Last week William Trout, Senior Analyst at Celent, presented a webinar on the evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) in wealth management and whether or not its full maturation, predated by that of robo platforms, will spell doom for human advisors or in fact strengthen the delivery and scalability of service, thereby enhancing the overall client experience.

I’m relaxing and thinking.  A bad combination.  Just had several sessions with different conferences on Brexit, Open API’s, PSD2, Open Sourcing, Open Banking, Innovation and more … and it all seems like such drivel.  One of the sessions was asking the question: is it time to drop the curtain on innovation theatre? Yes, for gawds sake, yes.

I have that frustrated feeling of someone who can see the devil and the deep blue sea, as he’s standing in the middle of the two and screaming LOOOOOOOKKKKKKKK!!!!!

OK, overly dramatic.  What’s the problemo, Chris?

Zenbanx, a financial technology provider offering the industry's only mobile multi-currency account, today introduced "conversational banking," the ability for customers to use messaging platforms to sign-in, check balances, get exchange rates, and send money from their Zenbanx account without ever leaving their conversation. WeChat, one of the most popular messaging apps in the world, is the first messaging platform to adopt Zenbanx's conversational banking feature, a simple and secure solution for saving, exchanging, sending currencies internationally and domestically within WeChat.

The Western Union (NYSE: WU) Company, announced today that it has made a strategic investment in Walletron, Inc. a pioneer in mobile wallet bill presentment and payment capabilities.

The investment supports Western Union’s strategic direction to bring smart and convenient payment experiences to its customers via smartphones. Walletron automates brands’ presence in mobile wallets like Apple Wallet and Android Pay, powering digital engagement and serving billers through a unique and innovative bill-to-wallet solution, moBills.

David Brooks has joined fintech giant Quint Finance Group as US territory director as the company looks to drive its expansion strategy in the American marketplace. 

FlexTrade Systems, a global leader in multi-asset execution and order management systems, today announced the appointment of Aaron Levine as Vice President, OEMS Solutions.  Based in the company’s headquarters in New York, Levine will manage sales and business development for FlexTrade’s new OEMS solution, FlexONE.

nCino, the worldwide leader in cloud banking, today announced that Jeff Babka has joined the company as chief financial officer. A seasoned financial executive, Babka brings more than 40 years of experience in financial and operational management with a specific focus in the technology and software industries.

Saxo Bank, the multi-asset investment and trading specialist, and Phoenix Finance, a financial technology firm, signed a MOU to form a white label partnership. The integration process will start in Q1 2017.

IBM announced new Bluemix services that simplify and speed app development in the cloud. With these new services, developers can now easily access and construct pre-configured toolchains using popular DevOps tools, including GitHub and Slack.