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The Week in Canadian Press Releases: 10 Stories You Need to See

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A roundup of the most newsworthy press releases from Cision Distribution this week

TORONTO, Oct. 30, 2026 /CNW/ — With thousands of press releases published each week, it can be difficult to keep up with everything on Cision. To help journalists and consumers stay on top of the week’s most newsworthy and popular releases, here’s a recap of some major stories from the week that shouldn’t be missed.

The list below includes the headline (with a link to the full text) and an excerpt from each story. Click on the press release headlines to access accompanying multimedia assets that are available for download.

Equitable Bank announces agreement for the sale of Bennington Financial Corp. 
Bennington is a leader in the Canadian equipment leasing industry, relying on a network of brokers. As at July 31, 2026, its aggregate portfolio included approximately $1.1 billion in lease receivables. Contribution to earnings for the trailing 12 months ended July 31, 2026, was not material.$35 million gift from Ajmera family establishes UHN’s Ajmera Transplant Institute 
Premier Doug Ford was in attendance to thank the family for their generosity, along with UHN doctors, surgeons and clinicians, and members of the philanthropic and business communities. With this gift, UHN Foundation is launching a wider $100 million campaign to support transplant medicine.Whitecap Reports Strong Third Quarter Results, Announces Increased 2026 Guidance, Dividend Increase and 2027 Budget 
Strong operations coupled with elevated light oil and condensate prices resulted in funds flow of $1.2 billion ($0.96 per share) in the third quarter, an increase of 32% per share relative to the third quarter of 2025. After capital investments of $533 million, free funds flow was $640 million, bringing free funds flow to $1.9 billion ($1.57 per share1) through the first nine months of 2026.Cohere Announces Series E Fundraise Targeting CAD $7 Billion to Meet Surging Global Demand for Secure, Sovereign AI 
The round marks the largest private financing round ever undertaken by a Canadian technology company and underscores a broader global shift toward sovereign AI. As AI becomes increasingly mission-critical, organizations are seeking independent alternatives that provide greater control over their data, infrastructure, governance, and deployment environments.Englobe completes acquisition of Calgary-based Reinbold Engineering Group
The acquisition brings more than 90 Reinbold team members across offices in Calgary, Edmonton, Kelowna, Vancouver and Toronto to Englobe’s national platform, strengthening the company’s mechanical engineering and building performance capabilities across Canada.BCE announces partnership with La Caisse, which will acquire 49.9% stake in Bell wireless tower infrastructure company
The new wireless tower infrastructure company, “TowerCo”, will own and operate Bell’s portfolio of wireless infrastructure assets, making it Canada’s largest dedicated tower company with more than 5,000 sites across the country. The Montréal-headquartered company will focus on growing the business through new site builds, site densification and third-party colocation.The Distillery Winter Village Announces 2026 Lineup of New Attractions, Special Performances and Quince as new title sponsor 
“I’ve visited The Distillery Winter Village for years, so I know how special this tradition is to Toronto,” said Kelly Olsen, Head of Canada at Quince. “That makes it especially meaningful for Quince to become part of it. We’re excited to add to the magic people already love here and bring our brand to life for Canadians in a way that feels distinctly Toronto.”SEIU Healthcare launches campaign to stop Chartwell and Ontario’s greedy retirement home industry from gouging seniors and shortchanging workers 
SEIU Healthcare today launched a province-wide campaign calling on Chartwell and the corporate giants throughout the wider retirement home industry to stop raising service fees on seniors and improve wages and working conditions for the staff who care for them.Government of Canada invests over $190 million to advance Canada’s critical minerals sector and strengthen aluminum processing 
Together, these projects are expected to maintain approximately 6,000 full-time, well-paying jobs across Quebec and Canada, support 65 co-op student placements and strengthen collaborations with Canadian research institutions, post-secondary institutions, and small and medium-sized enterprises.SE Health and Gotcare Partner to Advance Home and Community Care Across Canada 
A central focus will be improving access to care while making services more adaptable to the needs of individuals, families and communities. The partnership will explore opportunities in areas such as care navigation, transitions from hospital to home, workforce capacity and technology-enabled care programs that need to operate across large or geographically dispersed populations.

Read more of the latest releases from Cision, see our resources for journalists, and stay caught up on the top press releases by following @cnwnews.

About Cision Canada

Cision is a comprehensive communications platform enabling more than 100,000 public relations and marketing professionals around the world to understand, influence and amplify their stories. As the market leader, Cision enables the next generation of communication professionals to strategically operate in the modern media landscape where company success is directly impacted by public opinion. Cision has offices in 24 countries through the Americas, EMEA and APAC, and offers a suite of best-in-class solutions, including Newswire, Brandwatch, Cision Communications Cloud® and Cision Insights. To learn more, visit www.cision.ca and follow @CisionCA on Twitter.

SOURCE Cision Canada

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Bridge Alliance API Exchange (BAEx) Accelerates Regional Network API Adoption with Early Enterprise Customers and Market Expansion

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SINGAPORE, Nov. 3, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Bridge Alliance, the leading mobile alliance for operators globally, today announced the commercial realisation of regional network APIs through early enterprise customers via the Bridge Alliance API Exchange (BAEx). Companies from the cloud services, mobile gaming and fintech sectors are leveraging network APIs through BAEx to power diverse digital services, demonstrating the growing commercial potential of operator network capabilities across the region.

Number Verify is one of the first APIs adopted by the companies. Number Verify confirms that the phone number a user provides is the same one they are using to access an online service or app. With digital fraud and scams a growing concern in Asia-Pacific, silent network authentication APIs such as Number Verify could authenticate users and enable service providers to build greater consumer trust. These initial deployments are intended as a foundation: as the commercial pilots progress, several of the enterprise customers will evaluate additional BAEx APIs, built on GSMA Open Gateway and CAMARA standards, and telco signals for identity verification and fraud detection.

Mr Loo Boon Chee, CEO of Bridge Alliance, said, “We warmly welcome our new BAEx customers and partners!  There has been a lot of pent-up demand and clear use cases for APIs among enterprises. We’ve worked hard to bring API capabilities together in a single platform that enables them consistent access, backed by our commercial model packaged and priced to market needs. BAEx has thus turned network API potential into a commercial reality, closing the network API demand and supply gap. We look forward to having more enterprise customers on board as we continue to add to the APIs available on BAEx.”

Mr Max Wang, Head of Cloud Communication International Business Operations, Alibaba Cloud, said, “In the era of AI, secure identity is paramount. Just as Alibaba Cloud championed Number Verify in China, Bridge Alliance now leads its adoption across APAC. As one of the original signatories with GSMA to champion this technology, we firmly believe it will eliminate mobile authentication friction and combat artificially inflated SMS traffic. By advancing Number Verify and the broader CAMARA framework, we empower enterprises to deliver seamless, trusted, and efficient digital services.”

New channel partners on board

Meanwhile, Bridge Alliance has inked strategic partnership agreements with new BAEx partners MX Labs, SBTS and TMT ID. These channel partners will connect more enterprise customers to BAEx in the coming months. MX Labs, a Singapore-based messaging infrastructure provider, brings an established enterprise base ready to move beyond SMS-based verification. SBTS, a SoftBank subsidiary, brings extensive identity and fraud detection capabilities. TMT ID, a specialist in network intelligence, uses network APIs to support identity verification and frictionless onboarding.

Mr Xinkai Chua, Managing Director of MX Labs, said, “BAEx gives us a single integration into Bridge Alliance’s member operators, so we can bring network-based number verification to our customers across Asia without building market by market. Silent verification over the mobile network cuts sign-up friction and fraud, and reduces reliance on SMS one-time passwords. We look forward to growing with BAEx as more markets and APIs come live.”

Mr John Tolton, Senior Vice President, Strategic Business Development, SBTS, said, “At SBTS, our ambition is to bring the value of the network closer to the enterprise, turning network intelligence into solutions that address real challenges in identity, trust and fraud prevention. BAEx brings us closer to that goal, creating a path to scale these solutions and make network intelligence an integral part of the digital customer journey.”

Mr Fergal Parkinson, CMO and Co-Founder of TMT ID, said: “We are delighted to collaborate with Bridge Alliance, which provides us the regional infrastructure to scale, ensuring our clients can verify genuine users and block high-risk interactions in milliseconds. By joining forces, we are expanding our operational footprint across Asia, enabling us to deliver secure, frictionless identity verification to enterprises, developers, and leading social media platforms in the region.”

BAEx Partner Programme welcomes Proximus Global

Bridge Alliance also welcomes Proximus Global, a subsidiary of Proximus, to the BAEx Partner Programme. Drawing on its distinct international experience, Proximus Global will share valuable lessons and expertise with fellow participants in technical workstreams. The Programme’s continued expansion and valuable insights from a wide spectrum of members and markets supports greater API innovation, development and standardisation, and market readiness across the region.

New markets, new APIs, new possibilities

BAEx is now expanding its presence to India and the Philippines, in addition to Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan and Thailand which Bridge Alliance lighted up in November 2025. API availability in these two new markets will enable proofs of concept and the development of new digital services in the coming months. Singapore and Vietnam will follow in the first quarter of 2027, extending BAEx coverage across most of Southeast Asia.

Meanwhile, Bridge Alliance’s collaboration with Aduna Global is also accelerating  global access to APIs. The combined coverage of BAEx and Aduna enables both organisations’ partners across North America, Europe and Asia to consume network APIs with ease.  Bridge Alliance and Aduna are jointly organising the inaugural Global API Forum in Singapore on 3 November 2026. The event brings together over 300 operators, developers, solution providers, and enterprise customers to discuss the challenges, opportunities, and real-world applications of API adoption.

BAEx already offers silent network authentication APIs such as Number Verify and SIM Swap, which enable secure and seamless verification. By 4Q2026, BAEx will add Know-Your-Customer (KYC) APIs to its portfolio, including KYC Match, KYC Age, KYC Tenure and Number Recycling, which verify user details against operator records. These APIs will add trust and security to digital transactions, helping enterprises prevent mule accounts and seamlessly verify delivery and marketing data.

Enterprises interested to learn more about BAEx can contact Bridge Alliance here: https://www.bridgealliance.com/how_we_help/baex-enterprises/

About Bridge Alliance

Bridge Alliance is the global collective of premier mobile operators, representing nearly 2 billion customers across the world’s most dynamic markets. Founded in 2004, we drive deep strategic collaboration between leading operators and technology partners to unlock enterprise growth. By leveraging group economies and shared innovation, we empower our ecosystem to lead, scale, and thrive in the digital and AI era. 

Visit www.bridgealliance.com for more information. 

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/bridge-alliance-api-exchange-baex-accelerates-regional-network-api-adoption-with-early-enterprise-customers-and-market-expansion-302927357.html

SOURCE Bridge Alliance

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XTransfer and Bank of China (Hong Kong) Announce Partnership at Hong Kong FinTech Week

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Empowering Global Collections and Payments for Foreign Trade Enterprises

HONG KONG, Nov. 3, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — XTransfer, the world’s leading B2B cross-border trade payment platform, and Bank of China (Hong Kong) (“BOCHK”) are pleased to announce the signing of a cooperation agreement. The two parties will work together to expand their international business, providing one-stop cross-border financial services, including global collections, payments, and foreign exchange, for enterprises engaged in international trade in Hong Kong and around the world.

Coinciding with Hong Kong FinTech Week 2026, Mr Martin Liu, Vice President of XTransfer and Ms Winnie Fan, Deputy General Manager of the Global Corporate Banking Department of BOCHK, officially signed the cooperation agreement at the XTransfer booth, witnessed by Mr Bill Deng, Founder and CEO of XTransfer and Mr Liu Chao, General Manager of the Global Corporate Banking Department of BOCHK, marking a new stage in the partnership between the two parties.

Under this cooperation, XTransfer and BOCHK will collaborate in depth across business areas including global collections, payments, and foreign exchange. Leveraging BOCHK’s professional capabilities in cross-border settlement and foreign exchange trading, as well as its unique position as the RMB clearing bank in Hong Kong, combined with XTransfer’s self-built globally unified B2B cross-border settlement network and risk management system, the two parties will jointly create an efficient, lower-cost, and compliant fund collection, payment, and currency exchange experience for foreign trade enterprises. Under this cooperation model, XTransfer is the first corporate partner of BOCHK.

As the cooperation progresses, foreign trade enterprises in Hong Kong and around the world will be able to access global cross-border collection, payment, and foreign exchange services more conveniently, meeting their multi-currency transaction and settlement needs across different markets. Both parties expect that by reducing the handover points in cross-border transaction processes, they can enhance the service experience and capital turnover efficiency, helping enterprises seize global trade opportunities more flexibly.

This cooperation also reflects XTransfer’s continuously deepening Financial Institution Partnership Model. Financial institution partners can act as “Co-builders”, providing cross-border collection, payment, and foreign exchange capabilities; at the same time, through XTransfer’s network covering over one million business customers, they can reach more enterprise customer segments with cross-border financial service needs, achieving complementary capabilities and shared strengths.

Mr Bill Deng, Founder and CEO of XTransfer, said, “We are very honored to sign the cooperation agreement with BOCHK during Hong Kong FinTech Week. BOCHK is one of Hong Kong’s most representative banks, with deep expertise in cross-border settlement and foreign exchange services. This cooperation combines the strengths of both parties, enabling SMEs to enjoy cross-border financial services of the same standard as large multinational corporations. Going forward, we will continue to refine our compliance and risk control capabilities and work with more financial institution partners to build trustworthy cross-border financial infrastructure.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/xtransfer-and-bank-of-china-hong-kong-announce-partnership-at-hong-kong-fintech-week-302927362.html

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PATEO Advances In-Vehicle AI with NVIDIA Nemotron and ByteDance Doubao on its AI Box built on NVIDIA DRIVE AGX Thor

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SHANGHAI, Nov. 3, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — PATEO is advancing in-vehicle AI by deploying NVIDIA Nemotron and the 35-billion-parameter ByteDance Doubao language model in its AI Box, built on NVIDIA DRIVE AGX Thor. The solution combines local AI inference with PATEO’s AI Agent platform to support multilingual interaction, understand cabin context and coordinate vehicle functions.

At Auto China 2026 in Beijing, PATEO announced joint development of the solution with ByteDance and a leading new energy vehicle automaker. PATEO has also secured a project nomination for a new-generation vehicle from a leading new energy vehicle automaker, with mass production for that program expected in the second quarter of 2027.

In-vehicle local inference with Nemotron and Doubao

PATEO has integrated NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 ASR for speech recognition into its in-vehicle model suite. In collaboration with ByteDance, PATEO has also integrated Doubao, a 35-billion-parameter mixture-of-experts language model. The suite includes text-to-speech synthesis and a 2-billion-parameter language model for semantic classification and request rejection.

The integrated suite can run inference locally without a cloud connection, supporting multilingual voice interaction and real-time streaming speech recognition. This enables core AI functions to remain available when connectivity is limited, while connected services and cloud updates extend the system’s capabilities.

The PATEO AI Agent platform combines voice, visual and sensor inputs to interpret user requests and cabin conditions. Within vehicle safety permissions, it can invoke cabin controls and online services, coordinate concurrent tasks and manage longer-running requests. With user authorization, it can remember preferences and habits to personalize future interactions.

AI Box Brings Proactive Intelligence to the Cockpit

PATEO’s AI Box supports practical scenarios throughout the driving experience. Sentinel AI can identify and issue alerts for risks such as parking violations, flooding and fire. On hot commutes, occupants can independently adjust driver and passenger climate settings through voice commands or gestures. During extended highway driving, the AI agent can detect driver fatigue and ask whether the driver would like to open a window or activate seat massage. In areas with poor air quality, it can suggest closing windows and switching to recirculation based on location and learned driving habits.

Built on NVIDIA DRIVE AGX Thor, the AI Box connects perception, reasoning, execution and learning. Sustaining these experiences requires memory bandwidth alongside peak compute measured in TOPS. As context accumulates across conversation turns and agent actions during a trip, the model’s key-value (KV) cache grows, increasing demands on memory capacity and bandwidth. Thor’s accelerated compute and high memory bandwidth help support responsive local inference. Within automotive safety permissions, the AI Box coordinates cockpit controls, connected services and concurrent or longer-running tasks. With user authorization, it remembers preferences and habits, while cloud updates help refine its capabilities.

The AI Box’s modular software architecture and integration with in-vehicle systems and NVIDIA’s edge and cloud AI ecosystem support model deployment, tuning and customization across vehicle programs. By adding dedicated AI computing capacity without replacing the original main control chip, it also offers an upgrade path for existing vehicles whose processors cannot support larger models, concurrent multimodal interactions and proactive agents through software updates alone.

Expanding Beyond Hardware with Tokenomics and Physical AI

PATEO is building on the AI Box to expand from one-time hardware delivery into ongoing AI services and operations. Its in-vehicle Tokenomics strategy aims to create recurring revenue around the deployment and use of AI capabilities, extending the business opportunity beyond the initial hardware sale.

In June 2026, PATEO formed partnerships with Mininglamp Technology, Xunce Technology and Saimo Technology to jointly develop a token-based physical AI world model and TokenOS. The collaboration brings together on-device hardware, simulation testing, data infrastructure, creating a foundation for delivering and operating AI services.

Built on NVIDIA DRIVE AGX Thor, the AI Box provides a reusable platform that PATEO can adapt to different automakers and vehicle programs. The company is also extending its expertise in intelligent interaction and hardware engineering into robotics. PATEO reports a project nomination from a leading domestic robotics computing provider, opening an opportunity to apply its platform capabilities to physical AI applications beyond vehicles.

As on-device models and AI agents move toward broader automotive deployment, PATEO is combining NVIDIA accelerated computing with its cockpit software and hardware expertise to support that transition. Its focus on reusable technology, deployment across vehicle programs and ongoing AI services supports its evolution from a smart cockpit supplier into an AI platform company, with opportunities for growth across automotive and broader physical AI markets.

 

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/pateo-advances-in-vehicle-ai-with-nvidia-nemotron-and-bytedance-doubao-on-its-ai-box-built-on-nvidia-drive-agx-thor-302927306.html

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