BT today announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire IP Trade SA, a provider of unified communications and collaboration solutions for trading floor environments and command-and-control dispatch centres. Completion of the deal is subject to certain conditions, including regulatory clearance, and is expected to complete in the first quarter of 2017.

The National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD) is pleased to be the first Middle East bank to introduce real time cross border payments on Blockchain technology. The new channel is intended to facilitate regional customers with simple, real time and secure way to process their cross border payments within NBAD network. 

Financial IT: Doron, can you give us some brief information about Continuity Software and your role there as chief technology officer?

Envestnet | Yodlee (ENV), a leading data aggregation and analytics platform powering dynamic, cloud-based innovation for digital financial services, today announced it is partnering with Varo Money Inc., a mobile-only banking startup that helps consumers gain greater control of their financial lives, providing customers with a more customized mobile banking experience and better insights into their financial well-being.

Payments innovator BitPay, Inc. is pleased to announce that Carl Stern has been elected to BitPay’s board of directors.

Kickstart Accelerator, one of Europe’s largest multi-corporate, zero-equity technology accelerators and an initiative of digitalswitzerland, has today announced that applications are open to international startups for its second programme, predominantly based out of ewz-Unterwerk Selnau, the old transformer station in centre of Zurich.

Pelican, a global provider of payments and compliance solutions for banks and corporates, today unveiled its PelicanSecure Fraud Prevention solution. Harnessing artificial intelligence technology the PelicanSecure Fraud Prevention solution actively and intelligently monitors, analyses, detects and prevents attempted fraud breaches – going far beyond existing static ‘check-box’ compliance systems.

Yapı Kredi, the first national private bank of Turkey co-owned by Koç Holding, one of the biggest conglomerates of Turkey, and UniCredit, the largest banking group of Europe, is the first bank in Europe to use Eyeprint ID for mobile login, and the first bank across the globe to offer Eyeprint ID for mobile banking login and cardless cash withdrawals.

Active Investment Management is under pressure: from fees to fund managers being wrong footed by the Brexit vote, the US election and OPEC production decline, the sector has been losing out to alternative investment strategies.

Crossflow Payments (Crossflow), the technology driven alternative finance platform delivering innovative supply chain finance solutions, has today announced a significant investment from Calibrate Management (Calibrate), a leading investor focused on early stage, high growth firms.