First Iraqi Bank (FIB), a newly established digital bank in Iraq, has selected ICS BANKS Digital Banking platform from ICS Financial Systems Limited (ICSFS), the global software and services provider for banks and financial institutions, to start its operations in Baghdad, Iraq.

This edition of Financial IT stands out for the broad diversity of topics on which our contributors have written.

Nevertheless, it is possible to link each of the contributed articles to one of three main themes.

New strategies

The first of these themes is: rapidly changed plans. One recent survey that is cited in an article found that the Covid-19 pandemic caused 58% of respondent banks to change their IT infrastructure strategies.

For the second consecutive year, University of Cambridge PHD student Robin Kohze wins the Satoshi Nakamoto Scholarship awarded by Bitcoin Association, the global industry organisation based in Switzerland that strives to advance business with the Bitcoin SV blockchain.

Pluto Digital Assets PLC (“Pluto” or “the Company”), the crypto VC and tech company, is pleased to announce that it has raised c.$40 million after closing its latest successful funding round. As a result, the Company has surpassed $50 million total assets under management (“AUM”), within just 50 days of being established.

Cost pressures are driving banks in more countries to consider pooling or sharing of ATMs, which offers deployers a way of maintaining access to cash while reducing operational costs

Cashless payments continue to rise, but cash provision remains crucial

DocuSign, Inc. (NASDAQ: DOCU), which offers the world's #1 eSignature solution as part of the DocuSign Agreement Cloud, today announced results for its fourth quarter and fiscal year ended January 31, 2021.

Leading mortgage technology provider Twenty7Tec, today announces that it has built a seamlessly integrated search facility for mortgage product, criteria and lender affordability calculations, delivering a single set of results across all three areas of eligibility, from one single platform.