Sidekick, a new UK digital wealth platform built to serve six-figure earners who’ve outgrown basic financial products but don’t have the millions needed to access private banks, has launched. Sidekick is one of a number of entrants targeting the mass affluent market, using technology to offer products and services once reserved for the super rich. Among Sidekick’s offerings is access to private equity-style investing for just £10,000. Eligible individuals can get access to a regulated Long-Term Asset Fund, which allows clients to invest in high-growth private companies through a professionally managed fund without needing the six-figure minimums usually required. Beyond investments, users get access to an account that automatically spreads deposits across a panel of UK-regulated banks behind the scenes, enabling up to £255,000 of FSCS protection – all through a single interface. And, for higher target returns, its Smart Cash product invests short-term funds into actively managed money market instruments, designed to outperform traditional savings rates while keeping funds accessible.
NiCE-Snowflake partnership to enable enterprises to operationalize customer interaction data at scale through seamless, secure sharing of CX data across the front, middle and back office
NiCE announced a strategic collaboration with Snowflake, the AI Data Cloud company, to unlock the full value of customer interaction data by enabling seamless, secure data sharing across the front, middle and back office through Snowflake Secure Data Sharing. This collaboration combines NiCE CXone Mpower’s AI for customer service automation with Snowflake’s easy, connected, and trusted platform, enabling joint customers to seamlessly access and update data to automate customer service at scale. By working with Snowflake, the two companies will be able to deliver immediate value for customers and unlock new opportunities across the enterprise landscape. NiCE selected Snowflake for its ability to power secure, governed data collaboration and its shared commitment to eliminating operational silos. As a core component of every CXone Mpower bundle, Snowflake provides the foundation for the CXone Mpower data lake, centralizing all interaction data from across the platform and enabling that data to be merged with associated data beyond the front office. This extends the depth and breadth of CXone Mpower, enabling customers to leverage reporting, dashboarding, analytics and AI, from a single, trusted and ecosystem-wide source of truth. By expanding the reach of CX data into middle and back-office systems, organizations will be able to automate processes such as service fulfillment, billing, claims handling, and account updates, dramatically improving speed, accuracy, and efficiency. Customers can leverage CXone Mpower’s built-in integration with Snowflake to securely share and activate customer interaction data across their enterprise, either as part of their current CXone Mpower bundle or through expanded enterprise automation initiatives. With CXone Mpower analyzing hundreds of customer attributes per interaction, Snowflake provides the secure, scalable foundation to store, share, and activate this rich data across the enterprise. This collaboration empowers enterprises to operationalize interaction data at scale, integrate it seamlessly into enterprise ecosystems, and accelerate the development of AI-driven CX innovations.
Ubyx aims to provide a clearing system enabling anyone to easily on and off-ramp between bank accounts and stablecoins supporting corporates that want to use stablecoins for cross border payments
Ubyx announced a $10 million seed funding round led by Galaxy Ventures. Other backers in the round include Founders Fund, stablecoin issuer Paxos, Payoneer and others. Ubyx aims to provide a clearing system enabling anyone to easily on and off-ramp between bank accounts and stablecoins. This is a particular issue for corporates that want to use stablecoins for cross border payments, but might find the accounting for holding them on their balance sheet tricky. This challenge has created opportunities for infrastructure providers to fill the gap. While the likes of stablecoin issuer Circle has the scale to build its own Circle Payments Network, not all stablecoin issuers have that luxury. Plus, numerous other stablecoin infrastructure startups are also duplicating effort in building their own distribution. Ubyx aims to provide this distribution and redemption service for numerous stablecoins. “Stablecoins become ubiquitous when there is a shared acceptance network, just like cards. Traditional banks and fintechs should provide wallets to accept a wide range of regulated stablecoins on many public-permissionless blockchains,” said Mike Giampapa, General Partner of Galaxy Ventures.
Freddie Mac’s integration of AutomatIQ’s solution to streamline documentation for lenders by transmitting pay stub and W-2 data directly via API and offer enhanced income analysis
Freddie Mac and AutomatIQ have partnered to streamline mortgage processing by utilizing the AutomatIQ Borrower Income Analysis solution. This reduces manual data entry and errors, improving operational efficiency and loan underwriting. The collaboration aims to create a transparent, efficient lending environment, fostering trust and satisfaction among borrowers, while ensuring compliance with underwriting standards. Key Points: integration with Freddie Mac: Enables lenders to utilize AutomatIQ’s solution for income analysis. Efficiency Enhancements: Streamlines documentation by transmitting pay stub and W-2 data directly. Reduction of Errors: Minimizes manual entry, leading to fewer data inaccuracies. Accelerated Underwriting Process: Offers borrowers a faster and more reliable loan experience. Technological Advancement: Represents a significant move towards improved data interoperability in the mortgage industry.
Samsung Wallet rolls out NFC P2P payments in the US that lets users transfer funds directly to a contact’s bank account by just tapping their two phones together
Samsung Galaxy owners in the US can now transfer funds directly to a contact’s bank account by just tapping their two phones together — or by simply bringing the recipient’s contactless bank card into close proximity. “Samsung Wallet’s new feature, Tap to Transfer, enables you to send money to your friend’s or family member’s bank account associated with their debit card — even if they use Apple Wallet or Google Wallet. Just tap phones and they’ll be sent the funds within minutes,” Samsung says. “It’s the first ever feature that allows you to send funds to another user’s debit card or smartphone, regardless of their wallet or operating system.” “Through Samsung’s collaboration with Visa and Mastercard, you can use a debit card stored in your Samsung Wallet to send money to friends and family members’ bank accounts without needing to download an additional app. “Instead, Samsung Wallet uses NFC technology to connect to the recipient’s debit card stored in their digital wallet. Plus, you can even transfer money to people without a digital wallet as long as they have a physical debit card with tap-to-pay capabilities.” If you want to send money to a Samsung Wallet but they aren’t nearby, you can easily find their Samsung account by searching their phone number and completing the transfer remotely.”
Meta partners Oakley to launch smart glasses which can capture 3K video, let users listen to music, take photos, and make and receive calls and feature Meta AI letting users ask questions on the go
Meta has officially announced its next pair of smart glasses with Oakley. The smart glasses have double the battery life of the Meta Ray-Bans and are able to capture 3K video. The models are based on Oakley’s HSTN design and are described as Meta’s “first product for athletes and fans alike.” The glasses feature a front-facing camera, along with open-ear speakers and microphones. You can use the glasses to listen to music, take photos, and make and receive calls. The glasses also feature Meta AI, letting you ask questions on the go. In addition, you can ask Meta AI about what you’re seeing and also get it to translate languages. The Oakley Meta HSTN glasses can last up to eight hours with typical use and up to 19 hours on standby. You can also charge them up to 50% in 20 minutes. Plus, the glasses come with a charging case that can deliver up to 48 hours of charging on the go. The glasses are available in six frame and lens color combos: warm grey with ruby lenses, black with polar black lenses, brown smoke with polar deep water lenses, black with amethyst lenses, clear with grey lenses, and black with clear lenses. All of these are compatible with prescriptions for an extra cost. Some pairs come with Oakley Prizm Lens technology, which makes it easier to see in different lighting and weather conditions, helping you see more and perform at your peak. The new glasses are the latest chapter of a multi-year partnership with EssilorLuxottica, the parent company of Oakley, Ray-Bans, and other eyewear brands.
UpEquity secures warehouse facility from SVB for buy before you sell loans- makes a guaranteed offer on your current home and its Equity Advance unlocks the equity stuck in your old home to make a new down payment
Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) has provided a warehouse facility to UpEquity, an Austin-based mortgage technology company that offers solutions for home buyers to purchase a new home before selling their current one. The facility will provide up to $200 million in financing capacity and is expected to support $1 billion in originations over the next two years. UpEquity’s revenue tripled annually since it began offering its ‘buy before you sell’ solutions in October 2023. The new facility will help more customers with a smoother transition from their old home to the next. UpEquity’s innovative financing solutions and platform help real estate professionals close significantly more transactions by solving the challenge of buying and selling a home simultaneously. Setpoint Capital’s Managing Director of Investments, Kendall Ranjbaran, expressed enthusiasm for deepening their partnership with UpEquity as they enter this next chapter of growth. Trade Up gives you a guaranteed offer on your current home, allowing you to shop contingency free and make a stronger offer on your new home. Equity Advance unlocks the equity stuck in your old home to make a new down payment and helps you avoid carrying the cost of two mortgages.
Deutsche Bank’s next-gen tokenization platform for RWAs to support issuance across multiple public blockchains using zero-knowledge proofs and permissioned protocol and feature user-friendly interface to access smart contracts
Deutsche Bank, Memento Blockchain and Axelar Network developer Interop Labs today published a litepaper describing the Digital Asset Management Access (DAMA) 2 project in detail. The paper provides a blueprint for a next-generation tokenization platform, built on public blockchains with regulatory alignment and privacy as core design principles. Designed to accelerate the adoption and servicing of tokenized funds, stablecoins and other real-world assets (RWAs), the platform will enable asset and wealth managers, token issuers, and investment advisors to easily create and service tokenized assets, distributing them securely and compliantly across connected blockchain ecosystems and financial networks. The litepaper captures extensive research with potential asset issuers, led by Deutsche Bank, and lays out the unique design of DAMA 2, including: Blockchain-as-a-Service model that minimizes up-front investment; User-friendly application interface layer with an app store to access fund smart contract designs; Privacy-enabled Layer 2 smart contract environment, built by Memento Blockchain with zkSync’s ZK Chain technology. Managed token issuance across multiple blockchains via Axelar Network. “DAMA 2 represents how public chains have evolved for institutional finance’s use, and how leading applied technologies can meet operational resilience and regulatory goals via one platform,” said Boon-Hiong Chan, Innovation Lead, Securities & Technology Advocacy at Deutsche Bank.
MIT’s research shows providing agentic AI models with insight into human reasoning can offer models a degree of flexibility to make human-like decisions while being able to justify their choices
New research at MIT suggests that could be the case. A new report from the university’s Sloan School of Management covers some of MIT’s studies involving agentic AI, including an exploration into how these digital entities can be trained to reason and collaborate more like humans. For example, a new paper co-authored by Matthew DosSantos DiSorbo and researchers Sinan Aral and Harang Ju presented both people and AI with the same scenario: You need to purchase flour for a friend’s birthday cake using $10 or less. But at the store, you discover flour sells for $10.01. How do you respond? 92% of the people given this question proceeded to buy the flour. But AI models, spread across thousands of iterations, chose not to buy, concluding the price was too high. “With the status quo, you tell models what to do and they do it,” Ju said. “But we’re increasingly using this technology in ways where it encounters situations in which it can’t just do what you tell it to, or where just doing that isn’t always the right thing. Exceptions come into play.” The researchers found that providing models with information about both how and why humans opted to purchase the flour — essentially giving them insight into human reasoning — corrected this problem, giving the models a degree of flexibility. The AI models then made decisions like people, justifying their choices. The models were able to generalize this flexibility of mind to cases beyond purchasing flour for a cake, like hiring, lending, university admissions, and customer service.
iPadOS 26 turns iPad into a productivity powerhouse- lets users to download large files in the background while they do other tasks, open several windows at once and freely resize them, access downloads and documents right from Dock, making it more Mac-like
iPadOS 26 is going to boost iPad users’ productivity not only with the new design, but with several new features that make the iPad with a Magic Keyboard the ultimate laptop replacement. Here are five ways iPadOS 26 is going to improve productivity for iPad users: Folders in the Dock: For the first time, users will be able to access downloads, documents, and other folders right from the Dock, making it more Mac-like. Supercharged Files app: The Files app is a key part of the iPad experience. With iPadOS 26, Apple takes this application to the next level, from an updated list view with resizable columns to collapsible folders. Users can add colors and other customization options to make it easier to find important documents. They can also set default apps for opening specific file types. Preview app: It’s easier than ever to open, edit, and mark up PDFs and images. Apple says the new Preview app was designed for a proper Apple Pencil experience, which means signing documents and taking notes should be faster and more reliable than ever. Background Tasks: Believe it or not, iPadOS 26 finally unlocks true background tasks. Users can now export or download large files in the background while they do other stuff. This might be one of the best iPadOS 26 productivity features. Better windowing system: Apple revamped the iPadOS 18 windowing system. Forget about Stage Manager, Split View, and Slide Over. With the upcoming iPadOS 26 update, users will be able to open several windows at once and freely resize and arrange them. There are also new ways to control windows with a familiar menu bar and Mac-like controls.