Today, Mastercard welcomed five new startups to its Start Path Global program – the company’s global initiative to support innovative later-stage startups who are reshaping the future of commerce. The program is open to startups who are rethinking banking and payments and have raised a significant seed or Series A round of investment.

Wonga, the payday loan firm, has suffered a data breach which may have affected about 245,000 customers in the UK.

The range of information stolen may include names, e-mail addresses, home addresses, phone numbers, bank account numbers, sort codes and the last four digits of customers’ card numbers. 

The firm has apologised for inconvenience it caused to its customers and offered support through a devoted phone line.

Today BroadSoft, Inc., a world market leader in cloud business software for unified communication, collaboration and contact center reported that more than 100 channel partners, serving millions of business customers across the world, are in trials with BroadSoft Team-One. 

Fidessa group plc (LSE: FDSA) today announced that it has been named Best Front-Office Execution Platform in the 2017 Waters Sell-side Technology Awards, the third consecutive win for Fidessa in this category.

Recent years have seen the operating landscape change dramatically for market participants as a result of regulation, competitive pressures and increasing globalisation. In order to remain relevant in today's complex marketplace, brokers need to reflect these changes in the execution services they offer, whilst at the same time reducing costs and improving efficiency.

Previousely, Lloyds Banking Group introduced a new mentoring scheme that sees FinTech start-ups benefit from the broad expertise of its colleagues from across the Group.

Now paymentwall is connected to all banks in Sweden, including Nordea Bank, SEB, Handelsbanken, and Swedbank, allowing every person with a bank account in Sweden to pay using online bank transfer. 

Today, Visa Inc. has become the first card network that allow participating issuers to provide their U.S. commercial accountholders a comprehensive view of their Amazon Business purchases. The new enhanced transaction data functionality, initially available to Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citi and PNC Bank, N.A., U.S. commercial accountholders through Amazon Business, provides full line-item details on Amazon Business customers’ purchases made with their Visa commercial card and can seamlessly integrate with popular reconciliation tools.

Today Motion AI, the major chatbot building platform that services global consumer brands including Kia, Fiverr, Sony, Wix and many more, unveiled the first-ever chatbot store, Bot Store.  Bot Store is a marketplace built on top of Motion AI's leading visual bot-building platform that offers turn-key templates for many chatbot use cases including customer service, meeting scheduling and surveys.

The current debate between ESMA, the European Commission and market participants on the establishment of networks of systematic internalisers (SIs) is unsurprising given the amount of regulatory change and the potential for market innovation.

Today Avis Budget Group, Inc., a global leader in providing vehicle rental services, reported the completion of a transaction that will allow the Company to operate the Budget brand in Poland directly and to expand its presence in the Polish market. Prior to the transaction, the Budget brand had been operated in Poland by a third-party licensee since 1990.  Avis Budget Group had previously acquired its Avis licensee in Poland in November 2015.