Solving the MiFID II challenge requires a significant amount of human resources and technology investment that, if solved on an individual basis could prove very costly with only limited, if any, competitive advantage.  Project Sentinel’s collaborative approach enables market participants to pool their resources by investing in a standards-based, strategic MiFID II compliant technology solution that will automate the regulatory business processes for the front office; delivering that functionality with maximum efficiency and minimum commercial risk.

Fifth Third Bank's customers will have access to fast, simple and secure digital payments across devices. Fifth Third Masterpass, developed with Mastercard, enables customers to shop online, in app and now, in-store with Android devices.

ACI Worldwide, a leading global provider of real-time electronic payment and banking solutions, today announced the results of its new Thai Commerce & Payment Study. The survey asked approximately 300 technologists about their shopping habits and payment preferences for in-store, online and mobile transactions in Thailand, where eCommerce sales are expected to be valued at 800 billion Baht in 2021.

Splice Machine, the open-source SQL RDBMS powered by Hadoop and Spark, today announced that it has entered a strategic partnership with Incedo, a technology solutions provider specializing in data and analytics, product engineering and emerging technologies. The partnership will generate solutions to help enterprises consolidate, store, and centrally manage all of their data, as well as accelerate data processing for faster data-driven decision making.

Intellect Design Arena Limited announced the launch of Intellect OneMARKETS, an end-to-end integrated 360-degree platform, encompassing the complete spectrum of Securities Trading and Asset Services. The advanced comprehensive platform will provide financial institutions with three key advantages that are the need of the hour: Speed, Single Integrated View and Straight-Through-Processing.

Red Hat, the world's leading provider of open source solutions, today announced the general availability of Red Hat JBoss Data Grid 7. The latest version of Red Hat's leading in-memory data management technology, which can be used as a distributed cache, NoSQL database, or event broker, introduces enhancements to help organizations generate insights for continuous business optimization through real-time data analytics, contributing to greater agility and competitiveness.

Software AG  announced the availability of next generation Digital Business Platform capabilities that enable financial institutions to 

Renowned investor Steve Cohen, his venture capital arm Point72 Ventures, and Quantopian announced today an agreement for Quantopian to manage up to $250 million of investment capital provided by Mr. Cohen.

I just spent a weekend in Thailand at the Techsauce Summit.  It was a great conference, and it reminded me of the time I’ve spent in Asia lately.  After the books Digital Bank and ValueWeb were translated into Korean, Chinese and soon to be Japanese, I guess the region is interested in my thinking.  Or maybe it’s more a reflection of the rise of FinTech Asia, the Silicon Dragon.

The Wirecard Group has entered into a partnership with Frankfurt-based FinTech company savedroid. The eponymous app is aimed at helping users save money as they go about their everyday activities. To make this possible, Wirecard is implementing a virtual MasterCard in the savedroid app as well as processing payments via an e-money account – thereby providing the necessary licence and technical platform. By launching the app, the two companies are bringing an innovative solution to the market, which demonstrates how the digitisation of banking can also provide value added for consumers.