HomeAwardsWinner AnnouncementsPRESS RELEASE; Global Finance Names The World’s Best Treasury & Cash Management Systems and Services Awards 2025
Global Finance has released the results for the 2025 World’s Best Treasury & Cash Management Systems and Services Awards. This program is part of the 25th annual World’s Best Treasury & Cash Management Providers awards, and a full report on the entire survey will be published in the July/August 2025 print and digital editions and online at GFMag.com.
Global Finance used a multi-tiered assessment process—which included entries from banks and providers and input from industry analysts, corporate executives, technology experts and independent research—to select the treasury & cash management systems and services. A variety of subjective and objective criteria were considered, including profitability, market share and reach, customer service, competitive pricing, product innovation and the extent to which organizations have successfully differentiated themselves from their competitors around core service provision.
“Driven by digital advancements and demand for visibility, the Treasury and Cash Management sector is rapidly evolving,” said Joseph Giarraputo, founder and editorial director of Global Finance. “Corporations seek integrated platforms with automation and AI, while financial institutions offer innovative solutions for efficiency and transparency. The Treasury and Cash Management Awards recognize those excelling in this changing landscape.”
The list of Global Finance’s World’s Best Treasury & Cash Management Systems & Services Awards 2025 follows.
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For editorial information, please contact Andrea Fiano, editor, [email protected]
Global Finance’s Transaction Banking Awards Ceremony 2025
On the morning of September 30, Global Finance will host its annual Transaction Banking Awards Ceremony at the Melia Frankfurt Hotel during the Sibos conference. Winning organizations will be notified about details in advance of the event.
About Global Finance
Global Finance, founded in 1987, has a circulation of 50,000 and readers in 193 countries and territories. Global Finance’s audience includes senior corporate and financial officers responsible for making investment and strategic decisions at multinational companies and financial institutions. Its website — GFMag.com — offers analysis and articles that are the legacy of 38 years of experience in international financial markets. Global Finance is headquartered in New York, with offices around the world. Global Finance regularly selects the top performers among banks and other providers of financial services. These awards have become a trusted standard of excellence for the global financial community.
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Wherever Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu looks, trouble seems to be looming.
Criticism of his government’s war on Gaza is mounting, with charges of genocide and war crimes coming from both foreign leaders and former Israeli prime ministers.
Internationally, Israel is looking increasingly isolated, as images of the starvation it is inflicting on Gaza flood global media.
Domestically, Netanyahu faces deep criticism of a war many believe he is only prolonging to stay in power.
Legally, the prosecution in his corruption trial has begun its cross-examination of him, while politically, he is facing a possible collapse of his governing coalition.
Netanyahu has never seemed so embattled in his career, but is this really the end for Israel’s longest-serving prime minister?
Here’s what we know.
Just how unpopular is Netanyahu with the Israeli public?
Very, and it’s growing.
Netanyahu has long been accused of manipulating the war in Gaza for his political ends, an accusation that gained new momentum since March, when Israel broke the ceasefire with the Palestinian group Hamas, further endangering the captives held in Gaza.
In late May, a poll for Channel 12 television showed a majority of Israelis thought Netanyahu cared more about retaining his grip on power than returning the captives.
Most of the protests held in Israel have focused on the captives taken during the Hamas-led assault of October 7, 2023, and how extending the war for political motivations endangers them.
Demonstrators take part in a protest against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and demand the release of Israeli captives taken during the deadly October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas, in Tel Aviv, Israel, on May 24, 2025 [Nir Elias/Reuters]
But recently, a small but significant number of Israelis have also protested against the intense suffering their government is inflicting upon the people of Gaza. In addition to an open letter from the country’s academics denouncing Israel’s devastation of Gaza, a growing number of photographs of Palestinian children are being held by demonstrators as part of wider Saturday night protests against the war in Tel Aviv.
Even members of the military are growing unhappy with the war in Gaza.
As reports of reservists refusing to fight increased, open letters by current and former officers in various divisions appeared, calling for an end to the war.
What political criticism of Netanyahu has there been?
Two of Israel’s former prime ministers have recently publicly criticised Netanyahu.
Ehud Barak, a former general and prime minister from 1999 to 2001, said in Time magazine that Netanyahu must choose between a deal brokered by United States President Donald Trump to free the captives and end the war, or continuing with his politically motivated “war of deception”.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert conceded that Israel was guilty of war crimes in Gaza, labelling the conflict that has killed almost 55,000 people in Gaza a ‘private political war’ [Debbie Hill/Pool via Reuters]
Ehud Olmert, prime minister from 2006 to 2009, wrote in Haaretz that Israel was guilty of having committed war crimes in Gaza and that: “This is now a private political war.”
“A sane country does not wage war against civilians, does not kill babies as a pastime, and does not engage in mass population displacement,” former general and leader of the Democrats party, Yair Golan, told local radio station Reshet Bet.
He was referring to the stated plans of far-right ministers like Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir to expel Palestinians from Gaza in order for Israelis to settle it.
Olmert added on Tuesday that Trump should tell Netanyahu that “enough is enough”.
What is the threat to Netanyahu’s coalition?
For years, Israel has been divided over the conscription of its ultra-Orthodox youth, who were exempt from military service if they were full-time students in religious schools or yeshivas.
In June 2024, Israel’s Supreme Court ruled that the exception could no longer apply, fulfilling a longstanding demand by secular Israelis who protested against the double standard.
Police officers detain a demonstrator as ultra-Orthodox Jewish men block a road in protest against attempts to recruit men from their community to Israel’s military, on the outskirts of Bnei Brak, Israel, on December 24, 2024 [Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters]
But the leaders of the two ultra-Orthodox parties in the ruling coalition, Shas and United Torah Judaism (UTJ), are threatening to collapse the government unless it passes legislation that would override the Supreme Court decision.
It is unclear whether elections would result in a parliament more sympathetic to the ultra-Orthodox, but recent developments, like plans to increase the number of conscription notices to ultra-Orthodox students, have pushed the issue to the fore.
How internationally isolated has Israel become?
Arab and European leaders have become increasingly vocal in their criticisms of Netanyahu and the war.
However, for now at least, he still has the vital support of the US and President Donald Trump.
In early May, Saudi Arabia and the Arab League slammed Netanyahu after he suggested that expelled Palestinians would be able to settle in Saudi territory.
Later the same month, Canada, France, and the United Kingdom, who had all previously supported Israel’s war on Gaza, issued a statement describing the level of human suffering in the enclave as “intolerable”.
Spain and Ireland, which, along with Norway, recognised a Palestinian state in May 2024, have also called for action to be taken against Israel and the Netanyahu government.
The UK, along with Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Norway, also announced on Tuesday that they would impose sanctions on Smotrich and Ben-Gvir.
Netanyahu’s allies, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, have been accused of having ‘incited extremist violence and serious abuses of Palestinian human rights,’ in a joint statement by the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Norway, that imposed sanctions on the two far-right ministers [Gil Cohen-Magen/AFP]
His trial, which began in 2020, has faced numerous delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic and, more recently, the war on Gaza, which he is accused of extending and at times exacerbating precisely to avoid his trial.
Critics also say he is extending the war to avoid being held accountable for his government’s failings during the October 7 attack.
So, is time up for Benjamin Netanyahu?
Controversy and scandal have followed Netanyahu throughout his political career, and opposition to his rule is growing within Israel and parts of the West, yet he may still survive, observers say.
However, to do so, Netanyahu must retain US support for his government while sustaining a war that Trump appears to want ended.
“I don’t know if Netanyahu can come back from this,” one of his former aides, Mitchell Barak, told Al Jazeera in May.
“There’s a lot of talk about Netanyahu being at the end of his line … They’ve been saying that for years, and he’s still here … but I can’t see any more magic tricks that are available to him.”
Riots broke out in Northern Ireland’s Ballymena after two teenage boys appeared in court accused of attempted rape. Police say the violence, which left homes and vehicles burned and officers injured, was racially motivated, following reports the suspects required a Romanian interpreter in court.
Starving Palestinians in Gaza are flocking to controversial aid distribution centres in search of food. More than 150 aid-seekers have been killed – shot dead by Israeli forces and armed gangs. Soraya Lennie breaks down what’s going on at these sites.
The biggest temperature increases were recorded in the Middle East, West Asia, northeast Russia, and north Canada.
This year, the world experienced its second-warmest month of May since records began, the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) has said in a monthly bulletin.
Global surface temperatures last month averaged 1.4 degrees Celsius (2.5 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than in the 1850-1900 pre-industrial period, when humans began burning fossil fuels on an industrial scale, C3S said.
The latest data comes amid mixed momentum on climate action globally, with China and the EU reducing emissions as the Trump administration and technology companies increase their use of fossil fuels.
“Temperatures were most above average over western Antarctica, a large area of the Middle East and western Asia, northeastern Russia, and northern Canada,” the C3S bulletin added.
At 1.4C above pre-industrial levels, May was also the first month globally not to go over 1.5C (2.7F) in warming in 22 months.
“May 2025 breaks an unprecedentedly long sequence of months over 1.5C above pre-industrial,” said Carlo Buontempo, director of C3S.
“Whilst this may offer a brief respite for the planet, we do expect the 1.5C threshold to be exceeded again in the near future due to the continued warming of the climate system,” Buontempo said.
The city of Lyon was covered in heavy smoke from intense wildfires in Canada, which reached France on Tuesday, according to Meteo France [Jeff Pachoud/AFP]
The increased temperatures were particularly felt in Pakistan’s Jacobabad city in Sindh province, where residents grappled with extreme temperatures in the high 40s, which sometimes reached 50C (122 F).
The soaring temperatures followed another heatwave last June that killed more than 560 people in southern Pakistan.
“While a heatwave that is around 20C might not sound like an extreme event from the experience of most people around the world, it is a really big deal for this part of the world,” Friederike Otto, associate professor in climate science at Imperial College London, told reporters.
“It affects the whole world massively,” Otto added. “Without climate change, this would have been impossible.”
In a separate report released on Wednesday, the World Weather Attribution (WWA) research collaboration said Greenland’s ice sheet melted 17 times faster than the past average during a May heatwave that also hit Iceland.
Mixed momentum on climate action
The latest data comes amid mixed progress on climate change action.
United States President Donald Trump has promised to “drill, baby, drill” during his presidency, even as his country faces increasingly severe weather events, like the fires that tore through California’s capital, Los Angeles, late last year. Emissions from technology companies are also surging, as expanding use of artificial intelligence (AI) and data centres drives up global electricity demand, according to a recent report from the United Nations International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
New analysis by the climate reporting site Carbon Brief found that China’s emissions may have peaked, as the country increased electricity supplies from new wind, solar, and nuclear capacity and reduced its reliance on coal and other fossil fuels.
“China’s emissions were down 1.6 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2025 and by 1 percent in the latest 12 months,” Carbon Brief reported last month.
“If this pattern is sustained, then it would herald a peak and sustained decline in China’s power-sector emissions,” it added.
The EU also announced last week that its 27 member states are well on track to meet their goal of a 55 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
“Emissions are down 37 percent since 1990, while the economy has grown nearly 70 percent — proving climate action and growth go hand in hand,” said Wopke Hoekstra, the EU’s commissioner for climate, net zero and clean growth.
In the Caribbean, leaders met recently to plan ways to restore the region’s mangrove forests, which help prevent climate change and protect from rising sea levels and intensifying storms.
The civil case of five Black women sets a legal precedent across the United States in the fight against organised hate.
A group of Black lawyers use a little-known law to win a case previously thought to have been lost. Their victory set a legal precedent still used in US courts today.
Five Black women from Chattanooga survived a shooting by members of the Ku Klux Klan in 1980. While the criminal courts handed a light sentence to the shooter and allowed two of the men to walk free, the women were adamant about holding the white supremacist group accountable for their crimes. Using legal ingenuity, the lawyers and the group of women devised a plan to bankrupt the Klan and bring justice to the community.
How to Sue the Klan is a documentary film by John Beder.
Police believe the 15-year-old arrested for the attempted murder of Senator Miguel Uribe was a hitman working for money.
A 15-year-old boy accused of trying to assassinate Colombian Senator and presidential candidate Miguel Uribe has pleaded “not guilty”, the prosecutor’s office said.
The teen was formally charged on Tuesday with the attempted murder of 39-year-old conservative presidential candidate Uribe, who was shot in the head on Saturday and is fighting for his life in critical condition in hospital.
The teenager – who police believe was a “sicario” or hitman working for money – was also charged with carrying a firearm.
“No family in Colombia should be going through this,” Uribe’s wife, Maria Claudia Tarazona, told reporters outside the hospital where her husband is being treated.
“There is no name for this – it’s not pain, it’s not horror, it’s not sadness,” she said.
The senator’s father, Miguel Uribe Londono, thanked the “millions of Colombians and people around the world for their prayers”.
“Miguel, amidst the pain and dismay that overwhelms us, has managed to unite this country in a single voice that rejects violence,” his father added.
It is not known why Senator Uribe, who was vying for the candidacy of his party, was attacked. He was polling well behind other party candidates at the time of the shooting.
Footage from the scene of the shooting showed Uribe addressing supporters in the west of the capital Bogota when a youth rushed towards him firing at least eight shots. Uribe was hit twice in the head and once in the leg.
The alleged attacker was apprehended by security guards and a Glock 9mm pistol was recovered.
In a video of the teen’s capture, independently verified by the Reuters news agency, the suspect can be heard shouting that he had been hired by a local drug dealer.
An earlier video showed that as the suspect, who was wounded, attempted to escape the scene, a voice could be heard shouting, “I did it for the money, for my family.”
But in court, the teenager rejected charges of attempted murder and illegal possession of a firearm, the attorney general’s office said. If convicted, he faces up to eight years in a rehabilitation centre, not prison, as he is a minor.
Also on Tuesday, Colombia was rocked by bomb and gun attacks in the country’s southwest where at least seven people were killed in a wave of violence that echoed earlier decades when attacks by armed fighters, paramilitary groups and drug traffickers were common.
Bystanders look at the wreckage of a car after it exploded in front of the City Hall in Corinto, Cauca department, Colombia, on June 10, 2025 [Joaquin Sarmiento/AFP]
The bomb and gun attacks were likely caused by an armed group that splintered from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels, according to the army and police.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro, meanwhile, has broadly pointed the finger at an international crime ring as being behind the attack on Uribe, without providing details or evidence.
Colombian Interior Minister Armando Benedetti suggested there may be a link with the assassination attempt as rebels have increasingly turned to drug trafficking to finance their activities, though he did not provide evidence.
President Petro has ordered beefed-up security for government officials and opposition leaders in response to the attacks.
Uribe had been a staunch critic of Petro’s security strategy, aimed at ending six decades of armed conflict, arguing that Petro’s approach of pausing offensives on armed groups despite the failure of peace talks only backfired.
The senator had two government-provided bodyguards protecting him at the time of the shooting, the head of the National Protection Unit said.
Uribe’s lawyer, Víctor Mosquera, said his client had repeatedly asked for more bodyguards.
Karen Bass says curfew for part of downtown area will take effect from 8pm local time (03:00 GMT Wednesday).
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has announced a curfew for a small part of downtown Los Angeles amid protests against United States President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
The curfew will apply to an area of 1 square mile (2.6km) and be effect from 8pm on Tuesday to 6am on Wednesday, local time (03:00 GMT to 13:00 GMT Wednesday), Bass said during a news conference.
“Many businesses have now been affected or vandalised. Last night, there were 23 businesses that were looted and I think if you drive through downtown LA, the graffiti is everywhere and has caused significant damages to businesses and a number of properties,” Bass said.
“So my message to you is: If you do not live or work in downtown LA, avoid the area. Law enforcement will arrest individuals who break the curfew and you will be prosecuted.”
Bass said she expects the curfew to remain in effect for several days, but stressed that the order only applies to a small portion of the city, which covers 502 square miles.
“I think it is important to point this out, not to minimise the vandalism and violence that has taken place there – it has been significant – because it is extremely important to know that what is happening in this one square mile is not affecting the city,” Bass said.
“Some of the imagery of the protests and the violence gives the appearance that this is a city-wide crisis and it is not.”
The announcement marks the first time direct Libyan involvement in Sudan’s ongoing war has been alleged.
The Sudanese army has accused the forces of eastern Libyan military commander Khalifa Haftar of attacking Sudanese border posts, the first time it has accused its northwestern neighbour of direct involvement in the country’s civil war, now in its third year.
The war between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), whom the military also accused of joint involvement in the recent attack, has drawn in multiple countries, while international attempts at bringing about peace have so far failed.
Early in the war, Sudan had accused Haftar of supporting the RSF via weapons deliveries. It has long accused Haftar’s ally the United Arab Emirates of supporting the RSF as well, including via direct drone strikes last month. The UAE denies those allegations.
Egypt, which has also backed Haftar, has long supported the Sudanese army.
In a statement, Sudanese army spokesman Nabil Abdallah said the attack took place in the Libya-Egypt-Sudan border triangle, an area to the north of one of the war’s main front lines, el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur.
He said the attack constitutes “a blatant aggression against Sudan”.
“We will defend our country and our national sovereignty, and will prevail, regardless of the extent of the conspiracy and aggression supported by the United Arab Emirates and its militias in the region,” Abdallah added.
Sudan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused the UAE of backing the assault, describing it as a “dangerous escalation” and a “flagrant violation of international law”.
“Sudan’s border with Libya has long served as a major corridor for weapons and mercenaries supporting the terrorist militia, funded by the UAE and coordinated by Haftar’s forces and affiliated terrorist groups,” it said in a statement.
There was no immediate response from Haftar’s forces.
The RSF has not issued an official statement, but a source within the group said that its fighters had taken control on Monday of the entrance to Jebel Uweinat, a remote mountain area that sits where the three countries meet, according to the AFP news agency.
Thousands of activists from across the globe are marching to the Gaza Strip to try to break Israel’s suffocating siege and draw international attention to the genocide it is perpetrating there.
Approximately 1,000 people participating in the Tunisian-led stretch of the Global March to Gaza, known as the Sumud Convoy, arrived in Libya on Tuesday morning, a day after they departed the Tunisian capital, Tunis. They are now resting in Libya after a full day of travel, but do not yet have permission to cross the eastern part of the North African country.
The group, which mostly comprises citizens of the Maghreb, the Northwest African region, is expected to grow as people join from countries it passes through as it makes its way towards the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza.
(Al Jazeera)
How will they do it? When will they get there? What is this all about?
Here’s all you need to know:
Who’s involved?
The Coordination of Joint Action for Palestine is leading the Sumud Convoy, which is tied to the Global March for Palestine.
In total, there are about 1,000 people, travelling on a nine-bus convoy, with the aim of pressurising world leaders to take action on Gaza.
Sumud is supported by the Tunisian General Labour Union, the National Bar Association, the Tunisian League for Human Rights, and the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights.
It is coordinating with activists and individuals from 50 countries who are flying into the Egyptian capital, Cairo, on June 12, so that they can all march to Rafah together.
Some of those activists are affiliated with an umbrella of grassroots organisations, including the Palestinian Youth Movement, Codepink Women for Peace in the United States and Jewish Voice for Labour in the United Kingdom.
How will they reach the Rafah crossing?
The convoy of cars and buses has reached Libya. After taking a brief rest, the plan is for it to continue towards Cairo.
“Most people around me are feeling courage and anger [about what’s happening in Gaza],” said Ghaya Ben Mbarek, an independent Tunisian journalist who joined the march just before the convoy crossed into Libya.
Ben Mbarek is driven by the belief that, as a journalist, she has to “stand on the right side of history by stopping a genocide and stopping people from dying from hunger”.
Once Sumud links up with fellow activists in Cairo, they will head to El Arish in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and then embark on a three-day march to the Rafah crossing to Gaza.
Tunisians wave the Palestinian flag as they gather in Tunis early on June 9, 2025, before the departure of the Global March to Gaza to break the siege on the Strip [AFP]
Will the activists face obstacles?
The convoy has yet to receive permission to pass through eastern Libya from authorities in the region. Libya has two rival administrations, and while the convoy has been welcomed in the west, discussions are still ongoing with authorities in the east, an official from the convoy told Al Jazeera on Tuesday.
The activists had previously told The Associated Press news agency they do not expect to be allowed into Gaza, yet they hope their journey will pressure world leaders to force Israel to end its genocidal war.
Another concern lies in Egypt, which classifies the stretch between El Arish and the Rafah border crossing as a military zone and does not allow anyone to enter unless they live there.
The Egyptian government has not issued a statement on whether it will allow the Global March to Gaza to pass through its territory.
“I doubt they would be allowed to march towards Rafah,” a longtime Egyptian activist, whose name is being withheld for their safety, said.
“It’s always national security first,” they told Al Jazeera.
If the convoy makes it to Rafah, it will have to face the Israeli army at the crossing.
Why did the activists choose this approach?
Palestine supporters have tried everything over the years as Gaza suffered.
Since Israel’s genocidal war began 20 months ago, civilians have protested in major capitals and taken legal action against elected officials for abetting Israel’s mass killing campaign in Gaza.
Activists have sailed on several humanitarian aid boats towards Gaza, trying to break a stifling blockade that Israel has imposed since 2007; all were attacked or intercepted by Israel.
In 2010, in international waters, Israeli commandos boarded the Mavi Marmara, one of the six boats in the Freedom Flotilla sailing for Gaza. They killed nine people, and one more person died of their wounds later.
The Freedom Flotilla kept trying as Gaza suffered one Israeli assault after another.
Israel’s current war on Gaza prompted 12 activists from the Freedom Flotilla Coalition to set sail on board the Madleen from Italy on June 1, hoping to pressure world governments to stop Israel’s genocide.
However, the activists were abducted by Israeli forces in international waters on June 9.
From left: Suayb Ordu, Baptiste Andre, Greta Thunberg, Thiago Avila, Marco Rennes, and Yasemine Acar, six of the Madleen activists, before departure from Catania, Italy, on June 1, 2025 [Fabrizio Villa/Getty Images]
Will the Global March to Gaza succeed?
The activists will try, even if they are pretty sure they will not get into Gaza.
They say standing idle will only enable Israel to continue its genocide until the people of Gaza are all dead or ethnically cleansed.
“The message people here want to send to the world is that even if you stop us by sea, or air, then we will come, by the thousands, by land,” said Ben Mbarek.
“We will literally cross deserts … to stop people from dying from hunger,” she told Al Jazeera.
How bad are things in Gaza?
Since Israel began its war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, it has strangled the food and supplies entering the Palestinian enclave, engineering a famine that has likely killed thousands and could kill hundreds of thousands more.
Israel has carpet-bombed Gaza, killing at least 54,927 people and injuring more than 126,000.
Legal scholars previously told Al Jazeera the suffering in Gaza suggests Israel is deliberately inflicting conditions to bring about the physical destruction of the Palestinian people in whole or in part – the precise definition of genocide.
Global outrage has grown as Israel continues to kill civilians in thousands, including children, aid workers, medics and journalists.
Since March, Israel has tightened its chokehold on Gaza, completely stopping aid and then shooting at people lining up for what little aid it allows in, leading to rare statements of condemnation from Western governments.
Colombia on edge as attacks come just days after assassination attempt on conservative presidential hopeful.
Southwest Colombia has been rocked by a series of explosions and gun attacks near police stations that have left at least four people dead, according to police, an apparent coordinated attack that authorities have blamed on rebel groups.
The attacks hit Cali – the country’s third-largest city – and the nearby towns of Corinto, El Bordo, and Jamundi, targeting police stations and other municipal buildings with car and motorcycle bombs, rifle fire and a suspected drone, the head of police Carlos Fernando Triana told local radio station La FM on Tuesday.
In Corinto, an AFP journalist witnessed the tangled wreckage of a car that had exploded next to a scorched and badly damaged municipal building.
“There are two police officers dead, and a number of members of the public are also dead,” said Triana.
Police later said at least two civilians were among those killed, and 12 others were injured.
It was not immediately clear who was behind the attacks, but military and police spokespeople blamed the strikes on the FARC-EMC, which is known to operate in the area. The group is led by former members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) who broke away from the group after it signed a peace deal with the government in 2016.
Colombia on edge
Triana suggested the attacks may be linked to the third anniversary of the killing of FARC dissident leader Leider Johani Noscue, better known as “Mayimbu”.
The bombings just three days after Uribe’s attempted assassination have set Colombia further on edge.
Uribe, a member of the opposition conservative Democratic Centre party, underwent successful initial surgery on Sunday. The hospital treating him said on Tuesday that he remained stable but in critical condition.
“We continue to take the necessary actions to mitigate the impact of the injuries,” the Santa Fe Foundation hospital added in a statement.
Thousands have taken to the streets in major cities to light candles, pray and voice their anger at the assassination attempt. Authorities say they are investigating who was behind the attack on Uribe. Leftist President Gustavo Petro, who has vowed to bring peace to the country, said on Sunday that he had ordered additional security for opposition leaders in response to more threats.
Many Colombians are fearful of a return to the bloody violence of the 1980s and 1990s, when cartel attacks and political assassinations were frequent, sowing terror across the nation.
Colombia’s government has struggled to contain violence in urban and rural areas as several rebel groups try to take over territory abandoned by the FARC after its peace deal with the government.
Peace talks between the FARC-EMC faction and the government broke down last year after a series of attacks on Indigenous communities.
Asian shares were marginally higher on Tuesday as investors kept an eye on US-China trade talks that might help stave off a recession.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 gained 0.9% to 38,445.68, while the Kospi in South Korea jumped 0.3% to 2,865.12.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng edged 0.3% higher, to 24,261.26 and the Shanghai Composite index was up 0.1% at 3,403.52. In Taiwan, the Taiex surged 2.1% to 22.253,46.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 advanced just less than 0.9% to 8.588,10.
On Monday, the S&P 500 edged up just 0.1% and at 6,005.88 is within 2.3% of its record set in February. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped by 1 point, which is well below 0.1%, to 42,761.76.
The Nasdaq composite added 0.3% to 19,591.24.
A second day of talks between the US and China was planned after the two global powers met in London for negotiations.
The hope is that they can eventually reach a deal to reduce painfully high tariffs against each other. Most of the tariff hikes imposed since US President Donald Trump escalated his trade war have been paused to allow trade in everything from tiny tech gadgets to enormous machinery.
Hopes that President Donald Trump will lower his tariffs after reaching trade deals with countries around the world have helped the S&P 500 win back gains after it dropped roughly 20% from its record two months ago. The index is back above where it was when Trump shocked financial markets in April with his wide-ranging tariff announcement on so-called “Liberation Day”.
Some of the market’s biggest moves came from the announcement of big buyout deals. Qualcomm rallied 4.1% after saying it agreed to buy Alphawave Semi in a deal valued at $2.4bn (€2.1bn). IonQ, meanwhile, rose 2.7% after the quantum computing and networking company said it agreed to purchase Oxford Ionics for nearly $1.08bn (€947.1mn).
On the losing side of Wall Street was Warner Bros. Discovery, which flipped from a big early gain to a loss of 3% after saying it would split into two companies. One will get Warner Bros. Television, HBO Max and other studio brands, while the other will hold onto CNN, TNT Sports and other entertainment, sports and news television brands around the world, along with some digital products.
Tesla recovered some of its sharp, recent drop. The electric vehicle company tumbled last week as Elon Musk’s relationship with Trump broke apart, and it rose 4.6% on Monday after flipping between gains and losses earlier in the day.
The frayed relationship could end up damaging Musk’s other companies that get contracts from the US government, such as SpaceX. Rocket Lab, a space company that could pick up business at SpaceX’s expense, rose 2.5%.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury eased to 4.48% from 4.51% late Friday. It fell after a survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that consumers’ expectations for coming inflation eased slightly in May.
Economists expect a report due on Wednesday to show that inflation across the country accelerated last month to 2.5% from 2.3%.
The Federal Reserve has been keeping its main interest rate steady as it waits to assess the inflationary effects of Trump’s tariffs. A persistent increase in inflation expectations among US households could drive behaviour that creates a vicious cycle that only worsens inflation.
In other dealings early on Tuesday, US benchmark crude oil picked up 31 cents to $65.45 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, also gained 31 cents, to $67.35.
The dollar rose to 144.93 Japanese yen from 144.61 yen. The euro slipped to $1.1399 from $1.1421.
Over the past year, banks embraced innovative technologies like APIs, AI tools, and mobile solutions to enhance efficiency, customer service, and risk management. Global Finance announces the 2025 Innovators from Middle East.
Regional Winners
Most Innovative Bank in Middle East| ARAB BANK
Acabes, Arab Bank’s in-house development factory, enabled the bank to launch an updated version of its Reflect banking app in 2024. Reflect benefits from a host of new digital features, including multicurrency subaccounts for deposits, savings, and payments. Customers can also use Salary Transfer and instant transfer features with these currencies. Arabi Shopix, another Acabes product, is an e-commerce website creation service.
Acabes empowered Omnify, Arab Bank’s embedded finance and open-banking platform, toward its official launch, leading to Omnify signing and/or going live with third-party providers. Omnify has solidified its position as the region’s leading one-stop shop for embedded finance and open banking, preparing for the next era of banking as a service. Partnerships with key innovators like MoXey and Menaitech have improved the platform and let partners quickly develop custom financial solutions.
Most Innovative Financial Technology Company in Middle East | GEIDEA
The first payment provider in the Middle East and North Africa region to offer instant merchant onboarding, Geidea enables businesses to start accepting payments within minutes, thanks to substantial investments in automation, AI, and digital verification.
Geidea’s instant onboarding solution is particularly significant due to the rapid growth of digital-payment adoption across the region and the increasing number of microenterprises entering the formal economy. By facilitating quick onboarding for businesses of all sizes, Geidea supports scalable growth.
Furthermore, Geidea has set a new benchmark for innovation by becoming the first fintech in the region to develop and launch its own proprietary point-of-sale terminal. This establishes a new standard for flexibility, security, and technological integration in payments. By eliminating reliance on thirdparty hardware manufacturers, Geidea has disrupted traditional payment solutions and introduced a model that empowers businesses with unprecedented control and customization.
Innovations In Finance Globally From Middle East
Cash Management Forecasting in ATMs Project | BANK MUSCAT
Oman’s Bank Muscat became the first Middle East bank to leverage AI and machine learning for predictive analytics in cash management, creating an efficient, non-manual ATM cash forecasting and replenishment process. By analyzing historical data for cash withdrawals and deposits along with external factors like seasonality and local events, the new forecasting system ensures optimal cash levels at ATMs, solving the problem of cash outs, which can be an annoyance for customers, and minimizing idle cash in the ATM, which is not ideal for the bank.
Musaed – Elevating Conversational Banking | BOUBYAN BANK
Boubyan Bank’s chatbot, Musaed—”helper” in Arabic—has undergone a series of recent enhancements. One such, Boubyan Playback, provides customers with a personalized “Year in Review” of their interactions with the bank, encouraging high customer engagement. Additionally, Boubyan has become the first bank in Kuwait to offer AI-powered recruitment assistance through Musaed’s Job Interview Service. During Boubyan’s internal job fair, Musaed streamlined the interviewing and hiring process by facilitating over 1,000 CV submissions and aiding HR in efficiently identifying potential candidates.
AI-powered Reconciliation Platform | BANQUE SAUDI FRANSI
In February, BSF partnered with Deben, a Saudi SaaS platform that automates cash flow management and generates instant reports for financial managers, to launch an innovative AI-powered reconciliation platform. As the first of its kind in both the kingdom and the region, the platform uses AI to deliver intelligent reconciliation, forecasting, anomaly detection, and real-time financial insights. Businesses can customize transaction categorization to meet their specific needs and automation streamlines processes for increased efficiency, cost savings, and an enhanced user experience.
FABeAccess Electronic Direct Debit (eDDS) API Suite| FIRST ABU DHABI BANK (FAB)
FAB’s eDDS API Suite is transforming the way businesses manage their receivables. The solution offers real-time, secure, automated collection processes while ensuring regulatory compliance. eDDS API Suite streamlines collections for billers and enhances convenience for payers through features including mandate registration, cancellation, collection requests, realtime status updates, and pre-collection reports. By eliminating manual processes and reducing administrative costs, businesses gain end-to-end visibility over their receivables. As the first API-driven electronic direct debit solution in the United Arab Emirates, eDDS API provides scalability, seamless integration with ERP systems, and a customer-centric approach.
PULSE Mobile App| MASHREQ
PULSE Mobile, a pioneering corporate banking app in the Middle East, provides relationship managers with a comprehensive, 360-degree view of client information. The innovative tool enables instant access to critical client data, transaction approvals, and call report submissions, directly from mobile devices. Additionally, the app’s news alerts feature ensures that relationship managers stay informed of key industry events, enabling them to proactively manage their portfolios and respond to market changes in real time.
QIC App| QATAR INSURANCE CO.
he QIC App is Qatar’s premier comprehensive mobile platform, delivering an array of services tailored for motorists and vehicle proprietors over a platform set up to streamline their daily routines and enhance road safety. By integrating both insurance and auxiliary non-insurance offerings, the QIC App addresses a critical issue: the disjointed and protracted procedures associated with overseeing diverse automotive requirements. Concurrently, QIC Reads operates as Qatar’s exclusive digital repository dedicated to insurance education, aiming to foster a robust culture of insurance awareness and simplify the understanding of everyday insurance needs in Qatar.
Fawran Corporate| QATAR ISLAMIC BANK
Qatar’s first Sharia-compliant, real-time corporate payment service, Fawran Corporate launched last November. The service allows instant transactions, including payroll, supplier payments, and intercompany transfers, improving liquidity and streamlining operations. Adherence to Sharia principles fosters trust and expands the service’s reach within the Islamic finance sector. Fawran Corporate marks a major milestone in Qatar’s financial development, promoting innovation, efficiency, and inclusivity.
RAK Telemetry (Real Time Dashboard)| RAKBANK
RAK Telemetry, a groundbreaking suite of 32 real-time and near real-time dashboards, offers a centralized platform to track and monitor essential business processes, integrating key data points and metrics to provide a comprehensive overview of onboarding journeys, service requests, transactions, and IT tickets status. By eliminating the need for multiple, disjointed tracking systems and manual data correlation, RAK Telemetry streamlines operations, enhances decision-making, and boosts overall efficiency. Businesses can leverage the tool to gain valuable insights into customer behavior, market trends, and operational performance, enabling them to respond swiftly to changing conditions and optimize their strategies.
Innovations in AI, APIs, and digital tools helped banks improve operations, customer engagement, and financial inclusion in the last year. Global Finance announces the 2025 Innovators from North America.
Regional Winners
Most Innovative Bank in North America | BANK OF AMERICA
Bank of America’s (BofA’s) dedication to improving customer experience is evident in the 12% increase in digital interactions by clients last year, reaching a recordbreaking 26 billion interactions. Corporate clients made over $1 trillion in payment approvals on the bank’s CashPro app in 2024—a 25% increase year on year.
Notable CashPro Data Intelligence innovations include CashPro Search with Investigations—the first comprehensive search-and-investigation tool across transaction types. Another innovation is CashPro Capital Markets Insights, which is the first integrated capital markets experience available in a treasury mobile app, offering access to investment-grade secondary bond pricing alongside treasury information.
The bank also launched Virtual Payables Direct, an innovative solution that combines BofA’s card-issuance, merchant-acquisition, and payment capabilities. For the first time, buyers can benefit from the working capital advantages of a card transaction while paying suppliers who prefer direct bank transfers: Payments begin as card transactions but are delivered to suppliers as bank transfers, ensuring that suppliers get paid quickly while buyers benefit from extended payment terms.
Most Innovative Financial Technology Company in North America | BATTERY FINANCE
In November 2024, Battery Finance executed a pioneering financial transaction by establishing a bitcoin reserve with shared appreciation benefits for both borrower and lender. This innovative approach was integrated into the collateral package for the refinancing of Project Bank Street Court, a seasoned multifamily mixed-use asset located in Center City, Philadelphia.
This groundbreaking transaction effectively enabled borrowers to leverage Bitcoin as collateral for loans. The structure of the deal was unique in its dual-collateralized nature—by combining Bitcoin with traditionally financeable assets, Battery Finance offered borrowers uncorrelated downside protection and enhanced the overall collateral package. This novel approach to collateralization mitigated risks associated with the volatility of Bitcoin while still allowing borrowers to capitalize on its potential for appreciation.
Innovations In Finance Globally From North America
Lumi Assistant | BMO
BMO uses an employee-assisting Gen AI solution, incorporating Amazon Web Services and Anthropic’s large language model, to read, interpret, and summarize complex documents including policies, procedures, operating manuals, and regulatory documents in a user-friendly format. Launched in March to support 200 employees, Lumi Assistant was expanded in April to support some 8,500 Canadian front-line bank employees. By the end of this year, BMO plans to make the solution available to over 14,600 Canadian personal and business banking employees.
Virtual Account Based Solutions (VABS) | BNY
In January, BNY launched VABS, a cash management solution that promises to provide clients with improved control and access to cash administration activities and reporting capabilities. VABS is one of the first cash management systems to offer instant access to robust, real-time transaction and balance reporting at the individual virtual account level and ACH allocations at the virtual account level. Virtual accounts can be linked to physical accounts within BNY and payments are reflected in real time.
Tokenization of the 1708 Stradivarius Violin, “Empress Caterina” | GALAXY DIGITAL
Galaxy Digital’s groundbreaking tokenization of the 1708 Stradivarius violin “Empress Caterina” last year established a new paradigm for high-value collectibles in the digital financial landscape. By enabling on-chain ownership tracking, the NFT ensures an immutable record while unlocking the potential for decentralized finance backed by real-world assets.
Asset Tokenization Studio| HEDERA
Hedera’s Asset Tokenization Studio, launched last September, is an open-source toolkit that streamlines the tokenization of bonds and equities. By integrating ownership records, compliance features, document management, and notifications directly on-ledger, it eliminates the need for off-chain data management, thereby reducing operational risk. The end-to-end solution improves upon the ERC-1400 standard, enabling full lifecycle management of tokenized assets.
SAF uses AI to enhance financial analysis and risk management via two platforms: Fintech V1 and Fintech V2. V1 generates reports for banks and third parties, helping to calculate risk-weighted assets. V2 allows for continuous monitoring and control, facilitating on-balance-sheet netting. Basel III regulations have shifted focus from the internal ratings-based approach to standardized methods for recognizing credit risk mitigation, a shift supported by SAF’s platforms.
Zenus Embedded Banking| ZENUS BANK
Last November, the Puerto Rico-based digital bank launched a first-of-its-kind, fully embedded banking platform. The API-driven solution enables other financial institutions around the world to set up dedicated US dollar accounts, process international payments, and offer cross-border Visa card issuance.
Banks accelerated digital transformation by adopting customer-focused platforms, AI-driven services, and advanced data analytics. Global Finances announces the 2025 Innovators from Western Europe.
Regional Winners
Most Innovative Bank in Western Europe | SOCIETE GENERALE
Societe Generale’s Global Transaction and Payment Services division has launched several new innovations to reduce their corporate clients’ workload. These include IKAR, a Gen AI chatbot for cash management product-documentation inquiries; and the Digitrade Tool, which uses advanced data analytics, including algorithms and pattern recognition, to personalize the document-checking process. The Digitrade Tool identifies and extracts key information from documents, adapting to the specific requirements of different transactions. By eliminating the need for paper checks and offering digital tools with multiple features, the tool provides users with a more convenient and tailored experience, aligning with their preferences for efficiency and accuracy.
Additionally, the bank’s X-Border API enables other banks to automatically send payment instructions to Societe Generale in 40 different currencies from a single account, benefiting from a guaranteed rate for 20 minutes after obtaining the quotation.
Most Innovative Financial Technology Company in Western Europe | REDCOMPASS LABS
AnalystAccelerator.ai is the world’s first multiagent AI solution engineered specifically to accelerate payments transformation. Developed by RedCompass Labs and launched in November 2024, this innovative tool leverages the extensive knowledge and experience gained from over 300 payment projects undertaken for leading global banks. It also utilizes the most comprehensive library of global payments documentation available.
Using AnalystAccelerator.ai, a business analyst can reduce manual work on a typical payment modernization project by up to 68%. Regulatory and project documentation updates that used to take weeks can be completed in under a day, saving banks millions of dollars and months of work. This leads to improved project outcomes and enhanced compliance with regulatory requirements.
In April this year, RedCompass Labs unveiled AnalystAccelerator.ai v2.5, an enhanced version fine-tuned on the largest collection of payments rulebooks in the world and outperforming leading general AI models. It delivers 13% better performance on complex payment-related tasks than GPT-4o and achieves a perplexity score 10 times lower than open-source AI models.
Innovations In Finance Globally From Western Europe
ADA (Analytics + Data + AI) Platform | BBVA
BBVA ADA, the first global data platform to fully integrate all countries in which the BBVA group has a presence, launched last November in Europe and Uruguay. The platform streamlines the end-to-end analytics process, utilizing 100% of the bank’s data and Amazon Web Services’ advanced managed services to optimize data processing, machine learning, and analytics. The combination improves the strategic capabilities and decision-making expertise of data scientists, analysts, and reporting teams throughout the organization.
New Signature for Operations in CaixaBank Group Applications | CAIXABANK
By consolidating the signing process on a single platform, CaixaBank has effectively eliminated the need for its customers to navigate multiple applications or interfaces to complete their banking tasks. The streamlined approach not only saves time but reduces the potential for error and enhances the overall user experience. The new authorization method incorporates advanced security measures to safeguard customers’ sensitive information and financial assets, ensuring they can conduct their banking activities knowing their transactions are protected by robust security protocols.
Mind Money Weather Model | MIND MONEY (FORMERLY ZERICH)
Mind Money Weather is the first quantitative model to connect operational weather forecasts and commodity prices. Typically, factoring weather data into trading strategies involves detecting significant patterns and combining these with meteorologists’ informal impact assessments, considering the economic context (demand, supply, stocks) but without a clear mathematical model. Instead of focusing on forecasting, Mind Money Weather centers on the formal, quantitative assessment of how weather affects commodity pricing.
Khan Younis, Gaza – In the ruins of his home in Khan Younis, 75-year-old Shaker Safi gently thumbs through fading photographs of his son Mohammed’s sporting career.
Medals, trophies, team huddles, and group photos of young athletes coached by Mohammed now serve as a haunting memorial to a dream destroyed by war.
On November 15, 2023, Mohammed Safi – a football coach and physical education teacher – was killed in an Israeli air strike.
He had spent years building a legacy of hope through sport, training at schools and community clubs, and transforming underdog teams into local champions.
A graduate in physical education from Al-Aqsa University, Mohammed was the head coach of Al-Amal Football Club in southern Gaza and was widely admired for his work nurturing young talent aged between six and 16.
“My son dreamt of representing Palestine internationally,” Shaker says, surrounded by remnants of his son’s accolades. “He believed sport could lift youth from despair. But war reached him before he could reach the world.”
Mohammed Safi’s father, Shaker Safi, shows an image of his deceased son holding a football trophy. Mohammed, who was a junior football coach and umpire, was killed in an Israeli air strike in November 2023 [Mohamed-Solaimane/Al Jazeera]
Now displaced, Mohammed’s wife Nermeen and their four children – 16-year-old Shaker Jr, Amir, 14, Alma, 11, and Taif, 7 – live with the painful void created by his death.
The children cling to their father’s last football and coaching notes as keepsakes.
Nermeen, an art teacher, gently wipes away Taif’s tears when she asks, “Why did they take Daddy from us?”
“He was a man of dreams, not politics,” Nermeen says. “He wanted to become an international referee. He wanted his master’s degree. Instead, he was killed for being a symbol of life and youth.”
Mohammed Safi is one of hundreds of athletes and sports professionals who have been killed or displaced since the war began.
According to the Palestinian Olympic Committee, 582 athletes have been killed since October 7, 2023, many of them national team players, coaches, and administrators.
Mohammed Safi’s wife and children are not only dealing with his death, but also displacement created by the war on Gaza [Mohamed-Solaimane/Al Jazeera]
Sports replaced by survival
For those who remain alive in Gaza, survival has replaced sporting ambition.
Yousef Abu Shawarib is a 20-year-old goalkeeper for Rafah’s premier league football club.
In May 2024, he and his family fled their home and took shelter at Khan Younis Stadium – the same field where he once played official matches.
Today, the stadium is a shelter for displaced families, its synthetic turf now lined with tents instead of players.
“This is where my coach used to brief me before games,” Yousef says, standing near what used to be the bench area, now a water distribution point. “Now I wait here for water, not for kickoff.”
His routine today involves light, irregular training inside his tent, hoping to preserve a fraction of his fitness. But his dreams of studying sports sciences in Germany and playing professionally are gone.
“Now, I only hope we have something to eat tomorrow,” he tells Al Jazeera. “The war didn’t just destroy fields – it destroyed our futures.”
When he looks at the charred stadium, he doesn’t see a temporary displacement.
“This was not collateral damage. It was systematic. It’s like they want to erase everything about us – even our games.”
Playing organised football out in the open is not a practical option in Gaza anymore. Instead, Yousef Abu Shawarib does fitness training in a tent at Khan Younis Stadium [Mohamed-Solaimane/Al Jazeera]
Hope beneath the rubble
Still, like the patches of grass that survived the blasts, some hope remains.
Shadi Abu Armanah, head coach of Palestine’s amputee football team, had devised a six-month plan to resume training.
His 25 players and five coaching staff had been building momentum before the war on Gaza. The team had competed internationally, including in a 2019 tournament in France. Before hostilities began, they were preparing for another event in November 2023 and an event in West Asia set for October 2025.
“Now, we can’t even gather,” Shadi says. “Every facility we used has been destroyed. The players have lost their homes. Most have lost loved ones. There’s nowhere safe to train – no gear, no field, nothing.”
Supported by the International Committee of the Red Cross, the team had once symbolised resilience. Training sessions were more than drills – they were lifelines. “For amputees, sport was a second chance,” Shadi says. “Now they are just trying to survive.”
Shadi himself is displaced. His home, too, was bombed. “The clubs I worked for are gone. The players are either dead or scattered. If the war ends today, we’ll still need years to bring back even a fraction of what was lost.”
He adds, “I coached across many clubs and divisions. Almost all their facilities have been reduced to rubble. It’s not just a pause – it’s erasure.”
This multi-purpose sporting venue in Khan Younis used to host basketball and volleyball games until the Israeli military demolished it by aerial bombing. In more recent times, it was repurposed as a refugee shelter, but has since been evacuated [Mohamed-Solaimane/Al Jazeera]
A systematic erasure
The scope of devastation extends beyond personal loss.
According to Asaad al-Majdalawi, vice president of the Palestinian Olympic Committee, Gaza’s entire sporting infrastructure is on the brink of collapse. At least 270 sports facilities have been damaged or destroyed: 189 completely flattened and 81 partially damaged, with initial estimates of material losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
“Every major component of Gaza’s sports system has been hit,” al-Majdalawi told Al Jazeera. “The Olympic Committee offices, sports federations, clubs, school and university sports programmes – even private sports facilities have been targeted. It’s a comprehensive assault.”
Among the fallen are high-profile athletes like Nagham Abu Samra, Palestine’s international karate champion; Majed Abu Maraheel, the first Palestinian to carry the Olympic flag at the 1996 Atlanta Games; Olympic football coach Hani al-Masdar; and national athletics coach Bilal Abu Sam’an. Hundreds of others remain injured or missing, complicating accurate assessments.
“This is not just loss – it’s extermination,” al-Majdalawi says. “Each athlete was a community pillar. They weren’t numbers. They were symbols of hope, unity, and perseverance. Losing them has deeply wounded the Palestinian society.”
He warns that beyond the immediate human toll, the interruption of sports activities for a year and a half will result in physical, psychological, and professional regression for remaining athletes. “You lose more than muscle and skill – you lose purpose.”
A lone grandstand remains partially intact in an otherwise completely destroyed Khan Younis football stadium. The venue, once a popular cultural and social hub of the Khan Younis sports community, has now become a shelter for thousands of internally displaced Gazans [Mohamed-Solaimane/Al Jazeera]
A global silence
Al-Majdalawi believes the international response has been alarmingly inadequate. When Gaza’s sports community reaches out to global federations, Olympic bodies, and ministers of youth and sport, they’re met with silence.
“In private, many international officials sympathise,” he says. “But at the decision-making level, Israel seems to operate above the law. There’s no accountability. It’s like sport doesn’t matter when it’s Palestinian. The global and international sports institutions appear complicit through their silence, ignoring all international laws, human rights, and the governing rules of the international sports system,” he says.
He believes that if the war ended today, it would still take five to 10 years to rebuild what has been lost. Even that gloomy timeline is based on the assumption that the blockade ends and international funding becomes available.
“We have been building this sports sector since 1994,” al-Majdalawi says. “It took us decades to accumulate knowledge, experience, and professionalism. Now, it’s all been levelled in months.”
As the war continues, the fate of Gaza’s sports sector hangs by a thread. Yet amid the ruins, fathers like Shaker Safi, athletes like Yousef, and coaches like Shadi hold on to one unyielding belief: that sport will once again be a source of hope, identity, and life for Palestinians.
Yousef Abu Shawarib, who has lived as a refugee at Khan Younis football stadium since May 2024, hopes to survive the war and once again play football on these grounds [Mohamed-Solaimane/Al Jazeera]
This piece was published in collaboration with Egab.
From compliance to stablecoins to microbusinesses, fintech labs germinate next-gen uses for AI.
You wouldn’t think that the quipu—an abacuslike system of knotted cords used by the Incas for record keeping—would have much application to the breakneck adoption of artificial intelligence among financial institutions (FIs). But a Colombian financial-services company nurtured by Bancolombia Ventures harkens to that system. Quipu deploys AI-powered analyses of alternative data to determine the creditworthiness of microbusinesses.
Quipu’s work is just one example of the growing importance of AI to financial institutions. According to Statista, the financial sector “exhibit[s] one of the highest adoption rates across industries.” In fact, Statista estimates that in 2024, the financial services industry invested roughly $45 billion in AI technology. Concurrently, NVIDIA found that more than half of the companies represented in its global State of AI in Financial Services: 2025 Trends report view AI as “crucial to their future success.” Of the 600 financial services professionals surveyed, 98% of managers say that their organizations plan to increase AI infrastructure spending this year.
Many banks have already deployed AI to automate internal processes such as customer onboarding, credit scoring, fraud detection, and loan processing. Increasingly, FIs consider AI a pivotal tool for efficiency and cost-effectiveness in meeting evolving anti-money laundering and know-your-customer regulations.
As these innovations become more commonplace, some banks may wonder what’s next for AI? That’s where innovations arising from the world’s best fintech labs come in.
AI capabilities continue to mature. Enhanced AI capabilities will help FIs generate new business value, but only if those institutions follow the advance from AI to generative AI (Gen AI).
The term “artificial intelligence” is used for technologies that can perform tasks previously requiring human brain power. Relying on historical data and rules-based systems, these capabilities recognize patterns, understand language, and detect anomalies—notably, the types of anomalies that can indicate fraud.
Gen AI is a specialized branch of AI that exceeds content analysis to actually produce content. Gen AI can write. It can simulate human conversation. It can code. It can generate images and videos.
The difference between AI and Gen AI can be seen in chatbots. Imagine this: A customer asks a chatbot, “Why was my credit card application denied?” An AI-powered chatbot may return a list of common reasons for the bank to deny credit, followed by a customer-service phone number for the user to call. A Gen AI-powered chatbot may respond with, “Your credit card application was denied because your credit score is too low. Your credit score is too low because a $2,000 write-off appears on your credit report. This write-off seems to be related to an auto loan from ABC Motors. Repaying this debt will help you improve your credit score. You may want to contact ABC Motors to settle this debt. Consider negotiating a ‘pay-for-delete’ arrangement.”
“Loan sharks were these businesses’ only solution. We’re an alternative to that.”
Mercedes Bidart, CEO and Founder, Quipu
Chatbot improvement is just one way Gen AI can improve business for FIs. It can study customer data to more closely tailor marketing strategies and financial services to individual needs. It can improve loan and investment strategies by generating “what if ” scenarios to help banks chart, for example, how changing interest rates affect customers’ willingness to take out new loans, and customers’ ability to repay those loans. And, as the innovations discussed below indicate, AI and Gen AI can help banks and their clients hasten international trade. They can help spot and stop previously unknown threats to bank infrastructures and data. And they can provide a financial lifeline to the underbanked.
Bancolombia Ventures partners with startups, focusing on topics such as fintech, climate-related technology, and cybersecurity. One of those startups, Quipu, has developed a new credit-scoring system tailored to what Bancolombia calls the “informal” nature of business in Latin America.
Quipu CEO and Founder Mercedes Bidart (center) with co-founders Viviana Siless (CTO) and Juan Cristobal Constain (COO).
According to El Pais, a leading Colombian newspaper, close to 95% of all businesses in that country are microenterprises—defined as operations with 10 employees or less. While employing 65% of the Colombian workforce, these organizations tend to suffer from “business dwarfism,” or an inability to grow. Why? They lack access to capital. Traditional credit scoring methods paint them as a bad risk.
This is a problem that Mercedes Bidart, Quipu CEO, is trying to solve. The MIT graduate notes that most microentrepreneurs in the country operate as freelancers. “They have their digital wallet or bank account as a person, not as a business,” Bidart says. “They come in for an SME [small or midsize enterprise] loan at the bank, but they won’t get that. There’s no information about their business behavior.”
The Quipu system finds new ways to detect business value. It looks at business location, social media posts (including videos, pictures, and customer comments) and other nontraditional sources of information to determine business health. Even Google Maps can indicate whether a business is growing—showing, perhaps, the physical expansion of a home-based garage over time.
Quipu uses this information to develop its own credit scores for microbusinesses. Potential new clients are often referred by Bancolombia, from its pool of declined applicants. Quipu has offered many of these microbusinesses loans ranging from $100 to $2,000—for a total of $3.5 million in loans granted over the past 18 months. While these are personal loans, rather than business loans, Bidart believes that these small infusions of cash will help some businesses grow to the point where they eventually qualify for more-traditional SME loans.
“The people we serve—before us the only financial solution they had was the predatory lender. We have loan sharks. They charge abusive interest rates, and they’re violent,” Bidart says. “They operate from Mexico to Argentina. In Colombia, loan sharks were these businesses’ only solution. We’re an alternative to that.”
Let’s take look at innovations arising at other fintech labs around the world.
Governments and NGOs condemn Israel’s interception in international waters of the ship, which sought to bring attention to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Israel has intercepted a Gaza-bound aid ship, preventing the 12 activists on board, including Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg, from reaching the blockaded Palestinian territory.
Israeli forces “forcibly intercepted” the Madleen in international waters overnight about 100 nautical miles (185km) from Gaza, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition NGO said in a statement on Monday. Al Jazeera lost contact with the vessel at 7:00 GMT.
Apart from Thunberg, those taken into custody by Israel are Palestinian French Member of the European Parliament Rima Hassan, Baptiste Andre, Pascal Maurieras, Yanis Mhamdi and Reva Viard from France; Thiago Avila from Brazil; Suayb Ordu from Turkiye; Sergio Toribio from Spain; Marco van Rennes from the Netherlands; Yasemin Acar from Germany; and Omar Faiad, a journalist with Al Jazeera Mubasher, also from France.
Israel has detained the crew for “interrogation”.
Here’s how the world has reacted:
Palestine
The interception of the Madleen is a “flagrant violation of international law”, Hamas said in a statement, calling for the activists on board to be released and saying it holds Israel “fully accountable for their safety”.
“Israel has no legal authority to restrict access to Palestine since such is within the exclusive right of the Palestinian people,” said the rights organisation Al-Haq, which is based in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.
Iran
“The assault on this flotilla, since it happened in international waters, is considered a form of piracy under international law,” said Esmaeil Baqaei, a spokesman for Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Turkiye
Israel’s interception of the Madleen is a “clear violation of international law” that “once again demonstrates that Israel is acting as a terror state”, Turkiye’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
France
President Emmanuel Macron “has asked that our six French nationals be allowed to return to France as soon as possible,” said the Elysee Palace in a press release. “We have asked to be able to exercise our consular protection over them” and to “visit them”, Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Noel Barrot added.
Spain
Spain has summoned Dan Poraz, charge d’affaires at the Israeli embassy in Madrid, reported the Spanish newspaper El Pais and Al Jazeera Arabic, quoting a source at Spain’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Australia
The Jewish Council of Australia has expressed “grave concerns for the activists on board the Gaza Freedom Flotilla” and called “on the Australian government to urgently intervene to secure the immediate release of the vessel and safety of the crew”.
United States
“We strongly condemn the cowardly and illegal Israeli attack on the Madleen as it approached Gaza with desperately needed humanitarian supplies,” the Council on American-Islamic Relations said. “We applaud Greta Thunberg and the other activists of the Madleen who bravely risked their safety and freedom to help the starving people of Gaza.”
European Parliament
Israel’s seizure of the Madleen “outside Israeli territorial waters” is a “blatant violation of international law”, said The Left, the European Parliament faction that Hassan belongs to. “The arrest of the crew members and the confiscation of aid intended for a population in immediate humanitarian distress is unacceptable and is clearly part of a wider strategy to starve and massacre Palestinians in Gaza while hiding Israeli war crimes from the world.”
United Nations
“Madleen must be released immediately,” United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territory Francesca Albanese said. “Breaking the siege is a legal duty for states and a moral imperative for all of us. Every Mediterranean port should send boats with aid, solidarity and humanity to Gaza. They shall sail together – united, they will be unstoppable.”
Amnesty International
“As the occupying power (as recognised by the ICJ [International Court of Justice]), Israel has a legal obligation to ensure civilians in Gaza have sufficient food and medicine. They should have let Madleen deliver its humanitarian supplies to Gaza,” said Agnes Callamard, secretary-general of Amnesty International, asserting that Israel’s interception of the Madleen “violates international law”.
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