The European Commission’s long-awaited official proposal for a one year extension to the MiFID II deadline is finally published today. In short, application dates will be pushed back by one year, with the official go-live date now set for Wednesday 3rd January 2018.

Markit, a leading global provider of financial information services, today announced it has acquired systems integration software developed by J.P. Morgan. Markit will make the software available to sellside and buyside institutions seeking to integrate with major systems used in the syndicated loan market, including agent servicing platforms and Markit’s trade settlement services.

Facilitating systems integration is an important step toward straight through processing of loan transactions and is expected to help the industry become more efficient in settling trades.

Apriva, the leading provider of secure end-to-end wireless transaction processing solutions, today announced it has completed EMV certification with Global Payments for Ingenico’s Telium2 terminals connecting through the Apriva Gateway. This full-featured certification includes the wireless iWL220 and iWL250, as well as the iCT220 and iCT250 countertop models. The certification spans all major card brands, including Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover and U.S. Debit cards, and includes contactless transactions from Visa, MasterCard and American Express.

Vera and Richard Fleischman and Associates announced a partnership that will boost Vera’s advanced data security technology available to hedge funds, private equity firms, and asset managers in the United States, the United Kingdom, and beyond.

 Xignite, the leading provider of market data cloud solutions for financial services, today introduced Xignite CloudAlerts—a next-generation market data API that lets fintech developers alert  investors and users by automatically notifying them of real-time market events and conditions, such as price movements or volume breakouts.

Today Numerix is proud to announce that Dr. Alexandre Antonov, Senior Vice President of Quantitative Research and 18 year veteran of Numerix has been named Quant of the Year in the 2016 Risk Awards. The Risk Awards are the longest running awards of their kind and are widely recognized as the most prestigious.

The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today is announcing new members from across the industry, a formal open governance structure and technical updates to the new Hyperledger Project.

 freemarketFX, the London based currency exchange announces the appointment of Rich Ricci as Chairman.

“Rrrrrrr”. No, I am not cold or angry. I’m teaching Siri to pronounce my name: Jeroen Aumand. After a few attempts, I settle for second best – an anglicised [Jeron] instead of [Yuron]. Then the app asks for help with my last name and I feel a sense of doom creeping upon me. We are told constantly that speech technology will revolutionise financial services, but beyond turning the lights on in the office, how can we use it in finance?

With the banks’ reporting season underway, the banking sector is under pressure to cut costs and become more agile than ever before. Fierce competition from disruptive, innovative players, an ever-complex landscape of regulations, and more demands from digitally-savvy consumers are all putting pressure on traditional banks to transform their businesses.