Goldman Sachs, Santander and now Morgan Stanley’s drop out from the R3 consortium has led to a flurry of speculation about the future of the research group. Consortium aside, the crux of the issue is not to do with the interest in or potential of blockchain technology, but to do with the commercials of the business model. It’s not yet clear how this is going to work, other than that the banks are adamant that they are not going to create another commercial entity that can hold them over a barrel when it comes to operating fees.

Payment Institute CM Payments has been licenced by De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) for the execution of payment services. As a result, CM Payments is now an official Payment Institution operating under the supervision of DNB and the first mobile-focussed Payments Institute with a DNB license.

SIX Securities Services, the business area responsible for post-trade services at SIX, has agreed an exclusive partnership with Confinale for tax reclaims. The first customer will be Raiffeisen Switzerland cooperative in St. Gallen. The Tax Reclaim Service is part of an entirely new type of overall solution for banks and investors provided by SIX Securities Services.

Whilst manufacturing earnings and exports continue to stimulate economic prosperity, the nations that are at the top of the global manufacturing landscape are changing.

 Gemalto, the world leader in digital security, today announces that its Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) portfolio now includes solutions for qualified electronic signatures that enable compliance with the new EU and EFTA-wide eIDAS (Electronic Identification and Services) Regulation. 

Bye bye banking job for life

 Cohesity, the pioneer of hyperconverged secondary storage, today announced a new product that extends the benefits of its on-premises consolidated secondary storage solution to public cloud infrastructure. Running on Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure, Cohesity DataPlatform Cloud Edition (CE) enables businesses to take advantage of the scalability, convenience and cost-effectiveness of the cloud for data protection, DevOps, and disaster recovery workloads.

“Kuwait Finance House (KFH) constantly endeavors to enhance its systems by deploying innovative solutions, offering world class services and products in line with its strategy of benefiting from technology in all fields and businesses. This strengthens KFH’s position in the global markets, while contributes in achieving the best profitability,” said KFH-Group CEO Mazin Saad Al-Nahedh.