FCA finds in favor of banks, Brazil's Ebanx reaches India

The Financial Conduct Authority did not find evidence that financial institutions were closing bank accounts because of the customers' politics. "By far the most common reasons providers gave for closing, suspending or declining an account was because it was inactive/dormant or because there were concerns about financial crime," the FCA said in its report. Politicians such as the U.K. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt and Brexit proponent Nigel Farage earlier this year claimed they were denied banking services because of British rules requiring extra risk management for public figures, called "politically exposed people" in the U.K. Hunt, Farage and others said these rules were weaponized against them because of their positions on issues such as Brexit. While the regulator said it found no evidence of political targeting, the FCA reported Tuesday that it would examine the PEP regulations to ensure lawfully expressed political views are protected. On social media, Farage said the FCA's findings are a "whitewash." —John Adams

Blockchain company Circle and Singapore financial and ride-sharing app Grab have built a Web3 wallet that will enable users to access financial incentives, collectibles and NFTs. Circle, the firm behind the USDC stablecoin, has diversified its technology and services over the past several years in an effort to build a financial super app. Grab and Circle are piloting visual experiences that users of both firms can access via their accounts. Web3 technology is still evolving as a financial services tool, with most early uses tied to branding or other forms of marketing. The first Grab/Circle product, for example, will involve NFTs as vouchers during the Singapore Grand Prix auto race. —John Adams 

The bank-supervised EBA Clearing organization has assembled an initial group of banks that will manage crime risk for real-time settlement. The institutions, which include Unicredit, Intessa Sapaulo, Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank, ING and LHV, will pool transaction data to spot patterns and anomalies that could signal fraud. The coalition will also develop and deploy real-time name and account checks for payment service providers in Europe. As real-time settlement networks grow internationally, banks have become concerned about the security risks tied to larger volumes of payments with little or no window to spot criminal activity. There are dozens of efforts to address this problem, with most of the initiatives involving collaboration among companies that process real-time payments to vet users and to identify risk before a transaction takes place. —John Adams