD 51.920 trillion, according to The Nilson Report's January 2026 figures. Reap cites the millisecond nature of authorisation decisions as the reason fraud must be intercepted at the point of transaction rather than remediated afterward.