A brief history of what's in your wallet

The Credit Card and revolving balance concept arrived in the second half of the 20th century. Diners Club, American Express, Visa and Mastercard have all made their mark in the history of the Credit Card.

From John Biggins “Charg-it” card in 1946 to the modern day chipped rectangles of glossy plastic that reside in everyones wallet today, to the arrival of mobile and digital payments for most transactions we are still punching a 4 digit pin number into a POS device or an ATM.

Back in 2010 crowdfunding was a fledgling industry. As with much early stage growth, very little of note happened. Move forward five years and the contrast is startling. Namely the man on the street is starting to take notice and get involved. Of course the media has been playing their part for at least a year, with more and more eulogies slowly appearing in all the mainstream press. As with any new industry, naysayers have also arisen, criticising vast elements of crowdfunding. But it is safe to say that the crowdfunding cat is totally and irrevocably out of the proverbial bag.

Under MiFID II pre- and post-trade data is required to be made available in an unbundled fashion – ultimately the regulator is aiming to drive down data costs. So where trading venues sell their pre- and post-trade data in the same ‘package’ they will be required to also make it available separately at a reasonable cost. Setting aside the cost discussion, the whole topic of data disaggregation has perhaps slipped under the radar.

The pace of private investment is changing. In fact, almost everything in the world of private investment is changing. New sources of capital are flooding the market against a background of low interest rates – and investors are looking for new asset classes to deliver the returns they once took for granted. And yet many within the industry still insist on working in the same way as they have done for the past few decades.

 SNL Financial has released a new report exploring the state of the U.K’s banking system.

SWIFT announces that The KYC Registry is now available to fund distributors and custodians. In response to an identified need within its Community, SWIFT is extending the reach of The KYC Registry beyond correspondent banking to support Know Your Customer (KYC) compliance requirements for funds distribution and custody services.                                                                                                

Tech Data Corporation (Nasdaq:TECD) today announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire certain assets of Signature Technology Group, Inc. ("STG"), a leading provider of data center and professional services throughout North America. STG's services will be offered through Tech Data's Advanced Infrastructure Solutions (AIS) division, the company's data center business in the Americas.

Equens has announced the first go-live of its new white-label PSP proposition for banks, acquirers and payment service providers (PSPs). This new proposition is part of the omnichannel solution Equens has brought onto the market. It creates a one-stop-shop model for banks, acquirers and PSPs both for offline and online retail payments across Europe. The first client Equens is serving with its white-label PSP solution is a European acquirer who has set up an offer for the German market and is now preparing to enter other European markets.

Brits have gone contactless crazy according to data from Worldpay, which today revealed that it has processed over £2 billion of contactless payments since January 2012. This surge is even more incredible as it was only in October 2014 that the company reached the £1 billion milestone.

The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux and collaborative development, today announced Apache: Big Data, a new event that brings together leading committers of Apache Big Data projects to advance the technologies driving the way we capture, assess and store the plethora of data in the world today.