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LONDON, July 31 (Reuters) - A German data watchdog has been investigating OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's Worldcoin project since late last year due to concerns over its large-scale processing of sensitive biometric data, the regulator's president told Reuters.Worldcoin, which launched last week, requires users to give their iris scans in exchange for a digital ID and, in some countries, free cryptocurrency as part of plans to create a new "identity and financial network".The Bavarian State Office for Data Protection Supervision started investigating Worldcoin in November 2022 because of concerns that...

LONDON/SYDNEY, July 31 (Reuters) - Commercial real estate investors and lenders are slowly confronting an ugly question - if people never again shop in malls or work in offices the way they did before the pandemic, how safe are the fortunes they piled into bricks and mortar?Rising interest rates, stubborn inflation and squally economic conditions are familiar foes to seasoned commercial property buyers, who typically ride out storms waiting for rental demand to rally and the cost of borrowing to fall.Cyclical downturns rarely prompt fire sales, so long as lenders...

LONDON/FRANKFURT, July 28 (Reuters) - Three banks from the European Union failed to meet binding capital requirements in a stress test that saw a theoretical 496 billion euros ($546 billion) wiped from their buffers, the bloc's banking watchdog said on Friday.Bank stress tests became a feature in Europe and the United States after the 2008 global financial crisis when taxpayers had to bail out some undercapitalised lenders. They are now part of routine supervision to ensure banks can still support the economy even in times of stressed markets.The European Banking...