Citi announced today the launch of the Citi Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Fintech Challenge. The Citi MENA Fintech Challenge offers the region’s Fintech community the opportunity to put their ideas into practice and come up with innovative solutions around four identified problem statements:

·         Digitizing Cash Collections

·         Assured Payments

·         B2B2C Enablement

·         Digitizing Trade Processes

Avast, the world leader in digital security products, has today launched a new Patch Management service to help small and mid-sized businesses manage necessary security updates more easily and efficiently. Around 50% of software vulnerabilities exploited occur within 2-4 weeks of a software update being released, however, the time-intensive evaluation and required testing of patches means businesses on average take 120 days to implement the updates, exposing them to severe risk.

Klarna — Europe’s leading payments provider and the company powering Pay later for thousands of brands in the UK — has today announced the expansion of its UK operations with a new office in Manchester. The expansion will complement Klarna’s current London base in the heart of the retail and fashion district at Oxford Street.

Crypterium, a fintech company that is focused on making cryptocurrency as flexible as cash, has launched the Crypterium Card. Operating in the same way as a traditional prepaid card, the Crypterium Card is loaded with cryptocurrencies and can be used with retailers both online and in the real world.

Path Solutions, a global provider of Sharia-compliant banking software solutions and services, has won four categories in the 2019 ACQ5 Global Awards. Building on last year’s three-win, the company topped the Core Banking, Digital Banking, Sharia-compliant Microfinance, and GameChanger of the Year - Islamic Finance categories in this year’s rankings.

Icertis, the leading provider of enterprise contract management in the cloud, today announced a collaboration with Microsoft to expand the Icertis Blockchain Framework to create a more sustainable, ethical and open world.  By enhancing the connection between blockchain/distributed ledger technology and contract management, Icertis and Microsoft will deliver greater transparen

New research released today by financial services technology leader FIS™ (NYSE: FIS) reveals that the greatest barrier to UK financial institutions developing digital products, services and operations is regulatory compliance risk.

The findings are from FIS’ global Readiness Report, which shows that, by comparison, the biggest barrier to digital innovation for US firms is complex legacy IT systems, and overall cyber security risk was most prevalent.

Leading digital money transfer company WorldRemit (www.WorldRemit.com) has launched WorldRemit for Business (https://bit.ly/2wNtMPh), a new service that enables small and medium-sized business owners to quickly pay their employees and contractors in 140 countries worldwide, including fast-growing emerging markets such as Kenya, Ghana, and South Africa.