HID Global®, a worldwide leader in secure identity solutions, today announced that parent company ASSA ABLOY has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire IAI industrial systems B.V. (“IAI”), a leading provider of high-quality personalization solutions for identity documents, from its parent company DOCDATA N.V. The acquisition will bring together highly complementary offerings for government-to-citizen and other identification solutions, while positioning HID Global for overall growth and innovation in the high-volume document personalization market.

GFT, the leading provider of business, design and technology consulting to the investment banking community, today announces the appointment of Paul Harrington as a Principal Consultant within the Legal, Compliance & Regulatory practice team.

SETL, the UK based institutional payment and settlement infrastructure based on blockchain technology, has today announced the appointment of Sir David Walker as Chairman.

Christmas advertising eats up 70 per cent of the £5 billion Q4 ad spend, but with retail profits under pressure, pumping money into advertising is a risky game. Businesses have no clear sight on how advertising converts into sales, and can face bankruptcy if they fail to recoup costs. Powa Technologies has handed brands and retailers a game-changing technology which will enable them to unlock the vast potential for return in these campaigns.

Ellie Mae, a leading provider of innovative on-demand software solutions and services for the residential mortgage industry, today announced the 15.2 release of Ellie Mae’s Encompass all-in-one mortgage management solution. Encompass 15.2 offers compliance updates, overnight rate protection for secondary marketing, and integrated AllRegs Investor guidelines for easy access to vital information.

The 15.2 release of Encompass includes:

A collaboration on innovative point-of-sale (POS) payment acceptance based on internet technologies and value added services in Europe between the Wirecard Group and Alipay, a business of Ant Financial, a related company of Alibaba Group, is set to begin today.

Contrary to the conventional view of an American and by extension global economy bubbling with innovative small companies, the reality is quite different. Intellectual property, network effects, natural monopolies, expensive R&D, fleets of lawyers to litigate against potential rivals, and armies of lobbyists have created formidable barriers to new entrants to the U.S. and global economy. 

These are major reasons why the rate at which new businesses have formed in the U.S. has slowed markedly in recent years. 

The other day, a reputable digital banker asked me, “How many lives does PFM have?” I smiled.

Whereas Digital Money Management (also known as PFM, Personal Financial Management) in Europe is arguably on its second (or third) life, Asian banks have the opportunity to adopt next-generation PFM for the very first time, while simultaneously avoiding the errors of European banks.

Financial IT speaks to Michel Jacobs, EVP North America Market and Product Strategy, FIS at Sibos 2015