Mastercard today unveiled Kionect, a digital ordering system that empowers small kiosk owners in Nairobi to order and pay for products from wholesalers via SMS. Orders submitted via a feature phone helps create a digital record for kiosk owners to get access to micro-loans to stock inventory and grow their business. 

• Africa may just have the first fully crypto-currency country

Following in the successful footsteps of M-Pesa in Kenya, there is a possibility that an African country may embrace crypto-currency as an official currency for their nation. Due to its convenience and protection, it could be an alternative to cash, particularly in the fight against fraud. The infrastructure within Africa lends itself to this development more so than anywhere else, the only question will be, which country will be the one to go for it first?

Alipay, the world’s largest online, mobile payment and lifestyle platform operated by Ant Financial Services Group, today launched this year’s “Double 12” Global Shopping Festival in 15 countries spanning across four continents. In addition, Ant Financial’s strategic partners in Hong Kong, India, Thailand and the Philippines will introduce campaigns for their local e-wallet users for the first time. These partners include Paytm in India, Truemoney in Thailand, and GCash in the Philippines.

NYMBUS®, the core banking modernization company, announced today that it has successfully completed the Service Organization Control (SOC) 2 Type 1 examination for its flagship SmartCoreâ and SmartDigitalÔ platforms. Conducted by data security compliance leader 360 Advanced, Inc., this rigorous audit and certification attests to NYMBUS’ high security protocol and effective compliance with today’s stringent regulatory environment.

Intuit Inc. (Nasdaq: INTU) is taking the next step in making the QuickBooks platform the smarter way to do business by signing an agreement to acquire TSheets, a leading platform that small and medium businesses, self-employed, and accountants use to automate time tracking and scheduling for them and their workers. Intuit QuickBooks leverages the world’s largest small business and self-employed ecosystem to simplify and automate key business tasks, such as payroll, invoicing, and payments.

• Model risk management will become a top priority

Mid-market Financial Services (FS) firms can now benefit from a fast, intelligent and effective solution to achieving GDPR compliance, thanks to the new GDPR EXPRESS from new generation GRC solution provider OXIAL.

Corlytics, the global leader in determining regulatory risk impact, is involved in the next round of Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) sandbox. It is supporting a top-tier global bank as part of the third cohort of participants.

Governor Software Ltd has successfully completed the Financial Conduct Authority and Bank of England convened TechSprint. The event was designed to tackle the increasing challenges that financial institutions face in implementing their regulatory and compliance obligations - specifically exploring the potential for model-driven machine-readable regulation.