Category: 3. Business

• EBRD to invest in QNB Türkiye’s sustainability bond
• Proceeds to have “triple impact” – for climate, women and youth
• QNB Türkiye to become first private Turkish bank to commit to a climate transition plan as part of an EBRD investment

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has participated in a sustainable bond issuance by Türkiye’s QNB Türkiye, with an investment of US$ 100 million.

The total size of the issuance is expected to be up to US$ 120 million and will be made under QNB Türkiye’s Sustainable Finance and Product Framework, covering the issuance of green, social and sustainability-focused bonds.

The issuance also aligns with the International Capital Market Association’s (ICMA) Green Bond Principles and Social Bond Principles.

The investment aims to expand green investment opportunities in the private sector, allocating 65 per cent of the financing to supporting investments in renewable energy, energy efficiency, green buildings and other qualifying initiatives.

The use of the proceeds will also enhance inclusivity by using the remaining 35 per cent to support youth- and women-led business in Türkiye, rendering the partnership capable of tripling” its impact.

Women-led businesses in the country still suffer from structural constraints, such as limited credit histories, challenging collateral requirements, and gender bias. Youth-led business also struggle with financing shortages, limited experience and weak market linkages.

In addition, as part of the investment, QNB Türkiye will become the first private bank in the country to develop and implement a climate transition plan as part of an EBRD transaction, striving to integrate climate-risk practices into investment decisions. By embedding transition planning, this transaction sets a benchmark for other Turkish banks and contributes to accelerating the country’s financial sector towards the Paris Agreement goals.

Oksana Yavorskaya, EBRD Deputy Head of Türkiye, said: “We are delighted to support QNB Türkiye’s sustainable journey through this landmark “triple-impact” investment, which not only advances the climate agenda but also promotes inclusivity and empowerment within the Turkish economy. We also commend QNB’s leadership in developing a climate transition Plan – an important step toward shaping a resilient and inclusive future.”

Ömür Tan, CEO of QNB Türkiye, said: “Our collaboration with the EBRD is a significant step in aligning the transformative power of finance with the actual needs of the economy. Through this triple-impact sustainability bond, we advance green investments while empowering women-led and youth-led enterprises, supporting a more inclusive and resilient economic landscape. We see finance as a key lever for sustainable transformation, and with our climate transition plan – the first among Türkiye’s private banks under an EBRD transaction – we reaffirm our commitment to aligning our portfolio with the Paris Agreement and accelerating the country’s sustainable development.”

The EBRD is one of Türkiye’s key investors, committing more than €23 billion to over 500 projects since 2009, largely in the private sector.

The world’s richest family has a net worth of $513.4 billion. The Waltons, the founding family of America’s largest retailer, Walmart Inc, have once again topped Bloomberg’s list of the world’s wealthiest families this year.

Walmart, founded by Sam Walton in the 1960s, is the world’s largest retailer by revenue — $681 billion. Thanks to his fortune, Sam’s three heirs — Rob, Jim and Alice — are among the richest people across the globe.

Meet the world’s
richest family.

How Walmart came to be

Sam Walton founded the first Walmart store in Rogers, Arkansas, in 1962.

Sam’s focused on rural markets, low costs, and high volume, which made Walmart into the world’s largest retailer, as per Quartr. Through 10,750 stores across the world and the company’s website, Walmart serves 270 million (27 crore) customers every week.

Sam married Helen Robson and had four children: Rob, John, Jim and Alice.

The Walton family maintain ownership of a significant part of the company’s shares through Walton Enterprises. Each of Sam’s children held 20 per cent of Walton Enterprises, while he and Helen had a stake of 10 per cent each.

After Sam’s demise in 1992, his 10 per cent was inherited by his wife tax-free.

Walton Enterprises is the family office that holds most of their Walmart shares. It is the central hub for the family’s investments and philanthropy.

The rest of the company shares are held in a family trust that is managed by Walton Enterprises.

The Walton family continues to own a 45 per cent stake in Walmart through the Walton-Penner family ownership group.

Meet the Walton heirs

The surviving children and grandchildren of Sam Walton do not work directly for Walmart. However, Steuart Walton, the grandchild of the founder of the retail giant, has been on the company board since 2016.

Greg Penner, who is married to Carrie Walton Penner, the granddaughter of the Walmart founder, is the board chairman.

The Walton family owes most of its
wealth to their ownership of Walmart. While the members still own nearly half of the company, the family and their family trust have sold $25.3 billion in Walmart stock since the beginning of 2020, according to Smart Insider.

The Walton family also have diverse investments through their holding company, Walton Enterprises, and the Walton Family Foundation.

The foundation focuses on improving K-12 education, protecting rivers and oceans, and supporting the community in Northwest Arkansas, the family’s home region.

The combined wealth of the Walton heirs is more than that of some of the world’s richest people, such as Jeff Bezos, Larry Page, and Mark Zuckerberg.

Samuel Robson “Rob” Walton, the oldest child of Walmart founder Sam, served as the company board chairman from 1992 to 2015. Under his leadership, the retail giant saw its most transformative years, with the company rapidly expanding its business overseas.

Rob bought the NFL’s Denver Broncos for $4.65 billion in 2022 and is worth $137 billion per Bloomberg.

Sam’s second child, John Walton, died in a plane crash in 2005. John’s wife, Christy, is worth an estimated $22.4 billion. She is known for her donations in the sectors of education and healthcare. Their son Lukas Walton is worth $48 billion.

He has earned $15 billion through impact investments over the last decade, ranging from sustainable fuel made from sewage to bonds funding ocean conservation, CNBC reported, citing his family office Builders Vision.

Jim, the youngest son of Walmart founder Sam, served as the chairman of the board of the family’s Arvest Bank Group. He was also on the Walmart board for over a decade. Jim’s son, Steuart, took over his seat on the board in 2016.

While Sam’s sons are connected to Walmart, his only daughter, Alice, chose her passion for art to contribute her life to. She has a vast private art collection, with original works from Andy Warhol and Georgia O’Keeffe.

In 2011, Alice opened a museum in Arkansas’ Bentonville called Crystal Bridges, which boasts masterpieces spanning five centuries.

She purchased a two-floor condo on New York’s Park Avenue for $25 million in 2014. The place, spread over 6,000 total sq ft, has 52 large windows overlooking Central Park, along with a media room and a winding staircase, as per Business Insider. 

The Walton heirs are gradually passing on the reins to the next generation. The grandchildren were given voting rights over the family’s Walmart holdings a year ago. Some have also taken over the family foundation’s board.

“The next generation, when they have great amounts of wealth, are less concerned with how to make more wealth, and more concerned with the issue of, what do we do with it,” consultant Dennis Jaffe of BanyanGlobal Family Business Advisors told CNBC. 

With inputs from agencies

For the first time, the UK has set out a clear, evidence-based view of the capabilities of the most advanced AI systems – putting hard numbers behind a discussion often driven by speculation and a lack of rigorous evidence.    

The AI Security Institute’s Frontier AI Trends Report, a public assessment of how the most advanced AI systems are evolving, draws on 2 years of testing AI capabilities in areas critical to innovation and security, including cyber, chemistry and biology.  

It finds that safeguards – the protections in place to make sure AI behaves as intended – are improving, with the Institute continuing to work constructively with companies to strengthen them and ensure we can unlock the full potential of AI while keeping people safe. While every system tested remains vulnerable to some form of bypass and protection still varies across companies, huge strides are being made.   

The time it took AISI red-teamers to find a “universal jailbreak” – a general way of getting round a model’s safety rules – for example, increased from minutes to several hours between model generations. That represents a roughly 40-fold improvement.   

The report is not intended to make policy recommendations, but gives decision makers in the UK and across the world the clearest data yet of precisely what the most advanced AI systems can actually do. Now becoming a regular publication,  it will help to improve transparency, and public understanding of what the technology can do – helping drive responsible conversations about its development as it is increasingly adopted across the economy.   

 The UK will support that work by continuing to invest in evaluation and AI science, working with industry, researchers and international partners to ensure AI delivers growth, new jobs, improved public services, and national renewal for hardworking communities. 

Its key findings show that the most advanced AI systems are improving at remarkable speed. In just a few years, they have gone from struggling with basic tasks to matching or surpassing human experts in some areas. Headline findings include:  

• Cyber security: success on apprentice-level tasks has risen from under 9 per cent in 2023 to around 50 per cent in 2025. For the first time in 2025, a model completed an expert level cyber task, requiring up to 10 years of experience.
• Software engineering: models can now complete hour-long software engineering tasks more than 40 per cent of the time, compared with below 5 per cent 2 years ago.   
• Biology and chemistry: systems are now outperforming PhD-level researchers on scientific knowledge tests and helping non-experts succeed at lab work that would previously have been out of reach.   
• Pace of change: the duration of some cyber tasks that AI systems can complete without human direction is roughly doubling every eight months.   

AI Minister Kanishka Narayan said:  

This report shows how seriously the UK takes the responsible development of AI. That means making sure protections are robust, and working directly with developers to test leading systems, find vulnerabilities and fix them before they are widely used.

Through the world-leading AI Security Institute, we are building scientific capability inside government to understand these systems as they evolve, not after the fact, and to raise standards across the sector.

This report puts evidence, not speculation, at the heart of how we think about AI, so we can unlock its benefits for growth, better public services and national renewal while keeping trust and safety front and centre.

Prime Minister’s AI Adviser and AISI’s Chief Technology Officer, Jade Leung, said:  

This report offers the most robust public evidence from a government body so far of how quickly frontier AI is advancing.  

Our job is to cut through speculation with rigorous science. These findings highlight both the extraordinary potential of AI and the importance of independent evaluation to keep pace with these developments.

The analysis also identifies early signs of capabilities linked to autonomy, but only in controlled experiments. No models in AISI’s tests showed harmful or spontaneous behaviour, but the report concludes that tracking these early signs now is essential as systems become more capable.  

Since its creation in 2023, the AI Security Institute (AISI) has become the world’s flagship state-backed AI evaluation body. By fostering close working relationships with major AI companies and developers, it has meant the UK has played a key role in collaboration with them to fix vulnerabilities in AI systems before they are widely used.  

The government is clear about the limits of what this report does and does not show. It is not a prediction about the future, or an assessment of real-world AI risks today. Instead, it sets out what these systems can actually do in controlled tests – the kinds of capabilities that could matter for safety, security, innovation and growth over time. These are controlled tests, not real-world use, giving a robust, science-based picture of how quickly frontier AI is improving.  

AI is central to the government’s mission of national renewal. The Institute – whose testing team is the biggest of any government-backed AI body in the world – is already helping companies identify and fix vulnerabilities before their AI systems are widely used. By making sure these technologies are safe and reliable, the UK can use them to support cleaner energy, make public services more efficient and drive opportunity across every part of the country.

Notes to editors

AISI Frontier AI Trends report factsheet.

The head of Pakistan’s newly created virtual assets regulator has come under criticism after advising the public to learn how to buy Bitcoin by watching online videos, despite the absence of a fully regulated crypto market in the country.

Bilal bin Saqib, chairman of the Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority, made the remarks during an interview with a private television channel. He said he was not a financial adviser but suggested that people could follow online tutorials to buy digital assets, noting that millions worldwide had done so in the same way.

His comments quickly drew criticism on social media, with users questioning whether such advice was appropriate coming from the head of a regulatory authority, especially at a time when many Pakistanis trade cryptocurrencies through informal and unregulated peer-to-peer platforms.

Saqib also said Pakistan needed to move beyond conventional thinking and start preparing for the future, arguing that technologies such as digital assets, artificial intelligence, drones, robotics, and quantum computing would redefine how countries operate and exercise sovereignty. He said Pakistan should focus on emerging technologies to remain relevant in the coming decades.

The remarks come at a time when the government has begun taking formal steps toward recognising blockchain-based systems. Earlier this month, the Ministry of Finance signed a memorandum of understanding with Binance Investments Co., one of the world’s largest digital asset companies.

The agreement was signed by Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb and Binance Chief Executive Officer Richard Teng, in the presence of Changpeng Zhao, adviser to the Pakistan Crypto Council.

Under the MoU, both sides will explore the use of blockchain technology for the tokenization and digital distribution of Pakistan’s sovereign and real world assets. These may include government bonds, treasury bills, commodity reserves and other state-owned assets.

Officials said that, subject to regulatory approvals, assets worth up to $2 billion could eventually be included in the initiative to improve liquidity, transparency and access to international markets.

However, the controversy surrounding the regulator’s public comments has raised fresh questions about investor protection, public guidance and the pace at which Pakistan is moving into the digital asset space.

​​We are committed to addressing threats to national security, including the illicit movement of money and money laundering.​ On 16 October 2025, the Minister for Home Affairs, the Hon Tony Burke MP, announced that legislation to amend the AML/CTF Act will be developed.​

The reforms will give the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) powers to restrict or prohibit high-risk products, services or delivery channels. There will also be an amendment to the definition ‘financing of terrorism’. The Government plans to introduce the reforms in Parliament in 2026.​

The department is conducting public consultation relating to the proposed reforms ​to the AML/CTF Act.

The consultation paper contains questions targeted at industry. You can read the Consultation Paper on the 2026 Reforms to the AML/CTF Act​.

If you have an interest in the reforms, you can make a submission in the portal below.

Submissions will close on be
Wednesday, 21 January 2026 at 5 PM AEDT

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The UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) group has delivered a UK-first nuclear safety milestone, by safely processing a can of plutonium residue into a stable waste form for the very first time.

This breakthrough marks a significant step toward permanently disposing of the nation’s plutonium legacy and demonstrates the UK’s leadership in tackling this complex nuclear challenge.

The achievement marks the start of a programme at the NDA group’s Sellafield site to process around 400 cans of plutonium residue; a by-product from historic manufacturing processes of fuels and other materials.

The residue is processed and made ready for eventual disposal in a Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) in a Sellafield plant that has operated safely since the mid-1980s. Adapting and repurposing existing facilities, rather than building a new one, ensures faster delivery and better value for the taxpayer.

David Peattie, NDA Group CEO, said: “This UK-first milestone demonstrates the unrivalled expertise of the NDA group, with special recognition for the Sellafield team whose innovation and specialist skills have made this achievement possible.

“The full immobilisation programme will take many decades, but processing this first can of residue into a disposable form represents significant progress and was achieved within 12 months of the policy being announced.

“Tackling the UK’s plutonium challenge will remain a top priority for the NDA group for decades, and with the support of the Government’s significant investment in this mission, we’re proud to be leading the way in making the UK safer for generations to come.”

Minister for Science, Innovation, Research and Nuclear, Lord Vallance, said: “This milestone is a testament to the UK’s leadership in innovation and nuclear legacy management, thanks to the expertise and commitment of our workforce at Sellafield.”

Euan Hutton, Sellafield’s CEO, added: “Turning the world’s largest stockpile of this extremely hazardous substance into a safe form and then disposing of it will dominate our work for decades.

“This achievement means we can deal with some of the more problematic plutonium now, making a start on putting the material beyond reach earlier, and underlines our commitment to deal with the legacy of decades of reprocessing work.

“Our specialist workforce, trained in unique ‘alpha’ skills, have adapted processes to handle material never managed before. Their innovation and commitment should be applauded.”

Next step – developing the method of immobilising the majority of the UK’s plutonium stockpile

Building on this UK-first success at Sellafield, the NDA group will tackle the bigger challenge of immobilising the UK’s entire civil separated plutonium inventory, having been tasked by government to do so in January 2025.

Immobilisation puts the plutonium beyond reach, addressing the long-term safety and security risks associated with it.  As the majority of the plutonium is in a more hazardous oxide powder form and cannot be processed using existing methods, its immobilisation will require designing and proving first-of-its kind technology to lock it into a stable form for permanent disposal in a GDF, and will require a processing plant and interim storage capability to be built at Sellafield.

The government has recently allocated £154 million over five years to the NDA group to help meet this challenge. This investment has delivered early results with the plutonium residue work, and will continue as the NDA group works with the supply chain to design, install and operate specialist laboratory facilities at Sellafield, where experts can test and prove technology to immobilise the wider plutonium inventory.

This investment will support 100 jobs, the majority in Cumbria. The NDA group, and in particular Sellafield and Nuclear Waste Services, will work in partnership with the UK National Nuclear Laboratory and the wider supply chain to deliver this nationally important work.