Innotribe, SWIFT’s innovation arm, and Innovate Finance, the independent membership organisation for global FinTech, today announced the launch of the Global FinTech Hubs Federation (GFHF) to help foster innovation across the world’s financial services industry. To date, more than 20 countries - including Canada, China, Germany, Mexico, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, to name a few – are participating in the GFHF, with more countries expected to join in the coming months.

Entersekt, an innovator in mobile-enabled digital banking security, today announced a partnership with IST Networks. A leading systems integrator in the Middle East, IST now offers Entersekt’s Transakt technology to banks and other enterprises operating in the region.

OT (Oberthur Technologies), a leading global provider of embedded security software products and services, today announces that its embedded Secure Element, PEARL by OT®, is the first eSE worldwide to be certified by Visa, MasterCard and Amex for biometric-compliant payment applets (VISA VMPA v1.4, MasterCard MCM v1.1 and AMEX v2.0), as well as by OSPT Alliance (CIPURSE™ V2) for urban transport applications and value added services.

TestPlant, the maker of the eggPlant range of software quality tools, today announced that it has delivered a test automation solution for Bendigo and Adelaide Bank that has achieved outstanding results. 

Temenos, the software specialist for banking and finance, today announces that Microcred Group, the provider of financial inclusion solutions to clients in Africa and China, is moving forward with a new license for Temenos MicroBanking Suite to support its strategy for growth and product diversification.

The Wirecard Group is now collaborating with topbonus, the frequent flyer program of airberlin. The deal includes a MasterCard credit card for topbonus participants in Austria. With the airberlin & NIKI MasterCard, customers can collect one award and status mile for each Euro spent on the credit card. Users can easily redeem these miles for flights with airberlin and NIKI or for additional rewards, starting with as little as 7,500 award miles.

Today Zurich will host 30 international startups at an official opening for the Kickstart Accelerator, an initiative of DigitalZurich2025. The shortlisted startups will meet the programme’s 25 corporate partners and mentors, including the French multinational insurance firm AXA, Swiss multinational financial services companies Credit Suisse and UBS, Switzerland’s largest ICT provider Swisscom, the largest food retailer and producer Migros, the largest international operating media company in Switzerland, Ringier and the global consultancy firm EY.

The time has come to stop talking about the characteristics of BLOCKCHAIN and to start realizing its promise.

This is the uncompromising view of one of the financial IT leaders whom we interviewed for this edition of Financial IT. We agree entirely.