New research released today from venture capital fund MMC Ventures, shows that while 2,700 blockchain companies have been created in the UK since 2008, only 9% of these  have been equity funded. Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) had been the ‘go-to’ source of funding for blockchain companies until early 2018.

Two of the world’s largest tech giants, Apple and Google, recently announced that they are collaborating on a COVID-19 tracking system to enable contact tracing - a measure that could pave the way for an exit strategy for those countries enforcing stringent lockdown measures. This new feature will be added to all Apple and Android mobile operating systems, to later enable government run apps to track physical proximity between phones (although the NHS has said it will use a different model).

SAP’s corporate factsheet boasts that 77% of the world’s transaction revenue touches a SAP system. That’s a lot of payments. Its ERP platform and digital supply chain solutions ‘help companies of every size and industry manage their supply chains digitally.’

Allica Bank, the business bank on a mission to empower small and medium-sized businesses to succeed, has today announced the appointment of Steve McGregor as Head of Application Engineering.

Steve will build the first in-house, fully immersed software engineering team at Allica Bank. The new team will be the vanguard of the bank's development of digital financial services and tools, all designed specifically to meet the needs of small and medium-sized businesses by being straightforward and putting the customer first.

Curve, the banking platform that consolidates multiple cards and accounts into one smart card and even smarter app, has today announced a new expanded partnership with Mastercard that sees Curve become a principal member of scheme.

Hamburg-based FinTech company Deposit Solutions has announced that it has reached new milestones in 2020. The company’s Open Banking platform has now transmitted a total volume of 25 billion euros in savings deposits, up from 16 billion euros 12 months ago. The growth was driven by the strong B2B business, with banks such as Deutsche Bank, Merck Finck Privatbankiers, M.M.Warburg as well as comparison portals and other partners using the platform to offer their customers third-party savings deposit products.

Keesing Technologies, the leading global identity verification provider, announced that it is making its digital identity verification services and databases freely available to essential organisations that are in need of accurate identity proofing while responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. Keesing’s trusted identity verification will support these organisations in their global commitment to stop the spread of COVID-19 by enabling them to screen and proof the identities of individuals remotely, ensuring safe work environments and secure digital services all around.

Avaloq announced today that it has been named a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Digital Wealth Management Platforms, Q1 2020 report. The evaluation ranks vendors in the categories of Leaders, Strong Performers, Contenders and Challengers, and is a highly regarded assessment of the top vendors in the digital wealth management platforms market.

Temenos (SIX: TEMN), the banking software company, announced today a joint effort with Microsoft to enable access to its AI-powered, Financial Crime Mitigation (FCM) SaaS solution to allow banks to protect both their customers and their organization from financial crime increase during the pandemic, particularly as banks have moved to remote working to protect their staff. Temenos AI-powered, Financial Crime Mitigation SaaS solution based on Microsoft’s fast, scalable and secure Azure cloud platform can be deployed within weeks. 

Global identity specialist, Hello Soda, launches a new single API platform to simplify the delivery of its suite of Know Your Customer (KYC), Anti-money Laundering (AML) and fraud prevention solutions.

Hello Soda identified that many stakeholders were having difficulty implementing multiple identity verification solutions independently. Its developers have responded to this challenge and the lack of cross-solution data analysis to help perform enhanced checks with the launch of Sodium.