Launching a fund used to be a real test of endurance, with timelines often stretching across many months. The process demanded patience that many ambitious founders found difficult to sustain.
It's obviously welcome to see savings rates go up. Albeit from a low enough base. Several new providers such as Moco, Monzo, and Bankinter are all now quite active in the savings space in Ireland, so this is perhaps a response to increased competition.
Leading US banks are not just going digital; they are realizing that digital savings and loans alone do not ensure sustained engagement or profitability. These services must connect to the banks' core strengths: trust, scale, and long-term financial relationships.
According to new analysis from the British Business Bank, challenger banks accounted for 60 per cent of SME lending in 2025, unchanged from the previous year. The figure marks only the second time in more than a decade that their market share has not increased, raising questions about whether the post-financial crisis disruption of the SME lending market has reached a plateau.
Hedge funds and other money managers spent $2.8 billion on alternative data in 2025, according to a new report from consultancy Neudata, a 17% jump from the year before. It's more than double what asset managers spent on alternative data in 2021, which includes a wide range of non-traditional information sources. The report projects that the total spend on alternative datasets could jump to more than $23 billion in the consultancy's bull case in 2030 and just under $8 billion in the bear case.
"Point me in the direction of what dollar amount you need, and we'll get it priced out and funded today!" It's Bella, it's Jake, it's Zevi strangers offering quick cash to help Joshua Esnard's small business in North Carolina. How does $350,000 sound? Or $768,000 and up to $900,000? Approval in an hour, they say, money in a day. "No gimmicks, Joshua." "No hidden fees, No BS."
Private equity firms operating in the UK face a uniquely complex accounting landscape. Between fund structures, special purpose vehicles (SPVs), regulatory requirements and investor reporting, financial management can quickly become overwhelming. For many firms, legacy systems and spreadsheets are no longer sufficient to support the level of accuracy, transparency and efficiency required. As a result, an increasing number of UK firms are turning to dedicated private equity accounting software to simplify fund and SPV accounting while improving control and compliance.
If this is enacted-and that's a big if, though part of me hopes it is-we would likely see a significant contraction in industry credit card lending. Credit card issuers simply won't be able to sustain profitability at a 10% rate cap,
Private equity liquidity has become a more active topic as we enter 2026, reflecting investors' close attention to cash flows, distributions, and portfolio construction. One clear signal is the pace of secondaries growth as their volumes continue to increase. Volumes reached USD 226 billion in 2025, a 41% increase compared to the previous year. The market tends to rely on two main structures, depending on the type of liquidity required. LP secondaries are the simplest structure.
For most of modern finance, one number has quietly dictated who gets ahead and who gets left out: the credit score. It was a breakthrough when it arrived in the 1950s, becoming an elegant shortcut for a complex decision. But shortcuts age. And in a world driven by data, digital behavior, and real-time signals, the score is increasingly misaligned with how people actually live and manage money.
For Missouri-based community bank OMB Bank, finding the right fintech partner used to be a slow, manual process. Executive Vice President and Chief of Staff Jessica Sims recalls working from static PDFs of the bank's preferences, followed by endless back-and-forth emails whenever a fintech expressed interest. The process worked, but painfully slowly, and promising opportunities often slipped through the cracks.
There was a time when banks and fintechs competed mostly on bells and whistles: smoother apps, faster checkout, appealing rewards. But in the world of public markets and quarterly earnings, functionality gives way to fundamentals.
