Abu Dhabi Global Market, the International Financial Centre in Abu Dhabi, in collaboration with KPMG, announced that 11 outstanding global FinTech firms have been shortlisted for the inaugural FinTech Abu Dhabi Innovation Challenge in October.  

Retailers are responding to cyber attacks on average twice a week — this is according to the latest research from Zynstra, an enterprise-grade IT software provider. 16% of retailers said they experienced an attack or attempted attack every day, 11% said they responded 2-3 times per week, and 64% said once a month.

TORA, provider of the industry’s most advanced cloud-based order and execution management system (OEMS), and OTAS Technologies, a Liquidnet company and specialist provider of market analytics and trader intelligence, announced today that TORA has integrated OTAS Portfolio and Trading Analytics applications into its OEMS platform to help clients generate alpha and meet MiFID II best execution requirements. This development is the latest in a series of enhancements TORA has made to ease the burden on clients as they transition to this new regulatory regime.

Is the Swiss banking industry still the most attractive financial destination in the world? Probably, but it is becoming increasingly clearer that the sector will need to fight to maintain status quo in the face of disruptive innovations, stringent regulations and their impact on the banking landscape.

Today, Wandera, the global mobile security provider, announces the appointment of internationally recognized telecommunications executive Luis Alvarez as Strategic Advisor, his first role since leaving BT.

As CEO of BT Global Services, Luis Alvarez ran a $10bn business in networked IT services, serving around 7,000 corporate and public sector enterprises in over 170 countries worldwide. This includes every single organization in the FTSE 100 and 86% of the Fortune 500.

Nasdaq today announced the completion of its acquisition of Sybenetix

We entered in the category of ‘Investment Banking 4.0’. The challenges in that area are: improving client experience, achieving faster regulatory compliance, using machine learning to improve the ways we interpret data, increasing post-trade efficiency, and facilitating client lending.

BlockEx can substantially improve both regulatory compliance and post-trade efficiency, using the power of the blockchain. 

Norwegian software vendor Commercial Banking Applications (CBA), today announced that ABN AMRO will be implementing the new IBAS Customer Front-End System for Trade Finance across its global operations as part of a project to offer additional functionality to customers, increase efficiency and reduce total cost of ownership.

First impressions are always crucial and when it comes to the financial services sector – its impact is perhaps more significant than most other sectors. This has historically come as a result of the sheer choice of service providers in financial services and the relatively low cost of switching between them. That’s why a great first impression from a financial services provider is crucial to helping ensure a long-term relationship, which can then be sustained by ensuring a positive experience at every customer touch-point.

One of the hottest – and also one of the most controversial – things in  the crypto currency environment are so-called  Initial Coin Offerings or ICOs. ICOs, which employ the use of crypto currencies, have become a popular means of fundraising for start-ups in recent months. The increasing need of blockchain technology and the lack of regulation allows them to raise money quickly in return to so-called tokens (also described as digital certificates). This hype has driven a steep rise in this sector’s market value, reaching a high of $177 bn.