Key Deals, Funding and Policy Moves Reshape Finance

Financial advisory firm Province is acquiring disputes and investigations specialist StoneTurn, framing the deal as a response to what it describes as a fundamental shift in how companies and investors view geopolitical exposure and risk. The acquisition, announced this week, is intended to expand Province’s capabilities in disputes, investigations and risk advisory work across borders and to bring former government and White House expertise into the firm.

Province’s leadership said client needs have shifted, with companies looking for advisors who can engage much earlier in the lifecycle of a matter as geopolitical tensions rattle markets and regulatory scrutiny increases. The firm expects the combination to create a more “multi-varied platform” able to support clients from early risk assessment through to complex cross-border investigations and disputes.

Beyond geographic expansion, Province gains StoneTurn’s regulatory and investigative experience along with access to a new client base. Management cited cultural alignment around client management and retention as part of the rationale and described the opportunity to further diversify business lines as “attractive.” The firm stressed that the transaction is not a cost-cutting exercise, with no layoffs or personnel changes planned.

For the remainder of the year, Province plans “business as usual” while integrating platforms and refining a joint operating model. A key focus will be cross-selling services to deliver what executives called more efficient client support. The firm reports positive early feedback on matters it is pursuing jointly and expects to keep adjusting the combined model as 2026 progresses.

ManageMy, which operates from London and Charlotte, N.C., has raised $45 million, including a $20 million Series B round co-led by Ventura Capital and OCVC, to grow its artificial intelligence-driven insurance platform. The company said the funding will support expansion in North America while building on existing activity in Asia-Pacific and Europe.

The modular ManageMy platform is designed to support digital customer engagement, automated underwriting and claims decisioning across life, health and property/casualty lines. The firm plans to invest in agentic AI workflows, explainable decisioning and data-driven underwriting automation, as well as product expansion, go-to-market operations and hiring in engineering, implementation and customer success.

Co-founder and CEO Stephen Collins said the funding validates ManageMy’s vision of a more intelligent and adaptable insurance operating model. He described the platform as enterprise-grade and scalable, aimed at compounding value as insurers modernise. The company reports it supports more than 45 insurance carriers and broker groups across North America, positioning its software as a front-end and decision-layer alternative to traditional portals and point solutions.

Ventura Capital’s managing partner called ManageMy’s technology “of massive strategic value” to an industry that has struggled to modernise compared with other financial services. OCVC founder Sean O’Connor, who also co-founded ManageMy, said the business applies digital infrastructure within incumbent insurers and brokers to support operating model transformation and expand access to insurance.

Amazon-owned Ring has terminated a planned integration with Flock Safety, a company whose AI-powered camera technology has drawn scrutiny over law-enforcement access to data. The two firms said in a joint decision they cancelled the integration, first announced in October, after determining it would require more time and resources than anticipated.

The move follows criticism of Ring’s Super Bowl commercial for its Search Party feature, which uses AI to scan cloud-stored footage from outdoor cameras enrolled in a Ring subscription to help locate missing pets. Critics questioned whether such tools could be combined with Ring’s new Familiar Faces facial recognition technology to facilitate surveillance of people and expand law-enforcement access.

Privacy concerns also centred on Flock Safety’s model, which lets customers grant local and federal agencies access to camera data, with lawmakers in the U.S. previously asking regulators to investigate alleged access by entities such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal bodies. Flock has said it does not work directly with ICE or other Department of Homeland Security agencies and that data sharing decisions rest with customers, not the company.

Ring said the Search Party tool is only capable of processing dogs and is not designed to process human biometrics. A spokesperson characterised Ring’s products as “not tools for mass surveillance” and said the firm has built guardrails around their use. The cancelled Flock integration underscores how public and regulatory scrutiny is shaping partnerships involving AI, consumer devices and law-enforcement access to data.

Policy debates and product launches over the past week suggest the stablecoin market is moving from a contest for dominance toward a stratified landscape of global and niche tokens. Governments in Washington, Brussels, Hong Kong and Beijing increasingly view stablecoins as financial infrastructure with monetary implications, rather than experimental fintech products.

In the U.S., discussions over stablecoin rules have become a proxy for the future of financial intermediation, with banking groups pressing for issuance to remain tied to insured banks and crypto-native firms warning that such an approach could entrench incumbents. In Europe, policymakers are applying the Markets in Crypto-Assets framework to encourage euro-denominated stablecoins while imposing reserve and transparency requirements, amid concern over the dominance of dollar-backed tokens.

In Asia, Hong Kong is accelerating its licensing regime to position itself as a tokenised finance hub, while mainland China emphasises its state-backed digital currency and effectively bans privately issued tokens. Against this backdrop, new products are targeting specific use cases. USAD, launched via a Paxos–Aleo initiative, is aimed at confidential B2B transactions using privacy-preserving technology, while Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking plans a stablecoin for settlements between Japanese firms and their overseas units in fiscal 2026.

Tether has invested in LayerZero Labs, whose interoperability protocol is designed for “agentic finance,” enabling AI agents to operate wallets and transact with stablecoins. Industry participants cited in recent commentary noted that earlier ambitions for a single, all-purpose stablecoin are giving way to more segmented demand, as no single token can optimise simultaneously for trading, payments, corporate settlement, regulatory tailoring and AI-enabled use cases.