KinerjaPay Corp., a Delaware corporation (OTCQB: KPAY), a digital payment and e-commerce platform, ("KinerjaPay" or the "Company") announced that it has received a signed commitment from PT. Investa Wahana Group, Indonesia to invest $200 million, subscribing for $100 million in shares of the Company's Series F and an addition $100 million in shares of the Company's Series G Convertible Preferred Stock.

UK neobank Monzo has started to prepare for its launch in the US, according to sources familiar with the matter cited by TechCrunch. The neobank has already set up a small team in the US to help lay the groundwork of bringing Monzo to the country. 

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Initially, Monzo will work with a banking partner, but it aims to apply for a regulatory license that will allow it to work independently as a bank. Rumors of Monzo's plans to launch in the US first emerged in February 2018, when its CEO, Tom Blomfield, stated that it was looking at such an expansion but not in the "near future." However, looking at its efforts now, this launch may come sooner than previously expected. 

The neobank plans to start with a lite version of its products in the US. This would be a similar approach to the way it established itself in the UK, where it first rolled out a prepaid card, followed by a fully fledged bank account later on, per TechCrunch. 

Such a strategy would allow Monzo to build up a customer base and presence in the US, while also working on getting a federal banking charter at the same time. Additionally, having investors that are familiar with the US, including General Catalyst, Stripe, and Goodwater Capital, may help Monzo with this expansion, as they can provide the neobank with guidance and knowledge about the local market. 

Monzo is wise to take a slow-and-steady approach to entering the complex US market, but it should make sure to use this time to tailor its products effectively. In the UK, Monzo offers users a debit card linked to its mobile app, which has many popular personal finance management (PFM) features. 

These offerings will likely be met with high demand from US consumers as well, but Monzo should also consider rolling out new and US-specific products. Debit card use in the US has declined from 74% to 58% since 2013, while a third more households now pay with credit cards in the country, according to ValuePenguin. It would make sense for Monzo to bring new products to the US, such as a credit card, to ensure that it can cater to all customer needs. 

Mastercard today announced that it is dropping its name from its iconic brand mark in select contexts. The interlocking red and yellow circles, referred to as the Mastercard Symbol, will now stand on its own across cards using the red and yellow brand mark, acceptance marks at retail locations both in the physical and digital worlds, and major sponsorship properties. As the consumer and commerce landscape continues to evolve, the Mastercard Symbol represents Mastercard better than one word ever could, and the flexible modern design will allow it to work seamlessly across the digital landscape.

“Reinvention in the digital age calls for modern simplicity,” said Raja Rajamannar, chief marketing and communication officer at Mastercard. “And with more than 80 percent of people spontaneously recognizing the Mastercard Symbol without the word ‘mastercard,’ we felt ready to take this next step in our brand evolution. We are proud of our rich brand heritage and are excited to see the iconic circles standing on their own.”  

The red and yellow interlocking circles have been the hallmark of the Mastercard brand for more than 50 years, symbolizing the brand’s promise to connect people to Priceless possibilities. The instantaneously recognizable circles are a powerful symbol that bring people closer to their passions and give them the confidence and trust that their transactions are secure. 

“We live in a time where, increasingly, we communicate not through words but through icons and symbols. Mastercard has had the great fortune of being represented by two interlocking circles, one red, one yellow, since its founding in 1966, said Michael Bierut, partner at Pentagram. “Now, by allowing this symbol to shine on its own, Mastercard enters an elite cadre of brands that are represented not by name, but by symbol: an apple, a target, a swoosh. Mastercard’s two interlocking circles have always represented their commitment to connecting people. Now, that commitment is given greater presence by Mastercard’s status as a symbol brand.” 

Semafone, the leading provider of data security and compliance solutions for contact centres, takes an optimistic view of the outlook for the technology industry in 2019. CEO Tim Critchley, global solutions director Ben Rafferty and head of information security Shane Lewis, share their top tech predictions for this year.

1. Brexit – the voice of the tech sector will prevail

Our view is that the pre-Brexit fog will lift. The UK Government will finally implement a forward-thinking immigration policy that will give tech companies access to the skills they need to grow (come on Mr Javid - you know it makes sense!). Our money is on a 12-month delay to article 50, but we refuse to be downbeat and believe that we will find a way past the current impasse and that the UK tech sector will move on to bigger and better things in 2019.

2)     There will be no 4% fine - yet

We’ve seen the number of breaches and incidents being reported to the ICO go up since GDPR, but we’ve got at least another year before we see the full 4% imposed on a major brand. Companies have taken heed of the regulation and are – on the whole – doing all they can to be compliant. In the UK, the ICO will therefore continue to work with brands, using carrot rather than stick. Fines will be imposed, but they won’t be anything like 4% of turnover.

1. Cryptocurrencies will stand their ground

In spite of the widespread jeers at the over-hyping of blockchain and the dramatic descent of the value of Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies aren’t going away any time soon. While Goldman Sachs may have put its digital currency trading plans on ice, it hasn’t scrapped them altogether and our view is that we’ll see cryptocurrencies find their place in society before too long. This may not be the year in which the practical application for Blockchain is finally nailed, but we might just see Bitcoin pull off another bounce.

1. After the CCPA in the US, other states will follow

The California Consumer Privacy Act officially comes into force on 1 January 2020, so we’ll see companies across the pond racing to get to grips with this regulation next year. We’ll also see a number of other states following suit. California is a trend setter when it comes to data protection regulations, so we’ll see other states such as Massachusetts, Illinois and New York looking to draft their own form of the regulation soon.

1. In the race to modernise, vulnerabilities will be exploited

In the increasingly flooded technology market, companies are attempting to get their new solutions on the shelf as quickly as possible to stay competitive. However, in this race to modernise, companies are bypassing security controls and requirements. Glaring vulnerabilities are making these new technologies, such as IoT, a target for hackers, and we’ll see some serious hacking of these devices in 2019. Companies that offer products to consumers without having considered privacy and security by design, means that peoples’ homes will be at risk. With WiFi enabled kettles, heating systems and more with no security, hackers could easily find a way into the network through these devices. DDoS attacks on IoT devices will therefore be increasing even more over the next year.

1. Old hacking techniques will thrive

While new technologies are leaving doors wide open for hackers, 2019 will also see the age-old hacking techniques, such as ransomware and phishing, making serious headway this year. Sadly, it is smaller organisations, armed with fewer resources to protect themselves, that are becoming the prime targets. Even those companies who do perform security awareness training are still seeing 20 per cent of staff fall for basic phishing campaigns, so organisations need to make this a top priority in 2019. 

Tim Critchley, CEO, commented: “With so much technological advancement happening so quickly, we’ll see hackers working harder than ever in 2019, using both old and new techniques. However, demand for our services has never been higher and we see so many of our customers now investing in good data practices that we can only be optimistic about the future – ‘security’ seems finally to be on the agenda in the right way for a lot of large and small organisations who are more aware of the dangers. There are new US regulations on the horizon and it’s going to be a great year ahead for the tech sector, so we can expect to see companies putting up a robust defence.”

Linedata (Euronext Paris: LIN) announces the acquisition of French start-up Loansquare, whose portal digitalizes relationships between borrowers and lenders. By acquiring Loansquare, Linedata enhances the end-to-end capabilities of its platforms and services for lenders.

"I am delighted to start 2019 with the acquisition of Loansquare, says Anvaraly Jiva, Founder and CEO of Linedata. We are engaged in an ambitious process of enabling digital transformation and are thrilled to be able to integrate innovators from the start-up community."

The Loansquare platform is a comprehensive solution for setting up and managing commercial loans and streamlining exchanges between borrowers and financial institutions:

• A Borrower Portal lets institutions expose their financing needs to lenders and manage their loan portfolio.
• A Servicing Portal lets lenders manage financial flows and commitments in a fully automated and secure manner.

The platform also offers innovative diary, messaging and document management features.

“Companies are constantly searching for digital solutions to manage their operations simply and efficiently. The complementarities between the Linedata and Loansquare platforms enables us to satisfy this need in a truly innovative way, connecting banks and borrowers with the same user experience and standards demanded by consumers in their dealings with institutions", adds François Lévy, Loansquare CEO.

Loansquare now interoperates with Linedata Uniloan³⁶⁰, a servicing platform for commercial and syndicated loans, Linedata Capitalstream, a global commercial loans origination and risk management platform, and Linedata Ekip³⁶⁰, a global leasing, car finance and consumer loans solution.

"The Loansquare platform enables us to deliver innovative solutions in all our markets, in North America, Europe, Latin America and Africa, that support our clients in the transformation of their business models", states Alain Mattei, Head of Lending and Leasing Europe at Linedata.

Silicon Valley analytic software firm FICO has been awarded five new patents related to fraud, artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced analytics.  In total, FICO currently holds 192 US and foreign patents, and 93 pending patent applications.

Two of the patents are for groundbreaking analytic technology used by FICO’s industry-leading FICO^® Falcon^® Platform for fraud management:

• “Detection of Compromise of Merchants, ATMs, And Networks” relates to the generation of compromise profiles for financial accounts based on reported fraud data of a payment account and merchant device. These compromise profiles accelerate detection of fraud.
• “Card Fraud Detection Utilising Real-Time Identification Of Merchant Test Sites” covers a system and method for detecting when criminals are “testing” compromised cards, by using real-time merchant profiles and specialised scoring models.

FICO inventors also received three patents related to analytics and decision management:

• “Efficiently Representing Complex Score Models” transforms predictive models into a software program for deployment in a rules engine, helping IT departments solve the problem of operationalising analytics. This technology is integrated in FICO^® Blaze Advisor^® decision rules management system, part of the FICO^® Decision Management Suite.
• “Automatic Modeling Farmer” covers an AI system that automatically develops and evaluates a large number of possible predictive models in order to produce optimal models. This is a streamlined modelling process to enable quick development of large-scale models using Big Data, and is used by FICO data scientists to identify candidate data sources with the most predictive promise.
• “Systems and Methods to Improve Decision Management Project Testing” is an invention that visualises the validation status of components of an executable decision management project, which improves project testing. This technology is integrated in FICO^® Origination Manager.

“This is an exciting time for analytics and decision management, and FICO’s inventions are propelling change in this field,” said Dr. Stuart Wells, FICO’s chief product and technology officer. “Our data scientists continue to be at the forefront of the AI revolution and the progress in intelligent decision automation.”

After being ten years at the helm of core banking provider Ohpen, founder Chris Zadeh (43) transfers the CEO position to Matthijs Aler (42) per January 1^st 2019. Zadeh started Ohpen out of dissatisfaction with the existing legacy core banking software that never worked. In 2008, he left BinckBank to develop a completely new, cloud-native, core banking platform. "A platform that would always work, guaranteed- and would leave the competition far behind" says Zadeh. In ten years, Ohpen became a market leader in the Netherlands and is still the only full SaaS core banking platform in the world.

Matthijs Aler, an accomplished banker has extensive experience in the financial services industry. Prior to joining Ohpen he held several positions at BinckBank including: Managing Director of The Netherlands and CEO France where he was responsible for setting up the French branch.

Aler joined Ohpen seven years ago to become CCO and later Chief Operational Officer (COO).  He will take over the day-to-day management from Chris Zadeh who will remain affiliated with Ohpen as chairman of the board. Zadeh will focus on the overall strategy, clients and future technology development.

Chris Zadeh: "When we were a startup, we had nothing but our mission to build the best core banking engine in the world. No employees. No customers. No office. After having heard  “no” from banks a thousand times and after a million hours of development, we are now a scale-up with satisfied clients; we have moved on from working in a basement to working in offices that accommodate our 150 employees. Matthijs and I have been colleagues and friends for over seventeen years, first at BinckBank and now at Ohpen. He is the one to lead Ohpen."

Matthijs Aler: "Chris already foresaw that banking would go to the cloud when Amazon was still just known as a bookstore and nobody had heard of the cloud. He is a pioneer who literally overcame all obstacles to bring core banking to the cloud. Ohpen was the first company worldwide to gain approval for banking in the cloud by a regulator. Without Chris, the financial services industry would literally have looked totally different."

After ten years of growth under the leadership of Chris Zadeh, Ohpen is the core banking market leader in the Netherlands, has a head office in Amsterdam and a software development hub in Barcelona.  Further expansion plans of the core banking factory are well advanced. In 2017 and 2018, a total of € 40 million in investments was raised to allow the company to grow further.

More changes to the Ohpen board to prepare for the next 10 years

In addition to Chris Zadeh, as chairman, Matthijs Aler as CEO and Angelique Schouten as CCO, employee of the first hour, Lydia van de Voort (34) will join the Ohpen Board as Chief of Staff as of January 1^st 2019.

Pieter Aartsen, CEO NL, leaves Ohpen on January 1^st 2019. Upon the acquisition and successful integration of his company, Fynn Advice in Ohpen, he wants to pursue other interests.

With this composition of the board, Ohpen is getting ready for the next 10 years of growth, Aler concludes:  "We are just scratching the surface and prepare for exponential growth of the company.”

Brokers and hedge funds wanting to offer digital assets to their client base can now partner with Market Synergy for institutional standard cryptocurrency connectivity and security and take a FIX feed or ISP link to Bitfinex’s digital asset gateway. 

Bitfinex is the world’s leading cryptocurrency trading platform, known for pioneering the most sophisticated trading experience in the market. This landmark innovation now enables institutional firms and professional traders to connect to Bitfinex through Market Synergy, providing best in market performance through low latency and robust connectivity. This also creates a significant opportunity for institutional clients who are looking to diversify their offering with digital asset trading.

As announced in July 2018, Swiss-based Market Synergy was selected to design and build a bespoke network for Bitfinex. Following extensive planning and development, the combined offering from Market Synergy and Bitfinex will go live today after scheduled downtime necessary to complete the data migration. Market Synergy’s infrastructure, which is hosted in a Swiss data centre in the heart of Crypto Valley, is highly secure, reliable and supported 24x7. 

James Banister, CEO, Market Synergy comments, “Since we announced our plans to provide institutional standard connectivity for Bitfinex, we have had significant interest from global brokers and hedge funds to connect through our network to Bitfinex’s digital asset gateway. I am delighted that we are going live today and that institutional clients worldwide can benefit from our high performance connectivity to Bitfinex. We can also now offer colocation services to any Bitfinex institutional client.”

Paolo Ardoino, CTO, Bitfinex adds, “At Bitfinex we are constantly innovating to provide the most sophisticated trading platform in the market, and working with Market Synergy, we have been able to take a pioneering step forward with our data migration to dedicated private servers. It has been a considerable undertaking but one we felt was integral to provide a service that matches our ambition and market expectation. We are glad to have been able to collaborate with Market Synergy to provide a solution that promises even greater speed and security across our platforms.”

Market Synergy aims to become the leading institutional outsourced connectivity provider in the cryptocurrency space. It is a separate company within the FXecosystem Group, which also comprises of FXecosystem and Bondecosystem, both of which are institutional market leaders in outsourced connectivity in their respective asset classes. 

Bitfinex is a digital asset trading platform offering state-of-the-art services for digital currency traders and global liquidity providers.