Stratis, an enterprise blockchain technology company, announces the winners of its latest hackathon, the Stratis Smart Contracts Challenge. Attracting nearly 200 participants and 13 high-quality submissions, the online hackathon produced a range of smart contract applications spanning finance, law, identity, trade, supply chain, charity, healthcare and gaming.

US$10,000 First Place: Cirrus Swap

JCB International, Co., Ltd., the international operations subsidiary of JCB Co., Ltd., and Nordic-based payment service provider Nets Group, today announce the wider enablement of JCB payment acceptance by Nets merchants in Finland.

This latest strategic expansion initially enables over 18,000 businesses across Finland to accept JCB payments through the Nets Merchant Services platform. This will provide JCB’s growing Russian and Japanese cardmember base with the opportunity to shop with ease and peace of mind whilst they visit the country.

Finastra has been named best global trade finance software provider by Global Finance at the Trade Finance Awards 2020. The accolade was announced at an awards ceremony held at the BAFT Global Annual Meeting in Frankfurt last week. It recognizes Finastra for its innovative technology in the trade and supply chain finance space.

There are two different approaches to gain business success. One worked in the recent past and the other works in the digital present.

Marketing age

The appearance of open banking created an immediate concern within the banks as they would now have to share customer data, competition from challenger banks, etc. Even though it is a well-known statement these days that “innovation will come with or without the banks” most banks (if not all) are still thinking that innovation will not affect them, and open banking will just fade away. As I wrote earlier this year, open banking is not going anywhere any time soon.

Rabo Frontier Ventures (RFV), the strategic investment fund of Rabobank, has contributed to a £7.5 million funding round in online UK mortgage broker Trussle

JPMorgan has joined UK Aid in providing $15 million in support for Boston-based accelerator Catalyst Fund, which aims to back 30 fintech startups in Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, India, and Mexico over the next three years.

A cyberattack on a major US bank could have significant spillovers to other lenders, with serious implications for the whole financial system, according to research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

As one of the leading types of cyber-attacks, ransomware is expected to dominate cybercrime in 2020. According to PreciseSecurity.com research, weak passwords were one of the most common cybersecurity vulnerabilities in 2019, causing 30% of ransomware infections in 2019.

Weak Passwords Are the Third Most Common Ransomware Cause Globally

Appian (APPN) today announced a technology partnership and integration initiatives with Celonis, the market leader in AI-enhanced Process Mining and Process Excellence software, to unite Appian’s low-code application development platform with the powerful process mining technology of the Celonis Intelligent Business Cloud (IBC). The partnership will accelerate digital business process transformation and continuous process improvement for joint customers.