“Rrrrrrr”. No, I am not cold or angry. I’m teaching Siri to pronounce my name: Jeroen Aumand. After a few attempts, I settle for second best – an anglicised [Jeron] instead of [Yuron]. Then the app asks for help with my last name and I feel a sense of doom creeping upon me. We are told constantly that speech technology will revolutionise financial services, but beyond turning the lights on in the office, how can we use it in finance?

With the banks’ reporting season underway, the banking sector is under pressure to cut costs and become more agile than ever before. Fierce competition from disruptive, innovative players, an ever-complex landscape of regulations, and more demands from digitally-savvy consumers are all putting pressure on traditional banks to transform their businesses.

OpenLink, the global leader in trading and risk management solutions to the energy, commodities, corporate and financial services industries, announced today that Romande Energie has chosen its energy trading risk management, optimization, and regulatory reporting solution.

 Islamic banking leaders and dignitaries from across Africa and the Middle East gathered today at the 2nd annual International Forum on Islamic Finance (IFIF 2016).

 ​Xero, (@Xero) today unveiled strategic partnerships and integrations with Barclays and Microsoft in front of 1,300 accountants and partners at Xerocon*,  UK's largest fintech conference, giving small businesses and their accountants easier access to the services and funds they need to manage and grow their business.

 Fiserv, Inc., announces that Tandem Bank has selected Agiliti™ from Fiserv as its technology platform. Tandem Bank selected Agiliti to bring a new banking experience to market due to the solution’s comprehensive service set, ease of implementation and the proven experience of Fiserv. Agiliti is a hosted, software-as-a-service (SaaS) retail bank technology solution, modular in its approach, offering a comprehensive software and infrastructure.

Discover the key challenges, opportunities and industry trends related to equity trading and technology in Europe…

Regulatory change is shaking up the European equity market. Participants are on the lookout for how to best ensure limited impact on their business. Concerns around research payments, best execution, and sourcing liquidity, amongst others, are bringing to light issues around broker relationships and what truly adds value to current partnerships.

SimCorp, a leading provider of investment management solutions and services for the global financial services industry, announces that Vescore AG, a Swiss asset manager with USD 14bn in assets under management, has successfully completed the implementation of SimCorp Dimension.

The predecessor company of today's Vescore AG made the decision to enhance its institutional client business in the summer of 2014 and selected SimCorp Dimension to support this strategy. The company has gone live with the new system on time and on budget.

Aegon has partnered with Intelliflo to deliver seamless two-way integration between Intelliflo’s award winning business management system, Intelligent Office, and Aegon’s One Retirement and Aegon Retirement Choices platforms.

Available from February 2016 the integration will speed up processes and deliver transaction efficiencies for advisers. Using a single sign on advisers selecting Aegon will seamlessly access:

• account creation (as part of a quote or apply journey)

Today’s banker-bashing culture may be in transition, depending on whether the reforms put in place by government, regulators and the Bank of England will be able to change the public’s opinion of banks. Whatever the impact of these new rules, their main purpose is to prevent another cataclysm, not to repair the relationship between banks and their customers.