1. Payment Services Directive (PSD2) Finally Goes Live

“It has has been a long road to PSD2, given that it was approved in November 2015 by the Council of the European Union. However, it will finally be coming into force in January 2018 and that means that banks must open up their customer data to third parties on request - whether these third parties are their direct competitors, challenger banks or nascent fintech startups.”

DataArt, the global technology consultancy that designs, develops and supports unique software solutions, announced today that it has become a Pegasystems Registered Business Partner. With this agreement, DataArt will deploy Pega’s market-leading customer engagement solutions for sales, service, and operations for its clients. 

DigitalGenius, the leader in AI for customer service, today announced it has secured $14.75 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Global Founders Capital, with participation from MMC Ventures, Paua Ventures, Kairos and several other funds, as well as follow-on investments from previous investors, including Runa Capital, Spider Capital, Salesforce Ventures, RRE Ventures, Lumia Capital, Compound and Lerer Hippeau Ventures. DigitalGenius has raised $26 million to date.

Wealth & Asset Managers in Europe are closer to embracing new technologies than their sell-side counterparts because CEOs in the industry understand the importance of technology within the business, according to over 200 Information Technology (IT) executives working in the financial services sector.

With innovative technologies continuing to transform the entire customer buying journey, the in-store shopping experience this Christmas is likely to be entirely different to that in 10 years’ time. From the moment customers enter the store and select gifts for loved ones, through to the checkout process and getting goods home - there’s no touch point that will be left unchanged or even find itself redundant in years to come.

Assetz Capital has launched its Innovative Finance ISA today.

The business peer-to-peer (P2P) lender’s ISA is available as a wrapper on all of the automated investment accounts, with the Manual Lending Account also set to be allowed into the ISA in early 2018.

Bahrain Middle East Bank (BMB) has chosen Wolters Kluwer’s OneSumX for Finance solution to provide the basis for its core banking and reporting system.

Sequel, the leading insurance and reinsurance software specialist, has today announced that Qatar Insurance Company (QIC), the international insurance firm based in the Middle East, has chosen Sequel Impact to help its offshore energy team manage its global exposure to risk for their Lloyd’s Antares Syndicate, QIC and Qatar Re businesses. 

eGain, the leading provider of cloud-based customer engagement solutions, today announced its integration with Salesforce.com.

"Businesses are increasingly layering customer engagement systems on top of systems of record such as CRM for differentiation and innovation," said Ashu Roy, eGain CEO. "eGain Solve for Salesforce.com complements Salesforce CRM with award-winning knowledge management, AI, and digital capabilities for customer service."

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