🗞 Key News of the Week: main developments covered from September 21–26

🗞 Key News of the Week: main developments covered from September 21–26

🇧🇷 Brazil announced the suspension of betting platforms. New deposits are prohibited, and operators must allow voluntary withdrawals through October 5. Websites and apps must go offline from October 6, with betting and advertising stopped. Payment partners now face the practical challenge of refunds and balance reconciliation.

🇵🇭 Philippine PSPs risk losing their licences if they repeatedly fail to stop disguised online casinos. Accounts linked to more than 8,000 merchants have been closed over alleged illegal activity. Repeated small payments and transactions outside normal business hours exposed gambling hidden behind ordinary merchant profiles.

🇹🇷 Turkey revoked Papel’s payment licence amid a money-laundering investigation involving alleged proceeds from illegal betting, unauthorised forex and fraud. The case involves approximately $35 million in transactions and charges against 44 suspects.

🇪🇺 The WSJ reported that ECB President Christine Lagarde intervened against Binance’s licensing in Greece. The reported concerns included compliance failures and the spread of dollar stablecoins potentially undermining the future digital euro.

🇪🇨 Ecuador defined its sports-betting licensing requirements: local legal presence, at least $500,000 in equity and an annual fee of approximately $315,000. Limits per transaction are $1,000 for bank-account and debit-card payments and $350 for credit cards.

🇩🇴 Dominican lawmakers approved gambling reform providing for a dedicated regulator, online licences and .do domains. The framework also includes identity checks, a national self-exclusion register and powers to coordinate payment restrictions against unauthorised platforms.

🇬🇧 AML enforcement is contributing to UK market exits. Bet St George and BresBet surrendered their licences after AML-related suspensions. Targetlocal, which operates Ken Howells, was also suspended. Compliance capacity is becoming a competitive constraint alongside taxation.

🇩🇪 Germany’s GGL called for faster enforcement powers. It argues that lengthy approval procedures involving all 16 federal states prevent it from keeping pace with illegal operators. The regulator wants shorter decision processes and more criminal proceedings against overseas operators targeting German customers without authorisation.

🇸🇦🇶🇦 Saudi Arabia and Qatar agreed on mutual acceptance of mada and HIMYAN cards. Separately, Saudi merchants can now accept QR payments from Alipay+ partner wallets through mada. Domestic payment networks are becoming more connected across borders.

🇪🇬 Banque du Caire and Telda connected Telda’s prepaid Mastercard to InstaPay. Customers gain access to instant transfers across Egypt’s payments network, including bank accounts, wallets and Instant Payment Addresses.

🇧🇴 Bolivia processed 1.386 billion retail transactions in the first half of 2026, up 86.2% year on year. Mobile wallets accounted for 41.8% of the number of retail transactions, while QR payments continued expanding into everyday purchases.

#news #digest

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