The Monday Roundup: what we are watching this week | April 12th

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.

Multi-asset investment strategies access

IT services company Oracle has secured rights to Lucinity’s AI-native case investigation and management technology in a bid to strengthen its financial crime and compliance management (FCCM) portfolio. Oracle’s broad, enterprise-grade FCCM portfolio helps financial institutions manage financial crime operations, compliance obligations, and risk at scale.

Integration with Lucinity’s technology would further enhance Oracle’s FCCM portfolio with a new generation of AI agent-driven capabilities by embedding Lucinity’s AI-native investigation capabilities into the Oracle AI Investigator platform, enhancing investigator workflows while extending the value of customers’ existing investments

These AI agent capabilities would be delivered through a unified, enterprise-grade platform to enable financial institutions to innovate more easily by reducing integration complexity, strengthening governance, and enabling automation within the systems they already use.

Investment management platform VanEck has announced that several of its ETF model portfolios are now available on Orion, a WealthTech platform used by financial advisors. The move also marks VanEck’s first integration of model portfolios with Orion and expands access to its multi-asset investment strategies.

Advisors using Orion will be able to access VanEck’s model portfolios at no additional cost. The offering allows them to implement diversified investment strategies while outsourcing portfolio construction, trading and rebalancing.

Built on an open-architecture framework that incorporates both VanEck and third-party ETFs, the portfolios are designed to be comprehensive, giving advisors flexibility to align client portfolios with a range of investment objectives and risk tolerances. The models are managed by VanEck’s Multi-Asset Solutions (MAS) team.

Quick Remit Services

Mashreq has become the first UAE-based bank to offer a fully digital account opening service for non-resident Egyptian customers in the UAE, allowing them to instantly open a Mashreq Egypt Account remotely via the Mashreq UAE mobile app.

This would require no paperwork or in-branch visits, and eligible customers holding an NEO, Gold or Private account with Mashreq UAE can now open an account in both Egyptian Pound and US Dollar.

The Mashreq Egypt Account is free for life and offers instant transfers via the Quick Remit service, as well as access to a unified global dashboard to view and manage both UAE and Egypt accounts using the Mashreq UAE mobile app. Customers also receive a complimentary debit card with some lifestyle perks across dining, entertainment, and travel.

SaaS company Apex B2B has launched following an investment of £1.3 million. The company is expanding its presence in the UK market, targeting wholesalers, distributors, and manufacturers seeking to modernise their digital infrastructure and improve operational efficiency. Developed as a purpose-built, AI-enabled commerce platform for mid-market businesses, Apex B2B is designed to address a growing gap in the market where companies have outgrown basic retail-first tools but find enterprise platforms too complex, costly, and slow to implement.

The company is targeting mid-market businesses with annual revenues between £10 million and £300 million and plans to expand across European and US markets over the next five years. The platform was incubated within Monsoon Consulting, a digital commerce agency, and formally spun out following a successful soft launch in December 2025.

Through its participation in industry initiatives and events with organisations such as Food & Drink Wholesale UK (FWD) and the Builders Merchants Federation (BMF), Apex B2B is placed within the core of the UK wholesale ecosystem. The company has also been recognised within the UK digital commerce landscape, including nominations at national digital awards.

What is the Buzz

Bank of Africa (BOA) has signed a partnership agreement with Morocco Fintech Center (MFC) to support the development of Morocco’s FinTech ecosystem and strengthen the country’s ambition of becoming a regional hub for financial innovation.

The agreement was signed on the sidelines of GITEX Africa 2026 and is designed to create a more collaborative environment for financial innovation in the country. Through this partnership, BOA and MFC plan to connect regulators, FinTech firms and financial institutions more closely, encouraging innovation through the exchange of expertise, knowledge and practical support.  the initiatives planned under the agreement will include access to testing environments, support in promoting FinTech use cases, and the provision of industry expertise. These efforts are expected to help startups and innovators develop new digital financial solutions while benefiting from closer cooperation with key players in the financial sector.