Today marks the start of the fourth round of the Fintech Partnership Program Elevator Lab, which was established by Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) in 2017. While in the past the search for fintechs from all over the world was conducted centrally from Vienna and the subsidiary banks focused on their local fintech ecosystems, this time they play a more active role in the global search.

Finboot, the company behind the enterprise-grade blockchain middleware MARCO, announces it has partnered with the newly launched London Chamber of Arbitration and Mediation (LCAM), an organisation offering arbitration, expedited arbitration and mediation services, delivered by a diverse expert panel of arbitrators and mediators with many years’ experience in dispute resolution. LCAM operates under the auspices of The London Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI).

The International Compliance Association (ICA), the leading professional body for the global regulatory and financial crime compliance community, is organising ‘The BIG Compliance Festival’, the BIGGEST online event for regulatory and financial crime compliance professionals in 2020.

Payment cards and other cashless payment methods are reducing demand for cash, but many countries and sectors remain heavily cash dependent

Fall in number of ATMs worldwide skewed by China data

According to RBR’s brand new report Global ATM Market and Forecasts to 2025, the number of ATMs worldwide fell slightly in 2019, contracting by 15,000 units – half a percentage point. China is the main driver of this decline, itself seeing a fall of 30,000 machines, as the country’s migration towards alternative payments erodes demand for cash.

Finastra research reveals that 86% of global banks are looking to use open APIs to enable Open Banking capabilities in the next 12 months. In addition, 30% of banks surveyed believe Open Banking is already making a tangible impact in delivering omproved overall customer experience. This is against a backdrop where regulation is perceived to be tighter than a year ago and close to half (48%) of those audited believe that regulators are holding back innovation.

Reducer, the UK’s only cloud-integrated price comparison solution for SMEs, joins the Xero app marketplace. The integration, which became effective in May 2020, enables accountants to manage their clients’ costs in just a few clicks, eliminating the time consuming process of comparing suppliers and searching for affordable deals.

UK-based payments service provider SumUp (www.sumup.co.uk) is launching today an online payment tool to help businesses adapt to ongoing social distancing measures.

Leading retail technology business TrueCommerce has entered into a new strategic partnership with international payment gateway provider Trust Payments, as it looks to broaden its offering to B2B e-commerce customers.
 

Simplifi-HQ, an online accounting service provider from New Zealand has chosen Salt Edge, a leader in offering open banking solutions, to speed-up and digitise its software package by accessing financial data of their clients directly from the bank.