Financial Services

Detroit – September 28, 2026 -- Rocket Mortgage will become the first mortgage lender to adopt VantageScore 4.0 as its preferred credit scoring model for eligible loans, starting in the fourth quarter of 2026.

Rocket Mortgage found VantageScore 4.0 qualifies more clients while cutting scoring costs

Following roughly four months of testing, the lender determined VantageScore 4.0 helped more clients move forward in the mortgage process and reduced credit scoring costs. So far in 2026, Rocket Mortgage pulled 1.4 million credit reports using both VantageScore and FICO models to compare outcomes.

Clients who saved with the new model averaged $1,600 at closing

The lender's internal study found VantageScore 4.0 opens access for some clients who would otherwise go unserved and allows many to secure mortgages on better pricing terms. For those who benefited, average savings totaled $1,600 at closing.

Chicago – September 28, 2026 -- The Society of Actuaries (SOA) has elected five new Board members and named Sherry Chan, FSA, EA, MAAA, FCA, as President Elect and Vice Chair for the 2026-2027 term, positioning her to become the organization's 79th President and Chair.

Five actuaries join the SOA Board for the 2026-2027 term

The newly elected Board members are Jessica Dang, FSA, FCIA, Ph.D.; Murshid Kuttihassan, FSA, MAAA, CERA, FCIA, FIA, CFA, FRM; Taylor Pickett, FSA, MAAA; Greg Warren, FSA, MAAA, FCA; and Andy Wieduwilt, FSA, MAAA. All will assume duties following the SOA ImpACT Annual Conference at the end of October 2026.

Chicago – September 28, 2026 -- Trintech unveiled three new AI agents at its Trintech Connect 2026 conference, expanding its financial close automation portfolio to five agents that execute work directly rather than merely surfacing insights.

Trintech adds Data Access, Accruals Intelligence and Exception Management agents to its AI platform

The Trintech Data Access Agent, Trintech Accruals Intelligence Agent and Trintech Exception Management Agent build on capabilities introduced earlier in 2026 with the Trintech Flux Agent and Trintech Variance Analysis Agent. The five agents now cover data preparation, accrual management and exception resolution within the same controls, approvals and audit trails finance teams already use.

Worcester, Mass. – September 28, 2026 -- The Hanover Insurance Group, Inc. (NYSE: THG) has secured a spot on TIME's World's Best Companies list for the fourth consecutive year and on Forbes' America's Best Insurance Companies list for the sixth year running.

TIME evaluated firms generating at least $100 million in revenue using data from roughly 200,000 global survey participants

The TIME rankings assessed revenue growth, employee satisfaction and sustainability transparency, with environmental, social and governance practices factored into the scoring alongside verified employee feedback and recommendations.

Troy, Mich. – September 28, 2026 -- North, a U.S. fintech processing more than $100 billion in annual transaction volume, has launched Embedded Checkout, a native payment integration now live in the Webflow Marketplace. The tool embeds North's payment infrastructure directly into Webflow's visual design canvas, eliminating the need to redirect shoppers to external checkout pages during the final stage of a purchase.

San Francisco – – September 28, 2026 -- Fulcrum has launched a certificate workflow that turns an emailed request into a complete, endorsement-ready certificate in under a minute, built on the same policy data the platform already uses for policy checking and proposal generation.

Fulcrum reads the policy instead of filling a template

The workflow parses the inbound request and any attached contract, compares the demanded coverage against what the client's policy actually provides, and flags requests the policy cannot satisfy before an account manager commits to anything. It locates the relevant endorsement forms inside the policy itself, pulls them, sorts them by the situation they apply to, and attaches them, using description-of-operations language the agency has already approved and shaped to each client's preferences. Account managers review and approve every certificate before it issues.

Denver – September 28, 2026 -- Vertafore has launched its Velocity Document Intelligence Agent, an AI tool that cut document research time by up to 90% in early testing, reducing tasks that took 20 minutes to just two minutes.

AI agent automates research across insurance documents

Available within Vertafore's ImageRight platform, the Document Intelligence Agent lets agency, MGA, and carrier teams ask questions in natural language to search across Word documents, spreadsheets, PDFs, images, and emails. The tool synthesizes answers with document- and page-level source citations, using contextual meaning rather than keyword matching to surface relevant information.

Boston – September 28, 2026 -- John Hancock has expanded its protection insurance portfolio, enhancing its Protection Indexed Universal Life solution (Protection IUL 26) and its term life insurance suite to give financial professionals more tools for addressing clients' long-term planning needs.

Longevity Preparedness Index shows US adults score just 60 out of 100

John Hancock's 2025 Longevity Preparedness Index, developed with the MIT AgeLab, found that U.S. adults averaged only 60 out of 100 in overall preparedness for longer lives. The study, based on a representative sample of 1,307 Americans surveyed between May 14 and June 5, 2025, found planning needs extend across health, care, housing, community, and major life transitions—beyond a single financial goal.

SAN FRANCISCO – September 28, 2026 -- More than 4 in 5 adults in the United States (85%) and United Kingdom (86%) say cost-of-living pressures have stopped them from donating or donating more over the past six months, according to a new Harris Poll survey of over 3,000 adults commissioned by nonprofit lender Kiva.

Despite the squeeze, 77% of U.S. and 80% of UK adults still gave money in some form during the same period, the survey found. The data lands against a backdrop tracked by Giving USA, which recorded record total charitable giving of $617.20 billion even as individual donors' share of that total slid from roughly 80% in past decades to 64% today.

Phoenix – September 28, 2026 -- Paze will replace PayPal as the Official Jersey Patch Partner of the Phoenix Suns starting with the 2026-27 NBA season, under a multi-year deal announced by the team and Early Warning Services, LLC, the Arizona-based company behind Paze and Zelle.

Paze logo takes upper-left jersey position previously held by PayPal

The Paze logo will appear on the upper left side of all Suns uniforms once the new season tips off. Suns and Phoenix Mercury CEO Josh Bartelstein said the patch process was competitive, with Early Warning selected for its Arizona roots and payments history spanning Zelle to Paze.