CommerceEU fines AliExpress 550 million euro over dangerous and counterfeit goodsOn July 20 the European Commission fined AliExpress 550 million euro under the Digital Services Act (DSA). The reason: the platform failed to do the work of assessing and reducing the risk of selling illegal, dangerous, and counterfeit goods - fake clothes, dangerous toys, harmful cosmetics. For a buyer in the EU, this shows just how much weight big platforms' responsibility now carries.CommerceThe European Parliament approved the digital euro - now it has a deadline (2029) and a price tagA follow-up to the story from 14 July: a week after the ECB named the 36 providers for the pilot, the European Parliament approved the digital euro with about 70% majority. Cipollone laid out the road ahead - actual issuance around 2029 and a bill between 4 and 5.8 billion euros. For Bulgaria, which joined the euro this year, the topic is no longer someone else's.CommerceThe ECB picked 36 payment service providers for the digital euro pilotOn 14 July the ECB announced which 36 payment service providers will join the digital euro pilot - chosen from over 50 applicants to the call from March 2026. The pilot starts in the second half of 2027 and runs for 12 months. For now it's a beta. Not legal tender.CommerceCircle announced it has final approval for its own bank. The regulator is silentOn 10 July the company behind the USDC stablecoin announced, in its own press release, that the US banking regulator had given it final approval to charter First National Digital Currency Bank. The regulator itself has no announcement of its own on the matter. And managing the reserves behind the coin is not an approved power.CommerceKlarna finances the machine behind "buy now, pay later" in GermanyKlarna signed a two-year, 900 million euro agreement that, per the company, will support up to 5 billion euros of consumer credit in Germany. The money behind the buy-now-pay-later button comes from outside - from capital the company lined up in advance.
24 stories