B-North, the Manchester-based firm building a regional SME lending bank for the UK, has received a follow-on £250,000 investment from the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. The GMCA had previously invested in the firm’s ‘Seed’ funding round. In a further boost, the company has secured an advertising-for-equity deal with Channel 4 Ventures, which will allow B-North to build significant awareness of its new proposition amongst retail customers once B-North has received its banking licence.

Financial IT speaks with Tim Hood, Associate VP EMEA of Hyland 

International risk management and assistance expert, Healix International, has identified six key areas of risk – besides the continued impact of COVID-19 – for global organisations in its 2021 Risk Oracle report.

It has been a year of momentous change and uncertainty – with events having a huge impact on businesses, budgets, and boardrooms. According to Forrester, “The pandemic revealed the flaws of many companies’ technology strategies,” with organisations blindly turning to tech modernisation, simplification, consolidation and “…paralysed by their lack of technological and business maturity” [1].

First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB), the UAE's largest bank and one of the world's largest and safest financial institutions, has signed a testing and trialing agreement with CLS for its confirmation, matching and netting service ‘CLSNet’.

It has been a year of momentous change for the payments industry. Previously emerging trends have seen a massive acceleration as a result of the pandemic. Cash, for instance, waned even further this year amidst rumours that handling cash could spread infection.

SC Ventures, the innovation and ventures unit of Standard Chartered, and Northern Trust, a leading provider of asset servicing, have entered into an agreement to launch Zodia Custody, an institutional-grade custody solution for cryptocurrencies.

XREX (https://www.xr

The Financial Data Exchange (FDX) announced its Fall release this morning which includes a myriad of technical standards and updates to the existing specification that have now been launched into the financial services marketplace, thereby cementing FDX’s position as one of the most comprehensive Open Finance data models in the world today.