Essential Guidance

Algebrik AI announced a partnership with TruStage™, to integrate the education of a broad suite of lending protection offerings from TruStage—including GAP coverage, debt protection, credit insurance, and mechanical repair coverage—directly into Algebrik’s end-to-end digital lending workflows. With this integration, Algebrik enables credit unions and community lenders to present TruStage protection products directly within the digital loan application flow—empowering borrowers to choose coverage that fits their needs without disrupting the journey. Whether for auto loans, personal loans, or other credit products, protection options are embedded natively into Algebrik’s borrower experience and remain easily configurable by loan officers. Key Benefits of the Integration: Comprehensive Coverage Options – Offer GAP coverage, credit insurance, debt protection, and mechanical repair coverage products—all surfaced directly within Algebrik’s LOS. Embedded at the Point of Decision – Borrowers encounter relevant protection choices within the same digital flow, with no need to redirect or re-engage later. Configurable by Loan Type & Member Segment – Institutions can tailor which TruStage products are presented based on loan type, member profile, or risk category. Simplified Operations, Centralized Reporting – Built-in tracking, configuration, and compliance support helps lenders manage enrollment, documentation, and servicing with minimal manual effort.

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Mastercard said it is expanding its First Party Trust program to tackle “friendly” fraud. Also known as first-party fraud, the term refers to genuine transactions that are challenged by cardholders, whether it’s deliberately or happens by mistake. eCommerce has revolutionized the transaction experience while also increasing the need for transparency of payments for merchants, small business owners and entrepreneurs. It is now easier than ever for a customer to dispute a debit or credit card transaction they don’t recognize. The card issuer must then determine whether to provide that cardholder with a refund for the transaction amount — this is known as a chargeback. The global cost of chargebacks to merchants is projected to rise to $42 billion by 2028, with almost half of those transactions being reported as fraudulent. To help deal with this issue, Mastercard says it is expanding its First-Party Trust program, introduced in 2023, to Canada, Latin America, the Caribbean and across the Asia Pacific region. The program assists businesses both big and small with burdensome time and resource-intensive issues, such as researching and addressing claims. It provides enhanced data-sharing, either at the time of transaction or at the time a dispute is raised. Issuers can better identify third-party fraud, where someone’s details are used without consent, from first-party fraud and gain reliable information to resolve cardholder disputes.

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Antier, a leading provider of Web3 financial infrastructure, has introduced the world’s first Stablecoin Remittance-as-a-Service (RaaS) embedded within its crypto neo-banking platform. This innovative solution aims to revolutionize traditional remittance by enabling real-time, blockchain-based settlements that bypass the conventional SWIFT system. The system is expected to reduce cross-border transaction costs by up to 80% and achieve settlement finality in less than a minute. The RaaS solution is deeply embedded within Antier’s Blockchain Neo-Banking suite, bridging blockchain speed and efficiency with regulatory rigor and trust. The platform is designed to ensure predictability, speed, and regulatory compliance in a globalized financial environment. Antier’s integrated stablecoin remittance stack includes features like fiat-to-stablecoin on-ramp compatibility, sub-60-second global stablecoin settlements, smart contract-based payout orchestration, and a stablecoin-agnostic architecture. The company is also working on a next-gen Web3 Super-App to unify digital finance, aiming to simplify blockchain protocols and support real-time treasury operations and cross-border financial innovation.

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Quinn  has emerged from stealth and raised $11 million in Seed funding led by Viola Fintech with participation of existing investors, to transform how financial institutions deliver personalized wealth advice at scale. Traditional financial advisory models are constrained by a 1:100 advisor-to-client ratio, leaving millions underserved. Quinn breaks that barrier by leveraging advanced AI to substantially grow the market that has access to financial planning and advice. The platform seamlessly embeds within financial platforms, offering real-time and bespoke advice to every client, democratizing access to financial guidance. Quinn’s platform is available as an embedded, co-branded or fully white-labeled experience, allowing for seamless API integration with existing systems, enabling rapid deployment and immediate client impact. Key platform capabilities include: Advisor-Level Onboarding in Under 12 Minutes – Clients complete comprehensive financial assessments with unprecedented speed and ease. Instant Financial Plans in 30 Seconds – AI-generated financial plans empower users with actionable insights instantly. Boosted Upsell and Cross-sell Performance – Recommendations delivered in the context of a financial plan drive higher engagement with premium products and services. Scalable Advisor Productivity – By automating core advisory tasks, Quinn enables Certified Financial Planners^® (CFP^® Professionals) to serve significantly more clients without increasing headcount, freeing them to focus on high-value, human interactions.

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U.S. Federal Housing FHFA Director William J. Pulte has ordered Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to consider cryptocurrency as an asset for single-family mortgage loan risk assessments. Pulte said he ordered the change because cryptocurrency may offer an opportunity to build wealth outside of the stock and bond markets, cryptocurrency has not typically been considered in the mortgage risk assessment process, and the consideration of additional borrower assets in that process “may enable the Enterprises to assess the full spectrum of asset information available for reserves and to facilitate sustainable homeownership to creditworthy borrowers.” The order directs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to each prepare a proposal for making this change to their single-family mortgage loan risk assessments, consider only cryptocurrency assets that are stored on a U.S.-regulated centralized exchange, and consider additional risk mitigators. “Prior to implementing any changes, each Enterprise must submit and receive approval from its Board of Directors prior to submitting to U.S. Federal Housing FHFA for review,” the order said. Pulte said that his department would review whether crypto holdings should affect Americans’ mortgage applications.

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Digital Asset has raised $135 million in its strategic funding round. This funding accelerates institutional and decentralized finance adoption on the Canton Network, the only public, permissionless Layer-1 blockchain that offers configurable privacy and institutional-grade compliance at scale. The capital will rapidly expand the integration of hundreds of billions of real-world assets (RWAs) onto Canton, building upon its already substantial deployment of diverse asset classes, including bonds, money market funds, alternative funds, commodities, repurchase agreements (repos), mortgages, life insurance, and annuities. The raise also deepens the relationship with several firms already part of the Canton Network and its Global Synchronizer Foundation, including, BNP Paribas, DRW, Goldman Sachs, Liberty City Ventures, QCP, and Tradeweb, all of whom have played various roles in either the testing, governance, infrastructure, or app development on the Network since its inception.  This funding highlights the market’s recognition of Digital Asset’s vision and the pioneering design of the Canton Network, the only network built from the ground up with configurable on-chain privacy. By allowing institutions to tailor privacy settings to their specific needs, Canton overcomes the primary barrier to blockchain adoption: the conflict between transparency and financial confidentiality. As the first comprehensive solution of its kind, Canton bridges the gap between blockchain innovation and real-world financial compliance.

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Google announced its open-source Gemini-CLI that brings natural language command execution directly to developer terminals. Beyond natural language, it brings the power of Google’s Gemini Pro 2.5 — and it does it mostly for free. The free tier provides 60 model requests per minute and 1,000 requests per day at no charge, limits that Google deliberately set above typical developer usage patterns. The tool is open source under the Apache 2.0 license. While Gemini CLI is mostly free, OpenAI and Anthropic’s tools are not. Google senior staff software engineer Taylor Mullen noted that many users will not use OpenAI Codex or Claude code for just any task, as it carries a cost. Another key differentiator for Gemini CLI lies in its extensibility architecture, built around the emerging Model Context Protocol (MCP) standard. This approach lets developers connect external services and add new capabilities and positions the tool as a platform rather than a single-purpose application. The extensibility model includes three layers: Built-in MCP server support, bundled extensions that combine MCP servers with configuration files and custom Gemini.md files for project-specific customization. This architecture allows individual developers to tailor their experience while enabling teams to standardize workflows across projects.  If an organization wants to run multiple Gemini CLI agents in parallel, or if there are specific policy, governance or data residency requirements, a paid API key comes in. The key could be for access to Google Vertex AI, which provides commercial access to a series of models including, but not limited to, Gemini Pro 2.5. Gemini CLI operates as a local agent with built-in security measures that address common concerns about AI command execution. The system requires explicit user confirmation for each command, with options to “allow once,” “always allow” or deny specific operations. The tool’s security model includes multiple layers of protection. Users can use native macOS Seatbelt support for sandboxing, run the agent in Docker or Podman containers, and route all network traffic through proxies for inspection. The open-source nature under Apache 2.0 licensing allows complete code auditing.

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Experian announced the integration of Mastercard’s identity verification and fraud prevention technology into the Experian Ascend Platform. This collaboration will enable seamless, secure, and efficient identity verification for global clients, helping to prevent fraud and cybercrime. A key feature in Experian’s Identity and Fraud solutions, identity verification, plays a vital role in the fight to prevent fraud and cybercrime. Mastercard’s Identity Insights enriches Experian’s data by verifying and connecting identity elements, aiming to validate individuals’ authenticity. When combined with Experian’s advanced fraud-detection capabilities, the integration offers robust protection against synthetic identity and application fraud, enhancing detection while reducing friction for legitimate customers. The joint solution delivers powerful identity assessment by uniting the Experian Ascend Platform—a decision engine built on Experian’s comprehensive data, strategy design, decision automation, monitoring and reporting—with Mastercard’s Identity Insights for validating identity elements such as name, email, and phone numbers, and analyzing related metadata.  Greg Wright, Executive Vice President of Identity and Fraud, Experian Software Solutions said, “By enabling clients with advanced analytics solutions that bring credit, identity, and fraud data into the Ascend Platform, we help them achieve their strategic goals while also driving greater financial inclusion for consumers.”

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Mastercard has developed a sandbox where financial institutions can experiment with the latest instant payments technology. The sandbox gives banks access to Mastercard’s fifth generation account-to-account (A2A) real-time payments infrastructure. Within this environment, UK financial institutions can test payment use cases across retail, peer-to-peer (P2P), and B2B transactions. For example, the sandbox will enable institutions to implement a “5-leg credit transfer,” allowing a consumer to make a real-time payment at a merchant with the retailer receiving instant confirmation. According to Mastercard, the merchant and their financial institution would also receive richer data from these transactions, as the sandbox will adhere to the ISO 20022 format. While there are benefits to ISO 20022 adoption, many financial institutions—especially small- to mid-tier banks—have yet to achieve compliance. Beyond the costs associated with upgrading, a key reason for hesitation is concern around risk and fraud. This is where the sandbox model can provide value for highly regulated financial institutions looking to adopt emerging technologies. For example, artificial intelligence has become one of the most transformative technologies in recent years. Yet, many financial institutions worry it could make errors or jeopardize sensitive customer data. In response, Nvidia launched its own sandbox, allowing UK banks to experiment with AI and uncover use cases in a controlled setting. This approach helps financial institutions stay competitive while minimizing exposure to risk.

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Investment platform Republic unveiled an industry first: blockchain-based fractional shares of Elon Musk’s private space company SpaceX. For the first time, retail investors—those without institutional backing or venture capital credentials—can gain exposure to one of the most sought-after private companies in the world.  Investors won’t have a say in SpaceX’s strategic direction or Musk’s next launchpad move. What they do get is exposure to the company’s valuation growth—a potentially lucrative proposition, especially for those priced out of private equity until now. By putting these fractional shares on-chain, the platform delivers transparency, portability, and lower friction than traditional private equity deals. The move also bypasses many of the compliance headaches associated with traditional investment vehicles. It’s not equity in the classic sense—there are no shareholder meetings or board seats—but it’s a financial stake in the company’s future. That alone marks a major psychological and structural shift in how we define ownership in the digital age. It’s not a free-for-all—there are still guardrails and eligibility filters—but the aperture has widened significantly. More broadly, Republic’s move could set a precedent.

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