Only some of the articles that have been contributed to this edition of Financial IT deal with the impact of the COVID-19 virus, which become seen as a global pandemic in mid-March. As of 15 April, the epicentre of the pandemic appears to have moved from Europe to the United States. COVID-19 is yet to be brought under control. In particular, it is unclear what will be the best way of preventing the virus from overwhelming the fragile healthcare systems in many developing countries.

As we all know, change is inevitable, and we have certainly seen a significant amount of it in recent months following the outbreak and spread of COVID-19. As nations have declared states of emergency to safeguard the health and safety of their citizens, businesses and people around the globe have had to find new ways of working in order to minimise disruption to daily operations, and digital technologies are at the heart of it all.

Colt Technology Services, has today announced the launch of PrizmNet Cloud Access, bringing the services of leading Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) to Colt’s financial ecosystem.

PrizmNet Cloud Access leverages Colt’s award-winning Dedicated Cloud Access (DCA) service and enables Capital Market participants to take advantage of a choice of cloud platforms and the applications they provide.

QuantHouse, the global provider of end-to-end systematic trading solutions including innovative market data services, algo trading platform and infrastructure products and part of Iress (IRE.ASX), today announced the completion of the first phase of their infrastructure process automation programme using cloud-based robot agents to demonstrate their commitmen

Avaloq, a global leader in innovative software solutions for banks and wealth managers, is expanding its existing partnership with ACTICO, a leading international provider of software for intelligent automation and digital decisioning. The two companies are integrating the ACTICO Compliance Suite into Avaloq's software solutions for banks and wealth managers, making it easy for Avaloq's clients to use the new compliance offering as a standardized solution to prevent financial crime.

Worldline [Euronext: WLN], the European market leader in payment and transaction services, signed a partnership agreement with Meniga, the London-headquartered fintech and provider of digital banking technology. The collaboration is aimed at increasing digital customer engagement through the creation of personalised banking features.

Countingup and nearly 250 accountancy firms have written to the Government to appeal for gaps in coronavirus support for small businesses to be bridged. Representing over 70,000 small businesses, the letter voices the concerns and questions posed by small businesses, which accountants are hearing day in day out.

Wolters Kluwer Compliance Solutions has added an important new feature to its widely used Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) Supported by TSoftPlus™ solution, which is designed to help U.S. banks, credit unions and other lenders support small businesses with payroll funding during the COVID-19 crisis.

Phos, the fintech that created the first-ever software PoS which allows merchants to accept payments directly on their phones, today announced that it has closed a fundraising round of €1.3M. The round was led by New Vision 3 and also saw new angel investment in the business. The new funding sees the total amount raised by the business increase to €2.5M, enabling phos to grow its development team to introduce new features like PIN on Phone, its Software Development Kit (SDK) and a new integrated loyalty system.