PCTEL, Inc. (NASDAQ:PCTI), a leader in Performance Critical Telecom solutions, confirmed that, as previously announced, the PCTEL Board of Directors has appointed David Neumann as CEO effective today. Neumann had been serving as the Senior Vice President and General Manager of the company's RF Solutions group. The Board also appointed Steve Levy, who currently serves on the PCTEL Board, as Chairman. Levy currently chairs the Nominating and Governance Committee. Marty Singer, who has been Chairman and CEO for over 15 years, will serve as the company's Vice Chair but will no longer serve as a director on the company's board.

Jeff Miller, who has been with the company for over 15 years and has held several executive positions, will take over as Senior Vice President and General Manager of RF Solutions, succeeding David Neumann. Arnt Arvik, who recently joined PCTEL from Ascom, has been promoted to Vice President, RF Solutions Global Sales and Services. Rishi Bharadwaj, who has led the company's Connected Solutions group, will continue to lead that organization. His promotion to Senior Vice President and General Manager was previously announced.

"PCTEL has developed a strong leadership team and I'm confident that David, supported by experienced and exceptional executives, will build upon PCTEL's momentum and achieve global leadership in our key product and technology areas," said Marty Singer, PCTEL's Vice Chair. "PCTEL has a great future," Singer added.

"I look forward to the new year and the opportunities for growth in both of our core business areas," said David Neumann, PCTEL's CEO. "I also want to thank Brian Jackman for his years of leadership as Lead Director and thank Steve Levy, our new Chairman, and the board for the opportunity to lead PCTEL. Finally, with the promotion of Jeff Miller to Senior Vice President and General Manager of our RF Solutions group and Rishi Bharadwaj's continued leadership of Connected Solutions, the future of the company is in good hands," added Neumann.

Robert F. Rivers has been elected by the Eastern Bank Board of Directors to the position of Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, the bank announced today.

Rivers joined Eastern Bank in 2006 as its Vice Chairman and Chief Banking Officer, becoming President in 2007, Chief Operating Officer in 2012, and an Eastern Bank Director in 2015. The Board also elected Quincy Miller to succeed Rivers as bank President. Both promotions were effective Jan. 1.

“In just 16 months, Eastern Bank will celebrate our 200th year in business as the United States’ oldest and largest mutual bank,” said Rivers. “While our leadership has changed over the years, our commitment to mutuality and the communities we serve remains the same. I look forward to building upon Rich Holbrook’s legacy and I’m grateful for the Board’s confidence in me as we lead Eastern into our third century of business.”

A native of Stoughton, Massachusetts, Rivers began his banking career in 1982 as a teller while in college, joining the former Old Stone Bank in Providence upon graduation in 1986. From 1991 to 2005, he held a number of staff and line leadership positions at M&T Bank in Buffalo, N.Y. Prior to joining Eastern, he was an Executive Vice President for Retail Banking at the former Commercial Federal Bank in Omaha, Nebraska.

Rivers earned his undergraduate degree at Stonehill College, and his MBA from the University of Rochester. He lives in Needham with his wife and two children.

Miller, who joined Eastern last year as Vice Chairman and Chief Banking Officer, began his banking career in 1997 at M&T Bank in New York, N.Y. He worked for M&T in a number of leadership roles until 2006 when he joined Citizens Bank in Cleveland, Ohio. Prior to joining Eastern, he spent 10 years at Citizens, most recently as President of Citizens Bank, Massachusetts and President of its Business Banking division.

Miller, who lives in Milton with his wife and two children, earned his undergraduate degree from Lafayette College and is a graduate of the Consumer Bankers Association Graduate School of Retail Bank Management.

BlackRock, Inc.’s (NYSE:BLK) iShares business led the global ETF industry in 2016, winning a record $140bn in new flows, powered by moves into bond, Core and smart beta ETFs. Representing 13% organic growth, iShares 2016 flows reflect the global scale, diverse product range and continued innovation of the iShares business.

Overall, the global ETF industry saw net inflows of $375bn in 20161, surpassing the previous year’s total of $348bn2.

Records posted across the board2:

• A new growth record set in the U.S. with net inflows of $107bn (2015: $97bn) and market leading $32bn of net inflows in Europe. iShares was the market share leader in both regions (US: 38%, Europe 61%). Asia Pacific clients also set a record for iShares ETFs bought this year, adding over $10bn3.
• iShares bond ETFs gathered a record $60bn, capturing 52% of all net inflows into bond ETFs globally. U.S. listed AGG saw the greatest net inflows of any bond ETF with $11.2bn. iShares bond ETFs attracted record net inflows in the U.S. ($38bn) and Europe ($21bn).
• Demand for iShares global smart beta ETFs surged to record highs, with $20bn of net inflows. iShares was number one in smart beta market share globally (37%), led by $9bn of net inflows into minimum volatility ETFs, with USMV seeing net inflows of $4.2bn.
• iShares Core ETFs added a record $67bn in global net inflows, led by IVV ($13bn) and AGG ($11.2bn). BlackRock re-priced its U.S. iShares Core ETFs in October and since then investors have adopted iShares Core ETFs faster than expected, adding $27bn.
• Institutional investors looking for simpler, less costly alternatives to derivatives switched around $10bn to iShares ETFs from futures or swaps positions.

Mark Wiedman, Global Head of iShares and Index Investments at BlackRock, said:

"iShares ETFs are helping investors of all sizes build more efficient and precise portfolios. In a year marked by unprecedented political change and periods of significant market uncertainty, investors turned to ETFs in record numbers to express market views, seek outperformance and invest for the long term.”

“We believe we are still in the early stages of a historic shift to ETFs and indexing more broadly. We believe trillions of dollars will move over the next few years as institutional adoption of ETFs and the move to fee-based advice in the retail sector both gather momentum. Investors continue to embrace the efficiency, quality, and value of indexing to execute long or short term investment ideas.”

BlackRock’s outlook for ETFs and Index Investing in 2017:

1. Active versus passive will be replaced by active and passive. As investors demand both value and premium service from their financial advisors and investment managers, investors will increasingly build active portfolios by using ETFs and index funds alongside high conviction alpha strategies.

2. Wealth managers will continue to move from product selection to portfolio construction. As the move towards fee-based financial advice picks up pace, wealth advisors will replace costly index-hugging active managers with lower-cost index exposures for the core of client portfolios.

3. Bond ETFs will continue to lead the way to bond market modernization. Bond ETF adoption will ramp up as the market infrastructure deepens and advisers turn to low cost, scalable ETFs in an increasingly fee-based environment. The bond ETF will continue to re-shape the way buyers and sellers trade bond risk, and play an instrumental role as investors seek to navigate a rising rate environment and generate income in portfolios.

4. Investors will move to factor-based ETF strategies that seek to capture underlying drivers of returns. Within smart beta, multifactor and single factor ETFs will be a major driver of growth - alongside minimum volatility strategies - as retail and institutional investors seek to combine the potential for outperformance with low cost in the centre of their portfolios. Smart beta innovation will also likely be seen within fixed income.

5. Institutions will increasingly turn to ETFs as replacements, or reference assets, for derivatives products. As banks’ balance sheet costs continue to increase, so too has the cost of using futures and swaps. ETFs now typically represent not only the more cost efficient option, but can also offer greater operational simplicity and more precise exposures.

Regional perspectives

U.S.

Martin Small, Head of U.S. iShares at BlackRock, said: “A new era is dawning for advisors and long-term investors. While the future of the DOL fiduciary rule is uncertain, the movement toward fee-based strategies in the retail market is an unstoppable force. Asset and wealth managers are tapping into the ETF movement to reduce the cost and complexity of building great portfolios."

Europe

Rachel Lord, Head of EMEA iShares and Index Investments at BlackRock, said: “ETFs are playing a crucial role in the evolution of the financial industry in Europe. Investors are turning to ETFs for both strategic investments and tactical allocations in their portfolios. These products will continue to be the often unseen engine behind financial solutions that are helping people across the continent invest their savings and meet long-term goals on behalf of clients.”

Asia Pacific

Susan Chan, Head of Asia Pacific iShares at BlackRock, added: “All types of investors across the Asia Pacific region increased usage of iShares ETFs in 2016, resulting in a record year of inflows. Adoption of fixed income ETFs in the region far outstripped any previous years, reflecting ETFs’ ready convenience as allocation tools in response to macro events, and the increasing usage of ETFs in portfolio construction. Both trends highlight our regional clients’ increasing sophistication in ETF usage.”

Latin America

Nicolas Gomez, Head of Latin America & Iberia iShares at BlackRock, added: “Latin American clients continued to turn to our global product lines for liquidity and access to international markets.”

“The evolution of the ETF industry in is in different stages across the various segments of the Latin American market, with pension funds being the biggest users and the rest of the market following their lead. Banks, asset managers, insurance companies, wealth managers and individual investors are rapidly increasing their exposure to international markets via ETFs due to their convenience, cost-efficiency and transparency and their need to diversify their portfolios,” added Gomez.

iShares global AUM was $1.3 trillion as of December 31, 2016.

Swave is launching a three-month challenge to help Britain start a savings resolution in 2017. Swave have developed a unique app to help even the biggest spenders save more towards their financial goals.

Linking to current accounts and credit cards, the app monitors spending habits to help users identify the best opportunities to take immediate action and save. Co-Founder Kristina Bordas explains, “Unlike a budget, the app aims to work with existing habits, not against, to ensure the best chances of success. We hope to see challenge participants engaging daily with their personal finances to create better, long-term financial habits.”

The savings challenge is open to customers of a range of UK banks and users are encouraged to save towards their own personal goals. Co-Founder Kristina Bordas says, “The app is designed to work across banks so the customer has maximum flexibility to save into any savings account, pension, ISA or even work towards early debt repayment, whatever makes the most sense to them at this time.”

The challenge forms part of a test that Swave is undertaking as part of the first cohort of the FCA regulatory sandbox. More information on the FCA sandbox is available on the FCA website.

The Swave App is launching on January 1st to challenge participants.

Yello has announced a new partnership with Alcinéo in order to bring their integrated, first of its kind, customer experience and payments platform, YelloPad, to market sooner.

The YelloPad product seeks to change the way payment terminals around the world work. Yello designed the platform to benefit a wide range of industries including retail, hospitality, healthcare and loyalty.

Alcinéo, who specialise in the development of embedded software, implementing smart card technologies and security, to power the YelloPad platform with Alcinéo kernels and to collaborate on the EMV (EuroCard, Mastercard and Visa) certification process.

Customer deliveries of the Alcinéo-powered YelloPad are expected to start from mid-2017.

Mike Ausems, Co-CEO and Co-Founder, Yello, says: “The YelloPad was developed as the perfect customer experience platform for customers in all face-to-face environments: mobile, fixed, indoors and outdoors. We decided to work with Alcinéo to speed up the development and guarantee fast, reliable and secure EMV transactions.”

Daniel Maurice-Vallerey, Co-CEO and Co-Founder, Yello, adds: “We decided to focus on the design of the YelloPad and the creation of the eco-system that makes it possible to deliver a rich world of opportunities to our customers and we trusted Alcinéo as a result of their unique track record in the EMV field”

Arnaud Corria, Alcinéo President, says: “We are very happy to collaborate with Yello and support the launch of their next generation payment platform that will make it easier to deliver a very rich checkout and payment experience. Thanks to our high levels of expertise, we contribute to Yello’s success in meeting the challenges associated with the design and delivery of this EMV and PCI PTS customer experience platform, the YelloPad.”