Fintech PR
The World’s Most (and Least) Powerful Passports in 2025
LONDON, Jan. 8, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Singapore reclaims its crown as the most powerful passport in the world with visa-free access to 195 out of 227 destinations worldwide, leaving Japan as runner-up with a score of 193, according to the 2025 Henley Passport Index, which ranks all the world’s 199 passports according to the number of destinations they can access without a prior visa, and is based on exclusive official data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA).
Several EU member states — France, Germany, Italy, and Spain — drop two places to 3rd position, and are joined by Finland and South Korea, which each lost a place over the past 12 months and now have access to 192 destinations visa-free. A seven-nation EU cohort, all with visa-free access to 191 destinations — Austria, Denmark, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden — share 4th place, while five countries — Belgium, New Zealand, Portugal, Switzerland, and the UK — come in 5th with 190 visa-free destinations.
Afghanistan remains firmly entrenched at the bottom of the index, having lost visa-free access to a further two destinations over the past year, creating the largest mobility gap in the index’s 19-year history, with Singaporeans able to travel to 169 more destinations visa-free than Afghan passport holders. Dr. Christian H. Kaelin, Chairman of Henley & Partners, says “the very notion of citizenship and its birthright lottery needs a fundamental rethink as temperatures rise, natural disasters become more frequent and severe, displacing communities and rendering their environments uninhabitable. Simultaneously, political instability and armed conflicts in various regions force countless people to flee their homes in search of safety and refuge.”
The rest of the index’s Top 10 is largely dominated by European countries, except for Australia (6th place with 189 destinations), Canada (7th place with 188 destinations), the US (9th place with 186 destinations), and the UAE, one of the biggest climbers over the past decade, having secured an additional 72 destinations since 2015 to put it in 10th place with visa-free access to 185 destinations worldwide.
US and UK passports amongst the biggest fallers
Only 22 of the world’s 199 passports have fallen down the Henley Passport Index ranking over the past decade. Surprisingly, the US is the second-biggest faller between 2015 and 2025 after Venezuela, plummeting seven places from 2nd to its current 9th position. Vanuatu is the third-biggest faller, followed by the British passport, which was top of the index in 2015 but now sits in 5th place. Completing the Top 5 losers list is Canada, which dropped three ranks over the past decade from 4th to its current 7th place.
In contrast, China is among the biggest climbers, ascending from 94th place in 2015 to 60th in 2025, with its visa-free score increasing by 40 destinations. And in terms of its openness to other nations, China has also leapt up the Henley Openness Index, which ranks all 199 countries worldwide according to the number of nationalities they permit entry to without a prior visa. China granted visa-free access to a further 29 countries over the past year alone, and now sits in 80th position, granting visa-free entry to 58 nations, compared to its rival America, which ranks 84th and allows just 46 other countries access without a visa.
Commenting in the 2025 Henley Global Mobility Report, Annie Pforzheimer, Senior Associate at Washington thinktank the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says “even before the advent of a second Trump presidency, American political trends had become notably inward-looking and isolationist. Ultimately, if tariffs and deportations are the Trump Administration’s default policy tools, not only will the US continue to decline on the mobility index on a comparative basis, but it will probably do so in absolute terms as well. This trend in tandem with China’s greater openness will likely give rise to Asia’s greater soft power dominance worldwide.”
Americans are top applicants for second citizenships
US nationals currently constitute the single largest cohort of applicants for alternative residence and citizenship, accounting for a staggering 21% of all investment migration program applications received by Henley & Partners in 2024.
Commenting in the report, Prof. Peter J. Spiro, a leading expert on dual citizenship, says “the Trump reprise magnifies another element of value for alternative residence or citizenship rights: political risk insurance. This time around, the stakes are higher. There is a sense that what Trump wants, Trump will be able to get. His political agenda is mercurial, to say the least, and Americans can no longer take stability for granted. Trump can be fickle with outsiders, too. It is almost certain he will resurrect the infamous “travel bans” early in the new administration.”
View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/the-worlds-most-and-least-powerful-passports-in-2025-302341849.html
- Piloted by 60 enterprise businesses including: Patagonia, On, Indeed, NordSecurity and Fubo
- AI helps businesses increase payment conversion rates by up to 6% compared to legacy implementations
NEW YORK, Jan. 9, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Adyen, the global financial technology platform of choice for leading businesses, announces the launch of Adyen Uplift. The AI-powered payment optimization suite will help businesses increase payment conversion, simplify fraud management, and reduce the cost of payments. Adyen’s customers can utilize data-driven, tailored performance recommendations and opportunities to test different payment configurations to maximize performance.
Saving businesses from trading off between conversion, risk, and cost
The complexity of payment management still holds businesses back from reaching their ambitions. They constantly need to compromise between conversion, fraud, and cost. Thanks to Adyen Uplift, businesses can optimize the full payments funnel with AI. AI-powered payment optimizations bundled in a single product suite are trained on Adyen’s global transaction dataset. Rather than navigating the complexity of payments in operational silos, the AI-first approach uses risk-based intelligence and automated conversion optimization to help businesses get more out of payments. The pilot has shown a significant effect on profits, with businesses seeing an overall uplift of up to 6% on their payment conversion rate.
“Balancing risk management, driving conversion, and minimizing cost has always required ineffective compromises – until now” said Carlo Bruno, VP of Product at Adyen. “Adyen Uplift changes the game by unleashing the depth and power of AI to solve for real-time payment optimization. This will transform cost savings and performance, redefining business efficiency in 2025 and beyond.”
$1 trillion+ payments data
Businesses and other providers rely on limited datasets, impacting their ability to recognize shoppers and payment behavior. With Adyen Uplift, companies benefit from AI trained on over a trillion dollars worth of global payments data from Adyen’s single platform.
“We’ve increased our conversion rate by up to 2% with Adyen’s AI, making a real difference to both our performance and cost efficiency, while keeping fraud under control,” commented Luca Spichtig, Head of Digital Operations & Projects at On.
Adyen has processed payments for over one billion consumers globally, giving its AI solutions a strong basis to differentiate good shoppers from fraudsters. When an Adyen customer encounters a new shopper, there is a high likelihood that Adyen has seen the shopper elsewhere on the platform. For a retail merchant on the Adyen platform, there is more than a 90% chance that Adyen has seen that shopper before. When a good shopper is identified, AI optimizations allow them to speed through checkout whilst shoppers and retailers also benefit from precise payment fraud mitigation.
“We’ve increased our conversion rate on customer initiated transactions by 10% by leveraging Adyen’s AI technology, which optimizes the entire payment funnel while maintaining control over fraud and costs,” commented Kes Saulis, Head of Payments at Nord Security.
The AI-first approach to fighting fraud
Today, the fraud control process is highly complex, requiring businesses to implement extensive manual rules to combat ever-evolving fraud techniques. With Adyen Uplift, businesses can automate fraud control by removing the operational burden from fraud management teams. The solution automates and refines risk management without relying on manual rules. This enables businesses to lower fraud levels and reduce false positives, depending on their risk appetite.
Businesses piloting the risk product have seen the impact firsthand. Adyen’s pilot enterprise customers have reduced their manual risk rules by 86% on average, and 35% of customers have completely eliminated manual rules saving valuable time and resources.
Adyen’s customer Indeed, a leading job matching and hiring platform, was able to run AI-based optimization experiments that are tailored to the unique characteristics of its business. This translated into a reduction in operational workload by automating processes to drive efficiency.
Reduce payment processing costs by up to 5%
Today, businesses are more focused than ever on their bottom line, yet many still view payments as a commodity rather than a powerful cost-saving strategy.
Adyen Uplift has reduced payment cost by up to 5% for pilot customers in the U.S. Adyen’s AI selects the best routes with the best rates for transactions to help minimize total cost of payment. Pilot customers also experienced cost savings through Adyen’s optimizations, which tailored the shopper-facing checkout flow to their needs.
To learn more about Adyen Uplift, click here.
About Adyen
Adyen (ADYEN:AMS) is the financial technology platform of choice for leading companies. By providing end-to-end payments capabilities, data-driven insights, and financial products in a single global solution, Adyen helps businesses achieve their ambitions faster. With offices around the world, Adyen works with the likes of Meta, Uber, H&M, eBay, and Microsoft. Adyen continuously improves and expands its product offering as part of its ordinary course of business. New products and features are announced via press releases and product updates on the company’s website.
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View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/introducing-adyen-uplift-the-payment-solution-optimizing-every-transaction-with-ai-302347156.html
New logo reflects ability to power mission-critical decisions with confidence
LONDON, Jan. 9, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Crisil Limited, a provider of ratings, data, research, analytics and solutions, today unveils its new brand logo.
The new brand identity, ‘Crisil’ (earlier written as CRISIL), reinforces the company’s position as a global, insights-driven analytics firm, building on a distinguished legacy of close to four decades.
Large and highly respected firms partner with us for the most reliable opinions on risk in India, and for uncovering powerful insights and turning risks into opportunities globally. We are integral to multiplying their opportunities and success.
Says Amish Mehta, Managing Director & CEO, Crisil, “Our reimagined brand expresses a more progressive vision of our future. It celebrates a pioneering and illustrious past and showcases our commitment to deliver actionable insights to clients. Our people’s analytical rigour and domain expertise will continue to set standards and empower clients to make mission-critical decisions with confidence. The new brand identity guides us in shaping how we present ourselves to the world, influencing every interaction internally and externally to help us deliver exceptional client value.”
The strategic brand transformation positions Crisil’s businesses — Crisil Ratings, Crisil Intelligence (formerly MI&A), Crisil Coalition Greenwich, and Crisil Integral IQ (formerly GR&RS) — under a cohesive identity that offers a consistent and more connected experience for clients around the world.
Crisil Ratings: Offers independent credit ratings in India that empower informed decisions and objective benchmarking by lenders, investors and issuers.
Crisil Intelligence: Offers insights, consulting, technology-driven risk solutions and advanced data analytics, serving clients across government, private and public enterprises, empowering them to make informed decisions.
Crisil Coalition Greenwich: Offers strategic benchmarking, analytics and insights to the financial services industry and specialises in providing unique, high-value and actionable information to help clients measure and drive their business performance.
Crisil Integral IQ: Offers solutions and actionable intelligence to financial institutions around the globe to deliver strategic transformation, optimise risk and drive operational excellence.
The main logo in bold black is simple yet strong, symbolising excellence and the certainty that we deliver. Complementing this, our business logos now feature a distinct teal colour that conveys the confidence and trust rooted in rigour and domain expertise.
About Crisil Limited
Crisil is a global, insights-driven analytics company. Our extraordinary domain expertise and analytical rigour help clients make mission-critical decisions with confidence.
Large and highly respected firms partner with us for the most reliable opinions on risk in India, and for uncovering powerful insights and turning risks into opportunities globally. We are integral to multiplying their opportunities and success.
Headquartered in India, Crisil is majority owned by S&P Global.
Founded in 1987 as India’s first credit rating agency, our expertise today extends across businesses: Crisil Ratings, Crisil Intelligence, Crisil Coalition Greenwich and Crisil Integral IQ.
Our globally diverse workforce operates in the Americas, Asia-Pacific, Europe, Australia and the Middle East, setting the standards by which industries are measured.
For more information, visit www.Crisil.com
Connect with us: LINKEDIN | TWITTER | YOUTUBE | FACEBOOK
Disclaimer
This press release is transmitted to you for the sole purpose of dissemination through your newspaper/ magazine/ agency. The press release may be used by you in full or in part without changing the meaning or context thereof but with due credit to Crisil. However, Crisil alone has the sole right of distribution of its press releases for consideration or otherwise through any media including websites, portals, etc.
Crisil has taken due care and caution in preparing this press release. Information has been obtained by Crisil from sources which it considers reliable. However, Crisil does not guarantee the accuracy, adequacy or completeness of information on which this press release is based and is not responsible for any errors or omissions or for the results obtained from the use of this press release. Crisil especially states that it has no financial liability whatsoever to the subscribers/ users/ transmitters/ distributors of this press release.
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View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/crisil-unveils-a-new-brand-identity-302347103.html
DUBAI, UAE, Jan. 9, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — MANTRA, a purpose-built layer 1 blockchain for tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) has signed a US$1 billion agreement with DAMAC Group, a prominent investment conglomerate, renowned for its diversified portfolio that spans across key sectors such as real estate development, hospitality, data centres, and more, to tokenize assets in the Middle East.
The collaboration between MANTRA and the DAMAC Group will enable token-based financing for a diverse range of assets within the group’s extensive portfolio of companies, with a minimum value of US$1 billion.
The DAMAC Group assets will be available in early 2025, exclusively on MANTRA Chain, marking a bold step in leveraging blockchain technology to bring greater transparency, security, and accessibility to DAMAC Group’s wide-ranging assets. This milestone partnership is yet another step in MANTRA’s vision to become the preferred ledger of record for real-world assets.
“This partnership with DAMAC Group is an endorsement for the RWA industry. We’re thrilled to partner with such a prestigious group of leaders that share our ambitions and see the incredible opportunities of bringing traditional financing opportunities onchain,” said John Patrick Mullin, CEO of MANTRA.
Amira Sajwani, Managing Director of Sales & Development at DAMAC, said, “DAMAC is always exploring new technologies to enhance our product offerings. Partnering with MANTRA is a natural extension of our commitment to innovation and forward-thinking solutions. Tokenizing our assets will provide investors with a secure, transparent, and convenient way to access a wide range of investment opportunities.”
The MANTRA and DAMAC Group partnership follows the recent announcement of MANTRA Chain’s Mainnet launch, which went live in October, representing a significant milestone in the integration of traditional finance with blockchain technology.
About MANTRA:
MANTRA is a purpose-built Layer 1 blockchain for real-world assets, capable of adherence to real world regulatory requirements. As a permissionless chain, MANTRA empowers developers and institutions to seamlessly participate in the evolving RWA tokenization space by offering advanced tech modules, compliance mechanisms, and cross-chain interoperability.
Website | Twitter | LinkedIn | Discord
About DAMAC Group:
The DAMAC Group is the multi-billion-dollar business conglomerate of UAE based Hussain Sajwani. The Group’s investments are divided into seven core areas; real estate, capital markets, hotels & resorts, manufacturing, catering, high-end fashion and data centres.
Some of the Group’s most notable activities include DAMAC Properties, one of the region’s largest property developers, the acquisition of the Italian fashion house, Roberto Cavalli and luxury Swiss jewellery brand de GRISOGONO, the 50-storey development DAMAC Towers Nine Elms in London and a luxury resort in the Maldives.
In a bid to disrupt the global data centre landscape, the Group recently announced plans to build data centres through its digital infrastructure company, EDGNEX Data Centers by DAMAC, across different global locations.
Today, the Group’s global footprint extends across North America, Europe, Asia, Middle East and Africa. With its vision firmly set on growth and expansion, the Group continues in its quest for diversification and business excellence.
Visit us at www.damacgroup.com
View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/mantra-and-damac-group-revolutionize-tokenized-real-world-assets-with-us1-billion-deal-302346789.html
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