Houlihan Lokey, Inc., the global investment bank, today announced that it has agreed to acquire Quayle Munro Limited (Quayle Munro), an independent advisory firm that provides corporate finance advisory services to companies underpinned by data & analytics, content, software, and services. The agreement was signed on January 15 and is expected to close following regulatory approvals.

SWIFT and seven central securities depositories (CSDs) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to work together to demonstrate how distributed ledger technology could be implemented in post-trade scenarios, such as corporate actions processing, including voting and proxy-voting.  The group will investigate the types of new products that can be built using it, and how existing standards such as ISO 20022 can support it.

Red Deer, a financial technology company dedicated to enhancing the performance of active investment managers, is pleased to announce that Raymond James Investment Services (“Raymond James”), one of the fastest growing wealth management businesses in the UK today, has selected its MiFID II solution in order to adhere to the regulations that came into effect earlier this year.

After initial hesitation, the financial services sector is warming up to the potential of cloud computing. The use of private and public cloud is growing exponentially in the space. Why? It’s due to a number of factors coming together.

A better development and deployment approach

Not surprisingly, it was the large internet companies and SaaS providers, such as Facebook, Google and Amazon, that that were first off the mark when it's come to cloud adoption and benefiting from the innovative opportunities that these new ways of working provide.

With MIFID II’s rules on inducements now a reality, buy-side firms are paying close attention to the costs associated with their front-office trading platforms and analytics.

The EU regulation, which took effect on Jan. 3, could draw scrutiny to execution services and tools that are sponsored by brokers, such as order management and execution management systems as well as trade analytics.

Graft aims to bring a lasting solution to most of the problems that existing cryptocurrencies face at the point of sale, including long wait times and high transaction costs. The demand for cryptocurrencies has grown dramatically in recent years. This is apparent in the tremendous increase in the prices of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, ethereum, and litecoin, considering that their prices are mainly demand-driven.

To continue the ongoing migration to EMV chip, and to bring increased security and convenience to the point of sale, Visa is making the signature requirement optional for all EMV contact or contactless chip-enabled merchants in North America, beginning April 2018. 

Blackhawk Network, a global financial technology company, and Alipay, a leading digital payment platform operated by Ant Financial Services Group, have partnered to expand Alipay’s mobile payment acceptance and engagement offerings to participating U.S. retailers. 

Small and medium-sized Enterprises in Australia can look forward to securing business loans faster and easier, as Ferratum Oyj, an international provider of mobile banking and digital lending services, launches Ferratum Business in Australia.