Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. (ISS), a leading provider of corporate governance and proxy voting solutions to the global financial community, today announced the appointment of Georgina Marshall as Head of Global Research effective September 1.

Options, the leading managed service and IT infrastructure provider to the global capital markets industry, has today announced it has opened a new central London office. The move sees the firm consolidate its two existing London offices into one larger premises in the Victoria area of central London. The 5,000 square feet office, situated in Portland House, Victoria, will accommodate growing staff numbers within the firm and have capacity for over 100 employees.

Milestone Group, the global provider of optimised fund processing solutions, has announced the establishment of ‘pControl Africa’. Operating from a new office in Cape Town, pControl Africa is a joint venture between Milestone Group and domestic provider Global ASP, a leader in the provision of hosted member administration and asset management solution platforms, as well as technology, consulting, disaster recovery and business continuity services.

Custom House Fund Services, a leading provider of financial services to the alternative investment sector, is delighted to announce that they have acquired the majority of the U.S. clients of the former Dundee Leeds Management Services.  The transition became effective June 1 and represents $1bn in assets.

Custom House is one of the world’s largest and most respected independent fund services providers with AUA in excess of $20bn, eight offices worldwide and over 220 employees.

Platform Black, a provider of alternative finance to UK businesses, has expanded its team in strategic regional locations to better help SMEs access working capital quickly. Gareth Jones, Business Development Manager, is based in Basingstoke and supports companies across South-West England and Wales. Dave Saddington, Regional Sales Director, is based in Manchester and covers The Midlands and Northern England. 

Nasdaq (Nasdaq:NDAQ), the world's leading provider of market technology, was recently selected as 'Best Market Surveillance Provider' by Waters Technology's 2015 Waters Rankings for the third year in a row. Nasdaq received the award for its SMARTS Trade Surveillance technology, which is currently used by over 100 market participants across 65 global markets and across all asset classes.

With 1000 participants GTDW is an exclusive senior event for invited trade leaders, country & business delegations with a common theme of driving innovation, communication and capabilities to deliver global trade and economic development. 

Varonis Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: VRNS), the leading provider of software solutions for unstructured, human-generated enterprise data, today announced that it has been added to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s and General Services Administration (GSA) Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) and Continuous Monitoring as a Service (CMaaS) Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA).

Radical cost-cutting, branch-closing and job-axing are no longer enough. In the era of digitalization, low interest margins, strict regulations and brave new-entrant banks will need to find a new approach to regain profitability.

Most banks fail to earn their cost of capital. In Germany, for example, only 6% of banks earn their equity costs. Additionally, it is estimated that 40% of the costs incurred in banks are due to wasteful activities that add no value to the end consumer.

Lean and Six Sigma

Two-thirds of top-tier financial institutions have established reconciliation centers of excellence (CoE) following a recent wave of consolidation of the reconciliation function within these institutions, according to a study released today by SunGard and Aite Group.