Econocom UK & IRL, a leading provider of digital transformation solutions, has appointed Keith Richardson as its new Director of Corporate Relationships. The appointment is part of the company’s ongoing commitment to the UK and follows an eight per cent year-on-year revenue growth for the Econocom Group.

PPRO Group, with its co-founders, is pleased to announce the set-up of the European Third-Party Provider Association (ETPPA), a new entity that strengthens Third Party Providers’ (TPP) interests around the second Payment Services Directive (PSD2). The ETPPA formalises the existing Future of European Fintech (FoEF) coalition into an official non-profit TPP trade association.

ieDigital was today shortlisted in two categories at the Credit Awards 2019. The categories are ‘Excellence in open banking’ and ‘Best rebrand’. The winners will be announced by host Jimmy Carr on 16 May at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel.

The Credit Awards, organised by Credit Strategy and sponsored by Experian, is the flagship event for the UK’s credit industry. The awards recognise and reward individuals, teams and organisations in UK risk, credit and collections, and ieDigital is shortlisted in two of its newest categories, described as:

Accuity, the leading provider of financial crime compliance, payments, and Know Your Customer (KYC) solutions, has announced its AI-driven account screening capability, ‘Firco Automated Alert Reduction’, which increases the level of accuracy in detecting and evaluating screening matches during the KYC process.

Rabo eBusiness - the world’s first bank-led Digital Identity Service Provider - a partnership between Rabobank, a financial institution, and Signicat, a leader in verified digital identity solutions has been recognised by Celent as the winner of the Model Bank award for Identity Management.

Refinitiv, one of the world’s largest providers of financial markets data and infrastructure, has introduced real-time coverage for the BRVM (Bourse Régionale des Valeurs Mobilières) for equity and fixed income markets.

Artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, quantum computing and blockchain all have the potential to drive significant disruption in the next few years.

• Following the Post-Closing Acceptance Period, which ended yesterday, approximately 97.02% of Gemalto shares have now been tendered to the Thales offer
• Settlement of Shares tendered during the Post-Closing Acceptance Period will take place on 18 April 2019
• Thales will initiate the statutory buy-out proceedings as soon as possible in order to obtain 100% of the Shares
• Thales and Gemalto will ask Euronext to delist the Gemalto Shares shortly after Gemalto’s 2019 annual general meeting, to be held on 28 May 2019

Home finance fintech platform, Youtility, has been selected as one of four providers to participate in the Citizens Advice product testing programme. The project will see the clients of four Citizens Advice Bureaus (Bassetlaw, Hammersmith and Fulham, Cardiff, and Vale and East End) trial digital tools designed to help users budget, while testing the providers’ switching services for better home finance deals. The programme, designed to test whether digital tools could increase competition in the ‘essential providers’ market, will run for four months.

Over half (52%) of 18-27 year olds feel they’re more financially savvy than their generation is perceived to be – with 65% planning their finances and making provisions to save for the future, according to new research from leading payments provider Klarna.