first direct has selected Mastercard as its partner for its debit card portfolio. Customers will begin to receive cards from the end of this year, as part of a multi-year agreement.

The announcement will bring enhanced digital benefits for first direct customers, including card controls and functionality, as well as exclusive offers, and a new rewards/loyalty program.

Cards carrying only a domestic scheme’s branding accounted for 12% of all payment cards worldwide in 2018. This sector has strong growth potential, with products tailored to local market requirements.

Domestic schemes are often used as a financial inclusion tool

Mastercard and Pollinate, the software business that is reinventing merchant acquiring for banks, have agreed to a strategic partnership that will see Mastercard and Pollinate collaborate to bring the latest technology and data insights to banks serving small and medium businesses around the world.

BlueVoyant, a global expert-driven cybersecurity services company, today announced its rapid growth and development fueled by further series of funding, impressive sales growth, recognition for its strong technology offerings and expanding market presence. The company’s first half year momentum speaks to the significant demand for expert-driven cybersecurity services.

AxiomSL, the industry’s leading provider of risk and regulatory reporting solutions, today announced an agreement with Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), a leading global financial services group and one of the largest banking institutions in Japan, to implement AxiomSL’s Global Shareholding Disclosures solution. Under the agreement, AxiomSL will provide cloud-based, automated daily position monitoring and reporting to help MUFG meet shareholding disclosure requirements across its global footprint.

Computop, a leading global payment processor, and Eckoh (AIM: ECK), the global provider of Secure Payment products and Customer Contact solutions, announce that they are partnering to further augment payment security for card-not-present (CNP) payments. Through this relationship, retailers benefit from enhanced payment security across every channel, increasing customer satisfaction. 

It’s not just cyber technologies or digital currencies that are worrying financial crime teams in financial institutions across the UK & Ireland. It’s also the increasing volume and variety of more established financial crimes that aren’t new, but are incredibly hard to detect, such as mule activity; the proceeds of trafficking; the abuse of corporate structure and the criminal use of third parties.

Allianz Global Investors, a leading active asset manager, has adopted IHS Markit's leading investment management platform, thinkFolio, as the strategic decision support solution for its global fixed income business. The firm will leverage thinkFolio as a managed service hosted on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud.

OneStream Software, a leader in corporate performance management (CPM) solutions for mid-sized to very large enterprises, has appointed two new members to its board of directors. Jonathan Mariner, experienced finance executive and consultant at Overtime Spor

While most financial organisations worldwide (89%) are moving to the cloud, a significant amount (68%) already say that cloud migration has greatly or moderately changed their business for the better, according to the Unisys Cloud Success Barometer™.