Euro Manganese Inc. (TSX-V/ASX: EMN) (“EMN” or the "Company") is pleased to announce its listing on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the appointment of both European and Australian investor relations advisors.

In response to growing interest from European investors and due to the strategic location of EMN’s Chvaletice Manganese Project (the “Project”) in the Czech Republic, the Company has appointed Deutsche Gesellschaft für Wertpapieranalyse GmbH (“DGWA”) as its investor relations advisor in Europe. European investors can trade the Company’s common shares under the stock code “E06” on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. Concurrently, due to the significant holdings in EMN by Australian investors and its listing on the Australian Securities Exchange, the Company has appointed NWR Communications Pty Ltd. (“NWR”) as its investor relations advisor in Australia. Both firms provide numerous investor relations services for publicly traded companies, including assisting in disseminating press releases, assisting in increasing investor awareness amongst the retail and institutional investment community, and assisting in overall marketing of the Company. The appointment of each of DGWA and NWR are subject to TSX Venture Exchange approval.

DGWA will provide investor relations services for an initial period of twelve months, which can be extended by a further twelve months upon mutual agreement by the parties, and can be cancelled by either party at the end of each six month period upon thirty days' prior notice. DGWA will be paid a fee of €7,500 per month. NWR will be paid a monthly fee of AUD$10,000 for the first two months, and a retainer of AUD$7,000 per month thereafter, with one months’ prior written notice to be provided in the event the services are to be terminated by the Company. Both DGWA and NWR will be reimbursed for all pre-approved expenses. Neither DGWA nor NWR are current shareholders of the Company.

Atom bank was delighted to welcome Sir Dave Ramsden, Deputy Governor, Markets & Banking, Bank of England, to its Durham HQ at a roundtable of north eastern tech entrepreneurs.  

Sir Dave's attendance at the roundtable was part of a series of visits to a variety of organisations in the North East.  Senior policymakers at the Bank of England regularly visit different regions in the UK, so they can hear first-hand the views of businesses and communities. This helps inform decision making at the Bank of England.

A broad range of firms local to the North East were round the table, alongside Sir Dave and Edward Twiddy from Atom.  Participants included an early stage Durham University anti-counterfeiting spin out, well established Tyneside tech consultants and outsourcers, fintech firms from Durham and Darlington changing the terms of trade for insurance and accountancy, a multinational games business and a Newcastle start up at the bleeding edge of blockchain.

The group discussed the investment environment for tech and financial services firms, including the role of regional, national and international markets for finding the capital needed to grow their business.

Speaking after the event, Sir Dave Ramsden said: "I would like to extend my thanks to Atom bank for inviting me to the Fintech Roundtable. At the Bank of England, we take a keen interest in exploring how innovation and developments in fintech might support our mission to promote the good of the people of the UK by maintaining monetary and financial stability."

Edward Twiddy, Atom bank’s Chief Innovation Officer said: “There is an overwhelming swell of new firms coming to challenge established ways of working between businesses and creating completely new experiences for people of all ages and stages. Atom is very much part of that movement, but we are one of many firms changing their industry with novel applications of technology, and increasingly doing this from the North East.

“Skills – tech and personal – and scale are critical to our combined success, so the roundtable was a great chance to discuss our firms’ collective response to the skills challenge and the community of employers in the region who are dedicated to the next generation of schoolchildren and graduates."

 BABB has successfully completed its equity crowdfunding through Crowdcube, raising more than £1,400,000 from 1,232 investors.

The funds will be used to support BABB’s applications for banking licences in the UK and Lithuania.

BABB is building a decentralised platform using blockchain and biometrics technology, to provide mobile banking services to empower the global micro economy and tackle one of the world’s biggest challenges: how to effectively connect unbanked people to the economy. 

Everyone needs a bank account. Life is very, very difficult without one: it’s virtually impossible to find a place to rent, get a mobile phone, be paid officially for work, or start a business. Yet billions of people around the world are unable to access the basic banking services they need.

BABB is aiming to solve this problem by providing people around the world with access to a bank account and banking services through its app. Customers can open an account on their smartphone in a few simple steps and gain access to a network which makes it quick and cheap to transfer money, exchange currencies and fundraise for projects.

Its first mobile app, which (once BABB obtains a banking licence) will offer the ability to open a bank account and make domestic and international transactions, launches to beta testers in the autumn, with more advanced functionality following in 2019.

The Crowdcube campaign was launched in June, and followed the successful sell-out of BABB’s token sale in February, which raised $20 million from 10,000 people across 146 nations.

Rushd Averroes, Chief Executive Officer at BABB said, “This funding marks another critical milestone as we move towards our goal of improving lives and livelihoods and creating new opportunities for individuals and businesses across the world.

“Millions are excluded from, or dissatisfied with, existing banking institutions. We’re determined to change the industry, to make banking fair, inclusive and globally connected. We plan to do this by ripping up the rulebook on how to build a bank, whilst remaining fully compliant with all regulation. By combining blockchain technology, biometrics and artificial intelligence, we are creating the future of banking, radically different from what the world has seen before.

The Southern city of Curitiba, in Brazil, has become an important location for a high-level global debate on the business landscape of Latin America. The EBANX Summit 2018 brought together some of the world's top market experts to talk about economy, logistics, consumption, and opportunities for global companies across Latin America, besides gathering top executives from the largest digital commerce stores in the world, to discuss the market in the region.

On Wednesday, 3, Lindsay Lehr, senior director of payment practices at Americas Market Intelligence (AMI) and a keynote speaker at the EBANX Summit 2018, spoke about the recovery trends and opportunities in Latin America. 

According to analysis of data from entities such as the World Bank, the IMF, and

the United Nations, brought up by Lehr during her speech, by 2021, Latin America will have recovered the $1 trillion US dollars lost between 2015 and 2016, making its GDP back to the $6.5 trillion US dollars rate.

Lehr also spoke about specific strengths of some of the major Latin American economies, which explain the recovery trend of the region as a whole. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) goes on and leaves the Mexican economy in an optimistic phase. In Brazil, controlled inflation and the constant increase of people's expenses after the crisis also show a recovery.

The moment for digital commerce in Latin America is now 

In addition to macroeconomics data, Lehr also addressed the consumption of products and services through technology, positioning the region as a market that should be on global company's radar. For instance, ecommerce, which has CAGR of 20%. The penetration and use of the Internet by Latin Americans were also identified as opportunities: Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina are respectively, in the second, sixth and eighth positions in the top 10 countries with more weekly hours spent on the internet.

According to Lehr's presentation, a great part of LatAm's technology needs will be serviced from abroad. Being one of the fastest-growing IT markets in the world, with CAGR of 5.5% through 2021, and having high rates of internet penetration, it is ready, and eager, to consume goods, services, and digital goods from cross-border companies. 

Yolt, the smart thinking money app, has today announced it has reached 500,000 registered users since launching in June 2017. 

Yolt empowers people to take control of their finances by enabling them to view their accounts, credit cards and pensions together in one place. From the beginning, Yolt has been on a mission to change the way people think about money through easy budgeting, spending categorisation and deal finding. 

This half-million milestone comes during a huge period of growth for Yolt, both for the app and the company as a whole. With the announcement of two new markets, Italy and the imminent launch into France, Yolt has made its first steps to becoming a pan-European platform empowering more consumers to be smart with their money. In the UK, Yolt remains at the forefront of Open Banking becoming the first third-party provider (TTP) to successfully complete Application Programming Interface (API) connections with nine of the biggest high street banks in the UK (CMA9). As a result, Open Banking APIs enable users to view their bank accounts and credit cards in a fast, seamless and secure way.                                                                                                                                                                     

Yolt’s mission to empower users to take control and make better financial decisions has also seen the app completely refresh its design based on user feedback. The top bar changes simplified the design to give users a quick, simple and customisable feature focusing solely on showing users the sum total balances across their accounts.

Yolt’s continued to realise its vision to become the only money app consumers need on their phone as it builds towards an ecosystem of partners across three key sectors: utilities & bills, financial products and leisure & experience. This has included integrations, with independent life insurance adviser, Anorak, hassle-free home insurance platform, Homelyfe and the pensions consolidation tool PensionBee. Additional partners are soon to be announced, alongside Yolt’s ambition to launch into the payments space.

The UK’s leading FinTech organisations came together last night to celebrate innovation in the sector at the 11th annual Emerging Payments Awards.

The FinTech industry was worth an incredible £6.6 billion to the UK economy last year, thanks not just to an attractive business environment in the country, but to a commitment to excellence and creativity within the sector. The awards ceremony at The Hilton, Park Lane, London on Wednesday 10^th October celebrated this ingenuity, recognising both big names and innovative start-ups for their ongoing work.

Among the companies honoured at the event was Caffè Nero, which took home the gong for Most Innovative Retailer Implementation of Emerging Payments for its loyalty app powered by Yoyo.

Prepaid card specialist, PrePay Solutions, won the Best Banking Initiative category for its work with Tide. Challenger bank, Monzo, took home the silver award in the Best Customer Facing Experience category for its Jumio-powered ID verification system. Best Professional Service Organisation supporting Emerging Payments, one of multiple new categories for 2018, went to SkyParlour.

Speaking about the winners this year, the Chair of the Judging Panel, John Chaplin, remarked: “The entries this year were truly awe-inspiring – in every category we had some spectacular examples of the inventiveness and resourcefulness that have made the FinTech sector a leading light of the UK economy.  All the shortlisted entrants, as well as the winners, should be proud of their hard work over the last 12 months.”

Reflecting the growing number of exciting start-ups entering the UK FinTech space, a host of disruptors and new names came away with awards this year. Digital payment account provider Modulr is a prime example of a high-performing newcomer, being honoured in a clutch of categories, winning the gold award for the Best B2B Payments Programme and Best Technical Service Organisation. Payment app, Curve, was another, taking home the hotly contested title of Leading Payments Start-Up. 

Director General of the Emerging Payments Association, Tony Craddock, added: “After 11 years of hosting these awards, I can honestly say that the calibre of the entrants is higher than ever. It is truly exciting to see how far the UK FinTech sector has come over the past decade. 

“The ingenuity shown by our winners is testament to the creativity and dedication of everyone in the industry, developing solutions that transform the way consumers thinks about money and payments. I look forward to seeing what we will achieve in the future.”

The full list of winners for 2018 is as follows:

Best International Payments, Remittance or use of FX – Banking Circle 

Best Consumer Funded Payments Programme – Lyk by Thomas Cook Money

Best Financial Inclusion Payments Programme – EcoCash powered by mobiquity Money, Mahindra Comviva and Econet Wireless (Cassava Fintech)

Silver – Vocalink, a Mastercard company for Vocalink PromptPay – Thailand

Best Corporate/Government Funded Payments Programme for consumers – IDEMIA – Aadhar Programme in India

Best B2B Payments Programme – Modulr

Silver – Banking Circle

Best Banking Initiative – PrePay Solutions – Tide

Best Collaboration Initiative – i-movo & PayPoint,  Payment Exception Service

Silver – Balance Plus by Veon in partnership with Prepay Nation

Best Use of Payments Data – Cybertonica

Most Innovative Mobile or Proximity Payment Solution – Vocalink, a Mastercard company for

Vocalink PromptPay – Thailand

Silver – Judopay

Most Innovative Retailer Implementation of Emerging Payments – The Yoyo-powered Caffè Nero payments and loyalty app

Best PSP or Acquiring Solution Provider – Paysafe Group

Best Professional Service Organisation supporting Emerging Payments – SkyParlour

Best Back Office Innovation – Banking Circle

Silver – The Chargeback Company – Targeting the source: data-driven chargebacks

Best Customer Facing Experience – Klarna Pay Later

Silver – Jumio and Monzo

Marketing Campaign of the Year – Monese and PrePay Solutions – Free movement of money

Best Technical Service Organisation supporting Emerging Payments – Modulr

Silver – Payworks

Leading Payments Start-Up – Curve with Wirecard

Silver – Modulr

Leading Emerging Payments Organisation – PrePay Solutions

Silver – PPRO

Best CSR or Charity Initiative – B4B Payments Charity Solutions, with Wirecard

Silver – Semafone

Emerging Payments Industry Contributor of the Year – David Birch

FreeAgent, the innovative cloud accounting company, has launched a new set of licences specifically for accountants with clients that bank with the Royal Bank of Scotland and NatWest.  

Under the move, the company - whose award-winning software is designed for accountants working with small businesses and contractors - will now enable accountancy practices to add their new clients to FreeAgent for free, provided that they have either an RBS or NatWest business bank account. 

The new licence types are the latest development arising from FreeAgent’s recent acquisition by the RBS Group, which already sees the banking giant offering FreeAgent software free of charge to all of its small business customers.

Ed Molyneux, CEO and co-founder of FreeAgent, said: “We’re delighted to be able to now give accountancy practices throughout the country the chance to enjoy the benefits of our RBS and NatWest relationship.

“With more than a million business owners currently banking with these high street banks - approximately a quarter of the UK’s small business sector - this is a significant opportunity for accountants looking to expand and grow their practices. But it’s also great news for small business owners looking for additional accounting help and support over the coming years as Making Tax Digital starts to take effect.

“Furthermore, as FreeAgent was recently added to HMRC’s list of software providers that are ready for the introduction of MTD for VAT, it also means that accountants and small business owners banking with RBS and NatWest now have access to a free, MTD-ready solution. We envisage that this will prove very popular during the run up to next April, when the first phase of digital tax comes into effect.”

Accountants who are not currently FreeAgent partners can visit www.freeagent.com/accountants or contact FreeAgent directly to get set up with a Practice Dashboard, from which they can start adding their RBS and NatWest clients.

Banking Circle, the ground-breaking financial utility, has won Best Back Office Innovation and Best International Payments, Remittance or use of FX in the 2018 Emerging Payments Awards. This takes the financial utility’s award total to 10 wins so far in 2018.   

In addition, Miranda McLean, Senior VP for Global Marketing was announced at the event as one of a cohort of ‘Outstanding Women in PayTech’– which champions women in the emerging payments industry and acknowledges those who have made significant achievements.

The Emerging Payments Awards, now in their 11th year, are the fastest growing awards in the industry and this year attracted 33% more entries from some of the leading players in the emerging payments industry. Winners were selected by an elite panel of 40 international judges and announced at a glittering event in London last night (10th October 2018).

Anders la Cour, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Banking Circle said:  “These latest wins are testament to the enormous amount of hard work our team has put in to developing and delivering the best cross border banking solutions for our members. It is incredibly encouraging to be recognised for the ground-breaking work we are doing, and these wins demonstrate the valuable role Banking Circle solutions are playing in the development of emerging payments.”

Banking Circle has moved from being a payments platform to leading the rise of the Financial Utility, handling non-core banking functions on behalf of banks and other Payments businesses such as PSPs and FX Payments businesses.

Through Banking Circle, banks and Financial Tech businesses gain a crucial competitive edge, with the ability to issue their customers with multi-currency IBAN accounts in their own name and in multiple jurisdictions as well as offering loans to their customers to help them to manage their cash flow.

Profile Software, an international financial solutions provider, announced today its participation as a Silver Sponsor at the Wealth and Asset Management-focused event, “AM TECH DAY by L’Agefi”, taking place on 17 October 2018 in Paris, showcasing its pioneering and award-winning Investment Management solutions.

During this event, Profile Software experts will have the opportunity to discuss with professional delegates on Profile’s next generation Wealth Management solutions that are effectively addressing market evolving trends by empowering operational excellence and compliance with international standards on a single, cloud-enabled platform. Indicatively, Profile’s solutions include:

>      Axia& IMSplus: the award-winning Investment Management platforms for advanced Wealth, Asset and Fund Management, Insurance Investment Management, Personal/Private Banking, Robo-Advisory and Custody operations with full cloud/web-based, omni-channel environment.

>      FMS.next: the internationally implemented Digital Banking system available in the Cloud and SaaS covering Core Banking, Lending and Loans, Payments, Alternative Finance and FinTech requirements.

>      Acumen^net:the comprehensive Front-to-Back Office Treasury platform, covering all financial instruments including very complex structures.

>      RiskAvert: the complete and modern Risk Management, Capital Management and Regulatory Reporting platform supporting XBRL validation.

At its stand (No 1), Profile Software will be presenting among others its newly-launched Axia Robo Advisor, which automates all investment management operations targeted to wealth management firms that wish to address a wider market of investors. Axia delivers modern and workflow-based functionality enabling complete automation in client onboarding, compliance, risk monitoring, portfolio selection and rebalancing, supporting a fully self-service or hybrid advisory service model.

AM TECH DAY by L’Agefi is a pan-European event focused on the impact of technological innovations on the asset management industry. The event includes parallel conference sessions and keynote presentations as well as an exhibition area including the Village Start-up. One of the event’s highlights is Finchallenges, where the initiatives developed through coopetition between start-ups, asset managers, distributors, banks and insurance companies, will be presented. More information on the event is available here.