The fee for an international money transfer to Fiji, Samoa, Vanuatu, Kiribati or Tonga is now just $9* for payments initiated by internet banking, phone banking or via an Australian ANZ branch. 

Commenting on the fee reduction, Group Executive Australia Fred Ohlsson said: “Many families and businesses in these five nations rely on friends and relatives who are living and working in Australia to send them money. 

“We have reduced the fees for these money transfers through our Australian branches and phone banking from $32 to $9, and through internet banking from $18 to $9. 
“This fee makes these money transfers more affordable for the people of these five nations, and the economies that need this financial activity,” Mr Ohlsson said.

 

To continue its leadership in Fintech innovation, Greenlight appointed Nancy Cox, former CTO of WorldPay and CIO of Fiserv, as CTO.

Effective immediately, Greenlight’s smart debit card for kids can be used internationally in over 120+ countries. Greenlight began with a focus on the U.S. market and its 10,000+ customers are on track to complete over 1,000,000 transactions this year. Now, with summer approaching, kids traveling abroad for vacation or to study, can use their Greenlight debit cards instead of carrying cash.

In addition to its expanded international capabilities, Greenlight’s smart debit card for kids now integrates with Apple Pay. As a result, kids don’t need to have the physical Greenlight card in order to make a purchase - they just need their iPhones. With Apple Pay integration, Greenlight users have peace of mind that their payments by iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, and Mac are safe and private.

“High schoolers often have a chance to visit other countries through their foreign language classes and many families take vacations internationally, so we’re excited to enable our customers to use their Greenlight Cards worldwide,” said Tim Sheehan, CEO and co-founder of Greenlight Financial Technology, Inc. “Young people are leading the way in paying for things using their mobile phones, so we’re pleased to enable Apple Pay for Greenlight customers.”

Finally, Greenlight also today announced the appointment of Fintech veteran Nancy Cox as CTO. As the former CTO of WorldPayand CIO of Fiserv, Cox will leverage her industry experience to continue Greenlight’s strong emphasis on providing a safe, more convenient, and transparent digital payment experience. Cox also launched the FinTech program at the ATDC on behalf of Worldpay to drive innovation and support early stage FinTech ventures. Cox is also a board member of a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping women advance their careers, Women in Technology, leading the WIT Entrepreneurs program.

“Under the leadership of Nancy Cox, Greenlight will accelerate our innovation in debit card technology.” said Sheehan.

Cox added, “I joined Greenlight because I believe in the vision they have for transforming personal finance for kids and their parents. Greenlight is helping parents raise financially smart kids with a unique solution that is safe, secure, and useful. I see the potential to make a material impact on the family finance market.”

This includes EUR 10m in SimCorp shares. The purchasing price will be adjusted upwards, with estimated EUR 3m upon closing of the agreement.

APL Italiana is a leading provider of investment and portfolio management software for the Italian insurance market. The company is based in Milan and has approximately 120 employees. In 2016, APL Italiana generated revenue of EUR 16.6m and EBIT of EUR 4.8m.*

The acquisition will be effective on 1 July, 2017, and closing of the agreement is planned to be 1 August, 2017. SimCorp expects the acquisition to increase its revenue by 2% and have no material impact on EBIT margin in 2017.

Following the acquisition, APL Italiana will be renamed SimCorp Italiana and form the basis of SimCorp’s new Italian market unit with the aim of strengthening SimCorp’s position in the Italian market. SimCorp expects to realize synergies from harmonizing development and consulting services across the two organizations. Further, SimCorp expects the acquisition to present cross-sales opportunities with SimCorp Dimension.

APL Italiana’s software solution, SOFIA, will continue to exist to address the specific needs of the Italian insurance market. The solution will be renamed SimCorp Sofia. The management team of APL Italiana will stay and are committed to continue their work in the company going forward. 

Commenting on the acquisition, SimCorp CEO, Klaus Holse says: ”Following the recent client wins in Italy and Spain, the acquisition of APL Italiana helps us further establish our position in Southern Europe. In addition to a strong development organization, APL Italiana has a well-developed consulting and services business. This, and more than 100 new employees with IT and asset management knowledge, will be an asset for us, when further building our position in this and other markets. All in all, I see APL Italiana as a perfect match for us and I am proud to welcome their employees and clients to the SimCorp family.”

The SimCorp shares that are part of the purchase price will be subject to a lock-up restriction. They will be released to the sellers of APL Italiana with 1/3 per year during the three years following closing, with the last shares being released following the announcement of SimCorp’s 2019 results. 

SimCorp will in connection with the acquisition, issue new shares with a total value of EUR 10m. Further details on the issuance of shares will be announced separately. 

Together, ScanSource and POS Portal will create the industry’s largest payments channel, ensuring customers have access to the solutions, services and support that can help them be successful. The two companies sell through complementary solution delivery channels with little customer overlap. ScanSource primarily serves the enterprise and mid-market merchant segments, with thousands of POS value-added resellers (VARs) and system integrators as customers.

 

POS Portal reaches the SMB merchant segment via strong relationships with the leading payment processors, independent sales organizations (ISOs) and many of the leading tablet-based POS software developers. Both companies’ existing customers will benefit; POS Portal’s customers will gain access to ScanSource’s larger portfolio of POS offerings, and ScanSource’s reseller customers will have access to additional services from POS Portal.

For the first full year after closing, POS Portal net sales are estimated to total approximately $110 million with an estimated EBITDA margin in the low teens. Under the agreement, the all-cash transaction includes an initial purchase price of approximately $144.9 million, plus an earn-out payment up to $13.2 million to be made on November 30, 2017. The earn-out payment is based on earnings before interest expense, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) for the trailing twelve months (TTM) ending September 30, 2017. The acquisition is expected to be accretive to earnings per share in the first year after acquisition, excluding one-time acquisition costs.

“The acquisition of POS Portal uniquely positions ScanSource as a market leader in both the POS and payments channels,” said Mike Baur, CEO ScanSource, Inc. “POS Portal brings an excellent customer service reputation, highly regarded value-added services, and vast knowledge of the payments industry. Together, we will provide greater business opportunities for our solution delivery channels. The tremendous culture fit between POS Portal and ScanSource will be exciting for our employees and customers.”

“ScanSource has been following our growth and strategy for a few years and saw the opportunity to expand our business model,” said Buzz Stryker, co-founder and CEO, POS Portal. “As the payments channels converge, we and ScanSource are prepared to lead the channel with new services and solutions, and accelerate our strategic plan to provide the shopping and checkout infrastructure to tomorrow’s physical location merchant, in partnership with the channel. We have a common vision for POS Portal to continue to innovate with suppliers, customers, and partners and advance our leading systems and processes.”

Mr. Stryker and Scott Agatep, Chief Operating Officer, along with the POS Portal team, will join ScanSource and provide the leadership and direction in further developing the ScanSource payments business. Upon completion of the transaction, POS Portal will become part of the Worldwide Barcode, Networking and Security segment of ScanSource.

Founded in 2000 and based in Sacramento, California, POS Portal offers its resellers payment terminals, comprehensive key injection services, reseller partner branding, extensive encryption key libraries, ability to provide P2PE encryption, and redundant key injection facilities. In addition, POS Portal partners with ISVs to deliver merchants integrated tablet POS solution hardware that merchants may purchase outright or “as a service” through Portal Advantage, which includes POS Portal’s SalesGuard service program. SalesGuard coverage provides the merchant hardware support and next-day replacement of tablets, terminals, and peripherals. POS Portal has approximately 180 employees and operates in the United States.

The paper says that blockchain’s ability to generate unprecedented opportunities to create and trade value in society will lead to a generational shift from an internet of information to a new-generation internet of value. This ability is based on the way blockchain leverages a global peer-to-peer network to guarantee integrity of the value exchanged among billions of devices without the need for trusted third parties.

The key to enabling this transition, the paper argues, is the formation of a multistakeholder consensus on how the technology functions, its current and potential applications and how to create the regulatory, cultural and organizational conditions it needs to succeed. The paper further argues that without such a cooperation, its potential could become seriously stalled, side-tracked, captured or otherwise sub-optimized.

Don Tapscott, co-author of the paper and Executive Director of the Blockchain Research Institute, said: “A smooth future for the Internet of Value won’t just happen; it will be achieved. Today, most stakeholders are focused on building their own companies, organizations or platforms and are paying little attention or devoting little effort to the challenges of building a healthy ecosystem. But no organization can succeed in an ecosystem that is failing. Every organization should assign resources, however small, to participate in community self-governance.”

The white paper provides a structured analytical framework and taxonomy for use by industry, technical, governmental, civil society and other stakeholders in considering how they might collaborate to resolve problems and unlock opportunities beyond the reach of any single entity. It argues that the model that evolved in the 1990s and 2000s to govern the internet also serves as a model for how to govern this new resource: through a multistakeholder approach involving business, government, civil society and the technical community.

Richard Samans, Head of the Global Challenges Team and Member of the Managing Board at the World Economic Forum, said: “This report helps us to understand that a distributed blockchain ecosystem need not be a disorganized one, and improved governance need not imply formal governmental legislation or regulation. A cooperative process of multistakeholder dialogue and stewardship could go a long way in improving trust and helping this exciting new technology develop in a socially beneficial manner. This is the broader purpose of the Forum’s new Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution: to provide an international platform for public-private dialogue and cooperation that supports the constructive, inclusive stewardship and agile governance of new technologies.”

“This report will provide enormous value to technology companies, government agencies, NGOs and user organizations everywhere. Finally, we have a language, framework and set of tools to think about how we can steward the next era of the digital age. Anyone who cares about the future of the blockchain ecosystem should read this report and heed its wisdom,” said Perianne Boring, Founder and President of the Chamber of Digital Commerce.

Brian Behlendorf, Executive Director of Hyperledger at the Linux Foundation, said: “Blockchain technology is governance technology. It’s an engine of automated self-regulation for communities, markets and society. No matter the application - currencies, settlement networks, provenance tracking or identity management - these networks still need us humans to come to consensus on how they shall work and what they shall do on our behalf. This report articulates the need for multistakeholder collaboration and a framework for achieving that.”

Buyers at the Cork Street gallery in the heart of Mayfair’s traditional art district will be able to use any of the six leading cryptocurrencies on the market: Bitcoin; Ethereum; Ethereum Classic; Ripple; Litecoin; and Dash. The gallery plans to accept more altcoins as they become more widely recognised.

Bringing cryptocurrencies to the British art market is the brainchild of Eleesa Dadiani, the gallery’s owner. Dadiani will also become the first gallery to develop its own cryptocurrency, DadiCoin (DDC), which will be launched soon.

Ms Dadiani believes introducing cryptocurrencies to the art world will have a significant impact far beyond her own industry. She hopes that encouraging traditional businesses to adapt to this new world of trade will give smaller, independent firms a better chance of surviving in a challenging economic climate when they are struggling to cope with higher business rates and other increasing costs.

Ms Dadiani said: “We are combining old world business ethics and practice with the new world of technology - the current system is becoming stale and needs to be disrupted. Cryptocurrencies will provide a bridge from the elitist, centralist fine art market to a decentralised open source world where many more will be able to become a part of this exhilarating market.

“This could be a turning point for the cryptocurrency market. For many years, it has been ridiculed but when traditional businesses, such as art galleries, take it seriously it is a sure sign that this is a very important technology that will change things as we know it. 

“It will also open the market to a new type of buyer, people who regard cryptocurrency as more valuable and stable than traditional currencies. They will become part of an old money market, using new money”.

Cryptocurrency, first popularised in 2009 with the advent of Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin, is a digital currency based on Blockchain technology. Encryption techniques are used to regulate the generation of units of currency and to verify the transfer of funds. Cryptocurrency operates independently of a central bank and is an open source, peer-to-peer decentralised technology available to anyone with access to the internet.

Cryptocurrencies - known as the Internet of money - have the potential to reduce costs in the fine art market because users are charged a flat fee for each transaction, regardless of how large it is. Payment is secure as each wallet has a unique API address.

Bitcoin and other leading cryptocurrencies will be accepted at Dadiani Fine Art’s ground-breaking new exhibition, ‘The Noise’, which opens on July 14, a tribute to the heyday of motor racing and the first of its kind ever to be staged. It features six unique sculptures made from the exhausts of Formula One cars and rare motor racing memorabilia. Each is a one-off because the Ferrari exhausts, made from Inconel alloy, can only be used in a single race. They are expected to sell for around £25,000-£30,000.

The sculptures evoke memories of motor racing’s glory days before the screaming V-8 engine was replaced by today’s quieter turbo-charged engines. The centrepiece is a gold-plated set from the Sauber-Ferrari driven by Kamui Kobayashi at the 2011 Monaco Grand Prix when he finished fifth in the iconic race. Another is a hand polished set, slightly damaged after Mexican driver Sergio Perez crashed his Sauber-Ferrari at Monaco in the same year. Each one has discolouration marks specific to the track on which it was raced, depending on the length of the straights and the frequency of bends.

‘The Noise’ harks back to a more romantic racing era characterised by noise, fear and danger - the pieces can be seen as a protest against today’s airbrushed motor racing. Mounted on an Italian Granite base, each one is around one metre tall and the epitome of engineering perfection.

They have been collected by Mike O’Connor, owner of Heritage F1, the only company in the UK to buy and sell F1 cars. Alongside the sculptures, the exhibition will also feature an array of evocative memorabilia, including beautiful hand-drawn blueprints of cars dating back to the 1970s, while a 2011 Sauber will be on display outside the gallery on the preview night on July 13.

Mike O’Connor said: “F1 cars are the pinnacle of engineering. Cost is no object in the design. The engineers are the best of the best and have created engineering perfection, just like a great artist creates great art. The story attached to each one is what makes them valuable - we are selling the history”.

Six startup companies currently partaking in the programme had a five minute slot to pitch their business to the assembled high profile investors, mentors and the Bank of Ireland network.

The current cohort of startups participated on the incubator programme for the past six months with access to mentors, coaches and support from Bank of Ireland’s Innovation Team and wider network.

Companies participating in the programme were selected from early stage tech startups through a competitive process which took place through February 2017 with the program beginning in April 2017 from a range of sectors including Fintech and other fast paced industry segments. 

Bank of Ireland startlab Galway Demo Day companies includes BriteBiz, CitySwifter, ToyPing, MissingMinutes, HappyTechie and Open Box.

Speaking at today’s event, David Tighe, Head of Innovation, Bank of Ireland said, “Entrepreneurs and startup companies are a major part of the future economic development of Ireland and require strong support in the early days. startlab Galway provides early stage companies access to a range of supports to help them succeed and grow from a Galway base.

“it is incredible to see how far these companies have developed over the past three months and I am delighted to see how far they have advanced in that period. Demo Day presents a fantastic opportunity for startups to meet and network with investors and mentors and showcase their businesses. Galway and the rest of the west have a fantastic startup community and environment and I would encourage startups interested in the startlab programme to investigate the next programme.”

Bank of Ireland startLab Galway complements Bank of Ireland Workbenches, running at Mainguard Street (Galway), Grand Canal Square, Montrose and Trinity College(Dublin), Patrick Street (Cork) and O’Connell Street (Limerick). Since opening, the Workbenches - which offer hot desking, meeting and event space to startup companies and entrepreneurs - have welcomed more than 10,000 visitors, hosted more than 200 events, and supported more than 100 startup enterprises.

The Bank of Ireland Innovation Team involved in startlab includes David Tighe, Head of Innovation, Tracy Keogh, Galway Startup Community Manager and Gene Murphy, Entrepreneur in Residence.

The application process for a place on the next startlab Galway programme will be launched in the coming weeks at @boistartups.