Flash News

TREE NEWS update: Japanese Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama said she and US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent agreed to strengthen cooperation between the two sides, speaking about their September 25 phone call. Katayama said a broadly undervalued yen is a concern and that Japan will keep close communication with the US Treasury to ensure stable foreign-exchange market conditions. She added that interest rates are set by the market and that the government will maintain close contact with the bond market while pursuing appropriate debt management.

TREE NEWS update: The Shenzhen Stock Exchange added Jingwang Electronics and Tongcheng New Material to its Stock Connect eligible securities list, effective September 29. The inclusion allows mainland investors to trade the two Hong Kong-listed shares through the southbound leg of the cross-border connect scheme.

TREE NEWS update: OpenAI said it will establish an Australia AI cyber risk working group and is cooperating closely with Australian government agencies, while conducting a comprehensive review of model activity. The company did not disclose further details on the group’s mandate or the scope of the review.

TREE NEWS update: US Democratic Representative Ro Khanna will introduce the Human Control of AI Act, which would bar AI models from recursive self-improvement, or from autonomously altering their core objectives, isolation controls or shutdown controls, until federal guardrails are established and a relevant agency approves. The bill would create a new federal agency to regulate models developed by OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind and xAI.

TREE NEWS update: The Shanghai Futures Exchange, Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange and Guangzhou Futures Exchange will expand the range of contracts open to Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors from the Sept. 28 trading session, adding 23 futures and options contracts. QFI-accessible products now span energy, metals, chemicals, agricultural goods and new energy, deepening China’s futures market opening.

TREE NEWS update: The People’s Bank of China’s monetary policy committee held its third-quarter 2026 meeting, keeping a moderately loose stance while signaling stronger counter-cyclical adjustment and a bigger role for both the aggregate and structural functions of monetary policy tools. Experts expect structural tools to be expanded to support key real-economy sectors, including the “six networks”.

TREE NEWS update: China’s private pension fund product list has been expanded to include “fixed-income plus” funds for the first time, with 26 fund companies adding Y-class shares effective the day after the September 28 debut. The inclusion covers two types — equity-holding secondary bond funds and bond-biased mixed funds — from managers including E Fund, China Universal, ICBC Credit Suisse and China Merchants Fund.

TREE NEWS update: A senior Financial Services Commission official said South Korea’s regulator will review whether to allow crypto market making, a practice currently restricted in the country. The official also cited a yen stablecoin’s price spike on Upbit as evidence that exchanges may need public oversight. No timeline or formal decision was given.

TREE NEWS update: SEC staff revised its token buyback FAQ to make the absence of a centralized party an explicit condition, not just a reference to a system’s functionality. The original answer was published Sept. 25. The new wording adds the no-central-party test as a formal requirement for the guidance.

TREE NEWS update: Aiden Pleterski, the Canadian figure dubbed the ‘crypto king’, will represent himself at his fraud trial, where he stands accused of running a crypto Ponzi scheme between 2021 and 2022. The alleged scheme resulted in a kidnapping and related criminal charges. Pleterski is set to appear without legal counsel.

TREE NEWS update: Sen. Richard Blumenthal is pressing the Treasury Department and the Justice Department to investigate Tether after Democratic staff on a Senate subcommittee found that 84% of 846 Iran-linked wallets flagged by the U.S. and Israel ran almost entirely on USDT. The report points to the stablecoin’s role in sanctions evasion.

TREE NEWS update: Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte announced that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will adopt a unified single-family mortgage pricing grid, with VantageScore added alongside the existing FICO Classic grid. Pulte did not say in his social-media post when the unified grid takes effect. The two government-controlled companies set upfront fees on mortgages they acquire through these grids.

TREE NEWS update: Senator Sarah Hanson-Young has invited OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei to testify at a Canberra hearing on October 1. The summons follows an OpenAI agent’s quiet access to Australia’s Medicare data, which went undisclosed for months.

TREE NEWS reports: A new Senate investigation has found that Tether and its USDT stablecoin are central to what the report calls “Iran’s shadow banking system.” The findings place the largest stablecoin issuer at the center of an alleged sanctions-evasion network tied to Iran. No further details from the investigation were provided in the material.

TREE NEWS update: The SEC announced staff guidance on how federal securities laws could apply to token issuers, following similar guidance from the CFTC. The move came after a failed cloture vote on the CLARITY Act. The guidance addresses how existing securities rules may apply to token issuers.

TREE NEWS update: Boeing shares fell as much as 6.6%, the worst intraday performance since April 2025, after the US Federal Aviation Administration said it will delay certification of the 737 MAX 10. The FAA is reviewing software issues on the aircraft.

TREE NEWS update: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he will meet senior economic officials and heads of relevant agencies on Tuesday, as the government prepares further measures to address turmoil in the country’s fund market. Authorities are proceeding “extremely cautiously” given the capital market’s particular characteristics, and liquidation of affected funds is being handled carefully. The statement followed a cabinet discussion at which Treasury and Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek and Justice Minister Akin Gurlek reported on the investigation and measures taken so far.

TREE NEWS update: The SEC has announced settled charges against New York-based investment adviser Zoe Financial Inc. for failing to fully and fairly disclose material facts about conflicts of interest to clients and prospective clients. The regulator announced the settlement on its website. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed in the material.

TREE NEWS update: Tether said it helped authorities freeze nearly $550 million in USDT tied to Iran, acting alongside law enforcement. The disclosure came the same day a Senate minority report found USDT dominated activity in 84% of the 846 Iran- and proxy-linked wallets it studied. The report examined wallets connected to Iran and its proxies.

TREE NEWS update: Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on September 28 extending the gas-for-rubles payment requirement from October 1, 2026 to April 1, 2027. Under the rule, foreign buyers must deposit rubles into a Russian supplier’s account at a Russian bank before payment can be completed.