SviatoslavGusev

The Central Bank of Argentina recorded a loss of more than $1 billion on gold derivatives transactions in 2025—even though the metal’s price rose by 65% over the period. According to AGN, the deals involved 94% of the country’s gold reserves.

AGN head Juan Manuel Olmos said the losses were caused by an error in calculating the price trajectory.

The central bank, for its part, says the transactions are part of a mechanism to hedge against falling gold prices that has been in place since 2007. It acknowledges that under this scheme, losses are inevitable in years when the metal’s price rises.

Tristan Buckmaster, a professor at New York University, said that a number of research programs had already ceased operating because of mathematical discoveries made by an unreleased OpenAI AI model.

As a result, many early-career mathematicians are losing the chance to build academic careers. The professor himself has stopped sharing his original ideas with AI: he does not consider the work of AI agents truly independent, especially since the developers do not rule out the possibility that unpublished discoveries made by humans may have indirectly influenced the algorithms.

On October 7, OpenAI presented hundreds of mathematical results produced by this very unreleased model.

HSBC is preparing a major wave of job cuts in its UK wealth management division, with artificial intelligence set to take over the vacated roles.

The cuts will affect more than half of managerial and specialist staff, as well as around 70% of employees who provide financial advice and manage clients’ assets.

The bank’s shift toward AI-powered automated services is expected to reduce costs, but hundreds of experienced finance professionals will be left without jobs.

MTS announced the launch of a new brand, “MTS CorpTech,” created specifically to serve large businesses. It brings together technology B2B solutions across various fields: connectivity and private pLTE/5G networks, cloud technologies and data centers, cybersecurity, the industrial Internet of Things, video analytics and artificial intelligence, as well as industrial automation and robotics.

Oleg Aldoshin, MTS Vice President for Corporate Business, noted that large companies need not a collection of separate, disconnected products, but comprehensive solutions tailored to their needs. This approach means clients won’t have to find different providers for every task. Starting with one service, they can gradually add other company technologies as their own business grows. To put this idea into practice, a separate business unit was established under the umbrella of the “MTS Business” brand.

China's authorities are introducing a 20% tax on dividends and interest received from offshore trusts. According to the Financial Times, the new measure will affect wealthy citizens who hold assets abroad. The initiative is intended to help the government reduce the budget deficit, which has been exacerbated by declining revenue from land sales. The move also forms part of China's leadership's long-term strategy to redistribute wealth and reduce economic inequality.

An apparently harmless joke in a bank transfer note can lead to your card being blocked: automated monitoring systems don’t recognize irony or slang. Experts note that each financial institution has its own list of suspicious words, and algorithms interpret any ambiguous wording literally.

The system pays particular attention to language associated with crime: references to a “bribe,” “kickback,” or transferring money “to the slush fund” immediately trigger a response from the bank, and the transaction is frozen pending an investigation. Regular transfers of the same amount to the same recipient, with notes such as “for a manicure,” “for a cake,” or “for rent,” can also raise concerns. The automated system treats this as a sign of business activity without tax payments, which can likewise lead to a block.

To avoid attracting the attention of financial monitoring, experts recommend either leaving the comment field blank or using wording that is as neutral and clear to the monitoring system as possible, emphasizing that the payment is personal rather than commercial. Suitable notes include “gift,” “birthday,” or “help for relatives.”

One of Ledger’s major Asian distributors was hacked. In March, CryptoBilis was acquired by a new owner—allegedly someone from North Korea or China. After the change in ownership, an additional implant was embedded in the devices to track everything displayed on the screen: when a seed phrase is detected, it is forwarded to a third party. Ledger’s standard authenticity check does not detect this tampering.

An analyst named Specter recorded funds being transferred from hundreds of addresses on the Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Tron networks to attackers’ wallets. According to his estimates, the total losses amounted to more than $86 million.

Anthropic demonstrated that AI is already capable of spreading autonomously across ordinary devices: in an experiment, the model managed to take over an entire network of TV set-top boxes in 4 out of 5 runs.

For now, deploying a single copy takes several days because of the models’ size, but the researchers explicitly note that this barrier may soon disappear.

Company A7 has unveiled a new global product: A7 International, a service operating in jurisdictions where cryptocurrency transactions are legal.

It uses a mechanism not previously seen in the global financial market: a customer in one country sends USDT, and the recipient in another country receives a standard bank transfer via SWIFT.

Initially, the service supports USDT on the TRON network, and transfers can be made in US dollars, euros, yuan, and UAE dirhams. The fee is 0.3%, and transfers take at least one business day to complete.

PSB Chairman Pyotr Fradkov said: “We are introducing not just a new product in our lineup, but a new image for Company A7. We have adapted our service so that it can be used remotely from anywhere in the world.” He added that A7’s successful experience is already attracting the attention of global market participants, and said he believes that international businesses will be interested in a Russian company exporting a solution of this kind.

A7 CEO Ilan Shor explained that artificial intelligence analyzes data about the sender and recipient, as well as the parties’ jurisdictions, assesses transaction risks, and selects the most suitable payment route based on cost, speed, and reliability.

Axios, citing industry sources, reports that an AI uprising could begin within 6–12 months. According to the publication, OpenAI, Anthropic, and other industry players are quietly preparing for such a scenario and are even conducting special disaster drills.

Security engineers who previously worked in AI and later left their positions had warned of this threat before: in their view, artificial intelligence could lead to the extinction of humanity. At the same time, halting further technological development is practically impossible, since the global economy is already too closely tied to AI infrastructure.

Cars of European brands that have left the Russian market risk not becoming cheaper — on the contrary, they may become more expensive and even disappear from showrooms because of China’s new export requirements.

Starting on January 1, 2027, Chinese authorities plan to require manufacturers to confirm the availability of after-sales service for cars abroad and guarantee the supply of spare parts for them. Models from Audi, BMW, Mercedes, and Volkswagen assembled at Chinese factories, as well as cars from the Xiaomi and Zeekr brands, will be at risk.

Hurricane Isaias forced the suspension of 63% of oil production in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, and refineries there are also shutting down. CNBC reports.

Yandex data centers came under attack by drones: part of the infrastructure in Kaluga was damaged. As a result, some of the company's services may experience disruptions. Yandex's press service told RBC that several data center modules were completely put out of operation.

Following the second attack in a row, the company's shares are down 3%.

Mikhail Mishustin said that 42 data centers are currently under construction in Russia, and that total investment in these projects has already exceeded 280 billion rubles.

The prime minister noted that developing the country’s own infrastructure is critical to its technological sovereignty. According to him, this is especially important at a time when the world’s leading powers are seeking to make other countries dependent on their decisions in the field of artificial intelligence.

VTB completed its first transaction involving crypto assets using a digital depository. Legal entities that are clients of the bank’s brokerage service traded stablecoins, with settlements processed through VTB’s digital depository—an organization included in the Bank of Russia’s register and responsible for recording and safekeeping digital currencies and the rights associated with them.

The pilot transaction was conducted on October 6 using Russian infrastructure. It demonstrated that the systems for trading, recording and safekeeping assets are ready before the service becomes available to a wider range of clients. The law regulating digital currencies came into force on September 1, and the rules for authorizing intermediaries to engage in this activity took effect on October 5.

The Federal Tax Service has identified around 8 million working-age Russian citizens with no official source of income. This was announced by the head of the Federal Tax Service, Daniil Egorov, who noted that these people are on the tax authorities’ radar and may be subject to inspections.

Shares of Russian oil companies surged after sanctions restrictions on diesel fuel exports were lifted. The MOEX Index surpassed 2,400 points. In just a couple of hours of trading, the domestic market gained 4%.

BMW sent thousands of emails to employees with a link to a personalized offer to terminate their employment contracts through its corporate HR4Me platform. So many employees wanted to take up the offer that the system could not handle the influx of users and temporarily stopped working.

Bailiffs plan to increase collections from citizens to a record 152 billion rubles by 2029. The money is expected to come from fines imposed simply for having a debt. Meanwhile, the total amount of all debt recoveries could exceed several tens of trillions of rubles. In just the first eight months of this year, the agency has already collected 5 trillion rubles from debtors.

In Moscow, scammers defrauded an 85-year-old pensioner of 27 million rubles. The criminals frightened the elderly man with a message claiming that someone had tried to steal money from his accounts and convinced him to transfer all his savings to an account that was supposedly safe. Believing their story, the pensioner withdrew all his savings, sold his garage and car, and borrowed money from acquaintances. He ultimately handed all the money over to the scammers, the prosecutor’s office said.