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Now Studio launches six series

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Twenty Twenty Six ignites World Cup fever

THE SEASON takes the stage

HONG KONG, June 18, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Now TV’s on-demand service, Now Studio, is curating a world-class drama line-up this season. During the World Cup, the platform delivers exciting entertainment options beyond the matches. Highlights include the British comedy Twenty Twenty Six, which centers on World Cup preparations and offers football fans a lighthearted, humorous take on the tournament. The platform will also roll out multiple buzzy new titles and high-quality series to cater to diverse audience tastes.

Set against the World Cup backdrop, Twenty Twenty Six adopts a mockumentary format, blending British humour with office workplace comedy. Starring Hugh Bonneville (Downton Abbey, Cold War 1994), the series will take viewers behind the scenes of the international sporting event through an unconventional lens.

THE SEASON is a flagship drama series set in Hong Kong’s luxurious high-society summer, unfolding a glamorous revenge story. Produced by PCCW Media and international entertainment company SK Global—known for Crazy Rich Asians, Thai Cave Rescue, and Delhi Crime—the series features an international cast: Jessie Mei Li (Shadow and Bone), Toby Stephens (Percy Jackson, Die Another Day), three-time Golden Horse Award winner Karena Lam, and Kōki, who portrays Lam’s daughter. THE SEASON (4K version) is now exclusively available on Now Studio*.

Now Studio is also delivering a diverse lineup this season, including crime thriller Memory of a Killer, sci-fi comedy The Miniature Wife, family comedy American Classic, and the highly acclaimed series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, offering viewers entertainment across multiple genres.

Now Studio’s Must-Watch Series This Season:

Titles

Synopsis

Twenty Twenty Six S1

Mockumentary about coverage of the 2026 World Cup, in which the former BBC Head of Values takes up the mantle of Director of Integrity for the largest soccer tournament ever held across North America.

THE SEASON

Amid Hong Kong’s glittering summer season, the old-money Hexts launch their new vessel and host a coterie of elite friends, unaware that a new entrant to society, Cola Pierce, holds a dark secret. Parties and social events turn into a cat‑and‑mouse game across the city as Cola faces off against the elite of the city.

Memory of a Killer S1

A dramatic thriller starring Patrick Dempsey as a hitman, Angelo Doyle/ Flannery, leading a dangerous double life while hiding an even deadlier personal secret.

Miniature Wife S1

A technological accident serves as a catalyst for Lindy and Les, a married couple, to re-evaluate their relationship’s power dynamics, leading to a dramatic showdown as they vie for control in their marriage.

American Classic S1

AMERICAN CLASSIC tells the story of Broadway star Richard Bean who suffers a spectacular public meltdown and returns home to the family theatre where he first became aware of his own brilliance. Once there, his extreme behaviour sets off a series of crises among those closest to him: his ex-girlfriend (now the town’s mayor) married to his brother, his brother himself, and his beloved niece who dreams of a life in the theatre. As old loves resurface and buried secrets emerge, Richard must confront the consequences of his past actions and the family and town he left behind for fame and glamour. Each season follows a different Richard Bean production that will reflect the stories unfolding in the lovable but flawed Bean family and the transformative power of making art.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds S1-S3

STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS is based on the years Captain Christopher Pike manned the helm of the U.S.S. Enterprise. The series will feature fan favorites from season two of STAR TREK: DISCOVERY, Anson Mount as Captain Christopher Pike, Rebecca Romijn as Number One and Ethan Peck as Science Officer Spock. The series will follow Captain Pike, Science Officer Spock and Number One in the years before Captain Kirk boarded the U.S.S. Enterprise, as they explore new worlds around the galaxy.

In Season 2 of STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS, the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise, under the command of Captain Christopher Pike, confronts increasingly dangerous stakes, explores uncharted territories and encounters new life and civilizations. The crew will embark on personal journeys that will continue to test their resolve and redefine their destinies. Facing friends and enemies both new and familiar, their adventures will unfold in surprising ways never seen before on any “Star Trek” series.

In Season 3 of STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS, when we reconnect with the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise, still under the command of Captain Pike, they face the conclusion of season two’s harrowing encounter with the Gorn. But new life and civilizations await, including a villain that will test our characters’ grit and resolve. This exciting twist on classic STAR TREK takes new and beloved characters to new heights, diving into thrilling adventures of faith, duty, romance, comedy, and mystery.

*Refers to paid TV and OTT platforms in Hong Kong.

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Hong Kong banking sector posts strong 2025 results as structural shifts open next wave of growth, says KPMG

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Report identifies fixed income and currencies, gold, transition finance and family offices as the sector’s next growth frontiers — with AI governance and cyber resilience critical to long-term trust

HONG KONG, June 18, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Hong Kong banks delivered solid headline performance in 2025, with the total assets of all licensed banks increasing by 7.1% to HK$26 trillion and operating profit before impairment charges rising by 5.5% to HK$337 billion. While lower interest rates compressed net interest margins as rate cuts took effect, the sector continued to demonstrate balance sheet resilience. Looking forward, challenges including an uncertain interest rate environment, persistent softness in commercial real estate and intense competition for deposits may weigh on profitability. Maintaining strong asset quality and prudent risk management will remain essential to preserving earnings and balance sheet resilience. The newly launched KPMG’s Hong Kong Banking Report 2026 explores the trends, opportunities and risks shaping the next phase of the sector’s development.

While maintaining resilience remains a key priority, the report suggests that the next phase of growth for Hong Kong banks will increasingly be driven by their ability to adapt to structural shifts currently underway.

The report highlights significant opportunities in Hong Kong’s fixed income and currency (FIC) markets, with the SFC-HKMA Roadmap providing a strong foundation for the next stage of market development. Hong Kong already accounts for nearly 30% of Asian international bond issuances, has topped the regional league table for nine of the past ten years, and is the world’s fourth-largest foreign exchange market by daily turnover. As Hong Kong deepens its FIC foundations, maintaining strong standards of conduct, transparency, and accountability will be essential to reinforcing the city’s position as a trusted international financial centre.

Jia Ning Song, Head of Banking and Capital Markets, Hong Kong SAR, KPMG China, says: “A fully integrated gold value chain is a natural and significant extension of Hong Kong’s fixed income and currency markets, and the opportunity for banks is substantial, spanning financing, custody, clearing and the development of new products for international and Chinese Mainland clients alike. History shows that what distinguishes a trading hub of lasting importance from one that simply attracts flows is the quality of its foundations. Trust, benchmark integrity and clear standards of accountability are what allow a market to deepen over time and withstand periods of stress. By embedding these standards now, Hong Kong can ensure this next phase of growth strengthens, rather than tests, its standing as a trusted international financial centre.”

Transition finance was identified as another major opportunity. Hong Kong is well positioned to become a leading centre for transition finance as the Chinese Mainland channels increasing capital into technology and industrial decarbonisation. Banks that can demonstrate credible methodologies, robust assessments of transition plans, and clear transition frameworks will be best placed to connect these financing needs with international capital and capture emerging growth opportunities.

Paul McSheaffrey, Senior Banking Partner, Hong Kong SAR, KPMG China, says: “The outlook for Hong Kong’s banking sector is increasingly being shaped by structural changes. As Hong Kong continues to strengthen its role as an international financial centre and a bridge between global capital and the Chinese Mainland, opportunities are emerging across capital markets, transition finance, and technology-enabled banking. At a time when traditional revenue drivers such as net interest margins remain under pressure, banks that successfully capture these opportunities while maintaining strong governance, trust, and resilience will be best positioned to drive sustainable growth.”

The report also underscores the importance of maintaining trust and resilience as the banking sector evolves. As new technologies and financing models reshape the industry, banks will need to balance innovation with strong governance and risk management.

The adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) is entering a new phase. As banks move beyond isolated AI pilots, the harder challenge is no longer the technology but the governance, model risk management and accountability needed to scale safely across the enterprise.

Angel Mok, Partner, Financial Services Technology Consulting, Hong Kong SAR, KPMG China, says: “Generating sustainable value from AI requires more than technology investment alone. Banks that combine innovation with strong governance, accountability, and workforce readiness will be best positioned to scale AI across the enterprise with regulatory credibility and confidence.”

As artificial intelligence accelerates the pace and sophistication of cyber threats, banks are under increasing pressure to strengthen their cyber resilience capabilities. While strong security controls remain essential, regulators are placing greater emphasis on intelligence-led risk management and the embedding of governance and accountability across all lines of defence. Expectations are also expanding beyond prevention, with banks increasingly required to demonstrate their ability to respond to, contain and recover from cyber incidents while maintaining critical operations.

Scan the QR code to download the report:

-Ends-

About KPMG

KPMG in China has offices located in 31 cities with over 14,000 partners and staff, in Beijing, Changchun, Changsha, Chengdu, Chongqing, Dalian, Dongguan, Foshan, Fuzhou, Guangzhou, Haikou, Hangzhou, Hefei, Jinan, Nanjing, Nantong, Ningbo, Qingdao, Shanghai, Shenyang, Shenzhen, Suzhou, Taiyuan, Tianjin, Wuhan, Wuxi, Xiamen, Xi’an, Zhengzhou, Hong Kong SAR and Macau SAR. It started operations in Hong Kong in 1945. In 1992, KPMG became the first international accounting network to be granted a joint venture licence in the Chinese Mainland. In 2012, KPMG became the first among the “Big Four” in the Chinese Mainland to convert from a joint venture to a special general partnership.

KPMG is a global organisation of independent professional services firms providing Audit, Tax and Advisory services. KPMG is the brand under which the member firms of KPMG International Limited (“KPMG International”) operate and provide professional services. “KPMG” is used to refer to individual member firms within the KPMG organisation or to one or more member firms collectively.

KPMG firms operate in 138 countries and territories with more than 276,000 partners and employees working in member firms around the world. Each KPMG firm is a legally distinct and separate entity and describes itself as such. Each KPMG member firm is responsible for its own obligations and liabilities.

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Yotta and MarketsandMarkets Reveal India’s AI Execution Gap — and the Sovereign Infrastructure Closing It

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 “New whitepaper finds that while 87% of Indian enterprises have moved past AI pilots, infrastructure constraints — not strategy — are the primary barrier to production-scale deployment”

DELRAY BEACH, Fla., June 18, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — MarketsandMarkets™, in collaboration with Yotta, has released a new whitepaper titled “AI Adoption Landscape in Indian Enterprises: From Readiness to Realization”, delivering a data-driven assessment of where India’s enterprise AI ambitions are succeeding — and where they are stalling.

The research finds India’s AI market on a steep growth curve, projected to expand nearly 7x from USD 17.87 billion in 2026 to USD 119.44 billion by 2032. Yet despite ranking among the top globally in AI operating environment and enterprise adoption, India contributes just 2% of global large-scale AI systems — a stark indicator that readiness and execution remain disconnected.

The Infrastructure Deficit Is the Critical Variable

The whitepaper identifies compute infrastructure as the decisive gap. India currently ranks 68th globally on infrastructure — despite ranking 3rd in operating environment. Limited access to high-throughput GPU clusters, fragmented AI pipelines, and high compute costs on foreign hyperscalers are slowing model iteration, increasing compliance risk, and constraining the economics of large-scale AI deployment. Yotta’s Shakti Cloud directly addresses this gap by delivering AI-native, GPU-accelerated cloud infrastructure built entirely within India, powered by NVIDIA H100 and A100 clusters, with with next-generation GPU architectures coming soon.

The Compute Layer India’s Enterprises Have Been Missing

With 87% of organizations now in structured AI deployment, demand has shifted from experimentation to production-grade infrastructure that can perform across BFSI, healthcare, manufacturing, and the public sector. Yotta’s sovereign compute ecosystem including Shakti Cloud and Shakti Studio enables enterprises to reduce total cost of ownership, optimize GPU utilization, and accelerate deployment cycles, making large-scale AI operationally and economically viable within India’s borders.

The Sovereignty Imperative: India’s Next AI Frontier

The whitepaper makes clear that India’s next phase of AI leadership will not be won on talent or policy alone. Sovereign, scalable compute infrastructure aligned to the IndiaAI Mission is the foundational layer that will determine whether India becomes a net producer, not just a consumer, of global AI systems. Yotta is positioned as that foundational layer: combining high-performance NVIDIA-accelerated infrastructure, data sovereignty, and ecosystem partnerships to enable enterprises, startups, and public institutions to build AI that is secure, scalable, and globally competitive.

Research Methodology

This study is based on a combination of primary research (industry experts, enterprise stakeholders, and technology providers) and secondary research, including company publications, whitepapers, industry reports, and proprietary MarketsandMarkets’ analysis frameworks. The methodology incorporates:

Market sizing and forecasting across AI adoption segmentsAnalysis of enterprise AI maturity and deployment trendsEvaluation of infrastructure, compute, and ecosystem readinessCase studies and real-world implementation insights

About MarketsandMarkets™

MarketsandMarkets™ is a global market research and consulting firm specializing in high-growth niche markets. Through its Knowledge Store platform, the company provides actionable insights across 200,000+ markets, enabling organizations to identify opportunities, benchmark strategies, and drive growth in a competitive landscape.

Contact:
Mr. Rohan Salgarkar
MarketsandMarkets™ INC.
1615 South Congress Ave.
Suite 103, Delray Beach, FL 33445
USA: +1-888-600-6441
Email: sales@marketsandmarkets.com
Visit Our Website: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com

About Yotta

Yotta Data Services is a sovereign cloud infrastructure and platform services provider, offering cloud, AI cloud, data center hosting, connectivity, media tech and cybersecurity services; managed applications; and a wide range of managed IT services. Yotta operates its cloud regions at its hyperscale data center parks in Panvel (Navi Mumbai) and Greater Noida (Delhi NCR). Yotta’s homegrown, open-source-based, feature-rich Sovereign hyperscale cloud, Yntraa, is MeitY empanelled (VCC and GCC) and is also deployed in large government-owned CSPs on a white labelled / PPP model. In addition, Yotta has launched Shakti Cloud, a cutting-edge platform that leverages advanced AI capabilities, providing enterprises with a comprehensive suite of AI services, including AI labs, AI workspaces, Shakti Studio – AI Inference platform and access to NVIDIA’s NIM services, alongside Kubernetes clusters with GPU resources. Yotta is the only NVIDIA Cloud Partner (NCP) across the APAC region to be part of the NVIDIA Exemplar cloud initiative and is one of only seven Reference Architecture Platform NCPs across the world.

Yotta has won numerous accolades and certifications, including RBI’s cybersecurity framework and localization framework, ISO 27017 for the protection of personal information in public cloud, ISO 27701 for Privacy Information Management (PIMS), PCI-DSS, SOC2-Type 2, and SOC3. For more information, visit www.yotta.com.

Contact:

Nikhil Pradhan
npradhan@yotta.com

 

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Sumsub Becomes First Verification Platform to Enable AI Agents to Build Compliance Setup

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Teams can now upload AML policies to Claude, ChatGPT, or other AI and get a fully configured Sumsub workflow in minutes, then manage day-to-day tasks

LONDON, June 18, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Sumsub, a global verification and fraud prevention leader, today announces the launch of its Model Context Protocol (MCP) integration and a new suite of AI agent skills. This makes it the first identity verification and compliance platform to give AI agents — including Claude, ChatGPT, and other leading models — access not just to day-to-day operations, but to the full configuration and setup layer of the platform.

With Sumsub’s agentic experience, an AI agent can take a real compliance policy document and automatically generate a fully configured Sumsub environment. That means even a complex, multi-page PDF with country-specific risk brackets, weighted scoring tables, and conditional logic gets translated into live platform settings — verification levels, risk questionnaires, and onboarding workflows — directly in the customer’s dashboard. A setup that previously could take days can now complete in minutes.

The release marks a significant shift in how compliance setups are built. Until now, configuring a verification platform required significant manual effort from solution architects or technical teams, interpreting AML policies, translating regulatory requirements into platform settings, and building out onboarding workflows by hand.

New capabilities for compliance teams

Policy-to-configuration –  teams upload their AML policy or regulatory requirements and ask an AI agent to configure their Sumsub environment from it. The agent reads the document, determines what is needed, and builds the settings live in the platform;Faster technical integration –  AI agents can handle the technical side of embedding Sumsub into a customer’s application, writing the necessary code and embedding verification as a mandatory step in an onboarding flow in real time;Manage compliance day to day – teams can use AI agents to review applicants, run analytics, generate verification links, and respond to regulatory changes.

“Setting up a compliance workflow has always required significant manual effort, and updating it when regulations change requires even more,” said Andrew Novoselsky, Chief Product Officer at Sumsub. “Our Agentic experience changes that by connecting an AI agent directly to the configuration layer of the platform — a team can take their AML policy, hand it to an AI agent, and have their full environment built automatically. That is a fundamentally different category of capability from what has been available in this space.”

How the integration works

The integration is model-agnostic, designed to work with any leading AI agent. Sumsub has published an open-source set of agent skills on GitHub, installable with a single terminal command.

The MCP integration builds on Sumsub’s broader AI strategy, which includes Summy, an AI Copilot for compliance and fraud teams inside the platform. These capabilities reflect Sumsub’s approach to building compliance infrastructure that works alongside the tools and workflows modern teams already use.

Access to the MCP integration is restricted by separate permission to allow granular control over data. Sensitive actions are performed in isolated sandbox, ensuring that configuration changes are always reviewed and approved by the human.

The integration is available now, with Sumsub becoming the first verification platform to be officially listed on the ChatGPT Apps platform. Further discussions ongoing with additional LLMs. Full documentation and agent skills are publicly available via Sumsub’s developer resources.

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About Sumsub

Sumsub is a leading full-cycle verification platform that enables fraud-free, scalable compliance. Its adaptive, no-code solution covers everything from identity and business verification to ongoing monitoring – quickly adjusting to evolving risks, regulations, and market demands.

Recognized as a Leader by Gartner, Forrester, and IDC, Sumsub combines seamless integration with advanced fraud prevention to deliver industry-leading performance. Sumsub also invests in responsible AI innovation through its AI Academic Program, forming alliances with top academia and institutions globally to enhance the world’s resilience against AI-powered fraud.

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