The Monday Roundup: what we are watching this week | Dec 29th

By Puja Sharma

The Monday Roundup sets the scene for the week’s biggest news stories, industry deals, and upcoming events. For Prime subscribers only.

Banks pivot to phygital, experience-led platforms

In a step that reflects its commitment to prioritising customer experience and meeting their expectation with innovative solutions, National Bank of Kuwait announced the complete revamp of its online banking platform, allowing customers to enjoy a more engaging, efficient, and flexible experience as they manage their finances anywhere and at any time.

The revamped platform features a modern, intuitive design and provides an effortless and smart experience through its new user interface, enhanced dashboard, and faster transactions, reflecting NBK’s customer-centric approach to innovation and digital transformation.

The revamped platform features provide an effortless and smart experience with its new user interface, enhanced dashboard, and faster transactions, which reflect NBK’s customer-centered innovative and digital transformative approach. NBK’s upgraded online platform enables customers to easily navigate through the available banking services, which have been largely enhanced to ensure fast access to the desired service.

Bank of Baroda (Bank),Bank of Baroda, an India-based public sector bank, has inaugurated its second phygital branch in Bengaluru, combining self-service digital tools with assisted in-branch services to cater to a wide range of customer needs. The phygital branch features Self Service kiosks, a Video Contact Centre for nonfinancial services and Universal Service Desks for in-person customer service.

This is the Bank’s first Phygital branch in Bengaluru with virtual assistance facilities through its Virtual Relationship Manager – ‘Aditi’.With this launch, the Bank now has 2 phygital branches in Bengaluru and a total of 11 such branches across India.

Payments move from transactions to embedded workflows

Inflyx has launched Inflyx Pay, a FinTech-driven payments platform designed to streamline financial transactions between brands and creators. The platform tackles common challenges such as delayed payments, lack of transparency, and dependence on intermediaries. With Inflyx Pay, creators can easily onboard, submit campaign deliverables, and receive verified payments directly into their bank accounts. The system follows regulatory compliance and introduces milestone-based payouts, ensuring smoother financial flows.

For brands managing large numbers of creators, the platform automates reconciliation and provides real-time visibility into payment statuses, reducing disputes and delays. Manjul Wadhwa, Founder of Inflyx and Anagram Media Labs, emphasised that creators are central to modern marketing but often face payment uncertainties.

Pay10 and Commercial Bank of Dubai have gone live with Open Finance services under the UAE’s Open Finance Initiative, AlTareq. The implementation represents a step in the UAE’s broader shift toward regulated Open Finance frameworks, aimed at enabling secure data sharing and supporting more customer-centric digital financial services.

CBD, in collaboration with Pay10, has enabled its retail current and savings accounts to connect through the UAE’s Open Finance framework, allowing customers to securely share data and initiate payments in line with Central Bank of the UAE regulations. This activation represents one of the first large-scale retail implementations of Open Finance capabilities in the country, moving beyond controlled pilots into live customer usage.

The go-live has been implemented in collaboration with Pay10, the first entity licensed by the Central Bank of the UAE under the relevant Open Finance framework. Together, Pay10 and CBD have completed live transactions in a production environment, validating technical integration, operational readiness, and end-to-end data and payment flows.

What is the Buzz

The United States and the United Kingdom are reshaping the financial landscape by introducing stricter frameworks for digital currencies, marking a decisive shift away from the loosely regulated “wild west” era of crypto. In the US, the GENIUS Act establishes a structured legal foundation for digital assets, signaling the government’s intent to bring stability and oversight to a sector once dominated by volatility and uncertainty. Meanwhile, the Bank of England has finalised its reserve requirements for stablecoin issuers, mandating a 40/60 split between central bank deposits and high-quality liquid assets.

This approach is designed to safeguard systemic stability while ensuring that digital pounds remain firmly anchored to trusted financial institutions. Together, these moves redefine the “borders” of digital dollars and pounds, effectively tying them to national financial systems rather than leaving them as borderless instruments. For FinTech firms, this regulatory clarity offers long-term confidence but also introduces operational challenges, particularly in compliance, settlement, and cross-border transactions. The broader implication is that London and New York are positioning themselves as hubs for regulated digital finance, setting global precedents for how digital currencies will coexist with traditional money in the years ahead.