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Revenue grew 23% compared to a year earlier. Payment volume reached £30.6 billion, up from £26.4 billion. Source:https://www.fnlondon.com/articles/wise-account-sees-40-growth-in-income-as-active-customers-reach-7-5-million-20240116 Wise currently has 7.5 million active users. The figure, which includes 392,000 business customers, is up about 30% year-on-year. Wise CEO Christo Käärmann said he was "pleased" with the company's results for the latest quarter, despite a 1% decline in sales per customer. “We have accelerated global payments in US dollars by optimizing payouts with one of our banking partners, and expanded the Wise Interest Asset [money market fund] offering in seven European markets, including France and Spain,” Käärmann said. Wise raised its full-year revenue growth forecast. The fintech expects revenue to grow 44% in the financial year ending March 2024. Wise expanded its partnership in the most recent quarter. During the quarter ended December 31, 2023, the firm partnered with UK business bank Allica Bank, travel platform Agoda and global expense management solutions company...

According to the new legislation, citizenship can be applied for after 5 years of permanent residence. This period can be reduced to 3 years if the applicant speaks German at level C1, volunteers and takes an active part in public life. In this case, retention of original citizenship is allowed without restrictions. Lifting the ban on dual citizenship, which also applies to children born in Germany and acquiring German citizenship. Children born in Germany will also be able to obtain German citizenship if their parent has been a legal resident of the country for more than 5 years. Persons over 67 years of age no longer require a written test in German; an oral confirmation of language proficiency will be sufficient. It is important that obtaining the status of a tax resident in Germany with all that it entails is...

New taxation and reporting rules came into force on January 1, 2024. Therefore, UK residents with an income of more than £1,000 per annum from secondary activities must register as self-employed, keep accounts and submit information to HMRC. This tax is not new; previously it was also necessary to declare income when carrying out trading activities. But, nevertheless, the government is tightening the requirements. All transactions must be reported to HMRC. This applies primarily to trading platforms. They must transmit information about all transactions. The first reporting deadline is the end of January...

The agreement should lead to amendments to the AMLD, as well as determine the direction of the AMLA (the future regulator). There are several key points of the agreement reached. Source:https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2024/01/18/anti-money-laundering-council-and-parliament-strike-deal-on-stricter-rules/ Registers of beneficial owners will be reopened. In this way, members of the public with a legitimate interest, including the press and non-profit organizations, will be able to access the registers of beneficial owners of companies. Enhanced Due Diligence. The European Commission will conduct an EU-level assessment of the risks of money laundering and terrorist financing and will prepare recommendations for Member States on the measures they should use when conducting risk assessments at national level. Expanding the circle of accountable entities. Sellers of cars, high-end aircraft and yachts, as well as works of art will become obligated entities. Other sectors that will be subject to customer due diligence and reporting obligations will include sellers of luxury goods such as precious metals, gemstones and watches. All cryptoasset...

Quantum computing startup Quantinuum has raised $300 million in funding. The company is now valued at $5 billion, and JPMorgan Chase led the funding round. Source:https://www.quantinuum.com/news/honeywell-announces-the-closing-of-300-million-equity-investment-round-for-quantinuum-at-5b-pre-money-valuation Additional participants included Mitsui & Co., Amgen and Honeywell, which remains the company's majority shareholder. This investment brings the total amount of capital raised by Quantinuum since its inception to about $625 million. The funds will be used to accelerate the development of the world's first universal fault-tolerant quantum computers. JPMorgan Chase has one of the world's most respected teams of specialists working on quantum technologies in the financial services industry and has been working with Quantinuum and its predecessor companies since 2020. Today, Quantinuum technologies are used by leading companies, including Airbus, BMW Group, Honeywell, HSBC, JPMorgan Chase, Mitsui and...

We are talking about a tax of 2% on each transaction. But the decision to introduce the tax causes a lot of controversy among business, government and the banking sector, which consider it unlawful. The initiators of the tax are of the opinion that it will be able to increase state revenues. They believe that this way foreigners will transfer less money abroad and will spend it inside Bahrain. Estimates show that annual transfers abroad amount to $3.2 billion. The document is already under consideration by the Advisory...

The London-based firm was unable to conduct high-quality due diligence of a client in the shipping industry for transactions in the period 2014-2018. In a statement, the company said it "sincerely regrets any breaches of the requirements" which it said were identified in 2018 and reported to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). Source:https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/law-firm-clyde-co-fined-635k-breaching-uk-money-laundering-rules-2024-01-11/ A spokesperson for Clyde & Co says the firm has now “significantly enhanced its risk management and compliance capabilities.” But this did not save her from a fine. SRA chief executive Paul Philip said the fine "should be a wake-up call to any firms that fail to meet their responsibilities to implement robust (anti-money laundering)...

New regulatory measures are designed to improve the fight against money laundering. In December, the UAE authorities adopted regulations related to the mechanism for determining the true beneficiaries. Establishing the actual owner of the company is one of the main steps towards an effective AML system. What kind of improvements were adopted? Firstly, this is a resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers on the creation of a procedure for identifying the true beneficiary, and secondly, a resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers on sanctions for non-compliance with the first resolution. These regulations ensure the transfer and entry of information about the ultimate owners of the company into the corporate register. According to the new resolution, the real beneficiary owns 25% of the shares or more than 25% of the voting...

The Ukrainian service for monitoring the registration data of Ukrainian companies and the court registry has published statistics on the registration of sole proprietorships and new companies in Ukraine in 2023. Source:https://opendatabot.ua/analytics/foponomics-2023-12 As of December 29, 2023, 304,048 new FOP registrations were registered in Ukraine. The number of new businesses increased by 7% compared to 2021. New natural persons mostly indicated activities in the field of IT, retail and wholesale trade, provision of other individual services and services for providing meals and drinks. The largest number of FOPs were opened in Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Lviv regions. As for new companies, the indicators remained lower than the pre-war level. In 2023, 37,297 new companies were registered, and in 2021 - 56,267. New cases were also mostly registered in Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Lviv...