A wiser man than me once said that anyone attempting to make predictions will end up either wrong or lucky. In 2019, against a backdrop of uncertainty about the UK’s future relationship with its biggest trading partner that proverb holds true now, more than ever. 

This political uncertainty has led to reports of ebbing business confidence, subdued growth and reduced investment. All these metrics will recover in time, starting from when there is some certainty about the UK’s future direction of travel. 

2018 has been a turbulent year for banks in the UK. Physical branches are closing, with online and mobile channels becoming increasingly popular. Customers lost £500 millionto fraud in the first half of the year, and in July the Bank of England issued a warning to banks to get ready for future cyber-attacks.

New research from the Global Blockchain Business Council (GBBC), the leading association for the blockchain ecosystem, reveals that 26% of institutional investors believe major listed companies will have to start proactively reporting on their plans and ambitions around blockchain because investors will demand this. A further 38% anticipate they will start to have to do this between three and five years from now, and only 13% think companies will never have to do this. 

IBM and the Bank of the Philippine Islands signed a $260 million multi-year services agreement calling for IBM to provide IT services for agile IT and hybrid cloud, as well as development to accelerate BPI's digital transformation, IBM said Wednesday. 

Nasdaq Inc. (Nasdaq:NDAQ) and Bolsa de Valores de Panamá (BVP) have announced that BVP has successfully gone-live with its new trading system.

Confluence, the global leader in investment data management automation for regulatory, financial and investor reporting, today announced that a more efficient and cost-effective response to CPO-PQR reporting, is now available within its Unity NXT Regulatory Reporting platform. 

MYPINPAD, the global leader in payment acceptance and customer authentication solutions, has welcomed experienced payment industry professional, Nigel Dean, as its new Head of Marketing.   

Santander is just the latest in a series of high street banks to announce multiple closures of their branches, following the footsteps of NatWest and HSBC in recent years. Traditional banks are facing increasing competition from the more agile and consumer-focussed digital-only competitors, which offer the features and personalisation that consumers desire. To compete and stay relevant, every bank and building society needs to start innovating and offering differentiated features.