Banks continue to face challenges when driving customer sales and acquisition via digital channels – according to new global retail banking study published today by Misys and Efma. Read the full report and infographic here.

National Settlement Depository (NSD), Russia’s central securities depository, reports that it has begun to develop an electronic votingplatform for shareholder meetings: e-voting. NSD plans to launch the new service in H1 2017, when the majority of annual general shareholder meetings are held in Russia.

Fiserv, Inc. (NASDAQ: FISV), a leading global provider of financial services technology solutions, announced today that National Bonds, the leading sharia’a-compliant savings and investments company in the United Arab Emirates, has selected AML Risk Manager for the effective detection, investigation and resolution of financial crimes and to ensure regulatory compliance.

Exchange Data International (EDI), a provider of global security corporate actions, pricing and reference data, today announced the full implementation of ISO 15022 messages for its Worldwide Fixed Income offering.

The EDI service provides a comprehensive overview of the global fixed income market. It covers new corporate, government bond and government agency issues from 150 countries, as well as changes to their terms and conditions.

Calastone, the global funds transaction network, today announces that Investec Wealth & Investment, one of the UK’s largest private client wealth management firms, has gone live with Calastone’s recently launched Transfer Service.  

SmartStream, the financial Transaction Lifecycle Management (TLM^®) specialist, today announce over 20 major financial institutions are using their Centre of Excellence (CoE)utilities. The CoE has two distinct services: a Managed Service Utility and a Central On-Boarding Utility (COU) – each aid in the processing of reconciliations, making it faster, more cost-effective and for many firms, lowering the cost of implementation by as much as 65 percent.

The Banking Industry Architecture Network (BIAN) today welcomes five new members to its rapidly growing network – taking the not-for-profit to a total of 63 leading banks, software vendors, service providers and academic partners across the world.

 Atom, the UK’s first digital bank, is delighted and excited to announce its strategic partnership with BBVA. BBVA has agreed to invest £45m for a 29.5% stake in Atom and bring their global expertise in digital and mobile banking to the launch and growth of Atom.

 Xero (@Xero), the global leader in cloud accounting software for small businesses, has released Xero for Apple [®] Watch.

Gemalto (Euronext NL0000400653 GTO), the world leader in digital security, has managed a comprehensive modernization of Guinea's voter register on behalf of CENI, the National Independent Electoral Commission in the country.