SIA is now part of the capital stock of MIP Politecnico di Milano with a 3.17% stake. SIA, a company specializing in the processing of electronic payments, is the third new partner to join in 2016 after Microsoft and Whirlpool and has already been collaborating with the business school for several years on projects that are strategic in terms of innovation and development at international level.

Freetrade has announced today that it will be launching its disruptive new platform for trading stocks and shares, which brings proven commission-free trading technology and fractional share dealing to the UK for the first time.

Next Group Holdings signed definitive Agreements with Dean Keatin Marketing, which completes the transaction to acquire a controlling interest (64% of shares) in Accent Intermedia LLC ("AIM"). AIM is a successful Stored Value Program Manager that has generated over $1 Billion of stored value activations through its PCI Compliant system and has been the go to FinTech (Financial Technology vertical) solution for the Internet Retailer 500.

Analytics software firm FICO announced that Crédit Agricole Consumer Finance (CA CF), a leading player in consumer credit in Europe, has seen excellent results using FICO technology to manage customer credit decisions. CA CF deployed FICO® TRIAD® Customer Manager in May 2003 to automate collections and recovery decisions for its entire revolving credit portfolio, handling about 200,000 unpaid debts per month.

The Business Intelligence Group today announced that it has named Cybera, the leading provider of secure, software-defined WAN (, a 2016 Stratus Award finalist in their annual contest. The organization sought to identify the companies, products and people that are offering unique solutions that take advantage of cloud technologies.

 Burgan Bank, one of the leading banks in the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey (MENAT) region, has successfully gone live on ICS BANKS, the awards winning universal banking software, from ICS Financial Systems Limited (ICSFS), the global software and services provider for banks and financial institutions.

 Unisys Corporation  announced that its UK subsidiary has been selected by Yorkshire Building Society Group (YBSG), the UK’s second largest building society, to provide its Unisys Stealth^® data protection product to secure customer information and facilitate compliance with the new Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS).

Societe Generale Group has acquired a stake in the share capital of TagPay, a French FinTech specialised in mobile digital banking. TagPay is currently being rolled out in several of the Group’s African subsidiaries: a mobile recovery solution implemented by Manko in Senegal, merchant payments in Ivory Coast tested at Shell service stations, as well as mobile banking projects in several countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. TagPay is a Core Banking System built around the mobile phone, from basic feature phones to smartphones.

Bitcoin arguably started the blockchain movement based on several key principles; among these: accountability, decentralization, and transparency. That hasn’t stopped banks and other organizations involved in financial technologies to start developing private blockchains.

In the world of technology today, perhaps no label is more overused than fintech. Fintech—the portmanteau of finance and technology—is being slapped onto any technology system and process that interacts with finance—from clearing and settlement to counterparty risk management—as if the magic aura of the word alone will suddenly place financial executives on panels with kids in hoodies.