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BofA Rewards Members Can Get Free GHA Titanium Status
BofA Rewards Members Can Get Free GHA Titanium Status
Some Bank of America Rewards members can get GHA DISCOVERY Titanium status for free, which is the top tier in the hotel loyalty program.
The offer is available to BofA Rewards Preferred Honors and Premier members and runs through January 7, 2027. Let’s see how this offer works, and what you can get with Titanium status.
Who Is Eligible?
You need to have one of these BofA Rewards tiers:
- Preferred Honors – requires $100,000 to under $1 million in qualifying Bank of America and Merrill balances
- Premier – requires $1 million or more
Bank of America bases your tier on qualifying balances across eligible Bank of America deposit accounts and Merrill accounts.
You can see the offer here after you log in.
What You Get
Eligible members can fast-track directly to GHA DISCOVERY Titanium status.
Titanium benefits include:
- 7% back in DISCOVERY Dollars
- Double room upgrade, when available
- Complimentary breakfast at participating brands
- 11 AM early check-in, when available
- 4 PM late checkout, when available
- 48-hour room availability guarantee
- Welcome amenity
Status Sharing is not included when Titanium is obtained through this partnership offer.
How Long Does Status Last?
The terms say the status is valid for the rest of the calendar year in which you enroll, plus the following calendar year.
So if you enroll now in November 2026, your Titanium status should run through the end of 2027.
But if the offer is still available and you wait until January 1 through January 7, 2027, your status should last through the end of 2028.
What Is GHA DISCOVERY?
GHA DISCOVERY is the loyalty program for the Global Hotel Alliance, which includes more than 60 hotel brands. GHA rewards members with DISCOVERY Dollars, which can be used toward eligible hotel charges at participating properties.
Some of the better-known names include Kempinski, Anantara, Capella, Pan Pacific, PARKROYAL, Viceroy, NH Hotels, NH Collection, Tivoli and OUTRIGGER.
HT: Frequent Miler
Rate taps VP of mortgage lending, NEXA names sales director
Pennymac elevates Kevin Ryan to chief financial officer
Pennymac announced that Kevin Ryan will assume the role of chief financial officer effective January 1, 2027. Ryan currently serves as chief strategy officer and will continue to lead the strategy and business development teams in his new role. Current chief financial officer Daniel Perotti will continue to support the company in an advisory role through the first quarter of 2027.
Processing Content
Rate welcomes David Cline as VP of mortgage lending
Chicago-based fintech company Rate announced that David Cline has joined the organization as vice president of mortgage lending, bringing an established national business serving professional athletes, high-net-worth individuals and luxury homebuyers. Cline consistently funds more than $100 million in annual production volume and has built a specialized mortgage business serving athletes, as well as executives and multigenerational wealthy families. His business spans luxury and professional sports markets nationwide, with particularly strong relationships in Miami, Dallas, Nashville, Tennessee, and Colorado. He joins Rate after 18 years at U.S. Bank.
NEXA Lending names Susie Cheatham national sales director
NEXA Lending appointed Susie Cheatham as national sales director, with a focus on national recruiting, business development and expanding the company’s internal coaching initiatives. Cheatham began her mortgage career as a loan originator before transitioning into leadership roles. During her tenure at Bay Equity, she progressed from managing a Kansas City branch to overseeing a regional organization that ranked among the company’s top three in both units and volume, including expanding operations into the Dallas market. She also worked with NEXA CEO Geri Farr at Bay Equity.
MBA appoints associate VP of commercial real estate research
The Mortgage Bankers Association announced Steve Guggenmos has joined the organization as associate vice president of commercial real estate research. Prior to joining the MBA, Guggenmos served as director of housing market research at Griffin Capital and founded Guggenmos, LLC, where he served as principal. He also spent more than 20 years at Freddie Mac, most recently serving as vice president of multifamily research and modeling.
ServiceLink promotes president of default services division
ServiceLink, a mortgage services provider, elevated Dave Steinmetz to president of its default services division, effective January 1, 2027. Steinmetz previously served as president of ServiceLink’s origination businesses for the past 15 years. He joined the company in 1993 and has held roles across all operational units, including senior vice president of default services. He succeeds Miriam Moore, who led the default services division for 15 years and will transition to the role of executive advisor.
Longbridge Financial taps president and chief commercial officer
Longbridge Financial, a national mortgage lender and servicer specializing in home equity solutions for older Americans, promoted Melissa Macerato from chief revenue and marketing officer to president and chief commercial officer. Macerato has been a key member of Longbridge’s leadership team since joining the company in 2012. She previously led reverse mortgage sales at MetLife and MetLife Bank, where she hired more than 150 salespeople and managers. Prior to joining Longbridge, she held positions at GE Capital as a senior director and at MBNA America as a vice president.
Foundation Mortgage announces SVP of valuations
Non-QM lender Foundation Mortgage appointed Stephanie Holdsworth as senior vice president of valuations, where she will lead the company’s newly established valuations team. Holdsworth brings extensive experience in valuation operations, appraisal management and risk management from senior leadership roles with JPMorgan Chase, where she served in multiple vice president positions across valuation operations, vendor management, servicing and appraisal fulfillment. She joins from Nationwide Appraisal Network, where she served as chief operating officer, following a similar role at Class Valuation.
Visio Lending hires ex-Citi executive to leadership position
Visio Lending, an Austin, Texas-based lender specializing in debt service coverage ratio loans for residential real estate investors, announced that Ashley Shetler joined the company as vice president of underwriting, collateral and quality control.
Shetler brings more than 20 years of experience across consumer mortgage, small business lending and consumer banking. She joins from Citi, where she served as senior vice president and senior credit group leader, overseeing retail mortgage and home equity line of credit underwriting teams. Earlier in her career, Shetler held roles at Bank of America spanning small business credit, mortgage lending and consumer banking.
Nations Lending makes major changes to leadership team
Independence, Ohio-based Nations Lending promoted Eric Roman to president and Cindy Baird to chief operating officer. Roman previously served as chief operating officer and was one of the company’s original nine employees when it was founded in 2003. His background includes more than 25 years in the lending industry and service as a sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps. Baird joined Nations Lending in 2022 as executive vice president of national operations.
FHLBank of New York names interim president and CEO
The Federal Home Loan Bank of New York announced that Jonathan West was named interim president and CEO. The appointment follows the resignation of Randolph Snook. West joined the company in 2015 as senior vice president and chief legal officer, and had served as chief of staff and senior advisor since February 2026. Prior to joining the New York bank, he served as executive vice president and chief operating officer of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Indianapolis, bringing more than 40 years of experience within the FHLBank System to his new role.
Fairway Home Mortgage brings back North Carolina team
Fairway Home Mortgage welcomed back regional managers Jeff Gilmore and Matt Gray, along with their 28-member Fairway Custom Mortgage team in September after a two-year absence. The North Carolina-based team brings $250 million in loan production back to the lender. The team previously worked at Fairway from 2010 to 2024 before spending two years with another company. The return is part of a broader trend at Fairway, with 159 employees rejoining over the past year, including 52 originators representing $558 million in loan production.
New American Funding adds to Southern California team
New American Funding welcomed The Brandon Drew Group, a family-run lending team, to the company. Founded by husband and wife Robert and Colleen Olivas, the Southern California-based group holds a 99% close-to-fund rate on submitted applications. The Brandon Drew Group has been recognized as a top originator by Scotsman Guide every year since 2019 and specializes in serving first-time homebuyers, veterans and active military.
NEO Home Loans welcomes two new teams
NEO Home Loans, powered by Better Home & Finance, welcomed Daniel Halvorsen and his Jacksonville, Florida-based team to its platform. The nine-person team adds more than $140 million in trailing 12-month origination volume and brings reach in the Northeast Florida purchase market. Halvorsen has more than 15 years of mortgage experience and has personally funded more than $1 billion in career loan volume.
Josh Burruss and The Home Team also joined NEO as a producing branch, with Burruss set to serve as head of retail innovation. The team brings $82.5 million in 2025 funded volume onto the platform and extends Better’s presence in the Washington, D.C., area. Burruss started in the mortgage business as an 18-year-old intern and has spent 24 years in the industry across origination, product development, coaching, leadership and training. Purchase lending made up 78% of the team’s business over the last year, with much of that coming through partnerships with homebuilders and real estate agents in the region.
Real Brokerage onboards 30-agent team
The Real Brokerage Inc., a technology-enabled real estate platform, announced that Cody Burger and Dennis Buchheit are bringing their 30-agent brokerage, previously operating as Unlimited, to the company under the name The Team. Based in Dubuque, Iowa, The Team has completed approximately 5,000 transactions valued at $1.2 billion since 2020 across Iowa, Illinois and southern Wisconsin. Burger has overseen business operations while maintaining an active real estate practice, with approximately $15 million in personal transaction volume expected in 2026. Buchheit brings a 30-plus-year real estate career and is co-owner of numerous businesses including property management, insurance, HVAC, cleaning and construction companies.
Radian taps two new members to c-suite
Radian announced several executive leadership appointments to support its growth strategy. Dan Kobell was named chief financial officer, a role he had worked in on an interim basis since February 2026. Kobell joined Radian in 2015 and has held finance leadership roles of increasing responsibility. Courtney Smith Goodrich joined as chief information officer from Fannie Mae, where she served as chief strategy and transformation officer. She previously held executive leadership positions at Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase.
The company also tapped Russell Merrett to lead property and casualty strategy in a newly created role. A founder and chief underwriting officer of Radian specialty insurance subsidiary Inigo, Merrett will assess opportunities in relation to the company’s existing portfolio, exploring new markets, partnerships and avenues to scale its insurance and reinsurance businesses.
Craig Knightley was promoted to chief underwriting officer of Inigo as well. He will lead underwriting for the company’s insurance, reinsurance and partnerships businesses. Knightley joined Inigo at its founding, helping build the business and originating its Horizon and Inform programs.
Westcor Global names new executives
Westcor Global promoted Tavi Gomez to senior artificial intelligence solutions architect. In his new role, Gomez will lead the company’s AI initiatives within its engineering department, identifying emerging technologies, establishing best practices and developing solutions for customers and internal teams. He will lead proofs of concept, evaluate emerging AI platforms and design secure, scalable AI capabilities that integrate with Westcor Global’s existing technology architecture. Gomez will also develop reusable tools and frameworks and mentor colleagues interested in AI and machine learning.
The company also announced that Shandelle Thomas has joined as senior vice president of operations. Thomas brings more than two decades of leadership experience in the title and real estate services industry and will oversee operational strategy and execution. She has led teams and initiatives spanning escrow, title operations, auditing, technology, compliance and operational management. Thomas previously served as chair of the education committee and commercial escrow instructor for the Land Title Association of Colorado.
Westcor Land Title Insurance promotes two to regional roles
Westcor Land Title Insurance Company promoted Laura Licastro to regional underwriting counsel for Florida. Licastro has been with Westcor since January 2019. She is a board certified real estate attorney with more than nine years of experience as underwriting counsel for a national title underwriter. Prior to joining Westcor, she held a leadership role managing the Florida center of another major title insurer’s commercial services division.
The company also elevated Teresa Chiotti to director of Florida plant operations. Chiotti brings more than four decades of experience in the title insurance industry to her new role. She joined Westcor in 2014 as an agency representative and has since advanced through positions including assistant state manager and assistant vice president, Florida agency manager. She serves on the Florida Land Title Association’s government affairs committee and the forms committee as well.
First American appoints Darryl Button to board of directors
First American Financial Corporation, a provider of title, settlement and risk solutions, announced that Darryl Button has been appointed to the company’s board of directors. Button has served as president and CEO of Pacific Mutual Holding Company, the parent company of Pacific Life Insurance Company and Pacific Life & Annuity Company, since April 2022. Before becoming Pacific Life’s CEO, he served as the company’s chief financial officer from 2017 to 2021. Previously, Button served as chief financial officer of Aegon N.V., a global financial services holding company headquartered in the Netherlands, from 2013 to 2016, capping a 17-year tenure with Aegon.
Veriv adds four senior leaders to scale verification platform
Veriv, a Chicago-based financial verification network, announced four additions to its leadership team: Shepley Smith as chief technology officer, Jake Gutting as chief product officer, Rozel Kouadio as chief information security officer, data privacy and fraud risk officer, and Emily Nichols as head of global implementation.
Smith joined from Thread Bank, where he spent three years as chief product officer, and previously spent more than 10 years at Confirmation.com, rising to chief product officer before the company’s acquisition by Thomson Reuters.
Gutting brings more than 20 years of experience in financial technology, most recently serving as senior vice president of product management at Ncontracts. He previously held the chief product officer role at Confirmation.com.
Kouadio has 20 years of experience in information security leadership, joining from Reyes Holdings, where he served as global deputy chief information security officer, and previously held security leadership roles at Kraft Heinz.
Nichols joined from Tractor Supply’s corporate headquarters and previously spent six years in client operations at Confirmation.com.
Title Resources Group taps Robert Greenbaum as EVP
Title Resources Group, a Texas-based title insurance underwriter, appointed Robert Greenbaum as executive vice president, a role in which he will lead the company’s customer service efforts. Greenbaum brings more than 30 years of experience across marketing, sales, business strategy and communications in the real estate, mortgage and financial services industries. He joins from American Armed Forces Mutual Aid Association Mortgage Services, where he most recently served as chief marketing officer leading marketing and sales strategies. Prior to that, Greenbaum held senior leadership positions with Folio Investing, Fannie Mae, Mr. Cooper and NationsCredit.
Century Communities elevates Jim Francescon to president
Century Communities, a national homebuilder, announced that Jim Francescon has been promoted to president, effective January 1, 2027. In the role, he will oversee the company’s homebuilding operations, land, and related corporate functions. Francescon currently serves as executive vice president of corporate operations, where he has led the company’s acquisition strategy, including recent acquisitions of HistoryMaker Homes, Anglia Homes, and Landmark Homes of Tennessee. He joined Century in 2019 and previously served as president of Century Living, the company’s multifamily platform. Prior to joining Century, Francescon worked in private equity at GoldPoint Partners, a subsidiary of New York Life Investments, and in investment banking at J.P. Morgan Securities.
AI, accountability and the economics of evidence – Bank Underground
Benjamin Guin
Most discussion of AI in organisations focuses on productivity: as analysis becomes cheaper, decision-making should improve. This post argues that an important consequence lies elsewhere. Where the relevant information is accessible, a wider range of people can produce professionally presented analysis and submit it to decision-makers. Responsibility for decisions, however, remains concentrated and changes more slowly. Analysis may therefore proliferate faster than those accountable for decisions can assess it. The comparative advantage of institutions may increasingly lie in deciding what evidence to trust and act on, rather than in producing more analysis. This post explores that shift in settings where many people can generate evidence but few remain accountable for decisions, such as regulators assessing consultation responses or other forms of public input.
The result is a widening gap, illustrated schematically in Chart 1 as the two blades of a pair of scissors. The falling blade is the cost of producing analysis. The flatter blade is accountable attention: the capacity of those responsible for a decision to assess the evidence, decide what to rely on and justify that choice. While analytical capacity can be expanded through staff or technology, responsibility for the final judgement remains attached to specific individuals. Formal responsibilities can change, and staff and technology can help process evidence. But accountable attention is unlikely to expand as quickly as the supply of analysis. This creates a potential gap between what can be produced and what can inform accountable decisions. This suggests a possible shift in the binding constraint on organisational decision-making, from producing analysis to deciding what evidence to trust and act on.
Chart 1
Note: Stylised illustration; not drawn to data.
The falling blade: evidence production
The production side is by now well documented. Controlled studies find AI assistance delivers productivity gains, speeding up professional writing and analytical tasks by 25% to 40%, while the cost of obtaining a given level of AI capability has fallen dramatically. The Bank of England and Financial Conduct Authority’s 2026 survey found 86% of UK financial services firms already using AI, up from 58% in 2022. Its use also extends beyond teams specialising in data analysis and modelling into compliance, legal and operational functions. Where the underlying information is available, the same shift can extend beyond the organisation: Individuals can now use general-purpose AI models to turn that information into a structured, referenced piece of analysis in minutes.
AI has sharply reduced the time and expertise needed to produce polished, well-structured analysis. Professional presentation, references and structure were all once useful, if imperfect, signals of effort and quality because they were costly to produce. As AI reduces those costs, those signals may become less informative for organisations receiving reports, applications and other material. Their challenge is therefore not simply handling more material. It is determining which claims can be independently verified, regardless of how they are produced.
The fixed blade: accountable attention
Attention, on its own, is more expandable, although constrained by resources. Committees hire secretariats, boards commission summaries and regulators expand triage teams. In the short run, accountability is harder to expand or delegate within existing governance arrangements. Under the Senior Managers and Certification Regime, responsibility in UK financial firms is assigned to named individuals through statements of responsibilities, the documents that map specific duties to each senior manager. Those responsibilities can be reassigned through formal processes, but the capacity for accountable decision-making does not automatically expand as more analysis is produced. Directors’ duties do the same for boards, while statutory objectives constrain regulators. Analysis may be produced by an ever wider set of actors, but responsibility for decisions remains attached to named individuals. The production of analysis may therefore change more rapidly than the accountability structures around it.
What is scarce, then, is not attention but accountable attention: the capacity to decide what evidence to rely on and to justify that choice. Committee structures, meeting frequencies and formal responsibilities can change, but not at the pace at which analysis can now be produced. Consider a regulator receiving 100 responses to a rule review rather than ten. Staff or AI can summarise them, but the person responsible for the decision must still decide which claims are reliable enough to influence the final judgement, and be able to explain that choice. Herbert Simon observed half a century ago that a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention. Reading and summarisation can be delegated. Ultimate responsibility for deciding which evidence to rely on cannot.
Put the two blades together and the tension is clear. The production of analysis can be redistributed quickly, while the allocation of accountability changes more slowly. Over time, specialist teams and AI tools may increasingly help screen and verify information. Even then, those responsible for decisions still need to decide which filters to trust and which evidence to rely on.
An illustration: the duty to review rules
The duty to review rules provides a useful illustration of how the mechanism described above might operate in practice. The Financial Services and Markets Act 2023 inserted into FSMA 2000 a statutory duty on the UK financial regulators to keep their rules under review (section 29 – 3RA) and to publish a statement of policy on how they do so (section 29 – 3RB). The Financial Conduct Authority finalised its Rule Review Framework in January 2024; the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) published its statement on the review of rules in February 2024. Both include channels through which firms, trade bodies and members of the public can submit evidence that a rule is not working as intended.
When these arrangements were designed, producing a credible, well-evidenced submission typically required analysts, data and drafting time. AI can reduce some of those costs substantially, although access to relevant information remains an important constraint. The cost of generating a submission has therefore fallen sharply, whether the submitter is a firm, trade body or member of the public. Similar concerns have recently been raised elsewhere in the public sector, where AI-generated complaints, appeals and claims have been argued to risk overwhelming administrative processes. By reducing the expertise and resources needed to participate, AI may enable individuals and organisations to contribute evidence and perspectives that might otherwise not have been brought forward. The regulators weighing those submissions, however, continue to operate under the same statutory objectives and accountability arrangements.
The PRA rule review framework illustrates the kind of verification filter that may become more important as credible-looking analysis becomes cheaper to produce. It asks that feedback be ‘supported by relevant and verifiable empirical evidence, where possible’, with underlying assumptions clearly set out. That is a verification filter, not a volume filter. As credible-looking evidence becomes cheaper to produce, greater weight is likely to be placed on evidence that can be verified. Where the relevant information is available, firms, trade bodies and members of the public can now produce structured and credible-looking submissions at very low cost using general-purpose AI models. The volume of submissions received, and the share meeting the verifiability standard, may provide one way of testing the framework proposed here. If the mechanism operates as described, growth in submissions could outpace growth in submissions meeting the verifiability standard.
Why the bottleneck moves: unbundling
Historically, specialist analytical functions did more than produce analysis. They challenged assumptions, reconciled competing interpretations and filtered what reached decision-makers. As analysis is produced by a wider range of actors, it does not automatically receive the same level of challenge, scrutiny and filtering. A submission drafted by a firm’s operations team, a trade body or a member of the public may contain analysis, but it has not necessarily passed through those same processes. Over time, specialist teams and AI tools may increasingly perform that filtering role. Even then, those responsible for decisions still need to decide which filters to trust and which evidence to rely on. If evidence production expands faster than verification and judgement, the bottleneck may increasingly shift from producing analysis to deciding what evidence to rely on.
Doesn’t AI solve this too?
The obvious objection is that AI can integrate evidence as well as produce it, by summarising, comparing and flagging inconsistencies. It can. Some forms of verification may become cheaper. AI can help identify sources, check consistency and synthesise submissions. Harder questions remain about how much weight to place on competing evidence and what is sufficient to justify action. The argument is not that AI cannot support or automate decisions, but that accountability for those decisions often remains assigned to identifiable individuals or institutions. AI may also broaden participation and help organisations process larger volumes of information. Canada’s recent national AI consultation generated tens of thousands of responses from over 11,300 respondents, which the government analysed using large language models. This is where the argument becomes an empirical question rather than a certainty. Everything turns on whether the cost of integrating evidence falls as quickly as the cost of producing it. If it does, institutions may be able to absorb much of the additional volume. Even if AI reduces the volume problem, judgement about what evidence to rely on, and justify, may remain harder to automate.
What this implies
If the argument is right, institutions’ comparative advantage may increasingly lie in organising evidence rather than producing it: allocating accountable attention, ensuring conclusions are challenged before they harden, and demanding evidence that can bear the weight of a signature.
The rule review frameworks can be read as an early example of this shift. They are explicit statements of how evidence for regulatory change will be assessed, including requirements around verification. The emphasis is less on generating more evidence and more on determining what evidence can reasonably support action. More broadly, if credible-looking analysis continues to become cheaper to produce, institutions may need to invest more in the frameworks, processes, people and systems used to assess it.
The familiar organisational debate, centralise or decentralise, may therefore be the wrong axis. Evidence production is becoming easier to decentralise whether institutions choose it or not. Accountability is not. The challenge for institutions is not simply handling a larger volume of evidence. It is building the frameworks, processes and capabilities needed to distinguish credible-looking analysis from evidence that can reasonably support accountable decisions.
Benjamin Guin works in the Bank’s Strategy and Policy Approach Division.
If you want to get in touch, please email us at bankunderground@bankofengland.co.uk or leave a comment below.
Comments will only appear once approved by a moderator, and are only published where a full name is supplied. Bank Underground is a blog for Bank of England staff to share views that challenge – or support – prevailing policy orthodoxies. The views expressed here are those of the authors, and are not necessarily those of the Bank of England, or its policy committees.
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The HBR Guide to Killing Projects
<p>These seven HBR articles explain how to recognize when an initiative isn’t working—and when it’s time to move on.</p>
Qatar intensifies U.S.-Iran peace efforts as Gulf security fears persist
Qatar continued its diplomatic push to broker an end to the U.S.-Iran war this week, but prospects of a breakthrough remain uncertain.
On Tuesday, a Qatari government spokesperson said that Monday’s closed-door talks between the U.S. and Iran were “focused on making progress”, but that the timeline for a potential agreement remained unclear.
“We cannot say how close or how far away an agreement is,” Ibrahim bin Sultan Al Hashmi, director of the foreign ministry’s media and communication department, told a weekly briefing in Doha.
His remarks followed those of Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani who described his White House meeting on Monday with U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance as “positive”.
Emerging from the latest round of shuttle diplomacy, Al Thani said he was “Grateful for the positive discussions on reaching a deal and bringing peace to the region.” Before Al Thani’s visit to Washington, Qatari officials had held talks in Tehran as well as consultations with other regional governments.
On Tuesday, Al Thani made an unscheduled stop at the G7 foreign ministers meeting in Paris where top European diplomats have reportedly been pressing U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio to avoid any new escalation against Iran.
Trump, meanwhile, took to Truth Social to argue that Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE “would prefer the status quo”, referencing both the US naval blockade and restrictions on Iran’s overland trade under Operation Iron Gate. Echoing Qatar’s comments, he said: “We are seeing positive momentum toward an end to this conflict” but warned that the U.S. is “locked and loaded” should there be any changes in regional developments, adding “that seems to be quite unlikely”.
Speaking at a geopolitical forum in Abu Dhabi on Monday Anwar Gargash, diplomatic advisor to UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed, said: “We should prepare for a long period of uncertainty in which neither a decisive resolution nor stable regional order can be taken for granted.” This would require the UAE to invest in its defensive capabilities and stronger international security partners, he said.
The number of attacks on commercial shipping in and around the Strait peaked in October, reaching its highest monthly level since the U.S.-Iran war began, with more than 30 incidents recorded, according to the U.K. Maritime Trade Operations.
On Tuesday, GCC defence ministers approved plans to establish a joint command center in Kuwait, with member states contributing forces to strengthen military integration across the six-nation bloc.
The advanced command will form part of the existing Unified Military Command which is headquartered in Riyadh. However, the announcement offered no details on the number or composition of forces to be assigned, the command’s specific mandate or when it would become operational.
The continuing uncertainty did not deter Barclays from opening its new office in Riyadh’s financial district on Monday. It marks the U.K. lender’s return to the market after more than a decade as it seeks to expand its Gulf business. Barclays’ Asia-Pacific CEO Jaideep Khanna told Bloomberg last month that the bank was a “big believer” in the Middle East.
Riyadh’s business district has been under remote work orders for about a month, while ongoing travel restrictions continue to create additional challenges for commuting from nearby Gulf hubs, as well as for global executives flying directly into the kingdom.
Melissa Hancock
As ever, thanks for reading, and do keep in touch with your thoughts and ideas.
melissa.hancock@fortune.com
EMIRATES’ PROFITS HIT TURBULENCE
Iran-U.S. war clouds Emirates’ financial performance
Emirates Group’s profits fell 66% for the April to September period as the U.S.-Iran war reduced passenger demand and drove up global jet fuel costs.
The Dubai-headquartered airline made a profit before tax of AED 4.1bn ($1.1bn) in the first half of its 2026-27 financial year, compared with the AED12.2bn ($3.32 billion) it made in the same period last year.
The airline carried 21.8 million passengers, 22% fewer than a year earlier while available seat kilometers—the industry’s standard measure of passenger-carrying capacity—fell 17%.
Cargo operations helped to cushion the decline, with Emirates SkyCargo transporting 1.2 million tons over the six-month period. While this represented a 1% decline year-on-year, it still translated to a 52% increase in revenue, as the war prompted more shipping companies to turn to air transport.
Emirates fuel price risk management strategy significantly offset the impact of a 60% jump in fuel prices. Gains of AED 7.1bn ($1.9bn) from fuel hedging cut the net increase in costs to 13% but fuel remains the largest component of the airline’s operating cost at 34%.
Emirates had restored operations across 91% of its network by the end of September, serving 150 airports in 78 countries and territories. At the end of March, it was flying at 58% of its passenger capacity to 122 destinations in 65 countries.
While other airlines’ operations have been affected by regional airspace restrictions and travel advisories, Emirates has stepped in to meet passenger demand.
In total, 11 airlines, including some of Emirates’ key rivals, currently maintain suspensions on flights to Dubai. Last week, British Airways resumed direct flights to Dubai after an eight-month suspension.
MIND THE DIGITAL GAP
Mobile World Congress Doha puts MENA’s digital divide center stage
The great and the good of the telecommunications industry gathered in Doha this week to attend the second Gulf annual Mobile World Congress.
The event opened with a call to action from H.E. Mohammed bin Ali al-Mannai, Qatar’s minister of communications and information technology, to align global industry standards and bridge the Middle East and Africa’s connectivity gap.
Almost half (48%) of MENA’s population used mobile internet in 2025, according to a GSMA report released at MWC Doha. However, 49% remained offline despite living within coverage.
Mobile connectivity is quickly becoming a core pillar of the region’s economic diversification, with the Gulf being home to some of the world’s most advanced 5G markets.
Mobile technologies and services, which generated $380 billion of economic value across MENA in 2025, equivalent to 5.8% of regional GDP, are forecast to reach $470 billion by 2030.
Meanwhile, 5G is expected to account for 40% of regional connections by 2030, up from 9% in 2025, as mobile operators invest a forecast $88.9 billion over the five-year period.
DUBAI’S DIGITAL LEAP
Banking on innovation: Dubai doubles down on its ambition to become a global fintech hub
In just under a decade, the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) has become a hub for innovation and is now home to more than 2,000 AI, fintech, and technology companies—a sizeable leap from just 11 startups that joined its accelerator in 2017.
FinTech Hive is both the region’s first and largest financial technology accelerator and has played a key role in modernizing the emirate’s financial sector.
HSBC, BNP Paribas, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Standard Chartered, Visa, Ripple and Network International, were among the major names who attended Dubai Future Finance Week last week, a five-day event that incorporated the two-day Dubai FinTech Summit.
DIFC announced a strategic partnership with Japan’s Mizuho Financial Group to support the international expansion of Japanese startups and deepen economic ties between the UAE and Japan. The partnership will give up to 6,000 Mizuho startup clients access to DIFC’s Innovation Hub.
DIFC also announced plans for a Dubai Fintech Stack to support founders with payments, onboarding, risk, financial security and AI integration.
Speaking as part of a headline session at Dubai FinTech Summit, Noel Quinn, chair of the wealth manager Julius Baer and former group CEO of HSBC, predicted that AI is set to become an integral part of every bank’s technology stack, particularly in monitoring payments for potential money laundering and sanctions violations.
You can read my article here which takes a closer look at how UAE banks are embedding AI into their operations
The Big Number
$67 billion
ADIPEC 2026, Abu Dhabi’s flagship annual energy conference, concluded last week, with more than 50,000 deals worth an estimated $67 billion signed over four days. ADIPEC 2025 saw $46 billion in deals signed over the course of the event.
The 3 things we enjoyed reading this week
- Before the Iran war, the Gulf’s biggest challenge was reducing its dependence on oil. As Bloomberg Economics’ Ziad Daoud argues, the region must now pursue diversification on three fronts: developing economies beyond hydrocarbons, broadening its security partnerships beyond Washington, and establishing alternative trade and energy routes to the Strait of Hormuz. Gulf states are already exploring new industries, regional alliances, and infrastructure, but failure to address these vulnerabilities could have consequences far beyond the region.
- U.S. technology company Gecko Robotics is deploying advanced wall-climbing robots across ADNOC energy facilities to help identify structural damage and weaknesses in energy infrastructure, particularly following attacks on Gulf assets. Its new Raptor robot uses sensors and sound waves to inspect facilities, collecting millions of data points up to three to five times faster than its predecessor, while allowing operations to continue uninterrupted, reports The National. The technology could significantly accelerate damage assessments and repairs, with the company claiming it can reduce data collection costs by up to 50 times. Gecko is also considering manufacturing the robots in the UAE, reflecting the Gulf’s growing focus on robotics, AI, and locally developed technology to strengthen energy security and infrastructure resilience.
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Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis have effectively imposed their own shipping controls in the Red Sea through an often-overlooked application system for captains seeking transit clearances. The process is surprisingly simple: email the rebels. This Wall Street Journal investigative piece does a deep dive into how, in early 2024, the Houthis set up the Humanitarian Operations Coordination Center, an administrative body responsible for processing shipping applications and communicating the group’s sanctions. The Houthi militants, if they choose to reply, will typically do so within 24 hours, according to crew members and emails seen by the Journal. It provides an example from September when the Houthis approved passage for the Zhong Cheng Chang Ling, a Chinese containership, which sailed through the Red Sea without incident.
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AI Herding, Retail Investors, and New Sources of Alpha
Every analytical method works within limits. The expert’s edge is knowing where those limits are. AI hands the novice the method without the limits.
This is no longer a thought experiment. In a March 2026 Investing.com survey of 938 US investors, 51% said they use AI tools regularly or occasionally, and generating trading ideas was among the uses they cited (34%).
The gap between method and limits appears at every horizon:
- Discounted cash flow (DCF), months to years. The arithmetic is easy. The judgment sits in the growth, margin, capital spending and discount-rate assumptions, and in knowing which of them do not fit this business.
- Multiples, weeks to months. A chatbot will readily compare four companies on price-to-earnings. The expert knows why they deserve different multiples: different cycles, balance sheets, accounting or growth quality.
- News and central bank statements, minutes. A model reads the words of a press release or a Fed statement. The expert reads what changed, what was left out and what the market already expected.
In each case the novice’s error is not bad arithmetic. It is a valid method applied where it does not belong.
These examples come from practice, not from a study. The research so far shows that AI-guided decisions move together, not yet why they go wrong.
Those choices also look alike, because the tools look alike. In a 2026 SSRN paper, Steven Edwards had GPT-4o play 100 investor personas, from value to momentum, and asked each one separately to pick 50 US stocks. He then took the 50 stocks the personas named most often and called them the consensus portfolio. Just 25 personas, drawn at random, recovered about 88% of it. The consensus portfolio also had 92% of its stocks in common with the picks from a single neutral prompt, with no persona at all. Edwards concludes that models trained on the same data make correlated picks, whatever the persona.
Similar is not the same as wrong. That consensus portfolio returned 29.5% a year against 15.3% for an S&P 500 fund over the test period, which the author attributes to its tilt toward large technology stocks. The opportunity comes by two routes. When the shared view is wrong, everyone makes the same error at once. When it is right, everyone acts on it at once, and the crowd may carry the price past fair value.
Independent mistakes point in different directions and partly cancel out. Shared mistakes add up and move prices.
Researchers have started to document this risk. A 2026 working paper by Xiaoxue He of Lancaster University, not yet peer reviewed, uses 14 unexpected ChatGPT outages during US trading hours as a natural experiment. When ChatGPT was available, retail trading was more correlated, within stocks and across industry peers, and trades moved prices more: price impact was about 12.5% higher.
The two sides of the trade differed. Retail selling pushed prices too far, then reversed over the next one to five trading days. During outages, that reversal largely disappeared. The author’s reading: A shared low-cost signal may crowd out investors’ own information. Retail buying, by contrast, became more informative with ChatGPT.
The evidence so far covers short horizons. For longer horizons, where the errors would come from valuations and multiples, there is no direct study yet: that part is an expectation, not a finding.
Bilt Partners With Lowe’s – Doctor Of Credit
Lowe’s announced today a partnership with Bilt.
Press Release
Customers can link their MyLowe’s Rewards account in Bilt and earn 1 Bilt point per dollar spent at Lowe’s and lowes.com. This would stack on top of whatever regular rewards you earn from the credit card or shopping portal or card-linked offer. And you don’t have to pay for the purchase with your Bilt card.
You can also use Bilt Cash to buy the $99/year Lowe’s HomeCare+ subscription.
Nice little addition there for Lowe’s shoppers. For purchases to qualify, make sure you’re logged into your linked MyLowe’s Rewards account online or provide your linked phone number in-store.
There are a slew of other Bilt announcements today found at this Bilt link, let us know if you see anything interesting.
Borrower problems are surfacing later, at closing, JD Power finds
“I think it speaks well for the industry, given the market, the challenges out there, the financial challenges, the challenges in the housing market,” Gehrke said. “They’re delivering.”
Several measures of the personal side of the experience moved lower, he said, including trust and communication. Fewer borrowers also say they have a main point of contact, 88% against 91% a year ago, according to the study.
“Not a big drop, but they’re falling back slightly. Not something that says, ‘Hey, this is a real problem.’ But it’s a hint at it, and it’s consistent across these,” Gehrke said.
Among borrowers who had problems, a greater share cite them after approval or on closing day, according to the study. The study also asks whether lenders honored their promises, especially on rates, points and pricing, Gehrke said.
Rate volatility did not stand out as the cause, he said, and problems tied to rates were at the same level as the past two or three years.