Business

The world of banking and payments is evolving rapidly, with embedded finance and Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) reshaping how businesses interact with financial services. Barry O’Sullivan, Head of Banking and Payments Infrastructure at OpenPayd, recently spoke with Payments Consulting Network about the challenges businesses face in accessing banking services and how OpenPayd is providing a seamless solution. O’Sullivan explained how businesses today require more than just a bank account—they need financial infrastructure that integrates directly into their...

A new study has revealed growing dissatisfaction with workplace policies and financial support for parents, with many employees feeling let down by both their employers and government schemes. The Beyond the Birth Rate report by Fertility Family highlights the impact of employment conditions on family planning, as the UK birth rate has fallen by 26.9% over the past 15 years. The research suggests that financial insecurity, rigid working structures, and inadequate parental leave are discouraging...

Vouchsafe, a next-generation identity verification platform committed to eradicating global ID poverty, has raised £1 million in an oversubscribed pre-seed funding round. The investment was led by Bethnal Green Ventures (BGV) and backed by Biometric Ventures, Fuel Ventures, Seed X Liechtenstein, and angel investor Andrew Chevis, CEO of CitizenCard. Chevis brings three decades of industry expertise to the company’s mission. An estimated one billion people worldwide lack access to reliable photo ID, with 11 million...

Former Liverpool footballer and Sky Sports pundit Phil Thompson has lost his IR35 appeal at the Upper Tier Tribunal, leaving him with a tax bill of nearly £300,000 after being deemed a ‘disguised employee’ of Sky Sports. Thompson, who provided punditry on Soccer Saturday and other Sky Sports programmes between 2014 and 2018, was ruled to be inside IR35 by HMRC, meaning he owed £294,306 in tax. The former footballer originally lost his case at...

The UK’s economic growth forecast has been downgraded by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which has urged global leaders to de-escalate rising trade tensions. According to the OECD’s latest projections, the UK’s GDP growth is expected to reach 1.4 per cent this year—0.3 percentage points lower than previously forecast—while 2026 growth has been revised down to 1.2 per cent. Inflation expectations remain unchanged at 2.7 per cent for this year and 2.3...

Link-building is a crucial SEO tactic when you’re trying to boost your visibility and see your website placed at the top of the results page on search engines. Good backlinks are obtained with intense marketing efforts. When done right, link-building can increase the authority of your website and pages and bring you closer to success. But as great as it can be as a strategy, link-building can also be harmful to you if you don’t...

Why philanthropic entrepreneurial investor Jean-Claude Bastos believes a boot-strap mentality holds the key to socio-economic empowerment for Africa There’s an old African proverb that says: “Until the lion learns to write, every story will glorify the hunter.” For tech-savvy investor and philanthropist Jean-Claude Bastos, that adage is particularly apropos. Jean-Claude Bastos, a dual citizen of Switzerland and Angola, has long devoted himself to championing initiatives that promote socio-economic growth conceived and fueled by an emerging...

Enforcement of awards is a perennial issue in international investor arbitration, as legal frameworks for implementation can vary between courts and countries. The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes is the world’s leading institution dedicated to international investment disputes, and its caseload is increasing. In the 2024 fiscal year, the ICSID registered 58 cases, the second highest in its history. The majority of cases heard at ICSID involved Bilateral Investment Treaties, but cases involving...

The investment landscape is changing at a rapid pace in the age of Trump 2.0. How can broker-dealers navigate the changing tides of deregulation to secure a better quality of service for users? While regulation has long been framed as a matter of economic efficiency, there’s a lot of nuance when it comes to tightening and loosening oversight for financial players. In the wake of the 2008 financial crash, we saw more consumer organizations, labor...

Nevis is open for business and investment. The small Caribbean island has a strong, growing economy and is a hub of entrepreneurial success and small business ownership. In fact the IMF has predicted that it will have impressive economic growth of 2% in 2025. The government has created an especially fertile business environment through streamlined processes and favorable policies. This means setting up a business is fast and hassle-free with resources, training, and mentorship available...