Livingstone, the global M&A advisory firm, examines the trends and topics that will take front and centre next week at the much anticipated London Tech Week (June 10-14).

1. Connecting Global Markets –

One in 10 brits now live a largely cashless life, according to new UK Finance findings, amid a rise of contactless and mobile banking. Highlighting the UK is quickly progressing towards becoming a completely cashless society. While there’s no denying the UK is fast approaching a cashless society, there remain a number of barriers that threaten the UK’s ability to fully embrace this transition. From a lack of trust in mobile payment technology to a lack of accessibility for the poor or elderly.

In this blog we investigate the potential risks linked to democratizing asset based lending to a larger retail and SME audience. In principle, when customers lend against their (liquid) investment assets at the bank, the scoring of the credit can be done on an objective basis, based on the valuation of the assets blocked by the bank. Therefore a big advantage of liquid asset based lending (LABL) is that customers can use the money for whatever purpose.

 Finastra today announced it has won the 2019 Microsoft Alliance Global ISV Partner of the Year Award. The company was honored among a global field of top Microsoft partners for demonstrating excellence in innovation and implementation of customer solutions based on Microsoft technology.

We are entering a new era for blockchain. The initial hype and exaggerations are beginning to fade and, as they do, we are able to take a clearer, more sober-minded view. Where can blockchain really deliver on its revolutionary promise, and where is it a forced fit?

Identity Week comprises three world-class events –Digital:ID, Planet Biometrics & Security Document Week– all focused on the concept of identity verification Gradiant is showing at Digital:ID EXPO its trustworthy solutions for document fraud prevention and biometric customer identity verification.

SimCorp today announces the appointment of Christian Kromann as Chief Operating Officer (COO), a new position within SimCorp. Christian Kromann becomes member of SimCorp’s Executive Management Board, overseeing all sales and marketing activities globally. He joins SimCorp as of August 1.

Entrust Datacard, a leading provider of trusted identity and secure issuance technology solutions, completed its previously-announced acquisition of nCipher Security, formerly Thales's market-leading general purpose hardware security module (HSM) business.

Cybertonica and Credit Kudos announced at Money20/20 a new partnership using their combined platforms to automate credit scoring, harnessing Open Banking. Credit Kudos is an FCA-authorised challenger Credit Bureau and Account Information Service Provider (AISP) that uses financial behaviour to measure creditworthiness.

EMVCo has released EMV® Secure Remote Commerce (SRC) Specification v1.0, which is available for free public download from the EMVCo website. The specification provides a foundation that will enable the processing of e-commerce transactions in a consistent, streamlined fashion across a variety of digital channels and devices, including smartphones, tablets, PCs and other connected devices.