Elena Rossi 
Three signals from the last month point to stablecoins entering US retail through the back office, not the checkout page, before the 2026 holidays. Here is why settlement, treasury, and cross-border payouts are likely to move first, and which platforms are positioned to disclose it.
Funding Circle reported first-half 2026 revenue up 50% to about £138m and pretax profit of about £23m, nearly quadrupling year on year. FlexiPay transactions jumped 71% as the SME lender reaffirmed full-year guidance.
Tariffs & Customs deep dive: Duty drawback: how importers reclaim duties they paid.
Fast Retailing raised its full-year profit forecast to a record and posted a 45.7% jump in quarterly operating profit. Yet shares in the Uniqlo owner fell as much as 5.1% in Tokyo after its CFO warned a weak yen could drag on Japan sales.
The 200 million euro Temu fine and Shein’s open DSA case point to a sustained enforcement posture, not a one-off. The pattern suggests a second major penalty on a Chinese marketplace is likely before the end of Q1 2027.
A UK BNPL market shakeout is likely to begin in Q3 2026, with first exits or consolidation visible by 30 September. Three regulatory signals point the same way.
Three signals from the last month point to retail media consolidation moving down the stack to its infrastructure layer. At least one more deal for an auction, clean-room, or measurement vendor is likely before Q3 2026 closes.
Deluxe has agreed to acquire payments fintech Celero Commerce for about $625 million in cash. The all-cash deal lifts Deluxe Payments and Data revenue to a proforma 57% and creates a top-10 US merchant acquirer.
Yum! Brands has agreed to sell Pizza Hut for about $2.7 billion, splitting the chain between private equity firm LongRange Capital and Yum China Holdings. The exit lets Yum concentrate on KFC and Taco Bell after years of US share losses to Domino’s.
Driven Brands beat first-quarter 2026 estimates with revenue up 8% to $484.4 million as Take 5 Oil Change logged a 23rd straight quarter of same-store growth. Shares rose as the company reaffirmed full-year guidance and pressed on with deleveraging.