Phil Siarri speaks to Sam Kawtharani, co-founder and CEO of Corl, a Montreal-based startup combining crowdfunding and blockchain.

Hi Sam, nice to connect with you. Can you tell us a little about your professional background?

Path Solutions, the global provider of software solutions and services for Islamic banks and financial institutions, announces thatAlrajih Islamic Bank for Investment and Financing (“Alrajih Islamic Bank”) has selected the multi-award winning Islamic core banking system iMAL ahead of ICS Financial Systems’ ICS BANKS ISLAMIC, to engage in banking activities in accordance with the provisions of Islamic law.

The FIDO Alliance is an industry consortium launched in February 2013 to address the lack of interoperability among strong authentication devices. Its founding members include PayPal and Lenovo. The FIDO ecosystem enables better security for online services, reduced cost for the deploying enterprise, and a simpler and safer consumer experience. The open-source authentication protocol allows logins to take place with non-password authenticators, protecting against phishing and attacks using stolen passwords.

 AxiomSL, the leading global provider of regulatory reporting, risk and data management solutions, today announced the appointment of Harry Chopra as Chief Client Officer, effective immediately. In this role, Mr. Chopra will oversee AxiomSL’s global business development efforts, implement go-to-market strategies and build worldwide client-driven growth.

As expected, most institutions were only partially prepared for MiFID II. Therefore financial regulators have granted last minute exceptions to ease the pain and ensure orderly function of the markets. Futures exchanges in the UK and Germany were granted a 30 month extension by the FCA and BaFin respectively, for example.

A lot of work still needs to be done.  Even after the bulk of the compliance work is finished, firms need to adapt to the new reality. Those that are fully prepared have come out ahead and are already picking up trading volumes from competitors.

Gemalto (Euronext NL0000400653 GTO), the world leader in digital security, has been selected by Bank of Cyprus to supply the world's first EMV biometric dual interface payment card for both chip and contactless payments.

Major conference on AI and Sentiment Analysis in Finance, Hong Kong, 7-8 March 2018

Artificial Intelligence is seen by many as the main driver of the 4th Industrial Revolution. Investment in AI has grown at a phenomenal rate with companies investing $26-39bn in 2016, and, according to IDC, the AI market will grow to more than $47 billion in 2020.  The Finance industry has been leading the way in adoption of AI with a significant projected increase in spending over the next three years.

Linedata (Euronext Paris: LIN), the global solutions and outsourcing services provider to the investment management and credit finance industries, today announced a partnership with London Stock Exchange Group’s UnaVista for transaction reporting requirements, as part of its ongoing drive to provide clients with market leading solutions compliant with the European Union’s Markets in Financial Directive II (MiFID II).

Blockchain and fintech start-up AiX today announced that the highly-regarded global markets and derivatives specialist Steve Compton has joined the company as an advisor. Prior to bringing his 26 years of experience to AiX, Compton worked as a managing director in the Global Markets Division at Citigroup. Most recently at Citi, Steve had global responsibility for G10 Markets Treasury, the Fixed Income Finance business and Collateral Optimisation.

Global network provider BSO has teamed up with software vendor emagine to distribute synchronised time in order for market participants to accurately timestamp their trades to comply with MiFID II.