Efi Pylarinou

@efiglobal.bsky.social

Your Global Fintech & Tech Influencer linktr.ee/Efiglobal

Tradeweb, Franklin Templeton, and Virtu Financial successfully executed a live, atomic U.S. Treasury swap for tokenized cash ($USDCx) via the Canton Network. Tradeweb Facilitates Landmark On-Chain U.S. Treasuries Transaction on the Canton Network 🌐 URL:

Tradeweb Facilitates Landmark On-Chain U.S. Treasuries Transaction on the Canton Network

Pioneering transaction executed on Tradeweb marks progress toward DTCC's Tokenization Services launch

tradeweb.com

OpenAI: $10B JV with TPG, Brookfield, Bain, SoftBank. Anthropic: $1.5B JV with Blackstone, Goldman, Hellman & Friedman. Same day. Same bet. AI's bottleneck isn't the model. It's distribution. And no consulting firm made either cap table.

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Korea Knits Asia Together: Cross-Border QR Payments + AI in Financial Rails KFTC connecting national payment switches across Asia. Live: India, Vietnam, Indonesia. Testing: conversational AI payment agent, AI-powered AML. m.koreaherald.com/article/1073...

Korea eyes wider QR payment network across Asia

South Korea's financial clearing agency plans to expand its cross-border QR payment network across Asia as the country modernizes digital payments and brin

m.koreaherald.com

Ant Group Releases Ling-2.5-1T and Ring-2.5-1T Open-Source Models Ling-2.5-1T focuses on general purpose reasoning tasks, while Ring- 2.5-1T incorporates a hybrid linear architecture optimized for mathematical reasoning and structured problem solving.

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South Korea is the 3rd nation in AI! Europe has only one LLM - Mistral - with a 23 ranking by @artificialanlys (based on 10 criteria) compared to Opus 4.6 (top one) ranking of 53. Even UAE has two LLMs.

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X Money was promised for 2024. Then early 2025. Then "later this year." Now it's late 2025, and they're still hiring the tech lead to "build from the ground up." The "everything app" vision stays perpetually on the horizon.

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Reality check: Bitcoin ETF fees are climbing back UP. 0% promos → now 0.20-0.25% is the new normal. Land-grab phase complete. Year 2-3 competition is infrastructure depth: - Options availability - Custody integration - Tax optimization tools - Derivatives liquidity Compete on features, not fees.

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Klarna`s experiments with AI and its workforce From W-2 to gig economy: Klarna moving to contractor-based model paired with AI. Question: Does fintech function better with on-demand talent + autonomous agents vs traditional full-time teams? paymentexpert.com/2025/05/16/k...

Klarna questioned on use of AI to cut down workforce

Klarna has garnered headlines and controversy with its recent admission of using AI to reduce its corporate headcount.

paymentexpert.com

Animoca Brands announces Nasdaq listing via reverse merger with Currenc Group (CURR). The Web3 giant with 600+ portfolio companies will own 95% of the merged entity, expected to close in 2026. First publicly-listed diversified digital assets conglomerate. www.theblock.co/post/377291/...

Major crypto investor Animoca Brands poised for Nasdaq listing through merger with AI company

If the merger is completed, Animoca would own the vast majority of Currenc and assume its listing on the Nasdaq.

theblock.co

Yes it is early for Embedded finance in an Agentic world. But hey, we need to future-proof businesses! `𝐄𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐝𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐀𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐀𝐈` on the FS i-Hub led by @ShaulDavidUK in conversation w/ @griffinbank CEO David Jarvis. Bring your questions. Join the conversation. RSVP 👉 buff.ly/56Oul1O

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DeepSeek + Huawei are bundling Chinese LLMs with cloud services for Africa—at a fraction of OpenAI's cost. The pitch: GPT-level capabilities, cheaper hardware, less power. 📰 DeepSeek's Push Into Africa Reveals China's AI Power Grab 🔗 www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

China's DeepSeek Is Beating Out OpenAI and Google in Africa

By making AI cheaper and less power-hungry, DeepSeek has put the technology within reach of millions of people.

bloomberg.com

`𝐄𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐝𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐀𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐀𝐈` on the FS i-Hub led by @ShaulDavidUK in conversation w/ @griffinbank CEO David Jarvis. 📅 November 3rd, 2025 | 5:00pm CET | 12:00pm EST Bring your questions. Join the conversation. RSVP 👉 lnkd.in/daTBYMRR

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Movers and Shakers: Dramatic shifts in the 2025 AI banking rankings: 📈 Groupe BPCE +15 📈 Charles Schwab +14 📈 Lloyds +12 📈 State Street +12 AI maturity in banking is no longer about experimentation—it's about execution at scale. buff.ly/EJBKtgY #AI #banking

2025 Evident AI Index

Explore the latest Evident AI Index rankings and the methodology driving the world's most in-depth benchmark of AI maturity in banking. The October 2025 update of the Evident AI Index assesses the AI…

buff.ly

New AI maturity benchmark of 50 global banks reveals a surprise: Ally Financial ranks top 20 despite being a fraction of the size of mega-banks. Agility + focus can trump scale when it comes to AI. Full report: buff.ly/EJBKtgY #AI #Banking

2025 Evident AI Index

Explore the latest Evident AI Index rankings and the methodology driving the world's most in-depth benchmark of AI maturity in banking. The October 2025 update of the Evident AI Index assesses the AI…

buff.ly

USDT and USDC dominance has fallen from 91.6% (March 2024) to 83.6% 📉 Nic Carter says yield-bearing stablecoins like Ethena's USDe and bank consortia will continue eating into their market share. 'Stablecoin duopoly ending' as USDT, USDC dominance falls to 84% cointelegraph.com/news/stablec...

‘Stablecoin duopoly ending’ as USDT, USDC dominance falls to 84%

Tether’s USDt and Circle’s USDC have been losing market share over the past year, despite their steadily increasing market capitalization.

cointelegraph.com

🔵 Hot off the press! Our second part looks into Google`s AP2 protocol. We view this as the new standard set by Google. What does it take to challenge it? Read our in-depth analysis. Leave your comments. Subscribe and Share if you liked it. open.substack.com/pub/sifintec...

The Battle for Agent Payments: Who Can Challenge Google's AP2?

The moment Google announced its Agent Payments Protocol (AP2), an ambitious framework for autonomous commerce, it sent ripples through the payments industry.

open.substack.com

📌 Google's AP2 protocol just set the standard for autonomous commerce - and you can't afford to miss this shift. Multi-rail payments + cryptographic mandates = the new infrastructure. "From Talking Agents to Paying Agents: Inside Google's AP2 & A2A Protocols" open.substack.com/pub/sifintec...

From Talking Agents to Paying Agents: Inside Google’s AP2 & A2A Protocols

How Google’s Agent2Agent and Agent Payments Protocols are reshaping trust, interoperability, and payments in the age of autonomous commerce.

open.substack.com

💥 I am honored to contribute to the first book documenting the global "Peak Branch" phenomenon! 🔴 Branch Tomorrow by @brettking launched as a Kindle bestseller at #Money2020ME Order your copy 📖 BranchTomorrow.com Includes contributions @richardturrin @thepsironi @JimMarous @brunoevdiniz @efipm

Branch Tomorrow by Brett king | Future of banking 2025

Branch Tomorrow by Brett King reveals why bank branches are fading fast and digital-first is the future of finance. A must-read for banking leaders.

branchtomorrow.com

🔴 The global "Peak Branch" phenomenon is reshaping banking worldwide – 𝐁𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐡 𝐓𝐨𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐰 is the ONLY Book documenting this. @brettking launched it at #Money2020ME as a Kindle bestseller! 🚀 Honored to contribute w/ @richardturrin @thepsironi @JimMarous @brunoevdiniz Order now 📖 BranchTomorrow.com

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