Bitcoin, the world’s best known and arguably most successful crypto, will undergo a halving on the 12th May.

According to Simon Peters, analyst at investment platform eToro, the halving could not only see the price of bitcoin rise, as it has done following previous halvings, but it could also result in a whole new brand of crypto investors.

The halving, which will be the third time it has happened on bitcoin, will see the block halve from 12.5 to 6.25, and many analysts believe that a long bull run will follow.

Banks in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) are the strongest believers in a cashless society, according to a global retail banking survey released by Temenos (SIX: TEMN), the banking software company. The in-depth survey conducted in 2019 by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) on behalf of Temenos reveals that 6 in 10 Middle East and African banking executives think cash will dip below 5% of retail transactions in the next five years, compared to a global average of 48% who think the same.

Early adopters of back office efficiency gain an edge, but the industry needs wholesale change through standardisation.

Genome is an Electronic Money Institution, licensed by the National Bank of Lithuania, founded in 2018. Specializes in online financial services for personal and business needs: the opening of business, settlement and merchant accounts with dedicated IBAN’s, providing SEPA and SWIFT transfers with a possibility to do currency exchange and also payment processing via credit cards and all other alternative payment methods.  The fintech company has announced a support act during the pandemic and canceled service fees for low-risk businesses.

Remote tellers broaden customer banking options

RBR’s Teller Automation and Branch Transformation 2019 report reveals that video banking technology is increasingly being adopted to extend banking services both within and beyond the branch. The study, which covers 23 key global markets, shows that the uptake of video teller machines is rising, as institutions seek to boost customer access and cut costs.

N26 has today announced an extension of its Series D funding round to $570M, with a further increase of more than $100M coming from all of the company’s major investors. To date, N26 has raised close to $800M, keeping its valuation at $3.5B. N26 is today one of the highest valued and most well-funded FinTech companies globally.

Form3, the leading cloud-native, payment technology provider, and Barclays, a leading provider of financial services to regulated payment institutions, have announced a combined directly connected access solution to the SEPA Instant payment scheme with Ebury as launch client.

PostFinance, one of the leading retail financial institutions in Switzerland, and additiv, a leading SaaS provider to the wealth management industry, today announce the successful implementation of a new, 100% digital investment platform for PostFinance customers.

FIS™ (NYSE: FIS), a global leader in financial services technology, today announced the addition of Google Pay to its Hosted Payment Page (HPP) product for online merchants. Because Worldpay from FIS has made the technical integration within their HPP offering, merchants can simply “turn on” Google Pay to enable express online checkouts.