Green Check released 4/20 transaction data showing the cannabis retail market is becoming more predictable and retention-driven. The company says the sector is also becoming more operationally disciplined, based on its 2026 insights.
Finextra ↗The UK government is discussing a possible release of Anthropic’s Claude Mythos cybersecurity platform to British businesses. The article notes there are warnings around the move, but gives no indication of a formal policy change yet.
Finextra ↗Salmon Group has raised $60 million in equity financing and $40 million in public bonds to support growth in the Philippines. The funding is aimed at expanding its banking and lending platform in the market.
Finextra ↗Truist is piloting Zelle for bill payments, extending the US bank-backed P2P network beyond person-to-person transfers. The move could broaden Zelle’s use case if the pilot proves successful.
Finextra ↗ACI Worldwide introduced a cloud-native platform designed to connect to eight major US payment networks, including Swift, FedNow, and Zelle. The move aims to simplify multi-rail payments complexity for financial institutions and payment providers.
Finextra ↗LendingClub is changing its name to Happen Bank to highlight its shift from peer-to-peer lending into a full-service digital bank. The move reflects a longer-term repositioning rather than a regulatory or enforcement event.
Finextra ↗NatWest has partnered with Amazon Web Services to launch a new dedicated venture banking department. The move is aimed at strengthening support for technology-led businesses.
Finextra ↗SGX FX and Rand Merchant Bank have formed a strategic partnership to broaden liquidity access and improve distribution of African currencies to global market participants. The move is aimed at making these currencies easier to trade across international markets.
Finextra ↗Monument Technology has partnered with Castle Trust Bank to deploy its Banking Platform as a Service. The deal is its second major client and its first UK-regulated bank customer.
Finextra ↗Moomoo announced Moomoo API Skills, a new capability aimed at bringing retail investors into agentic investing. The launch appears to be a product update from a major trading platform rather than a regulatory or enforcement event.
Finextra ↗OpenAI announced GPT-5.5, describing it as its smartest model yet. The company says it is faster and better suited for complex tasks such as coding, research, and data analysis across tools.
OpenAI ↗Bret Taylor’s AI customer service startup Sierra has acquired the YC-backed French startup Fragment. The deal adds another company to Sierra’s growing AI product and talent base.
TechCrunch ↗OpenAI has released GPT-5.5, saying the model improves capabilities across a wide range of tasks. The launch is another step in the company’s push toward a broader AI “super app” experience.
TechCrunch ↗OpenAI published the system card for GPT-5.5, outlining the model’s capabilities, safety testing, and known limitations. The document is a product and governance update rather than a regulatory action or enforcement event.
OpenAI ↗TechCrunch says it confirmed that Delve handled security certifications for Context AI, an AI agent training startup that recently disclosed a security incident. The report adds to concerns around the troubled compliance startup and its customer base.
TechCrunch ↗Astronomers are increasingly using GPUs to search vast amounts of space data for rare signals and objects. The trend adds another source of demand to an already tight global GPU market.
TechCrunch ↗Google DeepMind introduced Decoupled DiLoCo, an asynchronous training architecture designed to keep large AI model training running even when hardware fails or slows down. The approach reportedly achieved 88% goodput under high failure rates, highlighting a way to improve resilience in frontier model training.
MarkTechPost ↗OpenAI released GPT-5.5, a fully retrained agentic model aimed at handling coding, research, data analysis, and software operations with less human supervision. The model reportedly scored 82.7% on Terminal-Bench 2.0 and 84.9% on GDPval, highlighting stronger performance on computer-work tasks.
MarkTechPost ↗Noscroll is an AI bot designed to read the internet for users, aiming to reduce doomscrolling. The product is positioned as a consumer-facing AI tool that filters online content on a user's behalf.
TechCrunch ↗Era has raised $11 million to build a software platform for AI gadgets. The company expects AI hardware to expand into many form factors, including glasses, rings, and pendants.
TechCrunch ↗