Platform Black, a provider of alternative finance to UK businesses, has expanded its team in strategic regional locations to better help SMEs access working capital quickly. Gareth Jones, Business Development Manager, is based in Basingstoke and supports companies across South-West England and Wales. Dave Saddington, Regional Sales Director, is based in Manchester and covers The Midlands and Northern England. 

Nasdaq (Nasdaq:NDAQ), the world's leading provider of market technology, was recently selected as 'Best Market Surveillance Provider' by Waters Technology's 2015 Waters Rankings for the third year in a row. Nasdaq received the award for its SMARTS Trade Surveillance technology, which is currently used by over 100 market participants across 65 global markets and across all asset classes.

With 1000 participants GTDW is an exclusive senior event for invited trade leaders, country & business delegations with a common theme of driving innovation, communication and capabilities to deliver global trade and economic development. 

Varonis Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: VRNS), the leading provider of software solutions for unstructured, human-generated enterprise data, today announced that it has been added to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s and General Services Administration (GSA) Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) and Continuous Monitoring as a Service (CMaaS) Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA).

Radical cost-cutting, branch-closing and job-axing are no longer enough. In the era of digitalization, low interest margins, strict regulations and brave new-entrant banks will need to find a new approach to regain profitability.

Most banks fail to earn their cost of capital. In Germany, for example, only 6% of banks earn their equity costs. Additionally, it is estimated that 40% of the costs incurred in banks are due to wasteful activities that add no value to the end consumer.

Lean and Six Sigma

Two-thirds of top-tier financial institutions have established reconciliation centers of excellence (CoE) following a recent wave of consolidation of the reconciliation function within these institutions, according to a study released today by SunGard and Aite Group.

In his first paper of this series, Shifting Sands - the harsh realities of executing in today's markets, the issues around constructing a reliable, globally-consistent market access infrastructure were examined, along with how the more enlightened brokers were starting to rethink their approach to electronic execution. This new paper focuses on a fundamental part of this, the smart order router (SOR), and the challenges facing firms as they struggle to stay on top of the ever-changing market landscape.

 Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. (NYSE:BR) today announced that BosValen Asset Management and Pleiad Investment Advisors have adopted Broadridge's all-inclusive trading, portfolio management and operating platform.

The digital start-up culture of the United States has long been lauded as the benchmark for the European Union (EU) to aspire towards creating. However the cultural and financial differences between the EU and US are vast, contributing to the perceived dominance of the US start-up scene. For instance the EU has not yet been able to create a single Internet company, which is worth above the $10bn mark.

SWIFT announces today that Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development has joined the Know Your Customer (KYC) Registry, a centralised repository that maintains a standardised set of information about correspondent banks required for KYC compliance.