Mintos commission-free ETF trading launched this week, giving the Latvian fintech’s 500,000 European users access to more than 1,000 exchange-traded funds with no transaction fees, no custody charge, and a minimum investment of just €1. The move marks a meaningful expansion for a platform that started life as a peer-to-peer lending marketplace in 2015, later adding bonds, real estate and a cash management account before pivoting toward becoming a multi-asset investment platform. What Mintos Commission-Free ETF Trading Actually Costs The fee structure is simpler than most rivals. Mintos charges nothing to buy, sell or hold an ETF. The only cost…
Author: Publishing Wizard
Polymarket Kalshi World Cup odds landed within a fraction of a percentage point of each other before Sunday’s final, despite the two platforms running entirely separate order books, user bases and liquidity pools. Spain won the match 1-0 against Argentina in New Jersey on 19 July, but the story that will travel further in financial and betting circles is how independently-arrived-at prices converged so closely on the same outcome. Polymarket priced Spain at roughly 59% ahead of kickoff, with Argentina near 40%. Kalshi’s market, built on a different pool of traders and capital, landed at 59.6% for Spain and 40.4%…
Investors holding European securities learned on 20 July 2026 that the EU T+1 settlement deadline has moved from concept to calendar, with the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) publishing a formal statement setting the first hard compliance date at 7 December 2026. Settlement cycle shortening matters to retail investors because the cycle determines how quickly a trade legally completes. Under the current T+2 regime, a share you buy today is not legally yours, and cash is not technically paid, until two business days later. T+1 compresses that to one day, reducing the window in which either side of a…
ESMA cross-border retail investing expanded sharply between 2022 and 2024, with the number of retail clients using cross-border investment services across the EU and EEA climbing from 7.6 million to around 10.5 million, a rise of 39%, even as the number of firms providing those services fell from 380 to 370. The figures come from a follow-up report published by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) on 20 July 2026, updating on both market data and supervisory progress since the regulator’s original 2022 peer review. ESMA cautions that the two-year comparison should be treated as a proxy. Its data…
MENA brokerage market entry trips up more European and UK firms than it should, not because the region is hard to reach, but because it is consistently misread as a single market. It is not. The region spans roughly 20 countries, each with its own language, payment culture, regulatory framework, and investor psychology. A campaign that works in the UAE will not automatically travel to Egypt, and a Saudi audience will not respond to the same creative that converts in Morocco. What MENA Brokerage Market Entry Actually Costs The first planning metric to fix is CPA (cost per funded trader,…
EC Markets trading volume reached $2.11 trillion per month on average in Q2 2026, placing the multi-asset broker at the top of FM Intelligence’s quarterly ranking and making it the first time two firms have cleared that mark in the same quarter. FX News Group confirmed the figures alongside FM Intelligence’s report. Sydney-based TMGM posted the second figure above the line, reporting an average monthly volume of $2.03 trillion over the quarter. Together, according to FM Intelligence, the two firms achieved something the tracked dataset had never seen before. How Fast the Top of the Table Has Shifted The pace…
London Stock Exchange filings confirm that Plus500 revenue in H1 2026 reached $462.9 million, its highest in three years and up 12% year on year, but a widening gap between top-line growth and profit left some holders of the stock with a question worth examining. Plus500 Revenue H1 2026: Reading the Margin Gap Customer Income, the metric Plus500 uses for revenue directly generated from clients, rose 24% year on year to $460.8 million, a five-year high, according to the Investegate company announcement. Yet EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, a standard measure of operating profitability) grew just 1%…
Investors following Moneta Markets Capital revenue performance learned this week that the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)-authorised UK subsidiary more than doubled its turnover in the financial year ended 31 March 2026, swinging from a loss to profit in the process. Accounts filed with Companies House show turnover reached £780,000, up 118% from £358,425 in the prior year. Moneta Markets Capital Revenue Doubles in the Year to March 2026 The profit turnaround was equally sharp. The company posted a net profit of £77,386, reversing a £100,708 loss the year before. Operating profit came in at £71,533, against an operating loss of…
Investors watching Jump Trading’s prediction markets push learned this week that the high-frequency trading firm has doubled its dedicated team in the space this year, while simultaneously broadening the kind of people it is willing to hire to run it. Simon Johansen, Jump’s head of prediction markets, told Bloomberg the firm is recruiting outside its usual elite quantitative pipeline, targeting traders operating from university dormitories and former accountants with a background in sports betting. The reason is structural, not fashionable. Why Prediction Markets Demand a Different Skill Set Prediction markets are event contracts (financial instruments that pay out based on…
Will Hardy has been named the new Eightcap UK Executive Director, with his appointment to lead Eightcap Group Ltd confirmed on the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) register. Hardy brings more than 35 years of financial markets experience to the role, anchored by more than a decade as Head of Retail Sales at IG Group.For UK retail traders, seeing a senior individual named to the Eightcap UK Executive Director position on the FCA register confirms that Eightcap Group Ltd has gone through the regulator’s assessment process for controlled functions under the Senior Managers and Certification Regime (SMCR). It is a standard…
FP Markets secured the Most Trusted Broker award at the UF AWARDS GLOBAL 2026, an event that TradingView describes as ‘the industry’s most credible awards,’ held on 17 June 2026 at the City of Dreams Mediterranean resort in Limassol, Cyprus. The ceremony ran alongside iFX EXPO International 2026, drawing brokers, technology firms and fintech professionals from across the industry. FP Markets takes the award having already accumulated more than 80 industry distinctions over its trading history. What the FP Markets Most Trusted Broker Win Actually Means For retail traders evaluating where to keep their money and execute orders, regulatory oversight…
Investors watching the Citadel Securities Crypto.com investment announced on 16 July 2026 are seeing something new: one of the world’s largest market makers taking a direct equity stake in a retail-facing crypto exchange for the first time, at a $20 billion valuation. According to the Crypto.com press release, the $400 million deal is the Singapore-based exchange’s first institutional funding round in its ten-year history. For retail investors with exposure to crypto markets, either directly or through funds, the deal matters because it signals a shift in how traditional financial infrastructure firms view digital asset exchanges: not as speculative sideshows but…
E*TRADE spot crypto trading went live for nearly nine million retail clients on 16 July 2026, when Morgan Stanley completed a full rollout of Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana dealing inside its existing brokerage platform, according to the bank’s official press release. The launch follows an initial pilot that began in May 2026 and marks Morgan Stanley’s most direct move yet into territory long dominated by crypto-native exchanges. What E*TRADE Spot Crypto Trading Actually Looks Like Clients access the service through the E*TRADE website or mobile app, with dealing available around the clock, seven days a week. Both market orders (buy…
A Taurex UK leadership change has seen Zahid Mahmood depart his role as Chief Risk Officer, according to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) Register, where Taurex Limited is listed as an authorised firm. Mahmood served in the position for nearly four years, having joined when the company still operated under its former name, Zenfinex.The departure follows closely on Matthew Wright’s return as Global CEO. Wright had stepped down four years earlier, spent the subsequent year as a Non-Executive Director, and then resumed the chief executive position with immediate effect after the Board approached him directly.What the Taurex UK Leadership Change…
The Xryma Euronext Paris listing cleared a key regulatory hurdle on 14 July 2026, when the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) approved the company’s prospectus for admission to the exchange’s regulated market. Trading under the ticker XRY is expected to begin at market open on 24 July 2026, pending final sign-off from Euronext Paris itself. A Direct Listing: No New Shares, No New Money The Xryma Euronext Paris listing takes the form of a direct listing (a route to market that admits existing shares to trading without issuing new ones or raising fresh capital). Xryma is not selling new…
The PRNewswire announcement came out of Miami on 14 July 2026: the Bizcap US launch is now live, putting a non-bank revolving credit product in front of American small businesses that have struggled to get fast decisions from traditional lenders. Bizcap was founded in 2019 and has since provided $5 billion in funding to more than 100,000 businesses across Australia, the UK, New Zealand, Singapore, Europe and Canada. The United States is its latest market. What the Bizcap US Launch Offers American Businesses The headline product is the Line of Capital (LOC) range, a revolving facility (meaning businesses can draw…
The Virtu Financial BitGo Prime partnership, announced at 8:00am EDT on 15 July 2026, brings one of Wall Street’s largest electronic market makers into BitGo’s institutional digital asset network, and does something that traditional crypto exchanges have rarely managed: it separates custody from execution entirely.Virtu Financial (Nasdaq: VIRT) and BitGo (NYSE: BTGO) confirmed the arrangement in a joint press release. Under it, BitGo handles qualified custody and settlement; Virtu provides liquidity and pricing.What the Virtu Financial BitGo Prime Deal Changes for Institutional ClientsOn most centralised crypto exchanges, custody and execution are bundled together. An institution that wants to trade must…
The Binance multi-asset super app strategy took concrete shape this week as the exchange launched US equities trading for eligible users outside the United States and disclosed the full structure of its upcoming tokenised stock product, bStocks. Co-founder and co-CEO Yi He framed the ambition plainly. ‘We have set out to reach the next 3 billion users,’ she said. ‘To do that, we need to make it simpler for users to access opportunities across asset classes, diversify their portfolios, and move more easily between traditional investing and on-chain finance. That is what a multi-asset financial super app should help people…
The Alpha Futures NinjaTrader split has put a structural risk into plain view that most retail prop firms would prefer to leave unexamined: the platform you execute on is not a vendor. It is the foundation your entire client relationship sits on, and the moment it goes, so does the product built on top of it. Alpha Futures is a UK-based retail futures prop firm. It had been running its Premium Plan on NinjaTrader’s API backend. When Alpha launched its own proprietary platform to reduce reliance on a third party, NinjaTrader terminated the arrangement, citing concern that its backend would…
CMC Markets 24/5 trading now covers more than 5,000 US shares and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), up from around 250 instruments, the FTSE 250 broker announced on 15 July 2026. The expansion also adds extended-hours dealing for users of CMC Invest, its stockbroking platform, stretching the available US trading day from 6.5 hours to as much as 16 hours. There is a condition attached. The longer window applies only where overnight pricing is available, and CMC has not disclosed how many of the 5,000-plus instruments clear that bar. Investors using CMC Invest should check individual stocks and ETFs before assuming round-the-clock…
Investors tracking crypto regulation learned on 13 July 2026 that 78 US banking groups have written to Senate leaders urging tighter rules on CLARITY Act stablecoin rewards, arguing that the bill’s current wording allows payment stablecoins to behave too much like bank deposit accounts. The letter, addressed to Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Minority Leader Charles Schumer and also shared with the Senate Banking Committee, was led by the American Bankers Association. The coalition focused its proposals on Section 404 of the bill, which sets the rules for how stablecoin issuers may reward users. The Yield Loophole Banks Want…
Investors using Interactive Brokers (IBKR) gained access to Interactive Brokers stablecoin funding on 15 January 2026, when the broker announced 24/7 account funding via stablecoin, and the build-out has continued since: IBKR has now added external wallet transfers and nine new digital assets in a single platform update. The practical change for clients is straightforward. Dollar withdrawals can now be routed automatically through conversion into USDC, PYUSD or RLUSD, meaning capital can move outside normal banking hours, including at weekends, when traditional wire transfers are unavailable. What Interactive Brokers Stablecoin Funding Actually Changes for Account Holders For most retail investors,…
The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has issued Circular 26EC35, and the Hong Kong SFC OTP ban it contains is now on a firm legal footing: from 9 July 2026, licensed internet brokers and virtual asset platforms must replace one-time password (OTP) logins with phishing-resistant alternatives, with a hard compliance deadline of 8 July 2027. For UK investors who trade or hold assets on platforms with Hong Kong operations, or who simply want to understand where global authentication rules are heading, the detail matters. What the Hong Kong SFC OTP Ban Actually Covers An OTP is the six-digit…
SpaceX futures trading volume on MEXC exceeded $7.1 billion in USDT in the weeks following SpaceX’s listing on 12 June, according to the exchange’s own second-quarter report. The figure has not been independently audited. The headline number is eye-catching, but the fuller picture from MEXC’s Q2 report raises questions the report itself does not answer. SpaceX as the Test Case for a Full Equity Stack MEXC positioned itself to sell a SpaceX-linked product at every stage of the company’s journey from private to publicly traded. While SpaceX was still private, the exchange ran two SPACEX(PRE) subscription rounds, collecting over 173…
The Muinmos HACA Partners deal marks a quiet but telling expansion for the Danish regtech firm: rather than signing another broker or crypto exchange, Muinmos has won a Luxembourg-based audit and consulting firm as a client. HACA Partners, which operates from offices in Luxembourg, Paris, Casablanca and Dakar and says it serves more than 500 internationally active clients, will use Muinmos’ automated screening platform to handle know-your-customer (KYC) and anti-money-laundering (AML) checks. Neither party disclosed contract terms or a start date.What the Muinmos HACA Partners Deal Actually CoversHACA is not onboarding retail traders. It is verifying corporate clients on its…
Investors with any exposure to European crypto markets got a first look at the MiCA licence post-deadline landscape this week, and the picture is less an orderly migration than a scramble driven by confusion. Two early data points have emerged since the transitional window closed on 1 July 2026, one from OKX and one from Paybis, and they point in different directions. What OKX’s Download Numbers Actually Show OKX reported a 158% increase in EU app downloads in the 12 days following 24 June 2026, the date Binance withdrew its MiCA licence application in Greece and confirmed it would stop…
Investors watching Japan’s digital asset sector learned on 14 July 2026 that the SBI Solana Global venture is now a legal entity in the making, after SBI Holdings and the Solana Foundation announced their partnership at the WebX Tokyo conference on 13 July 2026. The structure is straightforward: the Solana Foundation will take an equity stake (a direct ownership share) in SBI R3 Japan, a company that already counts SBI Holdings and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group among its shareholders. Sumitomo Mitsui is classified as a G-SIB, meaning a globally systemically important bank, the tier of institution regulators treat as too…
The FlexTrade Portx integration, announced on 13 July 2026, brings portfolio construction, optimisation and real-time risk analytics into FlexONE, the buy-side order and execution management system (OEMS: the platform through which fund managers place, route and monitor trades) used by hedge funds and institutional asset managers. The deal adds Portx’s analytics directly into the FlexONE workflow, meaning portfolio managers can assess risk and review exposures without switching between systems. The two companies say the integration is designed to help users evaluate the potential impact of trades and make portfolio adjustments before and during execution. What the FlexTrade Portx Integration Actually…
Choosing the best brokers in Mexico for CFD and forex trading means weighing more than just a tight spread. Regulation transparency, Spanish-language support, and the leverage environment specific to Mexican residents all shape the decision. This comparison examines IUX, XTB, and eToro across the criteria that matter most before funding an account. How We Chose the Best Brokers in Mexico Eight criteria formed the evaluation framework: regulatory entity visibility, maximum leverage, platform availability, tradable asset range, account tier structure, minimum deposit clarity, fee transparency, and Spanish-language readiness. For Mexico-based traders, that final criterion carries particular weight because it determines how…
Investors following Webull’s European expansion learned this week that the Webull EU MiCA authorisation has been granted by the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM), making the broker one of the first firms to clear the post-grandfathering hurdle under the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation, the EU’s harmonised rulebook for digital-asset firms. The approval, reported by FFnews, covers crypto trading and custody services, with Webull planning to launch those operations in late 2026. FFnews also notes that Webull is using Coinbase for trade execution as part of its regulated crypto-asset offering across the EU. Andries van Luijk, chief executive…
Broker expansion, regulatory moves and a wave of AI upgrades defined the past seven days, as firms across the CFD, crypto and equities sectors either seized new licences or found old ones cancelled. For UK retail investors and ISA holders with exposure to any of these businesses, the developments carry practical implications from dividend risk to platform access. Broker Expansion and Regulatory Moves: The Week in Full IG Group asked shareholders to approve a new Jersey-incorporated holding company, framing the move as part of the strategic review launched in March. The group reported an 18% rise in first-half revenue to…
Investors following the digital assets sector learned on 10 July 2026 that Circle’s Circle OCC trust bank approval is now final, with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC, the primary regulator for US national banks) giving the green light for the USDC stablecoin issuer to operate a federally chartered trust bank for the first time. The new institution carries the formal legal name First National Digital Currency Bank, N.A., and will trade under the brand Circle National Trust. For holders of USDC or anyone with exposure to Circle through exchange-listed products, the practical meaning is that the…
Four licensed exchanges launched overlapping MiCA crypto deposit bonuses campaigns within ten days in late June 2026, using incentive tools that EU financial regulators stripped from the CFD market more than seven years ago. The timing was deliberate. On 1 July, national grandfathering arrangements for platforms without a Crypto-Asset Service Provider (CASP) licence expired, cutting Binance and other unlicensed operators off from onboarding new users across the European Economic Area (EEA). The licensed platforms moved quickly to compete for those displaced customers. Four Campaigns, One Deadline Kraken moved first. From 19 June to 31 July, every euro deposited by enrolled…
Investors and firms holding or distributing stablecoins face a clearer picture of the first federal stablecoin regime after seven US agencies spent the past seven months publishing their GENIUS Act stablecoin rules in draft form, even as the 18 July deadline for finalising them approaches with the rulebook still incomplete. The seven agencies required to complete rulemaking by 18 July are the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the FDIC, the Federal Reserve, the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), the Treasury, FinCEN and OFAC. Between December 2025 and June 2026, they released proposals covering capital, reserves, liquidity, redemption,…
The gold death cross signal forming on the XAU/USD daily chart sits at the centre of a collision between two forecasts that operate on completely different timescales. Gold was trading near $4,110 per ounce on 10 July 2026, down about 0.3% on the session, and the chart is closing in on its first death cross (where the 50-day moving average falls below the 200-day) since 2023. Robert Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad Poor Dad, is not looking at the daily chart. He is still calling for gold at $35,000 an ounce within roughly five years. Both views can coexist. They…
Paul Grewal, who has served as Coinbase’s Chief Legal Officer for six years, will leave the role on 31 July 2026, with the company expecting to name Molly Abraham, currently Vice President of Legal, as his successor. Grewal notified Coinbase of his resignation on 8 July 2026, according to an 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). He will stay on as an adviser through October, under a three-month salary arrangement, having written on LinkedIn: ‘I will be a Coinbase ally.’ The departure is unplanned from the outside: Grewal gave no indication of where he is heading next,…
The IG Group South Africa exit is now complete, with the London-listed broker having closed its Sandton office and surrendered its local regulatory licences, while former chief executive Aphindile AB Bokleni has moved on to Investec’s Prime Services division. IG Group confirmed the operational closure on 24 February 2026, laying off local staff in the process. The broker had previously had around 90 employees in the country, though the exact number made redundant in the final closure could not be confirmed. A Decade in South Africa, Then a Phased Withdrawal IG Markets South Africa Limited was established in 2010 and…
PrimeXBT has launched gold 24/7 trading on its PXTrader 2.0 platform, allowing traders to hold and adjust gold positions across weekends for the first time on the broker’s system. For UK retail investors watching gold’s extraordinary run, the launch raises a practical question worth unpacking: what does round-the-clock gold access actually mean, and for whom does it apply? Gold’s Run in Context Gold’s recent performance gives the launch its backdrop. According to the LBMA Precious Metals Market Report for Q4 and the full year 2025, gold broke through $4,000 per ounce on 8 October 2025 and hit a temporary all-time…
For B2C brands still routing most of their marketing budget through paid press placements, a single organic short-form video now poses a direct challenge to that allocation. One Instagram Reel reaching one million views can match or exceed the audience of a national press campaign, at a fraction of the spend. Paid Instagram Reels carry average CPMs (cost per thousand impressions) of $4.29 to $12, meaning one million views costs between $4,300 and $12,000 before any creative production. eMarketer forecast Instagram’s average CPM at $9.46 in Q2 2025, placing it above Facebook’s CPM and cementing Instagram as Meta’s primary platform.…
The easyMarkets anniversary campaign, launched to mark the broker’s 25th year in operation, is offering up to $2.5 million in total rewards to eligible clients worldwide, but the small print matters, particularly for traders based in Europe. The campaign, titled ‘$2.5 Million Reasons to Trade’ and running until 31 December 2026, is easyMarkets’ largest client rewards initiative to date. The broker, founded in 2001 as one of the early entrants to online forex trading, has structured the promotion around four distinct reward tiers based on qualifying deposit size. What the easyMarkets Anniversary Campaign Actually Offers Eligible clients can choose one…