Allegro Development Corporation, a leading provider of commodity trading software, announced today the hiring of its new Chief Marketing Officer, Paul French, formerly Vice President of Marketing at Armor, Inc., a leader in cyber defense software.

Mr. French will oversee Allegro's marketing functions, including marketing strategy, lead generation, brand initiatives, product positioning, marketing measurement, campaigns, advertising, events and press and analyst relations.

Many have applauded the European Commission’s “Europe 2020” strategy, in particular its focus on removing contract-related barriers to cross-border insurance. However, while tackling “bottlenecks in the Internal Market” will remove obstacles to competition, as well as a heavy and inconsistent burden on the ability to expand services, it doesn’t guarantee success. A one-size-fits-all approach to customer experience is already unworkable on a regional or national scale; on a continental scale, it’s even more so.

BPC Banking Technologies launches another national payment system based on SmartVista. Afghanistan Payments Systems (APS) is a consortium of financial institutions funded by Da Afghanistan Bank (standing as the Central Bank) through the World Bank, and is aimed to help in developing the retail banking market in Afghanistan by providing innovative electronic and mobile payment services.

 Exaxe, the specialist solutions provider for the life and pensions industry, is delighted to announce that it has won a new contract with Aviva, the leading composite insurer for life, pensions, general and health insurance products.

I’ve talked about open sourcing banking and finance by converting everything to components (APIs) that can be plug and played into any front-end user experience (UX) through apps and devices, supported by data analytics, cloud and blockchain to reduce and automate the back office.

Global Payments is pleased to offer merchants in China the ability to accept Samsung Pay, a simple and safe mobile payment service that works almost anywhere you can swipe or tap your card. As a Samsung Pay-qualified payment provider, Global Payments’ robust suite of payment solutions is fully enabled for acceptance, allowing merchants to offer their customers the convenience of Samsung Pay.

CenterState Bank, one of Florida’s largest publicly traded banks, selected VSoft Corporation’s OnView Business Deposit solution to offer its more than 800 commercial remote deposit capture customers the convenience of depositing multiple checks in a single deposit.

CUSA Federal Credit Union listened to its members’ requests for a way to view and sign documents remotely, without coming into a branch. In August 2014, the Covington, La.-based credit union implemented IMM’s eSignature technology, and has since increased loan volume by nearly three percent.

Financial Partners, the private equity group of Napier Park Global Capital (US) LP (“Napier Park”), and Camden Partners have led a $6 million growth equity financing for Bluefin Payment Systems. Co-investors included Jeff Liesendahl, the former CEO of Accertify, and members of the management team.

Napier Park is an alternative asset manager with approximately $6.2 billion in capital under management as of January 1^st, 2016. Napier Park’s Financial Partners Fund I, L.P. provides growth equity capital to financial services and related businesses.