• 75 per cent of global CEOs confident about their digital strategy
• 86 per cent of CEOs challenged by their infrastructure
• Biggest barriers are inflexible technology, lack of technology skills and security concerns

DigitalTown, Inc., a leading provider of smart city portal solutions, announced today the launch of a Blockchain-based Distributed Ledger for managing shared ownership of each city in its global network of city portals. The unprecedented move heralds a new era for empowering public-private partnership in the development of thriving local economies.

While an increasing number of the unbanked across the globe are getting access to more formal financial tools, many are not using them very frequently and are instead continuing to rely on cash.

Investoo Group, one of the world’s biggest FX and financial affiliates, has acquired the leading social trading comparison site SocialTradingGuru.com for an undisclosed fee.

 IHS Markit (Nasdaq: INFO), a world leader in critical information, analytics and solutions, today announced that Robeco, a EUR 147 billion international asset manager, has signed for its Enterprise Data Management (EDM) Warehouse. By providing a central warehouse to store, access and report on portfolio information, the new solution is expected to improve business efficiency and data integrity at the firm.

FlexTrade Systems (@FlexTrade), a global leader in multi-asset execution and order management systems, today announced the appointment of Bruce Wolf as Head of FX Business Development.

Wipro Limited (NYSE:WIT, BSE: 507685, NSE: WIPRO), a leading global information technology, consulting and business process services company, today announced that it has joined Hyperledger to design and develop open source-based blockchain solutions for enterprise-grade blockchain deployments. Hyperledger is a global open source collaborative effort created to advance cross-industry blockchain technologies across sectors such as finance, banking, Internet of Things, supply chain, manufacturing and technology.

The Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) and Bank of England (BoE) have today announced that the Payment System Operator Delivery Group (PSODG) has completed the necessary steps to deliver against the mandate that the regulators tasked it with. 

Following the appointment of Melanie Johnson as its first chair, work will continue at pace to deliver the New Payment System Operator (NPSO) by the end of 2017. With the NPSO now taking the lead, the PSR and the BoE have confirmed the closure of the PSODG. 

The past decade has been a period of significant financial transition for the Latin America and Caribbean region (LAC). LAC has such variety across its markets – rural and urban, wealthy and poor, connected and remote – that the payments ecosystems differ drastically between countries. Born out of this diverse landscape and the need for financial inclusion, mobile is fast becoming a key method of transferring and spending money.