• Developing issues like bitcoin, the gig economy, and how people pay HMRC are will have an impact on this self-assessment this year
• Emily Coltman FCA and Chief Accountant to FreeAgent outlines her five top tips for late filers

Volante Technologies Inc., a global provider of software for the integration, processing and orchestration of payments and financial messages, announced today that it has been collaborating with BNY Mellon on creating and deploying technology to enable real-time payments in the US and internationally.

West Corporation ("West") and Nasdaq, Inc. jointly announced today that West has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the public relations (Public Relations Solutions) and webcasting and webhosting (Digital Media Services) products and services within Nasdaq's Corporate Solutions business for approximately $335 million, subject to adjustments. Public Relations Solutions and Digital Media Services consist of a comprehensive portfolio of communication tools, media intelligence and multimedia services for organizations across all industries.

With Open Banking set to shake-up retail banking in early 2018, challenger banks are being advised to take advantage of Open Banking.

Aptean, a leading global provider of mission-critical, industry-specific software solutions and support, has introduced a new, modern identity to reflect the company's transformation and expansion since its formation five years ago.

Arcserve will be announcing a new cloud-based disaster recovery service that, for the first time, makes enterprise-grade data recovery times and data recovery points affordable for SMEs, midsizes and the public sector, offering an excellent business opportunity for its channel partners, whose customers may lack WAN/bandwidth, have large data sets, and those with limited resources that need secure offsite backup and disaster recovery without additional infrastructure to support growth.

SpherePay, Singapore's homegrown mobile payment app, announced today that it has completed its fundraising exercise which saw the company raising over USD 10 million. It has not disclosed the name of investors due to on-going developments.

With this latest round of funding and the affirmation of its strategic partnership with oBike since last December, SpherePay is well-placed to be the top three payment platforms in Southeast Asia. It currently serves over five million users and has more than 10,000 merchants in the region.