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Original news, analysis and market research across Southeast Asia and South Korea: business, markets, finance, technology, the digital economy, regulation, crypto and AI.
Updated October 9, 202639 new stories in the last 7 days
The week money changed shape: stablecoins, AI trades and a broker crash
Visa, Mastercard and Stripe launched a stablecoin, Swift's ledger went live, brokers opened accounts to AI assistants, IG crashed on winning clients and US hiring nearly stalled. Here is what the fortnight means for the rest of 2026.
Also new
Trading platforms are turning into newsrooms, and brokers should notice
StoneX just bought a Colombian coffee trader, and it says a lot about brokers' future
Southeast Asia's fintech money moment: four deals in a month that changed the region
Finfluencers are the compliance problem nobody can fully police
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Ranked by what readers opened in the last seven days
- 1
The Fed minutes land today, and one word matters more than the rest
- 2
Gold is 23 percent below its 2026 peak. Here is what broke the rally
- 3
APAC Fintech Entry Layer Is Struggling to Keep Up
- 4
Swift's blockchain ledger is live, and 19 banks are about to use it
- 5
Grab is paying 1.49 billion dollars to become Southeast Asia's lender
By desk
What each desk filed most recently
Market Authority
The daily desk: markets, brokers, regulation and crypto.
137 stories
Plus500 had to calm investors mid-session after IG's crash dragged it down 14 percent
APAC Briefing
Asia-Pacific fintech: banks, payments, AI and the rules around them.
60 stories
Coincheck is back to leverage, six years after it quit margin trading
Positioning
How brokers and financial brands compete for position.
58 stories
Anyone can now launch a liquidity business. That is the problem and the opportunity
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370 stories in the archive
Friday, October 9, 2026
The week money changed shape: stablecoins, AI trades and a broker crash
Visa, Mastercard and Stripe launched a stablecoin, Swift's ledger went live, brokers opened accounts to AI assistants, IG crashed on winning clients and US hiring nearly stalled. Here is what the fortnight means for the rest of 2026.
Trading platforms are turning into newsrooms, and brokers should notice
MetaQuotes now lets MT4 and MT5 brokers distribute Benzinga US market news inside the terminal, and other platforms are adding market views and content tools. The place clients trade is becoming the place they get their news.
StoneX just bought a Colombian coffee trader, and it says a lot about brokers' future
StoneX, best known to many as a broker and FX provider, agreed to acquire Colombian coffee trader and processor Integra Trading. The deal shows how diversified financial groups are building businesses that do not depend on retail trading.
Southeast Asia's fintech money moment: four deals in a month that changed the region
Grab is taking control of Atome for 1.49 billion dollars, Circle is buying Tazapay for 400 million, GCash priced a record Philippine IPO and Malaysia is testing a ringgit stablecoin. Money is flowing back into SEA fintech.
Finfluencers are the compliance problem nobody can fully police
Financial influencers drive a large share of new retail trading accounts, and regulators from London to Jakarta are struggling to supervise them. Brokers are liable for promotions made on their behalf, even when they cannot see them.
The top 1 percent of retail traders take two-thirds of all the profits
iSAM Securities' Radar data shows the top 1 percent of winning retail accounts captured 66.5 percent of client profits over the past year, and the top 5 percent took 85.5 percent. Retail trading is a winner-takes-most game.
Plus500 had to calm investors mid-session after IG's crash dragged it down 14 percent
When IG's weak quarter hit on 2 October, Plus500 shares fell as much as 14 percent before the broker issued an unusual mid-session update saying it was trading in line. The episode shows how fragile broker valuations have become.
Thursday, October 8, 2026
Germany switched off 14,000 phone numbers to fight investment fraud
Germany disabled nearly 14,000 phone numbers used by fraudsters, and the UK FCA secured 851,000 pounds in confiscation orders covering about 55 percent of a crypto fraud. Regulators are attacking the scam supply chain.
Tokenised Nvidia is now sold to institutions through the same pipes as real stocks
True Markets launched tokenised equity trading starting with Nvidia, offered to beta clients through APIs and FIX, the protocol institutions use for traditional trading. Tokenised stocks are moving into professional infrastructure.
Coincheck is back to leverage, six years after it quit margin trading
Coincheck launched Coincheck Leverage on 24 September, offering 2x crypto CFDs on Bitcoin, Ether and XRP about six and a half years after ending margin trading. Japan's leverage cap is the opposite of offshore 100x.
Indonesia approved only two trading platforms, and one just landed a broker
Indonesia's futures regulator Bappebti has approved only two trading platforms for licensed brokers. DXtrade is one, and Valbury Asia Futures just adopted it. In Southeast Asia's largest market, platform choice is regulated.
Anyone can now launch a liquidity business. That is the problem and the opportunity
B2Broker launched a turnkey package for firms to build their own prime-of-prime liquidity business, and B2PRIME tied up with Your Bourse to plug liquidity into brokers' execution. Liquidity is being productised.
UK retail trading is booming for some brokers while IG struggles
ThinkMarkets UK grew active clients 40 percent and first-time depositors 123 percent, returning to profit, while EC Markets doubled UK revenue to over 6.3 million dollars. Smaller brokers are winning as the giants struggle.
Capital.com just went commission-free on 2,280 stocks and ETFs
Capital.com launched commission-free trading in about 2,280 real stocks and ETFs for clients in the European Economic Area. A CFD broker is becoming an investing app, and the timing after IG's crash is no coincidence.
Your AI assistant can now prepare trades for you. Brokers just made it official
In one week, Webull let AI assistants research markets and prepare orders for client approval, The5ers opened account monitoring to AI chat apps, and Match-Trader gave brokers an AI management connector. The AI trading era has begun.
