The Global Blockchain Business Council (GBBC), the leading association for the blockchain ecosystem, has appointed Tom Jessop, president of Fidelity Digital Assets℠ and head of Corporate Business Development at Fidelity Investments, to its board. Tom’s appointment to GBBC’s board will be formalized at the next general assembly meeting.

New benchmark data from ACI Worldwide (NASDAQ: ACIW), a leading global provider of real-time electronic payment and banking solutions, revealed a 13 percent increase in fraud attempts in the click and collect channel during the 2018 peak holiday season.

Capital Markets technology specialists Neueda has launched a comprehensive service aimed at helping investment firms enhance competitiveness, improve efficiency and streamline costs through test automation.

Combining Neueda’s industry experience and its leading automation technology, Scrutiny has been developed to reduce cost of ownership of front office applications to capital markets firms and improve time to market through test automation and process optimisation.

BSI’s global centre of excellence for Cybersecurity and Information Resilience has forecast three key emerging trends across the cybersecurity landscape for 2019.

1. ePrivacy Regulation and related international standards

The Austrian telecom market leader A1 and the full-service payment provider Concardis are now offering commercial customers comprehensive IT and payment services from a single source. “A1 Payment” comprises payment terminals, wide-ranging service packages such as NFC and a mobile wallet, debit and credit card acceptance as well as transaction processing for companies. SIM cards and data packages for mobile terminals are included. This new service saves A1 customers unnecessary workflows and administrative expenses.

The Austrian telecom market leader A1 and the full-service payment provider Concardis are now offering commercial customers comprehensive IT and payment services from a single source. “A1 Payment” comprises payment terminals, wide-ranging service packages such as NFC and a mobile wallet, debit and credit card acceptance as well as transaction processing for companies. SIM cards and data packages for mobile terminals are included. This new service saves A1 customers unnecessary workflows and administrative expenses.

B2C2, one of the largest cryptocurrency liquidity providers and the leader in electronic OTC trading, today announced the launch of streaming pricing with point-and-click execution on its OTC platform. 

For the first time, B2C2’s clients will be able to view and execute trades on a real-time two-way market, via the firm’s secure web interface. The new functionality allows market participants to easily monitor live pricing in user-defined quantities and execute with the click of a button, as they would on traditional FX trading platforms.

As the first Swiss private bank, Falcon introduces direct transfers of selected cryptocurrencies for both private and institutional clients.

Falcon Private Bank reaffirms its first-mover position in blockchain banking by accepting direct transfers of selected cryptocurrencies. With immediate effect, private and institutional clients can directly transfer cryptocurrencies to and from segregated Falcon wallets, as well as convert them into fiat money. This new offering from Falcon makes blockchain assets fully bankable.

Horizon Software (Horizon), the world’s leading provider of electronic trading solutions and algorithmic technology, has announced the appointment of Philippe Thomas as the newest member of its Advisory Board. The move is a key part of the company’s expansion strategy following a successful MBO in June 2018.

As you probably remember, Bitcoin was the big news headlines and the dinner table talk of a year ago. As crypto-currencies soared in value, it was rightly the dominant topic of conversation. Crypto-currencies had advanced in value quite dramatically through the second half of 2017. Bitcoin increased from $1,000 each, to almost $20,000.

This created huge paper profits for buyers who were excited by the continued rise in value. This buying frenzy heated up to a peak never seen in any investment or commodity.