NatWest has today launched a new partnership with Soldo, a pre-paid company card provider for small businesses, which will allow two of the bank’s ventures, Esme Loans and Rapid Cash, to be offered directly to Soldo’s customers, as the bank aims to increase lending to UK SMEs throughout 2020.

Built for the investment and acquisition markets, mnAI, a new AI-powered company intelligence platform, has launched in the UK today. mnAI reduces the time it takes companies and individuals to identify and understand relevant businesses from months to minutes.

BMLL Technologies, the data engineering and analytics firm, today announced the appointment of Paul Humphrey as Chief Executive Officer. A senior executive with decades of experience in leading positions across the brokerage, banking, data and exchange world, Paul Humphrey joins BMLL Technologies to drive the scale up of the business and realise the firm's mission to democratise access to granular market data and analytical products at speed and scale.

Planixs, the leading provider of real time, intraday cash, collateral and liquidity management solutions, has today announced that it has appointed Nick Applebee to their Customer Leadership Team and to grow Collateral capabilities.

Nick brings with him over 25 years’ experience in the financial services sector having held senior roles at Barclays PLC and Nomura International PLC across product, cash and intraday liquidity management and collateral management. 

Nickel Digital Asset Management is announcing today the launch their second cryptocurrency offering, Nickel Digital Gold Institutional fund to allow for secure, efficient, and transparent access to Bitcoin, the leading digital asset.

The investment team at UK-regulated manager Nickel brings multi-year experience from traditional finance to leverage opportunities in cryptocurrency.

This has been another busy year in cyber security, with hackers targeting business, governments and major cities across the globe. From a financial services perspective, 2019 witnessed a number of high-profile data breaches, some of the largest to date, which affected millions of people. So, as we head into 2020, cyber security is very much on the boardroom agenda. Let’s take a look at some of those key trends in cyber security for 2020.

It is a challenging time for UK banks, with an increasingly complex landscape and imminent events such as Brexit posing a threat to stability. Traditional banking institutions also face the rapid success of digital-first challenger banks and fintech firms, with an ever-increasing number of new entrants snapping at their heels. The pressure is on for UK banks to become more resilient by adopting customer-centric strategies, evolving with market trends and piloting emerging technologies.

Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. [NYSE:BR], a global Fintech leader and part of the S&P 500® Index, and IBM Services [NYSE:IBM], today announced an agreement to bring new cloud-based solutions to Broadridge’s clients in the financial services industry. As part of this strategic collaboration, Broadridge will create The Broadridge Private Cloud^TM powered by IBM and will transition a significant portion of its global infrastructure to IBM.

Last year the WBR Insights team interviewed 100 Heads of Indirect Procurement from companies across Europe to find out more about the challenges they face and the innovative solutions they’re bringing to the table.

Read the full report “Navigating a Digital Landscape: Bringing Sustainability and Innovation to the Indirect Procurement Process” here