TA Associates, a world leading growth private equity firm, today reported it has acquired a minority equity interest in Interswitch. Interswitch is an Africa-focused integrated digital payments and commerce company. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Helios Investment Partners will remain the majority shareholder of Interswitch.  

Founded in 2002, Interswitch is active across the entire payments value chain. A recognized leader in the payments space in Nigeria, the company owns and operates the country’s principal domestic debit card scheme, Verve, as well as serves as a third-party transaction processor for many of Nigeria’s largest banks. In addition, the company offers a number of B2B electronic payment services to public and private sector organizations and businesses, including government entities, hospitals, telecommunications companies and utilities, and also operates Quickteller, the leading B2C bill payments and digital commerce platform in Nigeria. Through add-on acquisitions, Interswitch also operates in Kenya and Uganda.

“By strategically partnering and aligning its interests with key banks, merchants and other institutions, Interswitch has become a leading provider for payments solutions in an emerging and rapidly growing market in Nigeria,” said Naveen Wadhera, a Managing Director at TA Associates who will join the Interswitch Board of Directors. “Interswitch is a unique, high quality and strategic asset located in one of Africa’s leading economies. We are delighted to expand upon our longstanding presence within the global payments industry through our partnership with the management team and Helios, and look forward to helping Interswitch continue to expand its business.”

“Since our founding, we have been committed to creating social, environmental and economic value by facilitating trade through forms of exchange that are secure, convenient and consistent,” said Mitchell Elegbe, Founder, and Managing Director at Interswitch Limited. “Keeping that in mind, we believe a partnership with a growth private equity firm such as TA Associates will prove highly beneficial to our ongoing efforts of consolidating the impact of our services and increasing financial inclusion for all. We welcome TA as our newest investor and look forward to benefitting from their experience in the payments space and their valuable insight and support.”

“With our investment in Interswitch in 2011, we backed a talented founder and management team, and have worked hand-in-hand with them to institutionalize the business and build the platform, spearheading growth not only in their core processing and card scheme businesses but also into mobile payments, expansion into East Africa and the launching of products and services to address the unbanked – driving financial inclusion. As the majority investor in Interswitch, we look forward to working with the company’s first-rate management team and TA Associates to drive the next phase of the company’s growth,” said Alykhan Nathoo, Partner at Helios Investment Partners.

The digital payments evolution is in the early stages of development in Nigeria, with cash used for 99% of transactions according to McKinsey & Company, versus approximately 50% for developed markets in North America and Europe. Despite the young market, its continent-leading population and sizeable economy underpin the size of the Nigerian payments opportunity. Based on estimates from McKinsey & Company, Interswitch occupies a leading position in the emerging marketplace, especially in debit cards, which comprise 99% of all cards in Nigeria.

Bittium has received a purchase order from the Finnish Defence Forces for further development of the software package (waveform) for the Bittium Tactical Wireless IP Network™ (TAC WIN) system that is used as the wireless broadband network by the Finnish Defence Forces in their M18 command, control and communications system. The work package that was ordered now will be delivered to the Finnish Defence Forces during the years 2017 and 2018. 

The product development of the software package is part of the renewal of the Finnish Army’s command, control and communications system, where the Software-Defined Radio based Bittium TAC WIN system forms the core of the Army’s tactical wireless IP network. Bittium TAC WIN provides a mobile broadband IP network connection for the combat troops. This supports the Finnish Army’s reformed combat doctrine, where mobility, leading the troops on the move and effective communications are playing a key role. The main objective for the development work of the software package is to continue enhancing the performance, data transfer capacity and survivability of the software and the related radio platform. The development work is done based on the observations made during field-testing and waveform research done by Bittium.  

Today Cisco and IBM have revealed new solutions for VersaStack™, converged infrastructure jointly developed by the two companies. VersaStack assists organizations to reduce complexity and automate processes to facilitate the delivery of applications. The additional technologies incorporated in the announcement today extend VersaStack to include hybrid cloud capabilities and also take advantage of the latest software defined storage technologies to address cloud-scale applications.

This broad set of solutions allows IT organizations to:

• Simplify and standardize service delivery through infrastructure automation: with Cisco ONE Enterprise Cloud Suite and VersaStack; improving efficiency while reducing complexity and cost; and delivering a rich set of storage capabilities.
• Deploy premier solutions for hybrid IT: utilizing Cisco CloudCenter and IBM Spectrum Copy Data Management to deploy, provision, and manage applications and data in hybrid cloud environments, with 20+ cloud types and regions, including IBM Bluemix Infrastructure (formerly IBM Softlayer).
• Improve the manageability, recovery and storage of data:  Spectrum Software Defined Storage with VersaStack and Cisco UCS® help improve efficiency and leverage existing server and storage resources while delivering a rich set of storage capabilities.
• Easy scaling to multi-petabyte storage for fast growing cloud-scale applications: The combination of the Cisco® UCS S-Series Storage Servers with IBM Cloud Object Storage delivers an on-premises storage solution for data intensive workloads by supporting IT organizations to help prepare for business requirements with an easily scalable solution.

"Our GIS, engineering, and other applications were slow and underperforming," said Bill Reed, Chief Technology Officer, Arizona State Land Department. "With our VersaStack solution, we've been able to boost system and staff performance and enable mobile access to business-critical data and tools via a hybrid cloud. VersaStack gives us faster, smarter systems that enable us to make better-informed decisions about the State Land Trust much more efficiently for the benefit of all students in the Arizona Public Schools education system, the primary beneficiary of the trust."

"These additions to VersaStack create an environment well suited for both traditional and emerging scale-out applications, addressing our customer needs in a simplified way," said Liz Centoni, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Cisco Computing Systems Product Group. "By bringing together Cisco and IBM technologies for hybrid IT we help customers diversify their consumption models and achieve the agility and efficiency digital transformation demands." 

Today IBM has reported that an industry-first initiative to build commercially available universal quantum computing systems. "IBM Q" quantum systems and services will be delivered via the IBM Cloud platform. While technologies that currently run on classical computers, such as Watson, can help find patterns and insights buried in vast amounts of existing data, quantum computers will deliver solutions to important problems where patterns cannot be seen because the data doesn't exist and the possibilities that you need to explore to get to the answer are too enormous to ever be processed by classical computers. 

IBM also announced today:

• The release of a new API (Application Program Interface) for the IBM Quantum Experience that enables developers and programmers to begin building interfaces between its existing five quantum bit (qubit) cloud-based quantum computer and classical computers, without needing a deep background in quantum physics.
• The release of an upgraded simulator on the IBM Quantum Experience that can model circuits with up to 20 qubits. In the first half of 2017, IBM plans to release a full SDK (Software Development Kit) on the IBM Quantum Experience for users to build simple quantum applications and software programs.

The IBM Quantum Experience enables anyone to connect to IBM's quantum processor via the IBM Cloud, to run algorithms and experiments, work with the individual quantum bits, and explore tutorials and simulations around what might be possible with quantum computing. 

"IBM has invested over decades to growing the field of quantum computing and we are committed to expanding access to quantum systems and their powerful capabilities for the science and business communities," said Arvind Krishna, senior vice president of Hybrid Cloud and director for IBM Research. "Following Watson and blockchain, we believe that quantum computing will provide the next powerful set of services delivered via the IBM Cloud platform, and promises to be the next major technology that has the potential to drive a new era of innovation across industries."

Nuoyuan Technology Development Co., Ltd. is an innovative financial technology service company under Hanfor Holdings, headquartered in Beijing. The company will participate in the upcoming LendIt USA 2017, to be held in New York between March 6th and 7th this year.

Ms. Guo Lu, President of Hanfor Holdings who has over 20 years of financial risk management in both Australia and China, is expected to share her insights on the latest developments in the global FinTech industry, the growing role of new finance and emerging markets, and provide her visions in the prospects of China's FinTech market.

Under the backing of Hanfor Holdings, Nuoyuan's parent company, Nuoyuan is a leading Chinese FinTech firm specializing in risk control based on the world leading FICO system and characteristics of Chinese market, to develop signature risk control system combines international professional experiences and local experimental adjustment. Up until now, the fund scale of Hanfor Capital Management has exceeded CNY 30 billion (USD $4.36 billion).

With its own professional financial modeling team, Nuoyuan has co-founded a "financial laboratory" with some big data companies, and introduces the world leading technologies including decision tree pooling, univariate analysis, multivariate analysis, out-of-sample validation, model calibration and stress testing, scores groups from different scenarios with models so as to predict, analyze the risks and keep such risks controllable.

Nuoyuan online, an online financing platform subordinate to Nuoyuan Technology, has now completed online transactions amounted to above CNY 5 billion (USD $726 million) and acquired more than 600,000 loyal users, which mainly involves scenario-based and consumer financial services.

Nuoyuan Technology cooperates with e-commerce platforms, providing installment loans and consumer credit services to end consumers. Meanwhile, Nuoyuan offers supply chain financing services to SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) and microenterprises, that fills out the market blank under the traditional financing system.

Today LG Innotek has confirmed its participation in Euroshop 2017, the world's biggest retail trade fair, held in Dusseldorf, Germany. The company aims to attract retail companies by showcasing various products and technologies such as the world's first commercialized ESL-based color lighting control solution and advanced location tracking solution. It can be developed into a "Smart Integrated Retail Management" platform by combining distribution with lnternet of Things (IoT).

This year's Euroshop marks its 18th exhibition. This is the world's biggest retail trade fair that receives participations from 2,500 distribution companies from about 60 countries around the world, and a total of around 110,000 visitors.

The ESL-based color lighting control solution, which LG Innotek is introducing for the first time in the world, automatically provides a colored lighting that is suitable for a product's sale, based on the product barcode registered in ESL.

This solution of a new concept, by its merge with ESL, overcomes the limit of the previously developed wireless lighting control system. Traditionally, retailers had to purchase and install a separate lighting control solution, and even configure the settings themselves for products' lighting control.

The company will also demonstrate an advanced location tracking solution that makes it easy to find product locations or trace movement flows of customers inside a store. LG Innotek has improved the tracking accuracy of the solution up to 50%.

The company also plans to showcase a lineup of other ESL products that boost the convenience of distribution businesses and store managers, including a full-colored LCD ESL and a reflective colored ESL without backlight powered only by batteries.

LG Innotek intends to meet the various needs of distribution businesses through this exhibition, by presenting products that combine its world-class wireless communication technology with its display technology. Also, the company plans to highlight its ability to provide a comprehensive lineup of various loT products, including sensor, LED lighting, and network security cameras.

NCR Corporation, a world leader in providing omni-channel solutions, showcases at this year’s EuroShop, how retailers can substantially improve sales growth by using the right technologies. A recent Unified Commerce Landscape Report from NCR, in partnership with research and analyst firm IHL Group, found that retailers who invest in technologies designed to create seamless shopping experiences, personalization and store transformation enjoy sales boosts of up to 100 percent and more.

Not surprisingly, omni-channel, digital store and digital transformation are the top three technology trends in Retail according to a study on IT trends in retail published by the EHI Retail Institute in February 2017. Anticipating these needs, NCR demonstrates solutions at this year’s EuroShop that help retailers fulfill their goals in the following areas:

Store transformation

Retailers are moving to a seamless checkout experience to eliminate wait times and friction at the checkout. NCR is showcasing the NCR FastLane Mobile Shopper powered by Revision. This innovative new application gives retailers the ability to offer consumers a scan-as-you-shop option using either the consumer’s own iOS or Android mobile phone or a store-provided device.

Russian Hypermarket Globus is the first customer to deploy the NCR solution with these handheld devices. Globus customers that are using the scan & go service simply scan products as they put them in their cart and conclude their shopping by scanning a barcode at one of the NCR self-checkouts provided in the designated checkout-areas. These consist of the NCR SelfServ 90 as well as NCR FastLane SelfServ self-checkouts. Both of these solutions were recognized by iF Design Awards 2017 for their ease of use and innovative, modern design.

Unified commerce

For general merchandise, fashion, department stores and specialty retailers in Spain, France, Germany, Denmark and Italy, NCR has introduced NCR Enactor, a platform-independent unified commerce software suite that includes a wealth of pre-packaged retail applications that span all current customer channels as well as store and estate management. Its extensive configuration options and scale enable retailers to introduce new features quickly and replicate the same seamless shopping experience across all stores and markets. With NCR Power Picking supermarkets and convenience retailers can take advantage of the growing trend of online grocery shopping by introducing click & connect services that are fulfilled in-store. The solution, which is part of NCR’s retail hub, leverages store level inventory and imports customers’ decision-making preferences, such as perishability dates or the ripeness of produce, through e-commerce applications. The solution translates online ordering in the workflow of brick and mortar shopping processes.

Digital Enablement

Leveraging the Unified Commerce Landscape report by IHL, NCR has developed a benchmarking tool that allows retailers to find out how they measure up against retailers that are already increasing sales by making the most out of their technology investments. Retailers can complete the benchmarking survey at NCR’s booth in hall 6, stand C09 or complete the form online and receive a customized report.

Mosaicoon is the platform connecting top brands and worldwide creators for the end-to-end realization of video strategies. Today the company has announced that it has become a Facebook Marketing Partner in the Content Marketing specialty, with a particular focus on video.

The company will serve as an asset for brands looking to quickly get high-performance video strategies to reach Facebook audiences. Among the 18 Facebook Marketing Global Partners, Mosaicoon is the first partner for content based in Italy.

Mosaicoon changes the way that companies produce and position their online video campaigns. By counting on a worldwide network of creators who can upload their video contents - either as ready videos or format to be developed - Mosaicoon makes available to brands an array of videos that can be sponsored by them and are immediately suitable for their video strategy, with guaranteed performances included. As companies can browse, purchase and build on pre-made professional videos instead of commissioning them by brief, Mosaicoon makes the video production process quick, simple and cost-effective. It simultaneously enables brands to accelerate and maximize their video strategy potential, while allowing creators to express their best by not feeling constrained by a brief. The traditional creative process is thus flip-flopped, bringing creators at the center while creativity becomes the engine, and technology serves as an activator of a new way of producing value - what Mosaicoon explains in defining itself as “Human Creativity Engine”.

Within Mosaicoon platform the process is extremely simplified. Creators, whether individuals or production houses, propose their video projects of diverse forms and lengths - from short movies to how-to - and suitable for different industries. Tagged with keywords associated with their content, with the support of Artificial Intelligence videos are made available to brands through a matchmaking algorithm which picks out relevant videos matching the values or themes a company wants to emphasize through a project. In addition, Mosaicoon introduces a pricing model called “CPVplus” which allows brands to only pay content per effective views rather than purchasing videos at a fixed price.

Through Mosaicoon, brand marketers now have a highly efficient video content engine to fully leverage Facebook's distribution assets.