Mastercard has partnered with CleverCards and Appreciate Group to launch Europe’s first ever fully digital gift card.

The gift card is available now as a last minute Christmas present, as shoppers are able to send their gift card immediately by email, text or message app. Recipients can then simply add the fully digital Mastercard to their mobile wallet to instantly “tap-n-pay” in-store, or buy online.

Wolters Kluwer’s Compliance Solutions business has earned three “Category Leader” quadrant recognitions in the Chartis Research Enterprise GRC Solutions 2019 Market Update & Vendor Landscape report. The quadrants in which Wolters Kluwer Compliance Solutions demonstrates superior capabilities include Enterprise Governance, Risk & Compliance; IT Risk Management; and Operational Risk & Conduct Risk.

Today, EQ Bank, the digital platform offered by Equitable Bank (TSX: EQB and EQB.PR.C), Canada's Challenger Bank™, announces a partnership with TransferWise, the global technology company for international money transfers. The result is fully transparent, remarkably fast international money transfers that are up to 8x cheaper1 for EQ Bank customers.

ICS Financial Systems delivers one of the first Oracle enterprise-level blockchain implementations in the world for Arab Jordan Investment Bank (AJIB). 

Murex, an industry leader in trading, risk management and processing solutions for capital markets, announces that Gulf Bank, one of Kuwait’s largest banks, has selected MX.3 to modernize and digitalize its capital markets and treasury IT.

The decision to select Murex is part of Gulf Bank’s wider replatforming of its IT landscape in which Murex will be delivering a fully integrated solution for Gulf Bank’s treasury and capital markets functions, which will extend the capabilities of the bank’s treasury operations and enable it to extend its client solutions offering.

SWIFT today announces the opening of its global Know Your Customer (KYC) registry to SWIFT-connected corporate groups, enabling them to manage and share KYC data with their banking partners across the globe. The go-live for corporates follows a successful testing period with 18 leading corporate groups including BMW, Spotify and Unilever which was supported by 16 global banks representing over 7,000 corporate to bank relationships on SWIFT.

Financial IT speaks with Sandeep Chouhan Group Head Operations & Technology at Mashreq Bank.

Global Operations and Technology Leader in Financial Services with over 30 years of experience across blue chip organisations: Barclays, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Tata, Mashreq Bank, Commercial bank across Emerging Markets, Europe and USA.

Financial IT:  Can you please tell more about Mashreq Bank and your background?

SatchelPay, one of the leading European electronic money institutions, has been cleared by the Bank of Lithuania to resume all suspended services. This comes after the Bank of Lithuania imposed a temporary hold on selected SatchelPay services, following concerns raised by an audit that took place last spring. SatchelPay was immediately informed of the positive decision by the Bank of Lithuania, which communicated that all suspended services may be resumed.

●           About 50% of Polish adults (12 million people) regularly use mobile banking apps to manage their money, according to the conclusions from the newly published report "Mobile Banking and Mobile Payments in Poland 2019".
●           Over 40% of them are “mobile-only”, not using any other channel (branch, online banking, etc.) to access banking services. Since September 2018, the number of “mobile-only” customers in Poland has increased by more than 50%.

For retailers and consumers alike, Black Friday is one of the busiest times of the year - and it’s only getting more widespread. Analysing Ingenico transaction data over Black Friday weekend last year showed that not only did overall sales volumes rise by 25%, but the millionth transaction for the day was hit at a staggeringly early 6:33am. To most businesses, it will come as no surprise that online sales continue to trend upwards, but what most don’t realise is that – contrary to popular belief – the Highstreet isn’t dead.