As banks and financial institutions drive to automate processes and ensure tighter integration, they are increasingly diverting their attention away from shiny, attention-grabbing customer-facing products. Instead, they are turning to the critical, but perhaps less glamorous, world of backend services infrastructure. 

Smartkarma, Asia’s largest provider of independent investment research, today announced the opening of its New York City office, headed by 30-year industry veteran Warren Yeh. Smartkarma is well positioned to expand into American markets after recently completing its Series B funding round, led by Sequoia Capital. With a base in New York, Smartkarma aims to bring unprecedented on-the-ground reach and insight into Asian markets for US-based asset managers.

eCurrency Mint Limited (eCurrency) announced today that it has partnered with Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) to launch its digital money product. 

SharedLabs, Inc. and ExoIS, Inc. on Friday announced they have completed a definitive agreement under which SharedLabs has acquired all of the stock of ExoIS  for an undisclosed sum.  ExoIS will continue to operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of SharedLabs until full integration is completed. Integration is expected to be completed within the first quarter of 2018.  Jonathan Clark, Founder of ExoIS, will report to John Andrews, COO of SharedLabs, Inc. Jason Cory, CEO and Chairman of the board, fully supports this transaction.

Duco, the data engineering technology company, today announced the completion of a $28m investment round by Insight Venture Partners, NEX Opportunities and Eight Roads Ventures. The round also includes an investment by lifetime entrepreneur and former CEO of SunGard, Cristóbal Conde. 

IBM Security today released a global1 study examining consumer perspectives around digital identity and authentication, which found that people now prioritize security over convenience when logging into applications and devices. Generational differences also emerged showing that younger adults are putting less care into traditional password hygiene, yet are more likely to use biometrics, multifactor authentication and password managers to improve their personal security. 

The machine learning is software programming technique for automated detection of meaningful and valuable patterns in data and making decisions based on the identified patterns. One thing that all machine learning applications have in common is that they are able to ‘learn’ and improve their accuracy over time, based on the previously observed, historical data.

To support the rebuilding of the Zimbabwean economy, Manchester-based consumer technology and security company, VST Enterprises, is working with the nation’s authorities and other international partners to develop innovative new uses for its cutting-edge authentication technology, VCode®.

Payvision, a global merchant acquirer and omnichannel payment provider, announced today a strategic partnership with ING, one of the largest European banks, with a strong international network.