Technology migration projects are sometimes viewed as a major undertaking fraught with risk and uncertainty. However, there comes a point where further investment in old technology isn’t sustainable and this applies in the transfer agency (TA) investment administration market as much as any other. So, what are the commercial drivers for technology migration and how can firms achieve a quick and manageable transition?

FIS™ (NYSE: FIS), a global leader in financial services technology, has announced a collaboration with The Venture Center to launch the FinTech Accelerator. Powered by FIS, this is an initiative committed to accelerating development and innovation in the global financial technology industry.

IBM is set to deliver the keynote presentation at The Block Chain Conference which will be hold on Wednesday, February 10th, 2016 at the Mission Bay Conference Center,San Francisco.

The conference theme is “Doing Business with Block Chains, Distributed Ledgers and Smart Contracts” – and the event has a unique focus on block chain and distributed ledger approaches and their potential to underpin business applications across a variety of vertical markets.

 MarketAxess announces a new daily achievement in high-yield (HY) trading of about $1 billion on last Friday, December 11, 2015. Recent market volatility has also driven an increase in estimated market share for MarketAxess, with over 10% share of TRACE HY volumes on December 11th, compared to an estimated 5.9% share during the third quarter.

SimCorp announces that it has signed a license agreement with KBC Asset Management, the largest investment manager in Belgium. KBC Asset Management manages assets of approximately EUR 205bn in funds and unit-linked life insurance and has a fund market share in Belgium of more than 35%.

-Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) has entered into an agreement with Zurich American Insurance Company (ZAIC), a subsidiary of Zurich Insurance Group, to sell its crop insurance business, Rural Community Insurance Services (RCIS), and its subsidiary Rural Community Insurance Company (RCIC). The transaction is expected to close by the end of Q1-2016.

New research published today sheds light on the patterns of trade and currency payments between the Europe, Americas and Asia-Pacific regions from 2012 to 2014 and examines the key drivers behind currency choices and regions of growth.

- The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today announced a new collaborative effort to advance the popular blockchain technology. The project will develop an enterprise grade, open source distributed ledger framework and free developers to focus on building robust, industry-specific applications, platforms and hardware systems to support business transactions.

 Intellect Design Arena Ltd, a specialist in applying true digital technologies across banking and insurance, announced that IDFC Bank, a subsidiary of India’s leading integrated infrastructure finance company, IDFC Ltd., has successfully implemented Intellect’s Global Transaction Banking (iGTB) solution suite. 

This combined digital solution by Intellect Design Arena will play a key role in IDFC Bank’s growth plans, as it seeks to introduce a differentiated form of banking.