New Checkout and Payment Links functionality lets UK businesses receive customer payments by card and digital wallet, creating an end-to-end solution from their Sokin account

LONDON, July 17, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Sokin, the global financial infrastructure company, is launching Sokin Checkout and Payment Links for UK businesses. The two products give businesses and finance teams a single place to collect customer payments by card, Apple Pay, Google Pay and other methods, with funds settling directly into the company’s Sokin account with no separate integration to build or maintain.

Sokin Checkout and Payment Links combine with Sokin’s existing Send capabilities, multi-currency accounts, FX and treasury infrastructure to give UK businesses a single platform to manage their entire cross-border financial stack. In one place UK businesses can receive, convert, send, control and earn money across borders. An AI agentic layer sits on top, helping businesses manage risk, optimise exposure and make financial decisions in real time.

“Businesses shouldn’t have to run their financial operations across a dozen disconnected tools and multiple banking partners to scale globally,” said Vroon Modgill, founder and CEO at Sokin. “We’re building unified global financial infrastructure where businesses can pay, hold, convert, and now receive funds, all in the same place. Adding the ability to accept funds through payment links and online checkouts is a major step toward that vision.”

Payment Links let businesses generate a secure payment request, share it by link or QR code, and receive funds directly into their Sokin account. Many finance teams still manually request payment and chase late payers by email, while managing receipt of funds through various external tools. Sokin Payment Links replaces that work with automatic reminders and late notices that follow up on the company’s behalf and provides live payment status updated inside the platform.

Sokin Checkout, which launched in the US in April 2026, allows businesses to accept multi-currency payments with ease through a Sokin-hosted payment page or embedded in their online storefront at point of sale. Customers can pay on their terms, including with existing reward programmes and any pre-agreed credit, while the funds settle into the same Sokin account a business already uses to hold and move money.

At launch, UK businesses can accept payments in USD, GBP, EUR and CAD with like-for-like settlement, across Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Alipay and WeChat Pay. Sokin will add more payment methods over time to widen its global coverage.

“By integrating receivables directly into primary financial workflows, companies benefit from reduced overhead and enhanced oversight via a unified dashboard and single login,” said Peter Daunton, chief product office at Sokin. “With Payment Links and Checkout, the entire lifecycle, from the initial request and automated follow-ups to the final settlement, is centralised, ensuring that receiving payments is as straight forward as every other Sokin feature.”

About Sokin

Sokin is a global financial infrastructure company that helps businesses move, manage and optimise money across borders. Its platform unifies accounts, FX, treasury, settlement and spend, and is built to be accessed however businesses choose to work, whether through the platform, an API or AI agents. Today it lets global businesses send and exchange more than 70 currencies and hold balances in 26 currencies through multi-currency IBANs and local currency accounts. Headquartered in the United Kingdom, the company has offices in the United States, Canada, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Mexico, Norway and India. For more information, visit www.sokin.com.

Media Contact
James Hannaford, Chief Growth Officer, james.hannaford@sokin.com

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London ranks near bottom for efficiency as stop-start traffic pushes vehicle fuel consumption to the highest level in Geotab study 

LONDON, July 17, 2026 /PRNewswire/ – Geotab, a global leader in connected vehicle and asset management solutions, today revealed that more than 1.58 million litres of fuel were burned while Geotab-connected vehicles sat stationary in traffic across Europe’s major capitals during 2025. Across the vehicles analysed, idle fuel waste reached an estimated €2.6 million over twelve months.

The findings form part of Geotab’s European Urban Freight Efficiency Index, which analysed a full year of connected vehicle data across seven major capitals: London, Berlin, Amsterdam, Dublin, Rome, Paris and Madrid.

The €2.6 million figure reflects 2025’s average European fuel prices. European diesel has risen above €2 per litre in the first half of 2026, a 30% increase triggered by geopolitical instability in the Middle East. These fuel prices would bring the cost of the same volume of idle waste to approximately €3.6 million.

Across the seven cities in the study, the relationship between congestion and fuel efficiency diverges sharply depending on how traffic moves, not just how much of it there is. The most congested city is not necessarily the one costing fleets the most in fuel.

London represents one of the most challenging operating environments for fuel efficiency among the seven cities. Ranked sixth (out of seven) in the Index, its stop-start traffic patterns prevent engines from reaching operating temperature, while its unpredictability compounds the problem. London recorded the highest passenger vehicle fuel consumption of any city analysed, at 15.60 litres per 100 kilometres, almost two-and-a-half times higher than Paris.

Of every litre of fuel burned in London by passenger vehicles, 13.6% is consumed while stationary. Commercial trucks idle at 11.1% of total fuel consumed. Lower than the passenger rate, but still among the higher truck figures across the study, reflecting the loading restrictions, bus lane exclusions and concentrated delivery windows that make London uniquely challenging for commercial vehicle operations.

The findings also show that slow traffic and wasteful traffic are not always the same thing. Berlin leads the overall Index and records lower truck idle waste than London, at 8.5% compared with 11.1%, while Amsterdam ranks second and keeps passenger vehicle idle waste to 10.5%, below London’s 13.6%. Dublin sits third overall but shows a similar passenger vehicle idling issue to London, with 12.9% of fuel consumed while stationary, although its trucks perform better at 5.8%. Rome and Madrid are the clearest counterpoints: both record just 2.8% truck idle waste, the lowest in the study, because traffic may be slow but continues to move. Paris shows the reverse pattern, with predictable journey times but the highest truck idle waste rate in the study, as commercial vehicles lose almost one in every five litres of fuel while stationary.

Edward Kulperger, Senior Vice President, EMEA at Geotab, said: “Congestion has traditionally been measured through the lens of time. How long journeys take, how busy roads become and how delays affect operations. What this analysis shows is that there is another layer of cost sitting beneath that discussion.

“When vehicles are idling, fleets are effectively burning money. Our data shows it costs them millions: fuel consumed with engines running and wheels going nowhere. Every litre of that is also an emissions cost. Beyond the time lost, the burden of congestion is financial and environmental. The fleets navigating it best are those with the clearest picture of where those costs are falling.”

Read the full report here.

Methodology

The European Urban Freight Efficiency Index scores each city on a scale of 0 to 100, based on two dimensions evaluated separately for passenger vehicles and trucks, then combined using a 60/40 weighting (passenger/truck) to reflect that most road demand comes from passenger vehicles while the truck component captures logistics efficiency specifically.

The first dimension, how traffic flows, accounts for 75% of each vehicle score and measures three things: congestion burden (cumulative congestion across the day, 50% weight), uncongested windows (hours per day of free-flowing traffic, 25% weight), and travel time variability (journey time predictability, 25% weight). The second dimension, what congestion costs, accounts for the remaining 25%, measuring mid-trip vehicle idling as a proxy for waste produced by the system. Higher idle ratios indicate congestion, poor signal timing and bottlenecks.

Idle fuel costs were estimated using 2025 average pump prices from the European Commission’s Weekly Oil Bulletin for EU cities, and the UK Government’s Weekly Road Fuel Prices dataset for London, converted at the 2025 average GBP/EUR rate of 1.185.

All scores are based on full-year 2025 data (January–December) from Geotab’s connected vehicle platform across seven cities: Berlin, Amsterdam, Dublin, Rome, Paris, London and Madrid. Scores represent normalised, relative comparisons from a sample of connected vehicles, not a census.

About Geotab
Geotab is a global leader in connected operations, video telematics and AI-powered insights. Trusted by more than 100,000 customers — from small and mid-size fleets to Fortune 500 enterprises and public-sector organisations, including the U.S. federal government, Geotab connects approximately 6 million vehicles and assets and processes 100 billion data points daily. With ISO/IEC 27001:2022, SOC2, FIPS 140-3 and FedRAMP authorisations, Geotab’s open platform and 700+ partner ecosystem unify safety, compliance and operations in a single system. Our mission: a safer, more efficient and more sustainable world in motion.

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DELRAY BEACH, Fla., July 17, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — According to MarketsandMarkets™, the counter-UAS system (C-UAS) market size is expected to reach USD 29.70 billion by 2031 from USD 9.17 billion in 2026, recording a CAGR of 26.5% during the forecast period.

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Counter-UAS System (C-UAS) Market Size & Forecast:

Market Size Available for Years: 2020–20312026 Market Size: USD 9.17 billion2031 Projected Market Size: USD 29.70 billionCAGR (2026–2031): 26.5%

Counter-UAS System (C-UAS) Market Trends & Insights:

Counter-UAS (C-UAS) systems are deployed more widely to detect, track, identify, and mitigate unauthorized drones through the integration of radar, RF sensors, EO/IR cameras, command and control, and countermeasure technologies. They help protect military bases, critical infrastructure, airports, public venues, and other sensitive locations from surveillance, security incidents, and other drone-related threats.By deployment, the vehicle-mounted segment is expected to register a CAGR of 29.9% between 2026 and 2031.By solution, the UAS mitigation & neutralization segment is likely to be the largest segment during the forecast period.By region, North America is projected to be the fastest-growing in the counter-UAS system (C-UAS) market with a CAGR of 27.4% during the forecast period.

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The increasing use of coordinated drone swarms is increasing the demand for C-UAS systems capable of detecting, tracking, and mitigating multiple drone threats simultaneously through integrated multi-sensor and command and control technologies. Governments are increasing funding for the procurement, testing, and deployment of C-UAS systems to strengthen defense and homeland security capabilities. Long-term procurement programs, technology evaluations, and modernization initiatives are supporting the adoption of integrated detection, command and control, and mitigation systems across military and government security operations.

Conventional segment to hold a larger market share than the AI segment in 2031

By technology, the conventional segment is expected to hold a larger share of the counter-UAS system (C-UAS) market in 2031, as it is widely deployed across military, homeland security, and critical infrastructure applications. These systems integrate established radar, RF detection, EO/IR sensors, command and control platforms, and mitigation technologies, providing proven performance and compatibility with existing defense and security infrastructure. Defense and security organizations are prioritizing radar, RF detection, EO/IR sensors, command and control platforms, and electronic countermeasures as they are broadly deployed and readily integrated with existing air defense and security networks.

UAS mitigation & neutralization segment to become the fastest-growing between 2026 and 2031

By solution, the UAS mitigation & neutralization segment is expected to record the highest CAGR in the counter-UAS system (C-UAS) market during the forecast period. The increasing use of commercial, FPV, autonomous, and swarm drones is boosting the demand for technologies that can disrupt, intercept, or neutralize unauthorized drones after they are detected and identified. Defense and security organizations are expanding the deployment of electronic countermeasures, directed-energy systems, kinetic interceptors, and other mitigation technologies as part of integrated C-UAS architectures to address evolving drone threats across military, homeland security, airport, and critical infrastructure applications.

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North America to exhibit the highest CAGR in the counter-UAS system (C-UAS) market during the forecast period

By region, North America is projected to be the fastest-growing counter-UAS system (C-UAS) industry during the forecast period. The region is increasing investments in integrated C-UAS capabilities to address evolving drone threats across military operations, homeland security, border protection, airports, and critical infrastructure. Growing adoption of AI-enabled detection, multi-sensor command and control platforms, and advanced mitigation technologies, together with ongoing defense procurement and modernization programs, is supporting the regional market expansion across the region.

RTX (US), Northrop Grumman (US), Lockheed Martin Corporation (US), Rheinmetall AG (Germany), and RAFAEL Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. (Israel) are among the leading players in the counter-UAS system (C-UAS) companies. These players have adopted strategies such as acquisitions and contracts to further secure their foothold in the market.

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