New research from FIRST, a leading global events agency, reveals that over the next three years, 63% of private equity professionals think the level of funds raised by the industry will increase when compared to the previous three years.  Only one in five (20%) expect it to fall.

Some 69% of those anticipating it to become easier to raise funds say it is because investors are increasingly looking to diversify their portfolios, and they will therefore increase their exposure to private equity.  Some 27% believe it is because returns from private equity will become more attractive.

Ahead of the 7th Annual Operational Risk Management Forum, read here an interview with Mr. Ruben Cohen, Independent Consultant, about the role of local regulators in the implementation of SMA and the impact SMA will have on capital.

Ahead of the 7th Annual Operational Risk Management Forum, read here an interview with Mrs. Simona Fionda, Head of Operational Risk at Metro Bank about the new requirements of SMA and how the SMA will impact operational risk as a whole.

Sungevity, Inc., a technology-driven solutions provider offering a high level of service and choice to residential and commercial solar energy customers, today announced the appointment of Elizabeth K. Rushforth to the role of SVP & General Counsel, reporting to Chief Executive Officer, Andrew Birch.

Viptela, the Software-Defined WAN company, today launched the vForce Global Partner Program. This comprehensive suite of go-to-market support, financial incentive and training resources enable solution and managed service providers to deliver the business benefits of SD-WAN to global enterprises. To date, more than 40 partners from around the world have joined the program including: Dimension Data, World Wide Technology (WWT), Forsythe Solutions Group, Logicalis, Fishtech Labs, Teneo, Alphaserve Technologies, Vandis, Daymark Solutions, ProSys and Verizon.

CPI Card Group, a global leader in financial and EMV® chip card production and related services, today announced it was ranked No. 75 on the 2016 FinTech Forward 100 list of leading technology providers in the world. Driven by industry publication American Banker and financial services professional organization BAI, the FinTech Forward program aims to identify technology trends for bankers.

 AutoGravity, a FinTech pioneer on a mission to transform car financing by harnessing the power of the smartphone, has partnered with Mercedes-Benz Financial Services USA LLC

Reval, a global provider of cloud-based solutions for treasury and risk management, announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by ION Investment Group.

Andrea Pignataro, ION‘s CEO and Founder, said “The acquisition of Reval substantially increases our footprint in treasury cloud services and enriches our product portfolio with leading functionality in risk and hedge accounting. We will also be able to leverage Reval’s strong Sales, Marketing and Customer Success teams across the product portfolio under Jiro’s leadership.”

Lance Healy, Co-Founder and Chief Innovation Officer at Banyan Technology, announced today the appointment of Brian Smith as Chief Executive Officer. Smith brings more than two decades of "C-suite" experience to Banyan Technology.

"This is an exciting time to have an experienced leader like Brian take over management of the company," Healy explained. "The need for live, instant connectivity in the logistics industry has grown exponentially since I started the company in 2001, and so have we, with 27,000 unique users and 1,000 more carrier connections than our closest competitor."

One of the commonest questions I’m asked is whether the bank should just launch another bank, rather than trying to be digital and convert the existing bank.  The idea is that the new bank will have no legacy, no constraints, can develop from a clean sheet of paper and be the bank’s very own challenger bank.  The expectation is that the new bank will eat the old bank, over time, until at some point in the future the old bank can be shut down.