FactSet, a leading provider of integrated financial information and analytical applications, today announced the launch of the FactSet Global FinTech Index, which provides a benchmark to track the performance of companies engaged in financial technologies, particularly in the areas of software and consulting, data and analytics, digital payment processing and transfer, and payment-related hardware. The Index has been licensed to Nikko Asset Management as the benchmark for the Global Fintech Equity Fund.

The FactSet Global FinTech Index is designed to track the performance of companies engaged in financial technologies that facilitate the transition of businesses and consumers to a digital economy. In particular, companies selected for the Index are focused on developing data, analytics, software, hardware and consulting services to deliver solutions for payment processing, money transfer, lending and borrowing, and banking and investment.   

"Our goal is to lead innovation and deliver indexes that address difficult-to-access dimensions of the capital market," said Jeremy Zhou, head of indexing at FactSet. "The granularity of the FactSet Revere Business Industry Classification System (FactSet RBICS) helps investors to better understand and invest in evolving market areas like FinTech, which spans multiple industries often in niche areas that might be difficult to discover. With RBICS we are able to develop a relevant benchmark by identifying 17 FinTech-targeted industries out of RBICS' more than 1,400 industry levels." 

The index universe for the FactSet Global FinTech Index is defined as stocks listed in one of the 30 developed and emerging market exchanges outlined in the index methodology. They must also have a market capitalization greater or equal to USD 300 million and a 3-month average trading value (ADTV) of at least USD 1 million. The Index is equal-weighted and is calculated in both price and total return versions available in US dollar. The base date is January 5, 2011 with a base value of 100. The Index is rebalanced semi-annually in January and July.

International law firm Pinsent Masons has secured the landmark hire of City dealmaker Hammad Akhtar to lead its Corporate offering within the financial services sector.

Hammad joins from Ashurst where he spent four years as partner after joining from Herbert Smith Freehills.

He is a well-known figure in the City. Recently Hammad's team were the lead external legal advisers on the reorganisation of Royal London’s business.  This involved the transfer of over £22bn of assets and was the largest and most complex such transfer in that year.

Other significant mandates upon which Hammad has advised include advising Resolution Life on its £5 billion takeover by Pearl Group and Swiss Re on the restructuring of its UK direct life business.

Hammad's arrival will boost Pinsent Masons' reputation for complex M&A in the insurance and long-term savings sector. The appointment comes during a period of unprecedented change in the market. Brexit, reform of the pensions market, changing regulation, increased solvency requirements and changing distribution models - particularly through digital - are expected to drive significant transactional activity in the coming years. 

Pinsent Masons already acts for all of the top 10 UK general insurers and 6 out of 10 of the top life insurers and in 2016 advised Legal & General Group Plc on the sale of Cofunds, the UK's leading investment platform for advisers and other financial institutions, to Aegon for £140 million.

Alexis Roberts, Head of the Financial Services sector at Pinsent Masons, says:

"Hammad is someone whom we have admired for a long time with an established reputation in the City. He will add strength and depth to our corporate capability and complement the existing corporate financial services practice built up by Hannah Brader over recent years. We anticipate that Hammad's arrival, combined with our proven track record in this area, will move us into a different weight class with respect to transactional work across the financial services sector."

BGC Partners, Inc. ("BGC Partners," "BGC," or "the Company") a leading global brokerage company servicing the financial and real estate markets, today announced that Arran Rowsell has joined the Company as Head of Credit Strategy in London. Mr. Rowsell will report to Tony Warner, Executive Managing Director and Head of BGC's brokerage business in London.

Mr. Rowsell will oversee the coordination of credit strategy across BGC Partners, Mint Partners and RP Martin in the UK. He brings with him a wealth of experience, having worked most recently as a Head of Flow Credit Trading for several major sell‐side U.S. and European banks, including Commerzbank, Barclays and Credit Suisse. Earlier in his career, he worked in credit trading at Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers.

"In keeping with our commitment to talent and technology, Mr. Rowsell brings to BGC Partners a track record of success in the credit markets along with experience in electronic trading venues", said Tony Warner. "His addition to the team will enable BGC Partners to drive forward its strategy of leveraging the Company's extensive liquidity pools and expanding its electronic footprint".

Aon plc (NYSE: AON) has today launched Brexit Navigator, a bespoke and proprietary three step solution designed to help organisations quantify the impact of Brexit risk exposures, and redesign risk management and risk financing structures. Brexit Navigator is supported by an interactive tool that presents scenario-based insights for each of the EU Four Freedoms: Goods, Capital, Services and People, which help assess the impact of Brexit.

Grant Foster, Managing Director UK of Aon Global Risk Consulting commented: "Extensive conversations with clients from different sectors and geographies over the past four months have given us a unique perspective on companies' Brexit concerns.  These insights, combined with our deep and extensive expertise in risk advisory and solutions, have enabled us to develop Brexit Navigator."

Brexit Navigator is a three step solution, suitable for organisations globally that have operations and business interests in the UK:

• Baseline, step one – Evaluates just how Brexit-ready an organisation is, mapping out the potential risks and opportunities.
• Balance, step two – Realigns the risk management and insurance programme to adapt to the new organisational risk tolerance and appetite.
• Horizon, step three – Tests the changes introduced to an organisation's programme to help ensure resilience for the future.

Eddie McLaughlin, Chief Commercial Officer EMEA, Aon Global Risk Consulting added: "Brexit Navigator is a great example of what we do best at Aon; an innovative solution created by experts who have listened to what our clients need.  Like all emerging risks, the sooner an organisation can plan for an eventual outcome the better. Brexit Navigator will help clients measure and respond to risks and opportunities created by Brexit."

HID Global®, a worldwide leader in secure identity solutions, today announced the industry’s first end-to-end identity access management solution that enables government agencies and other organisations requiring higher security to use a single credential for accessing doors, IT systems, networks and data.

The company’s new HID PIV™ (Personal Identity Verification) solution provides complete identity lifecycle management – from identity proofing plus secure credential issuance and use, to deprovisioning of these credentials. Organisations are now able to unify physical and IT security systems to create a far more seamless experience for users, while also offering strong authentication applying trusted credential and other advanced security capabilities that are easier to procure, deploy and maintain.

“HID PIV represents the industry’s first comprehensive IAM solution that provides trusted identities for accessing both IT and physical domains,” said Brad Jarvis, Vice President and Managing Director of IAM Solutions with HID Global. “HID Global continues to develop fully integrated solutions across our portfolio of products and provide a convenient and trusted experience for our customers.”

HID PIV helps government agencies and other regulated industries such as banking, healthcare, and transportation to improve their overall security posture and consolidate physical and IT security. The company’s PIV-based solution allows organisations to use strong cryptographic credentials for users to digitally sign emails or documents, decrypt emails or files, use full disk encryption and boot protection to secure laptops, protect sensitive print jobs with secure printing and leverage many other security capabilities.

The HID PIV solution is available in two options – Express and Enterprise. HID PIV Express provides a complete high-assurance multi-factor authentication solution. The solution covers the complete lifecycle of the identity: from identity proofing, secure credential issuance, usage in IT systems and facilities access, and credential retirement.

HID PIV Enterprise extends HID PIV Express with additional integration into the company’s Quantum Secure SAFE Software Suite, a Physical Identity and Access Management (PIAM) software solution that provides the common bridge between disparate physical and IT security systems. The SAFE Suite augments HID PIV Enterprise with a variety of convenient, unified access control capabilities that deliver a more comprehensive view across otherwise disparate physical access control and visitor, tenant and contractor management systems, while also providing predictive risk analytics capabilities.

Gemalto, th​e world leader in digital security, is partnering with Banma Technologies Co., Ltd for the production of China's first Internet Car – the Roewe RX5. Banma is a new joint venture between Alibaba Group and SAIC Motor Corporation Limited (SAIC Motor).

The RX5 leverages Gemalto's Machine Identification Module, MIM™ - securing cellular M2M connections for industrial applications - and features advanced telematics such as Bluetooth virtual car key, locationing of the vehicle, voice-command-enabled remote control of in-car functions, and real-time road condition alerts, etc. The MIM is compliant with the GSMA standards and supports remote provisioning of any operator's profile.​​​

The Chinese car market is currently the largest and fastest-growing in the world¹​. In 2015, foreign and domestic car makers sold a total of 21.1 million passenger cars, up by 7.3% compared to 2014. For 2016, the local connected car market is expected to generate a substantial revenue of US$7.7 million². With an estimated compound annual growth rate of 45%, this market is potentially worth up to US$33.9 million by 2020. Moreover, connected car penetration in China is projected to triple from 4.8% to 18.1% over the same period.

"The Roewe RX5, empowered by Alibaba's YunOS operating system, is the first mass produced internet car.  It's a breakthrough embodying years of research and technological innovation," said Alex Shi, CEO of Banma. "It is a product that demands the most secure and reliable end-to-end connectivity."

"Connected cars mark the beginning of digital transformation across the automotive industry, paving the way for autonomous vehicles in the near future," said Suzanne Tong-Li, President, Greater China & Korea at Gemalto. "Our expertise and global experience, combined with tried-and-tested secure connectivity solutions, put us in a sweet spot to help car manufacturers create smarter and more connected vehicles".

AxiomSL, the leading global provider of regulatory reporting and risk management solutions, is proud to announce it is currently rolling out its global trade and transaction reporting solution to one of the major oil and gas producers with global trading and hedging activities. The firm has strengthened its existing trade and transaction solution ahead of the release of the MiFID II module in early 2018. This development will give AxiomSL’s existing and prospective clients the confidence to meet ongoing and future reporting obligations.

AxiomSL has worked closely with energy-sector participants in order to tailor its trade and transaction global offering to better help non-financial firms meet their individual requirements. The global solution allows firms to report to multiple receiving parties simultaneously, across a variety of trade reporting regimes. The solution monitors all supported regimes and receiving parties on a continuing basis, to ensure that clients are always well-prepared for regulatory changes in advance of release dates and to facilitate testing processes and smooth transitions.

AxiomSL’s platform, Controller View, supports European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR), the Dodd-Frank Act, Regulation on Wholesale Energy Market Integrity and Transparency (REMIT), many other trade and transaction regulations – and in early 2018, MiFID II. The platform supports all emerging and currently registered Trade Repositories (TRs), Swaps Data Repositories (SDRs), Approved Reporting Mechanisms (ARMs) and Approved Publication Arrangements (APAs). Due to the versatility and global compatibility of AxiomSL’s trade and transaction solution, market participants can be confident that any and all reporting requirements and variations will be met.

The firm has developed particular modules for energy market participants and non-financial firms to ensure they meet the reporting requirements of non-financial entities. Most recently, AxiomSL has added support for NFC +- threshold calculations. In the same strain, it is developing an ancillary exemption module for MiFID II reporting to continue to support non-financial institutions in meeting regulatory requirements.

Ed Royan, Chief Operating Officer for AxiomSL EMEA said, “Energy and other commodity companies may be struggling with manual regulatory reporting requirements as it will take some time to adapt and automate their systems. The convergence of financial and non-financial sector regulatory obligations is exposing commodity firms to reporting requirements beyond what they have been obliged to report in the past. In particular MiFID II will require near real time reporting, something which even financial firms are grappling to incorporate into their data management and reporting systems.”

Alex Tsigutkin, Chief Executive Officer, AxiomSL added, “Energy and commodity firms’ responses to evolving regulatory reporting requirements will extend beyond simply minor operational changes, to a broader rationalization of the organization and, in some cases, will require a review of a firms’ overall strategy. Given many technical aspects of MiFID II are still being hammered out, commodity as well as financial firms should not delay shaping a response which looks not only at minimizing the impact of change, but also at identifying potential business opportunities. While MiFID II does not come into force until January 2018, it is essential to prepare to manage the change now.”

Apple often claims its products are revolutionary, because on each launch, Apple competes with its own previous truly revolutionary product announcement. But, there has been no Apple product with greater impact than the iPhone, for Apple, for the mobile industry, and because of the spread of mobile technology, for the whole technology industry.

The original iPhone included multiple innovations including a direct manipulation multi-touch interface and desktop PC class web browser and other built in apps such as Google Maps, Apple Mail, and calendar and contacts. This caused every other mobile handset maker to alter their products.

Apple also innovated quickly, using an annual update cycle to the iPhone hardware and software to outpace many rivals.

In the ten years since the iPhone’s announcement there are numerous changes directly or indirectly caused by the iPhone:-

• The leading handset makers of 2007 – number one Nokia among them – have been replaced by Apple, Samsung and Huawei.
• The leading smartphone operating systems of 2007 are no longer with us, including Symbian, BlackBerry, Palm, and Windows CE.
• The smartphone has moved from a product with niche adoption to one which everyone owns.
• Multi-touch interfaces have become mainstream, not only on smartphones, but on PCs and tablets as well.
• Apps have become mainstream, replacing websites for many uses, because of Apple’s success of creating an easy profitable way to distribute apps; and, other companies have used the same model, including the Google Play store and Microsoft’s Windows PC app store.
• The smartphone has become the hub for consumers’ digital lives, replacing the PC. In 2007, every hardware product connected to the PC, now everything connects to smartphones.
• Technologies pioneered in smartphones have enabled the creation of new products, from tablets, to smartwatches, fitness trackers and TV streaming boxes such as Apple TV.
• Companies making mobile hardware and software such as ARM, Facebook and Google, have prospered, at the expense of competitors who have failed to succeed in mobile such as Intel and Microsoft.
• The aspirational business model for technology companies has changed from licensing an operating system and allowing others to build hardware – like the classic PC business model – has been replaced with efforts to replicate Apple’s tight integration of hardware and software.