The definition of algorithmic trading under MiFID II is extremely broad, essentially capturing any functionality that determines any parameter of an order automatically. That begs the question, what order flow qualifies as not algorithmic? Hand on heart, how many traders can claim to exclusively use native exchange order types and not rely on at least one of the friendly little helpers in the form of a stop order, an iceberg, delayed start or order expiry? Probably very few, possibly none, right?

Today, The Clearing House (TCH) announced it has entered into a letter of intent with VocaLink, the UK-based international payment systems provider, to help build and deliver core elements of TCH’s new real-time payment system for the United States.

“Building a real-time payment system is centered around meeting customer needs,” said Jim Aramanda, CEO of The Clearing House. “I am confident that working together with VocaLink we can build the most innovative and widely used real-time payment system in the world.”

SIBOS 2015 clearly showed how banking is at an inflection point. Like every year, there is a general feeling that SIBOS 2015 helped raise the banks’ awareness of the values at stake and the challenges ahead. But this year more than ever, the SWIFT flagship conference also helped banks leap forward into next-generation banking by pushing for new and sustainable design solutions.

 Oracle awarded Temenos with its 2015 Oracle Excellence Award for Exastack ISV Partner of the Year – EMEA. Temenos is a Gold level member of Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN).

 Fiserv, Inc. (NASDAQ: FISV), a leading global provider of financial services technology solutions, announced today that Agiliti from Fiserv continues to gain momentum. With its first client, Think Money Limited, set to go live in early 2016, Agiliti is changing the way banks deliver financial services. The hosted, software-as-a-service (SaaS) retail bank technology solution, modular in its approach, offers a comprehensive software and infrastructure built specifically for the U.K. banking market.

 NetFortris, Inc., a leader in secure cloud-based unified communications (UC) and networking solutions, has been awarded the 2015 Communications Solutions Product of the Year Award for the NetFortris UC-Ready Cloud Com

Cambridge Global Payments ("Cambridge") is pleased to announce the launch of Cambridge Link, an intuitive trading and payments platform, to be shown at Money 20/20, the largest global event focused on payments and financial services innovation, on October 25-28, 2015 at The Venetian in Las Vegas. Designed with an intuitive user interface, Cambridge Link simplifies the complex rules of booking foreign exchange deals and initiating international payments, making global payment processes more efficient and cost-effective.

 Virtusa Corporation (

Mi9 Retail, a leader in enterprise retail merchandising, business intelligence and store operations software, today announced that it is further enhancing its solutions by offering its Mi9 Merchant and Mi9 BI products via a fast, reliable and secure Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform.  The new SaaS option will enable customers to reduce the implementation time and total cost of ownership typically associated with on-premises solutions.

While Bitcoin technology has been hitting the headlines over the last few years, Blockchain is the essence that underpins it. But what is Blockchain? It’s essentially a ledger which logs transactions between two parties. Yet while most ledgers are kept in banks or accounting departments, Blockchain is a distributed ledger in which copies are kept at several computers or nodes (under different owners). Each block represents a financial transaction and comprises a set of transactions, which have been captured as a sequence based on time.