GLAS, the leading independent provider of finance administration services, has appointed Joe Knight to spearhead the expansion of the firm’s existing Direct Lending platform.  Joe will have responsibility for business development and developing strategic relationships with GLAS’ existing direct lending client base. The move comes as funds increasingly replace banks in the lower to middle market transactions, leading to an uptick in demand for independent agent and trustee services.

 GreenKey, creator of an award-winning voice workspace platform for global financial market participants, today announced that the firm next month will launch a mobile application for iOS and Android devices. 

Coupa Software, a leader in cloud-based spend management solutions, today announced Coupa Release 16 (R16), its third major cloud platform update of the year. R16 delivers better visibility into the operations and business value of customer spend management initiatives, increases collaboration, and adds new capabilities across the entire Coupa platform from expense management to sourcing, to e-invoicing, and more.

I was chatting with the Reg folks here at Fidessa Towers yesterday and the spectre of MiFID 3 came up. Before you all jump off the window ledge there is no official notion of this yet, but when will the regulators feel that their work really is done? The direction of travel has been clear for a while – dismantle the current industry and replace it with something that is utilitarian, uniform and, above all, safe. At the heart of this is the regulator’s poster child “outcomes for end investors” and making sure that their investment dollars are spent properly.

 The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) Europe today announced the appointment of Daniel Sazbon as the new chairman of its board of directors. Daniel, who assumes this voluntary role in addition to his existing position as storage infrastructure sales director Europe at IBM, takes over from Bob Plumridge, who will continue to be an active member of the association’s board of directors. With over 30 years’ experience in the storage industry, Daniel has been a member of the SNIA Europe board of directors since 2004.

Regions Bank has now launched a simplified, online consumer loan application and underwriting experience in conjunction with Avant. Earlier this year, Regions and Avant announced this agreement, which combines Regions’ established banking and online presence with Avant’s technology platform to provide a fast, convenient digital experience for customers seeking consumer loans.

 Kyriba Corp., the global leader in cloud-based treasury, payments, cash and risk management solutions, today announced its partnership with Accuity, the leading provider of financial crime compliance, payments and financial counterparty know-your-customer (KYC) solutions.

Q2 Holdings, Inc., a leading provider of secure, cloud-based digital banking solutions for community-focused financial institutions (FIs), announced today the launch of its Centrix Dispute Tracking System (CentrixDTS™) Fraud Alerts module, an add-on to the case management and Regulation E compliance platform financial institutions use for both fraud and non-fraud transaction disputes.

The LocalTapiola Group is a Finnish mutual group of companies that offers non-life, life and pension insurance as well as investment and saving services to private customers, farmers, entrepreneurs, corporate customers and organizations. In LocalTapiola’s line of business, the customers’ trust is the key to success and information security is therefore critical and must always be up-to-date so that information about the customers’ insurances, pensions and investments do not end up in the wrong hands. Uninterrupted operation of online services is also crucial to the customer experience.

I was thinking about not sharing this info but hey, as you are good enough to read my blog … here’s the bottom-line on digital disruption (ed: oh no, Chris said the D-word!).

There’s a slide that’s been doing the circuit for a while.  It comes from Visual Capitalist, and charts the change in the world’s largest companies over the last 15 years.