Not too long ago, Neil Woodford was still regularly being heralded as a “superstar” manager and the “Oracle of Oxford”. How different the story is today. 

The reasons behind Woodford’s fall from grace have been extensively covered, but can largely be attributed to the fact that ultimately the Equity Income Fund did not do what it said it would, and Woodford ran it unchecked. If investors had been fully aware of the investments being made into unlisted and illiquid stocks, would they have kept their money in?

 Signicat, the Trusted Digital Identity™ company, today announces new capabilities which expands the reach and reliability of its digital identity verification offering. Through a new technical interface and new 3^rd party integrations, Signicat can now offer identity verification in 208 countries through identity document scanning, web-based video interviews, and NFC scanning of passports, all of which helps businesses increase confidence and reduce risk as they enter into digital relationships with their customers. 

Klarna, the leading global disruptor of payments and banking and provider of smoooth retail experiences, announces the expansion of its partnership with Wayfair, one of the world’s largest online destinations for home. From today, Klarna’s range of flexible payments are available to shoppers online at Wayfair.co.uk, with additional new features on Wayfair.de. 

According to a recent survey by NatWest, over half of female business owners (56%) with childcare or other family caring responsibilities saying it presents challenges to the smooth running of their business – compared with 36% of men.

Coleman Research, a leading global provider of primary research, today announced the launch of its Expert Relationship Management (ERM) platform, a SaaS offering that helps research providers and buyside firms manage their interactions with industry experts.  The cloud-based service offers a full solution to manage a database of expert profiles and the workflows associated with managing expert relationships.

Alexander Ivanov, founder of Waves Platform, and Mark Garber, GHP Group’s chairman of the board, have announced the launch of Global Chain, a joint company focused on implementation of blockchain-based solutions in logistics and other industries.

“Logistics is one of the most promising areas for adopting solutions based on the blockchain technology,” says Alexander Ivanov. “Therefore, at initial stages, the focus will be specifically on logistic solutions. Later, we anticipate execution of joint projects in other industries, as well.”

IHS Markit, a world leader in critical information, analytics and solutions, today announced it is now offering brokers and other asset managers a comprehensive solution for cost basis calculation and reporting in alliance with Scivantage.

European and global card-based payment solution providers are coming together to strengthen the voice of the industry and to form a new association: Payments Europe. The new body represents card issuers, card acquirers, card schemes and other stakeholders involved in card-based payment solutions.

While consumer-facing applications of machine learning (ML) have gotten most of the attention (think Netflix movie recommendations, Amazon product selection and efficient driving routes in Waze), the back office deserves more Artificial Intelligence (AI) focus.

Access to customer data has been a topic of conversation for many governments around the world in recent years, with many regimes around the world slowly moving towards legislation requiring data to be “opened up” to facilitate data sharing and portability.