Latest news by Rick Steves
How DORA’s cloud oversight splits the EU, UK and US in 2026
The EU's Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) put financial regulators directly over the cloud giants for the first time in 2026 — designating Amazon, Microsoft and Google as critical providers and opening a supervision cycle…
Forage raises $40m to scale its SNAP-benefits payments rail
While fintech's capital pours into corporate-spend cards and stablecoin rails, Forage just raised $40 million to build the one piece of payments infrastructure almost nobody else will touch: the government-benefits rail. The Series B, announced…
How the CFTC’s crypto-perpetuals opening splits four markets
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission's (CFTC) May 29, 2026 clearance for Coinbase to route US clients into crypto perpetual futures onshores a product that the European Union, the United Kingdom and Singapore still wall off…
Why 2026 retail FX rules move beyond the 30:1 leverage cap
Retail foreign-exchange and contract-for-difference (CFD) leverage caps have converged near 30:1 across the European Union, the United Kingdom and Australia — but in 2026 the regulatory frontier has moved past the headline ratio to conduct:…
Ramp raises $750m at $44bn as AI rerates corporate spend
Ramp raised a $750 million Series F at a $44 billion valuation on June 4, 2026 — a roughly 38% step-up that lands at an awkward moment for the fintech narrative. The wider Fintech Index…
Flutterwave adds Stripe’s Tempo as a stablecoin rail for Africa
Flutterwave, Africa's largest payments company, has integrated Tempo — the Stripe- and Paradigm-backed payments blockchain — as a stablecoin settlement layer for cross-border transactions, a deal unveiled on June 4, 2026 at Money20/20 Europe in…
MiCA’s July 1 cliff meets the GENIUS Act’s July 18 deadline
Within 18 days this summer, the world's two largest stablecoin markets lock in incompatible rulebooks: the European Union's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) transitional period ends on July 1, 2026, while the United States' GENIUS…
Perk lands $300m credit line to take spend platform to US
Perk, the fintech formerly known as TravelPerk, has closed a $300 million private credit facility to bankroll the US launch of its AI-native spend management platform — and the structure of the deal is as…
Why the FCA’s retail crypto-ETN reopening splits from US and EU
The Financial Conduct Authority's decision to reopen retail access to crypto exchange-traded notes (cETNs) — effective October 8, 2025 — puts the United Kingdom on a third path between the US spot-ETF model and the…
Adyen wins GOV.UK Pay deal, displacing Stripe on 1,000 services
Adyen has won the contract to run card and bank payments for GOV.UK Pay, displacing Stripe across roughly 1,000 public sector services and signalling a shift in how government procurement now reads the payments market.…