According to a new study, SMEs see digital opportunities as a major priority for investment in the year ahead, and are prepared to confront the challenges that have prevented them from reaping the benefits to date.

New data from the Close Brothers Business Barometer - a quarterly survey which gauges sentiment from business owners and managers from across the UK and Ireland - reveals that 20% of firms plan to prioritise investment in technology this year. For large numbers of these businesses, that will mean investing in new digital tools and technologies.

Horizon Software, the technology provider for electronic trading and investment management, has been shortlisted for two awards:   

Best Automated Trading Platform: Execution

Best Automated Trading Platform: Strategy Development

The Technical Analyst awards are a yearly celebration of excellence in technical analysis and trading software. The winners will be announced at the Awards Ceremony, which will be held at Le Meridien Piccadilly Hotel in London on 21st April.

Challenger banks are having a rare time exploring what it means to be serving customers in the 21st century. Unlike established retail banks who are having to work hard to rebuild reputations and services following the 2008 crash, new entrants are up to date, fleet of foot and digitally native. Most importantly, they’re emerging at a time when customers are crying out for the banking tide to turn.

Today at Money 20/20 in Copenhagen, Adyen, the payments technology company, launched RevenueAccelerate, a data-driven suite of automated tools that is designed to significantly increase credit card approval rates globally. This is another step forward for Adyen in outperforming legacy payments systems, and unlocking new growth opportunities for its merchants.

With many of the world's banks having reported results for the period ended Dec. 31, 2015, S&P Global Market Intelligence took a bird's-eye view of bank efficiency around the world by looking at cost-to-income ratios for institutions with at least US$10 billion in assets.

 BNP Paribas Securities Services, a leading global custodian, and SmartAngels, the leading direct investment platform, have taken a major step forward in crowdfunding history by signing a strategic partnership for the use of Blockchain technology. 

BNP Paribas Securities Services and SmartAngels will allow private companies to issue securities on the primary market and give investors access to the secondary market using Blockchain technology. The pilot scheme is due to be launched in the second half of 2016, subject to regulatory approvals. 

Recently, in New York City a group of internal communications professionals from some of the biggest finance firms in the world met to discuss the state of communications and enterprise social networks at their respective organizations. This followed close on the heels of a similar event in London.

There has been a lot of talk about how the LSE/DB1 merger might create a “too big to fail” clearing house. This seems to be missing the point somewhat as both LCH and Eurex Clearing are already too big to fail. Imagine the fallout if either of these were to go through some sort of disorderly meltdown – would the UK or German governments really just sit back and watch? The real point is that as a “buyer or seller of last resort” clearing houses are, by definition, too big or important to be allowed to fail.

The UK’s big banks have had a tough start to the year, with fears relating to global economic slowdown, the impact of the huge fines imposed by the FCA and the threat of more big regulatory changes all taking their toll.  Few if any of these factors, however, are affecting the performance of the UK’s so-called ‘challenger banks’.

The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Opportunity Network have reached an agreement aimed at helping financial institutions provide a wide array of growth opportunities to their customers.