UK Financial Resilience: The UK Treasury has designated Microsoft, Google, Amazon Web Services and Oracle as “critical third parties,” bringing them under direct oversight by the Bank of England and financial regulators to protect the financial system from cloud outages. Public Sector Controls: Ghana’s PAC chair accused some local assemblies of undermining internal auditors, saying delays and interference are driving recurring financial irregularities. Municipal Funding Pressure (South Africa): South Africa’s National Treasury withheld over R115m from three Western Cape municipalities for persistent municipal finance non-compliance, with release tied to progress on misconduct and wasteful spending findings. Energy Grid Financing (Pakistan): The World Bank approved $375.9m for Pakistan’s grid stability project to modernise transmission, cut outages and support cleaner power rollout. Corporate Deal (South Africa): Capitec agreed to sell its rental finance unit to Sasfin Capital for R201m, while keeping a secured credit facility to support the existing rental receivables book. Remittance Licensing (UAE): Remitly secured a CBUAE license to launch new UAE financial products, aiming for faster, transparent cross-border transfers. Financial Crime Spotlight (Nigeria): Nigeria won a UNODC-World Bank-Egmont StAR award for outstanding financial crime investigation, citing NFIU-EFCC collaboration. AI in Work: OpenAI launched “ChatGPT Work,” an agentic tool for longer-running tasks across knowledge workflows. Markets: Stocks rebounded and oil eased as investors waited for next steps after renewed Iran-war uncertainty.