Fenergo, the leading provider of digital transformation, customer journey and investor lifecycle management solutions, has been selected by a top five global investment management firm with $2 trillion AUM.

Worldline [Euronext: WLN], the European leader in the payments and transactional services industry, today launches its China All-In-One solution from Ingenico, which unifies its suite of Chinese payment solutions, including AliPay, WeChat Pay, and UnionPay, into one package. Ingenico has been part of Worldline since October of 2020 and offers merchants smart, trusted and secure solutions to empower commerce.

Sapphire Systems, a leading provider of enterprise software applications and digital operating technology, announced the appointment of a new General Manager for the US market, Vince DeLuca. Sapphire Systems has always understood the potential for acceleration in North American companies, and Vince will establish and strengthen paths to enable customers to leverage market leading Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) and Digital Operating Platforms (DOP).

Quantile Technologies (Quantile), a leading provider of portfolio optimisation services for the global financial services market, today announced that it has received a $51 million (£38 million) minority investment from Spectrum Equity, a leading growth equity firm focused on Internet-enabled software and information services companies.

EedenBull (https://EedenBull.com) has announced a five year agreement with National Australia Bank (NAB), which allows the bank to deploy EedenBull’s innovative payment and spend management platform to the bank’s customer base of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs).

Digital wallet and payments platform Zumo welcomed more than 10,000 new UK users to its app in December following a drive to reach new users.  

Bank of Khyber (“BoK”) which is a leading bank in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, with 175 branches, successfully went live with Temenos Transact the next generation core banking, Temenos Infinity digital banking platform, Financial Crime Mitigation and Analytics. The implementation was carried out by Temenos’ Middle East implementation partner based in Pakistan, National Data Consultant (“NdcTech”). 

Plenitude, the niche consultancy firm specialising in Financial Crime Risk and Compliance, has appointed Shahmeem Purdasy as Senior Executive and General Counsel. In his new role, Shahmeem will provide strategic advice and transformation expertise to enable Plenitude’s clients to meet the challenges posed by the evolving Financial Crime Compliance (FCC) landscape, alongside supporting the execution of Plenitude’s growth plans. 

Italian bank BNL, part of the international group BNP Paribas, has launched a multi-banking service with leading open banking platform Tink. This forms part of a wider strategic European partnership between BNP Paribas and Tink, announced at the beginning of 2020.

The first few days of 2021 have confirmed what I’ve long suspected; consumers are demanding greater flexibility, accessibility and control over their finances than is offered by banks and the current global financial model. Since the turn of the year, Bitcoin has hit two record highs whilst gold has also enjoyed a boost, albeit one that is more restrained. I’m in no doubt this is driven in part by increased consumer appetite for alternatives to traditional currencies.