Whether it is EMV, NFC, HCE or TSP, there is certainly no shortage of acronyms within the payments ecosystem. And this is one trend that is here to stay.

The recent release of EMVCo’s updated payment tokenization specification has added yet another into the mix – Payment Account Reference (PAR). But what is PAR, why has it been introduced and what does it mean for the payments industry?

What is PAR?

The Daily Telegraph’s Brussels correspondent, Matthew Holehouse, has joined MLex Market Insight as a re­porter on its Brexit service, where he will cover the UK side of the negotiations surrounding the UK’s extraction from the European Union.

Matthew, who previously worked as Westminster political correspondent for the newspaper, is joining a team of journalists in London and Brussels covering the regulatory and political landscape. Further hires are expected to be announced in the coming days.

Calastone Settlements automates the reconciliation and settlement process of investment funds through a single account. All the parties involved in the transaction including fund managers, distributors and transfer agents can gain efficiency using Calastone Settlements. The financial institutions that have leveraged the solution include Schroders and Hargreaves Lansdown.     

SAP Ariba  announced that it has again been ranked as a leader in Contract Life-Cycle Management for Buy-Side Contracts by independent research firm Forrester Research, Inc., this time in a new report titled “The Forrester Wave™: Contract Life-Cycle Management, Q3 2016: The 14 CLM Vendors That Matter Most And How They Stack Up,” (The Forrester Wave™: Contract Life-Cycle Management, Q3 2016, Forrester Research, Inc., July 2016).

Building on its long history of offering industry-leading managed account solutions and online planning tools, Fidelity Investments® announced today the national launch of 

CLEARWATER, Clarity Services has developed a groundbreaking new approach to loan reporting that can help lenders prevent a growing industry problem. Clarity’s Temporary Account Record is a patent-pending solution that helps eliminate the lag time that occurs between loan approval and loan reporting.

Apriva, the leading provider of secure end-to-end wireless transaction processing solutions, today announced it has completed EMV certification for Ingenico Group smart terminals to First Data’s Omaha platform. This additional certification expands on Apriva’s existing EMV solutions to offer more choices to reseller partners, the merchants they serve and end users.