Global Financial Technology Challenge showcases new FinTech solutions fueling innovation and inclusive finance 

Today Citi announced the top innovations from the Citi Mobile Challenge in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). This global initiative launched in EMEA in February and invited developers to build solutions based on Citi’s digital platform and present concepts at events in Jerusalem, London, Nairobi and Warsaw.

When coming to Boston, a lot of investors are intrigued by the depth of talent in the traditional mutual fund and increasingly the alternatives side as well. There have been transitions and migrations from Boston’s long-only establishments to the long/short side for many years. Especially since the financial crisis, clients have wanted more protection of capital or less volatility or less correlation with the markets overall, and this has certainly picked up more recently.

Evercore (NYSE: EVR) announced today that Lea Lazaric Calvert has agreed to join the Firm's Private Capital Advisory business (PCA) as a Managing Director.  Mrs. Lazaric Calvert will be based in London where she will focus on advising leading financial institutional investors and fund sponsors on secondary transactions.

 Appian, provider of the leading application platform for

 ACL, the company that is transforming audit and risk, today announced that it has completed the acquisition of Denver-based Artletic LLC, a digital design firm focused on creating exceptional user experiences through web and mobile applications.

ING Netherlands introduces a Mobile Banking app for the smartwatch (only in Dutch) today. It’s ING’s third innovation of the Mobile Banking app in less than a year: in September 2014 hands-free banking with voice recognition was launched and fingerprint authentication was introduced in March this year.

‘Wearables’ like the smartwatch are the latest trend and make it possible to check your account balance even faster by just looking on your smartwatch. The app for Android is available today. The app for iOS will be available in the summer.

Bravura Solutions Pty Limited (Bravura), a trusted supplier of wealth management, life insurance and transfer agency software applications, is pleased to announce the launch of a new deployment model for its Rufus transfer agency (TA) proposition. Ideally suited for boutique and mid-sized fund managers, the solution delivers a cost effective and highly scalable self-administration tool.

RosEvroBank, Russia partnering with BPC Processing (BPC Banking Technologies division) and “Intrade” company being strongly committed to bring convenient and user-friendly products and services. Collaboratively companies have developed and installed new ATM supporting visually impaired people. The first in line terminal is located at one of the All Russia Association of the Blind enterprise.

Diasoft, a global provider of cutting-edge software solutions for the financial industry, announced today that IDC has positioned Diasoft as a leader in its 2015 Worldwide Core Banking MarketScape.

For anyone starting or joining a startup you need to understand something important. Entrepreneurs, like all creative people, are pure petrol*.

Extracting, refining and transporting petrol is complex, costly, sensitive, time consuming to get right. Even once it’s ready to pump, petrol is delicate and dangerous. Throw it about, it’ll evaporate. Leave it in the canister too long, it’ll spoil. But light a match at the perfect moment, and BOOM you have a fireball.