Memento, together with Islandsbanki, just deployed a new service allowing anyone to raise money together with group of friends, co-workers, fellow students or the whole community. 

Itiviti, backed by Nordic Capital Fund VII, today announces the intention to combine with ULLINK to build a full service technology and infrastructure provider for global and regional financial institutions. 

This latest addition highlights Northern Trust’s continued investment in its Capital Markets business which encompasses transition management, institutional brokerage, foreign exchange and securities lending services. 

Based in London, Mahoney will focus on transition management services for insurance companies and financial institutions across the region. He will be responsible for all aspects of the transition event life cycle, encompassing assignment origination, relationship management, execution strategy and end-to-end project management. He reports to Craig Blackbourn, who was appointed as head of transition management for EMEA in January 2017. 

Mahoney joins from State Street Global Markets where he was a transition manager and portfolio trader for the last eight years.

“Mike’s appointment underlines our continued commitment to investing in our global transition management business,” said Blackbourn, head of transition management, EMEA, Northern Trust Capital Markets. “Northern Trust’s transition management offering is centered around minimizing risk and controlling costs alongside maximizing transparency for our clients and Mike’s extensive experience will be invaluable in delivering exemplary performance throughout the transition management lifecycle.”

Northern Trust has a 30-year track record of providing transition management services. Under its Capital Markets business, it also offers foreign exchange, securities lending and institutional brokerage services to its diverse global client base. It has more than 350 employees dedicated to providing capital markets services worldwide from offices in Boston, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Toronto, London, Singapore, Seoul, Hong Kong, and Sydney.

BNP Paribas announces a new joint initiative between its Corporate and Institutional Banking (CIB) and Bank of the West Commercial Banking Group (CBG) to offer Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) services to Bank of the West commercial clients.

This new initiative will provide tailored M&A advice and solutions for all clients including those from key sectors where Bank of the West has strong industry expertise such as technology, industrials, healthcare, beverage, food and agribusiness.

"This BNP Paribas cross-organizational platform will provide Bank of the West's clients with access to the full spectrum of M&A solutions both in the US and globally, and will ensure that all product capabilities of the BNP Paribas Group will be offered. This clearly illustrates the strength of our integrated and diversified business model as it will allow the bank not only to deepen its client relationships, but also to continue BNP Paribas' solid and sustainable growth in the United States," said Lincoln Payton, CIB's Head of Advisory Americas.

To lead this effort, Roger Spitz has been appointed Head of this M&A Advisory practice. In this role, Spitz will be responsible for driving the joint initiative with Bank of the West and for coordinating with BNP Paribas Americas and the global M&A franchise. Spitz will maintain his role as Technology/Media/Telecom M&A sector representative for BNP Paribas Americas and given the importance of Bank of the West's technology-related services and deep relationships in Silicon Valley, he will be critical to the success of this platform. Spitz was most recently Head of Technology and Aerospace & Defense, Europe Middle East Africa at BNP Paribas in London. Spitz is now based in San Francisco and reports to Emre Gunalp, Head of North America M&A Advisory, who is based in New York.

"While we continue to expand our commercial banking geographic reach across the United States, our deep industry expertise now coupled with CIB's M&A Advisory solutions, will provide clients with unparalleled access to specialized and international solutions," said Jean-Marc Torre, Head of Commercial Banking Group, Bank of the West.

Additionally on September 5th, this new practice closed its first deal and acted as exclusive sell-side M&A advisor to HAVI Group in relation to the divestment of its non-core Recycling & Waste Solutions division. This deal is a milestone for North America as it is the first M&A transaction with a Bank of the West client since the start of this new joint initiative.

A majority (70%) of consumers would stop doing business with a company if it experienced a data breach, according to a survey of more than 10,000 consumers worldwide conducted on behalf of Gemalto, the world leader in digital security. In addition, seven in ten consumers (69%) feel businesses don't take the security of customer data very seriously.

Despite these concerns, the Gemalto study found that consumers are failing to adequately secure themselves, with over half (56%) still using the same password for multiple online accounts. Even when businesses offer robust security solutions, such as two-factor authentication, two fifths (41%) of consumers admit to not using the technology to secure social media accounts, leaving them vulnerable to data breaches. 

This may be because the majority of consumers (62%) believe the business holding their data is mostly responsible for its security. This is resulting in businesses being forced to take additional steps to protect consumers and enforce robust security measures, as well as educate them on the benefits of adopting these. Retailers (61%), banks (59%) and social media sites (58%) were found to have a lot of work to do, with these being sectors that consumers would leave if they suffered a breach. 

"Consumers are evidently happy to relinquish the responsibility of protecting their data to a business, but are expecting it to be kept secure without any effort on their part," says Jason Hart, CTO, Identity and Data Protection at Gemalto. "In the face of upcoming data regulations such as GDPR, it's now up to businesses to ensure they are forcing security protocols on their customers to keep data secure. It's no longer enough to offer these solutions as an option. These protocols must be mandatory from the start – otherwise businesses will face not only financial consequences, but also potentially legal action from consumers."

Despite their behaviour, consumers' security concerns are high, as two thirds (67%) worry they will be victims of a data breach in the near future. Consequently, consumers now hold businesses accountable – if their data is stolen, the majority (93%) of consumers would take or consider taking legal action against the compromised business. 

Consumers Trust Some Industries More Than Others

When it comes to the businesses that consumers trust least, over half (58%) believe that social media sites are one of the biggest threats to their data, with one in five (20%) fearful of travel sites – worryingly, one in ten (9%) think no sites pose a risk to them. 

On the other hand, a third (33%) of consumers trust banks the most with their personal data, despite them being frequent targets and victims of data breaches, with industry certified bodies (12%), device manufacturers (11%) and the government (10%) next on the list.

Hart continues, "It's astonishing that consumers are now putting their own data at risk, by failing to use these measures, despite growing concerns around their security. It's resulting in an alarming amount of breaches – 80% – being caused by weak or previously stolen credentials. Something has to change soon on both the business and consumer sides or this is only going to get worse."

This week sees the official launch of Moneo.io — the world’s first blockchain talent agency that enables organisations worldwide to hire high-end, experienced blockchain freelancers, from coders to marketers, and pay both their fee and the freelancers themselves in bitcoin via Moneo’s secure, escrowed payments platform.

Blockchain technology is being championed across every sector from finance and gaming through to law enforcement and healthcare. According to a recent report the market is estimated to create annual revenues of $45Bn by 2027. The benefits of this decentralised technology are widely accepted but the main challenge to making it a reality continues to be the lack of expertise in blockchain implementation. And much of that expertise is part of a digital nomadic tribe that eschews the standard corporate environment—which is where Moneo comes in.   

Richard Foster, co-founder says, “The freelance ethos is a natural fit for the boundless application of decentralised technologies. We saw not so much a gap in the market, as a yawning chasm for a digital, crypto-platform that brought together ambitious and innovative firms with the smartest independent blockchain talent across all disciplines.”

Founded in 2016, Moneo.io launched in beta in May this year. In just six months, more than 400 clients have posted $8m of blockchain projects and over 1,500 freelancers have applied to join.

Richard continues, “We only accept a fraction of freelance applications, so firms can be confident that whether they hire an Ethereum developer in the US, a UK blockchain marketing consultant, or an ICO expert in Germany, they are the best in their field.”

Prior to launching Moneo.io, Richard successfully raised angel funding for a financially regulated escrow payments platform and has ten years’ experience as an independent IT consultant working in finance. Moneo’s co-founder, Amy Diez, is an ACCA Accountant and was formerly Associate Director in KPMG London’s financial modelling team. Amy also has a freelance background. In Moneo.io they have created a team already 12 strong that combines ICO experience with a range of developer skills in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and token sales. 

Thomas van der Bijl, CEO at Followcoin.io says, "It's normally a huge headache to find experienced blockchain talent, and we know projects can be delayed months because of it. Using Moneo, we found top notch Ethereum developers within 24 hours. These developers were able to soundly review our smart contracts and help us reach the Followcoin token sale target date."

Moneo.io does not charge freelancers any commission on their work, while the liquidity of the marketplace easily offsets the modest 10% fee to the hiring companies. 

Solidity Developer and freelancer Bryan Woods says, "Some freelance sites are just geared to the lowest bidder, while others take a sizeable commission. Moneo does neither and there is no onerous pitching system. The jobs I’ve completed through Moneo have all been quality and well-funded projects."

Richard concludes, “With the extensive support we have already seen from all elements of the blockchain community, we are really excited for Moneo and look forward to playing our part in enabling this radical technology’s widespread adoption.”