SWIFT announces today that the Innotribe Startup Challenge for Africa is open for applications. For the second year running, the Innotribe Startup Challenge for Africa will be part of SWIFT’s African Regional Conference (ARC) held in Mauritius from 17-19 May. 

Third party risk management is making headlines and for some very good reasons. Why? Structural factors are forcing a complete rethink of current practices.  Financial institutions and third parties are each facing their own challenges as third party risk management receives greater focus than ever before. 

Factor #1: RELIANCE

Neonet, the independent agency broker and execution specialist, announces that it recently joined AIM Italia, Italy’s leading growth market for SMEs, as a member firm.
 
“As an independent agency brokerage, we constantly review our access to all available European liquidity.  Recent customer demand for access to Italy’s SMEs lead to our decision to become a member of AIM Italia”, said Tim Wildenberg, Chief Executive Officer of Neonet.  “We are delighted to offer our clients access to SMEs listed on AIM Italia.”
 

The PSD2 (Payments Services Directive 2) and Open API (application programming interface) standards in banking will come into force in the UK (and the wider EU) within two years. The UK Government is backing these initiatives with the aim to provide consumers with more secure, less expensive and easy-to-use financial services. These developments will affect both retail and corporate banking. But how will this drive innovation and competition in financial services, and where are banks in the race to take advantage of the new approaches?

The complete recipe for a financial services app that stands out from the crowd

So, you want to design a financial services app. But how do you make it stand out from the thousands of others already in the market? From our experience, customer centricity is the key, where by ‘customer’ we mean ‘real people’. Technical components influence speed and performance, but a fully explored customer journey creates a satisfying app experience. Here’s the complete recipe for an appealing and useful financial services app:

Gresham Computing plc, a leading provider of real-time financial transaction control and enterprise data integrity solutions, today announced a trading update for the year ended 31 December 2015 ("FY 2015").

The Group expects to report revenues for the year up 16% to £14.8 million and Adjusted EBITDA* up 142% to £2.7 million in-line with expectations.

With a wealth of new ideas and innovation continually coming to market, the UK’s financial technology sector is a very exciting place to be. New start-ups are constantly emerging, causing incredible changes in the industry.

It’s perhaps not surprising then that many investors’ sights are set on London, a hub for financial services and technology innovation. Indeed, in 2014 alone, the UK government estimates the domestic financial technology sector attracted a massive £342 million in investment and generated £20 billion in revenue.

London-based International Finance Magazine has conferred the 2015 awards for 'Most Innovative Bank' and 'Best Customer Service Bank' in Poland to ING Bank Poland at a gala ceremony in the Landmark Hotel in London on November 27.

The awards in various categories were presented by Peter Meyer, CEO, the Middle East Association (MEA); Dr. Cigdem Kogar, Chief Representative of Central Bank of Turkey in London; Kofi Addo, Head of Trade and Investment, Ghana High Commission; and Thomas Mbun, Head of Treasury and Finance, Ghana High Commission.

Three Swedish municipalities announces, through a contract award decision, that they intend to sign an agreement with Formpipe regarding the e-archiving product Long-Term Archive. The order value is estimated to SEK 20 million over an eight-year period.

Earthport (AIM: EPO.L), the leading payment network for cross-border payments, is pleased to announce the appointment of N+1 Singer and Shore Capital as Joint Brokers to the Company with immediate effect. Panmure Gordon remains as Nominated Adviser and Joint Broker to the Company