By 2050, about 70 percent of the world’s population will live in cities. More than half do today.

Beyond the buildings and infrastructure, at the heart of any city is its people. They define the culture, the cuisine, the industry. And as cities get smarter, we must ensure that all citizens are included, especially those who could still fall through the cracks.

Consumers have a vast selection of credit card options today, all seemingly a boundless sea of sign-up bonuses and point accelerators. How do you stand out and become top-of-wallet?

Loyalty programs play an essential role in the cardholder value proposition. By providing loyal cardholders with points, offers, and other benefits, issuers and merchants gain higher spend, improved profitability, and stronger emotional connections with their customers.

IHS Markit, a world leader in critical information, analytics and solutions, today announced that Aster, an independent venture capital firm with €520 million raised, has selected the iLEVEL platform to collect, monitor, and report on portfolio data. 

Pendo Systems today announced a strategic technology alliance with Appian (NASDAQ: APPN) a global leader in intelligent automation. Through this partnership, Pendo Systems adds an unstructured data discovery tool within the Appian Platform that benefits both Pendo Systems and Appian’s customers.  Leveraging this tool within the low-code platform allows customers to consume all data, both structured and unstructured to help improve everything from the customer experience to global risk and compliance.

The Voltron initiative has launched the open platform for documentary trade, targeting production on R3’s Corda Enterprise blockchain platform in 2019. Founding members of Voltron include Bangkok Bank, BNP Paribas,  CTBC Holding, HSBC, ING, NatWest, SEB and Standard Chartered.Voltron’s initial aim is to use blockchain technology to bring significant efficiencies to transacting letters of credit.

SYDNEY: SIX – which owns and operates Switzerland’s CSD – has been recognised by the financial services industry as the best provider of international CSD services for the fourth consecutive year, in a recent industry benchmark survey. It is also the third year in a row that the organisation outperformed its competitors for CSD services in Switzerland.

Banking Transactions Shifted Channels, but Relationships Didn’t

Brand loyalty: a thing of the past

Banks need to continually innovate in order to stay relevant to their customers. Brand loyalty is becoming less common among customers across the globe, and the emergence of nimble and flexible challenger offerings are having an impact on the ability for traditional banks to stay relevant.

Saxo Bank, the online trading and multi-asset specialist, has today announced that it will begin to offer CFD Options on a range of option roots, covering puts and calls on 15 of the world’s largest stock indices.

CFD Options are OTC instruments based on Exchange Traded Index Options. They can help diversify a portfolio, as not only do they enable clients to take a position, they can be used for portfolio hedging purposes too.