FinTech

GTN and Payward have partnered to expand the xStocks tokenised equities framework beyond U.S. markets, starting with Hong Kong-listed equities before extending to the UK, Europe, and South Korea, with plans to broaden into new tokenised asset classes subject to regulatory approvals.

Citadel Securities has opened a new Amsterdam office to serve as its European equity options hub, bringing together trading, technology and quantitative research teams. Dave Silber, Head of Institutional Equity Derivatives, said the move strengthens the firm's investment in Europe's capital markets.

MetroTrade has launched options on futures trading in partnership with Devexperts, giving traders access to CME-listed options on futures via the MetroTrader platform. The integration adds options chain, earnings analyser, and multi-leg options tools within a single account interface.

MEXC has appointed Robert MacDonald as Chief Compliance Officer, joining from Bybit where he served as Chief Legal & Compliance Officer. He previously held senior roles at Standard Chartered and Binance, and will lead MEXC's global compliance strategy as the exchange expands beyond crypto trading.

Last week we identified five bearish catalysts converging into a single week and argued that the bears had a window but not the narrative. The data came in largely as expected. CPI fell to 3.8%. PPI confirmed the same backward-looking story. Retail sales badly missed, growing 0.2% against a 1.0% forecast. Chair Warsh was guarded in his congressional testimony. Markets had a difficult session before stabilizing after hours on the CPI print.

STARTRADER has launched 42 new 24/5 US stock CFDs and confirmed 43 new 24/7 US stock CFDs from 27 July 2026, giving clients access to 85 widely traded names including NVIDIA, Apple, Tesla, and Boeing, with round-the-clock trading addressing traditional exchange schedule constraints.

Luramic, a regulated provider of institutional liquidity and trade execution services, has announced the launch of its liquidity platform for brokers, hedge funds, and proprietary trading firms.

The Vault has partnered with blockchain security firm Halborn to launch a joint advisory programme helping banks, treasuries and financial institutions design and validate digital asset custody infrastructure, combining architecture design with independent security review through a four to six week engagement.

Talos has integrated with Kalshi, connecting institutional algo trading, block trading and retail distribution to Kalshi's prediction and perpetual markets. The move brings Talos's algo suite, RFQ platform and multi-leg execution tools to institutional clients trading event contracts and crypto perpetuals.

Marex has partnered with Coinbase to allow clients to use USDC, Circle's dollar-denominated stablecoin, as initial margin collateral for CFTC-regulated derivatives, following a CFTC no-action letter. The service completed its first transaction with Prime Trading, LLC, supported by Coinbase's custody and reporting infrastructure.