When you should (and shouldn't) take out a prenup: Top divorce lawyer VANESSA LLOYD PLATT on how to protect your assets when tying the knot
When the children of my friends and clients announce they are getting married, it is not the wedding venue or dress that is the talk of the table – it is whether to prenup or not to prenup.
For the uninitiated, a prenup – signed pre-nuptial, i.e. before the wedding – is a contract which defines how assets will be divided should the marriage end. It ultimately helps couples avoid messy and costly disputes in the event of a divorce or separation.
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Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Football fans DENIED entry into the United States for the Club World Cup - and lose £700 - amid Donald Trump crackdown
A pair of Benfica fans have been left furious and out of pocket after being denied entry to the United States ahead of the Club World Cup – as visa rejections spike amid president Donald Trump 's revived hardline stance on immigration. Two Portuguese supporters, who had booked flights and secured tickets for Benfica's opening match against Boca Juniors in Miami, have seen their travel plans shattered after being refused electronic travel authorisation without explanation. One of the fans, restaurant owner Fabio Vasques, said he had completed all the required documentation – including the ESTA application, the standard online form needed for visitors from visa-waiver countries – but was stunned when it was twice rejected. 'I filled it out three weeks ago and the answer came back negative,' Vasques told Portuguese newspaper JN. 'I tried again, and the result was the same. No justification was given.' Vasques had arranged flights from Lisbon to Miami via Madrid and paid for match tickets at the Hard Rock Stadium, where Benfica face Argentine giants Boca Juniors on Monday, June 16. He has now lost €820 (£695) in flights and $150 (£118) for the match ticket – and is hoping to claim some of it back through travel insurance. The group of four supporters had planned to stay with a friend living in Miami, but only two were cleared for entry. The other fan who was refused a visa declined to comment. The ESTA programme – officially the Electronic System for Travel Authorization – requires passport details, trip information, and US-based contacts. It costs $21 and is valid for visits of up to 90 days. But legal experts say applications are being rejected with growing frequency under Trump's return to power. 'It used to be rare for Portuguese citizens to be refused entry into the US,' said Nelson Tereso, a Portuguese-American immigration lawyer. 'But the rules have tightened significantly since Donald Trump's changes.' Those changes, first introduced during his previous presidency and now being actively enforced again, form part of a broader, controversial immigration crackdown that has dominated the build-up to this summer's Club World Cup. Riot police, ICE agents and National Guard troops have already been deployed to cities including Los Angeles and Philadelphia, where mass protests have erupted over immigration raids. Just this week, US Customs and Border Protection posted – then deleted – a message declaring they would be 'suited and booted' at Club World Cup games, sparking fears that matches could be used to identify and detain illegal immigrants. Though FIFA say they do not expect such actions at stadiums, the uncertainty has heightened anxiety for visiting fans.
Finextra
2 hours ago
- Finextra
Why the Smartest Fintechs Are Scaling with AI Agents – Not Headcount: By David Weinstein
For the better part of a decade, fintech growth has followed a familiar trajectory: secure funding, hire aggressively, and scale fast in pursuit of market traction. It worked. High-performing teams, ambitious roadmaps, and well-capitalised burn rates became the standard operating model for any startup with global aspirations. But that playbook is starting to look outdated. Today's most forward-thinking fintechs are flipping the script. Instead of scaling with people or piecemeal software, today's most advanced fintechs are scaling with context-aware AI infrastructure, enabling autonomous agents to operate with memory, relevance, and the ability to adapt across time. In other words, the smartest fintechs aren't just hiring more people, they're designing for a world of leverage. From Chatbots to Autonomous Operators To be clear, this isn't about adding another chatbot to the support queue or slapping GPT on top of a FAQ. The new generation of AI agents are far more capable. These aren't just reactive tools dropped into workflows - they're embedded, active participants in how work gets done. They're not replacing human judgment, but taking over the repetitive execution that bogs it down. By operating within a structured, evolving knowledge graph, these agents access the right context, perform tasks across systems, and maintain continuity over time so that human operators can stay focused on what matters: discernment, creativity, and strategic direction. Imagine an agent that scans customer interactions across CRM, support, and marketing tools, then identifies churn risks and recommends retention strategies - autonomously. Or a compliance agent that tracks regulatory changes, audits internal data for alignment, and generates draft reports ready for human review. Or a trading operations agent that adjusts portfolio models based on real-time market signals, without needing constant human input. These agents aren't sitting in isolation. They're embedded into workflows, triggering cross-functional processes and reducing the friction that typically builds up between tools, teams, and data. And because they can run 24/7 without fatigue or context switching, they give small teams the operational capacity of much larger ones - without the organisational drag. Asymmetrical Leverage in Action The real unlock here is asymmetry. Traditional scaling is linear: more people, more output. Agent-first scaling is exponential: more intelligence per task, more value per person. For founders and operators, this is a fundamental shift in how work gets done. Take a UK-based neobank that recently rolled out an internal agent stack to manage financial operations. Instead of adding headcount to reconcile transactions, generate audit trails, and update internal dashboards, they deployed agents to handle these tasks end-to-end. As a result, a finance team of three now operates like a team of ten - not because they're working longer hours, but because the agents are doing the coordination, tracking, and formatting in the background. Or consider a US-based lending platform where customer service agents used to toggle between five tools to resolve one query. Now, an agent sits between those tools, compiles a customer's profile in seconds, drafts the reply, and even pre-fills CRM updates. One team member can now do what previously took three - and they can focus on building relationships, not piecing together data. This isn't just about cutting costs or doing more with less. It's about restoring human attention to where it matters most: judgment, creativity, strategic insight. By eliminating the constant cognitive drain of fragmented systems and shallow coordination work, agent-based infrastructure gives teams space to think, explore, and act with clarity. Why Now? The Tech Has Caught Up If this sounds too good to be true, it would've been - even 18 months ago. But recent advances in large language models, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and agent frameworks have changed the game. It's now possible to build AI agents that navigate APIs, evolve through feedback, and reason across a live context map - not as brittle automations, but as strategic actors. Crucially, these aren't brittle rule-based bots that break when the environment changes. The new wave of agents are adaptable. They don't just follow instructions - they understand objectives. That makes them suitable for high-change, high-ambiguity environments like fintech, where requirements shift, tools evolve, and edge cases are the norm. And because many startups are already operating in cloud-native environments with modern APIs and loosely coupled services, they're perfectly positioned to adopt agent-based infrastructure. In fact, it's often easier for an early-stage fintech to build an agent-powered back office than it is for a traditional player to untangle their legacy systems. Rethinking Operational Architecture For founders, COOs, and Chiefs of Staff, the implication is clear: if you're still building operational capacity by adding headcount, you're likely leaving leverage on the table. The question is no longer how many people do we need? - it's what do we want to automate, augment, or offload entirely? That starts with a mindset shift. Designing operations around agents means rethinking your company as an AI-native system. That means codifying your data into structured semantic graphs, enabling cross-agent collaboration, and building feedback loops where agents not only automate but adapt, reflect, and grow - just like a human team would, but faster. It also means building in feedback loops. The best agent-first teams treat their AI systems like new hires: onboard them, train them, review their output, and let them improve over time. This isn't 'set and forget' automation. It's collaborative infrastructure that evolves alongside the business. The reward? An operational stack that scales without ballooning costs or headcount. A company that can punch above its weight in terms of execution. And a team that spends more time solving problems and less time chasing updates or managing handoffs. The Next Fintech Success Stories We're already seeing the early signs of this shift. The most operationally intelligent fintechs - often the ones that look surprisingly lean from the outside - are quietly using agents to do the work of entire departments. They don't brag about it in pitch decks. They don't need to. Their advantage shows up in faster execution, cleaner operations, and happier teams. This doesn't mean people are obsolete. Far from it. But the role of humans in fintech is changing. It's no longer about scaling output through hiring. It's about designing systems that multiply the value of every person you do hire. That's the essence of leverage. And in a sector where margins are tight, competition is fierce, and compliance is non-negotiable, it could be the difference between treading water and building a category-defining business. Conclusion: Build the System, Not Just the Team In fintech, growth has historically been a headcount game. But that era is ending. The companies that succeed over the next five years won't be the ones with the biggest teams - they'll be the ones with the smartest infrastructure. Autonomous agents offer a new path: one where adaptability scales faster than bureaucracy, and intelligence compounds faster than payroll. So if you're building a fintech startup in 2025, ask yourself: are you hiring for leverage - or designing for it? Because the smartest teams aren't growing by the dozen. They're growing by the agent.
Reuters
3 hours ago
- Reuters
Investors on edge over Israel-Iran conflict, anti-Trump protests
NEW YORK, June 14 (Reuters) - Dual risks kept investors on edge ahead of markets reopening late on Sunday, from heightened prospects of a broad Middle East war to U.S.-wide protests against U.S. President Donald Trump that threatened more domestic chaos. Israel launched a barrage of strikes across Iran on Friday and Saturday, saying it had attacked nuclear facilities and missile factories and killed a swathe of military commanders in what could be a prolonged operation to prevent Tehran building an atomic weapon. Iran launched retaliatory airstrikes at Israel on Friday night, with explosions heard in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, the country's two biggest cities. On Saturday Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli strikes would intensify, while Tehran called off nuclear talks that Washington had held out as the only way to halt the bombing. Israel on Saturday also appeared to have hit Iran's oil and gas industry for the first time, with Iranian state media reporting a blaze at a gas field. The strikes knocked risky assets on Friday, including stocks, lifted oil prices and prompted a rush into safe havens such as gold and the dollar. Meanwhile, protests, organized by the "No Kings" coalition to oppose Trump's policies, were another potential damper on risk sentiment. Hours before those protests began on Saturday, a gunman posing as a police officer opened fire on two Minnesota politicians and their spouses, killing Democratic state assemblywoman Melissa Hortman and her husband. All three major U.S. stock indexes finished in the red on Friday, with the S&P 500 (.SPX), opens new tab dropping 1.14%. Oil and gold (.XAU), opens new tab prices soaring. The dollar rose. Israel and Iran are "not shadowboxing any more," said Matt Gertken, chief geopolitical analyst at BCA Research. "It's an extensive and ongoing attack." "At some point actions by one or the other side will take oil supply off the market" and that could trigger a surge in risk aversion by investors, he added. Any damage to sentiment and the willingness to take risks could curb near-term gains in the S&P 500, which appears to have stalled after rallying from its early April trade war-induced market swoon. The S&P 500 is about 20% above its April low, but has barely moved over the last four weeks. "The overall risk profile from the geopolitical situation is still too high for us to be willing to rush back into the market," said Alex Morris, chief investment officer of F/m Investments in Washington. U.S. stock futures are set to resume trading at 6 p.m. (2200 GMT) on Sunday. With risky assets sinking, investors' expectations for near-term stock market gyrations jumped. The Cboe Volatility Index (.VIX), opens new tab rose 2.8 points to finish at 20.82 on Friday, its highest close in three weeks. The rise in the VIX, often dubbed the Wall Street 'fear gauge,' and volatility futures were "classic signs of increased risk aversion from equity market participants," said Michael Thompson, co-portfolio manager at boutique investment firm Little Harbor Advisors. Thompson said he would be watching near-term volatility futures prices for any rise toward or above the level for futures set to expire months from now. "This would indicate to us that near-term hedging is warranted," he said. The mix of domestic and global tensions is a recipe for more uncertainty and unease across most markets, BCA's Gertken said. "Major social unrest does typically push up volatility somewhat, and adding the Middle Eastern crisis to the mix means it's time to be wary."
