The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has today outlined his vision for London to become the world's leading 'Smart City' – with digital technology and data at the heart of making the capital an even better place to live, work and invest. 

Speaking at the launch of London Tech Week, Sadiq said technology is essential to solving many of the biggest economic, social and environmental challenges we face. He called on the global tech community to help tackle issues such air pollution, housing and the future of transport.   

Blue Sky Network, an industry-leading global provider of cloud based tracking solutions, announced today the release of SkyRouter 3, version 2.6.0, which will become immediately available to all customers. This upgrade includes a targeted set of FAA aeronautical chart basemaps and real-time weather data now accessible on the SkyRouter 3 platform –widely regarded as the most intelligent fleet management tool in the industry.

Mambu, the core engine powering digital first banking and lending, today announced that they have once again been named to the FinTech50 and have won the Asian Banker Technology Innovation Award for Best Cloud Application 2017.

Today Emirates NBD, a leading bank in the region, reported that it is the first UAE-based financial institution to obtain a general clearing member approval from ‘SCA - Securities and Commodities Authority, UAE. As a General Clearing Member, Emirates NBD can now provide clearing and settlement services to trading participants of the UAE’s equity markets.

The OCC expects that as of the T+2 compliance date, in accordance with industry standards and applicable securities and self-regulatory organizations’ rules for securities clearance and settlement, banks will not effect or enter into a contract for the purchase or sale of an affected security that provides for payment of funds or delivery of securities later than the second business day after the date of the contract, unless otherwise expressly agreed to by the parties at the time of the transaction.

The South African bond market will soon receive a new clearing and settlement system that will replace the one that has served the market since 1991. 

Calastone, the global funds transaction network, today announced the successful completion of the first phase of its distributed market infrastructure proof-of-concept (PoC) to test the feasibility of using blockchain to develop a common global marketplace for the trading and settlement of mutual funds.

The tested distributed infrastructure model proved capable of processing transactions equivalent to a full day’s trading sourced from across Calastone’s global transaction network, which spans over 1,200 fund distribution and fund manager clients across 34 markets.

In line with its 2020 Strategy, the ICC Banking Commission has launched a “Digitalisation of Trade Finance Working Group”. 

3W Infra, one of the fastest growing IaaS hosting providers in Europe that managed to grow its server base by one third in just half a year to currently 4,000 dedicated servers under management, has announced the launch of its new Full Rack Colocation plan – a highly modular thus scalable colocation offering supporting dynamic hybrid cloud and fast-paced growth strategies.

I hope that whoever the new government turns out to be, it will not turn its back on the millions of people across the UK who run their own freelance or small businesses. This has been the most tumultuous election in recent memory, so is imperative that we get clarity over the identity of our new government and their plans for the future as soon as possible.