With the recent enactment of EU’s Payment Service Directive (P2D2) requirement for banks to create APIs that let third parties initiate payments on behalf of consumers. Adyen has become an early adapter to this by introducing a new open banking payments method that will enable authentication of payments between the consumer and the bank avoiding chargebacks generated due to card frauds or an inability to capture funds. Upon selecting the payment type, the customers will be redirected to their bank’s online environment to securely confirm the transaction. Adyen with its latest financial technology will handle the payment flow between banks and merchants. Their latest offering is suggested to decrease transaction processing costs for higher value transactions while at the same time open banking will offer real-time credit transfers guaranteeing payments and enabling merchants to confirm payments and ship orders immediately.

It is constantly striving to innovate and simplify the payments process for consumers and merchants. Adyen is a unique payment solution provider that is the choice for many of the world’s leading companies. Fraud protection has been an increasing priority in today’s digital economy. Traditional card transactions are slow, charge higher processing costs and are prone to frauds. With this latest addition in the company’s offerings, Adyen has become the first payments provider to offer a fully compliant, direct payment solution in the UK and it has been continuously working with Open Banking Implementation Entities to bring the benefits of a digitized payments system to consumers and merchants alike.

“It is exciting to see another great example of open banking powering innovation and leading to new services which ultimately help drive efficiencies in payments,” said Imran Gulamhuseinwala OBE, Trustee of OBIE (Open Banking Implementation Entity). “Adyen is a great example of how consumers and organizations can benefit from increased collaboration and secure data sharing between financial institutions.”

Dutch airline KLM is the first major brand to roll out the new offering. The service is now live and accessible to all UK customers. After Brexit, UK has become the most important foreign market for EU nation companies. “It is great to see that KLM is the first airline to offer this open banking payment option to our UK customers. BY working with Adyen’s payment initiative, we are offering customers a wider choice of payment options securely and seamlessly,” said Pieter Groeneveld, Senior Vice President at KLM Royal Dutch Airlines.

Air France and KLM have to manage to agree on strengthening ties between the airlines, putting an end to a power struggle that had been bothering the Dutch government, staff, and shareholders.

In the process, Air France has secured a salary agreement with pilots after an elongated protest which saw them college strike last year, which caused €335 million ($380 million) to evaporate from the 2018 profits. The truce between the two airlines was declared on Wednesday morning by company officials.

Specifics of the deals, however, weren’t released, though the group Chief Financial Official Frederic Gaygey stated that the Air France-KLM plans would boost both the companies’ prospects despite high fuel prices and other obstacles ahead. Gaygey also said that the group was “absolutely not” considering a merger between the two airlines completely.

The Franco-Dutch airline group pledged new efficiency games to tackle higher fuel costs this year with a motive to deepen cooperation between two of its main careers, Air France and KLM. While presenting 2018 earnings of the group, Chief Executive Officer Ben Smith assured Better coordinated network and fleets after subsiding KLM resistance against closure integration with Air France in a new deal. Smith said these achievements pave the way for the group’s ambition to regain a leading position in Europe and across the globe.

Rivals like Lufthansa and British Airways continue to maintain a profitability lead on Air France and KLM due to restrictive French union deals, and strikes that took away a substantial chunk of profits last year forcing out the previous CEO. Ben Smith joined the group, hit by internal conflicts in September 2018. Smith, an ex-Air Canada veteran, has successfully resolved labor issues by granting wage hikes in return for increased flexibility, which now give hopes to make better and more profitable use of the group aircraft and networks.

The board of Air France-KLM has also agreed to reappoint Pieter Elbers as KLMs chief executive officer.

Ben Smith met with the Dutch government Ministers of Finance and infrastructure last week to discuss the future of the Air France-KLM alliance. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, while addressing journalists in a press conference on Friday, said that it was extremely important for the Dutch economy that KLM functions well. However, he refrained from giving out any details from the discussion between his Ministers and Ben Smith. He further added that the esteemed organization was out of danger though not functioning as brilliantly as other airlines.

As per the new deal, Air France pilots will get a 4.3% hike in return for concessions including extended flexibility on leave and sharing routes with KLM. The dominant SNPL pilots union signed the deal after received 85% support in a ballot.

Conflicts between the two flagship airlines began last year as Smith, after his appointment in September, started pushing for a more concerted decision making between the two brands as well as his seat on the KLM board. This development encountered resistance from KLM’s workforce, including CEO Pieter Elbers. Due to this, a possible departure of Elbers started to hover especially after his contract would expire in April. This led to a show of public support by the Dutch career’s employees last week, which triggered talks between Smith and Dutch ministers.

The Chief Executive Officer of Nordea Bank Abp Casper von Koskull has called on the critics of Finland based back to show patience and added that bank is well on its way to staging a turnaround in the fiscal year 2020. Nordea Bank has been in doldrums for some time, and in recent years, the bank went on an aggressive cost-cutting spree. The bank laid off workers, embraced technology and generally tried to turn it into a much more efficient organization.

However, the recent fourth quarter result has not gone down well with key investors and angry investors even went on to state that the less than satisfactory results were a sign that enough progress had not been made. Sampo, which holds around 20% of the bank’s shares, stated that the bank’s most important ‘performance indicators’ did not meet the standards of Nordic banks. Another investor simply said that the profit recorded by the bank in the fourth quarter was too low.

The bank’s CEO has now taken a swing at the investors and called them impatient during the course of an interview. Koskull said, “When I look at 2019, my clear ambition is that we have growing income and reduced costs. Markets are always impatient.” He went on to state that the bank is going to stage a comeback in 2019 and Nordea’s asset management division is going to have a big say in it. The CEO stated that the asset management business is poised to swing into profits.

The bank’s income has gone down drastically and has dropped to 9 billion Euros in 2018. However, Koskull has assured that the bank is looking at plenty of new avenues through which income could be boosted. Other than asset management, he believes the bank has the chance to get into segments in which it did not venture before. For instance, private banking in Norway and Sweden is one of the options he spoke about. He went on to state that the bank has a huge room for improvement and growth is around the corner. He said that in 2018, the bank’s traditionally strong asset management earnings did not go as planned and that gives Nordea an excellent opportunity to raise income in the coming year. Koskull is bullish about his hopes regarding the asset management business. He said, “I’m convinced we can get the asset management that has been shrinking. We will get that back; now we have a new starting point. We have the products, the capabilities in place. It doesn’t need magic to get that back.”

Apple’s former lawyer was charged by the U.S. Department of Justice for insider trading ahead of six of the iPhone maker’s quarterly earnings this Wednesday

Reports say Gene Levoff exploited his position as corporate secretary, head of corporate law and co-chairman of a committee that reviewed draft copies of Apple’s financial results to trade illegally between 2011 and 2016.

Levoff was sole in charge of Apple’s insider-trading policy and was Apple’s named representative on many of its corporate acquisitions and subsidiaries. Levoff was familiar with the company’s trading policies, routinely sending emails to workers, reminding them not to buy and sell stock amid earnings announcements, the SEC said.

Prosecutors said that before Apple terminated his decade-long employment in September, Levoff made around $604,000 in illegal gains, including realized profit and avoided losses.

Levoff has one count of securities fraud, carrying a maximum 20-year prison term and a $5 million fine.

However, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed related civil charges in the case as this was one of the rare instances of a senior lawyer at a major U.S. company being implicated in a crime. According to the filing, Levoff exploited his well-placed position to manage his Apple shares trading privately. He would gain access to the company’s periodic earnings results and draft public filing before release.

Antonia Chion, an associate director of the SEC’s enforcement division, said in a statement, “Levoff’s alleged exploitation of his access to Apple’s financial information was particularly egregious given his responsibility for implementing the company’s insider trading compliance policy.”

Apple said in its statement that they have terminated Levoff after an internal probe.

Authorities also quoted that Levoff belonged to Apple’s general counsel and has long been a corporate officer of most of the major subsidiary of the Cupertino, a California-based company.

According to authorities, Levoff helped Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook and his predecessor, Steve Jobs, ensuring the timeliness, accuracy and proper oversight of the company’s disclosures, including financial results.

The SEC mentioned that Levoff had broken Apple’s insider-trading policies on at least three accounts. For instance, in July 2015, he had allegedly learned about Apple’s poor iPhone sales report. At that time, Levoff almost sold his entire Apple holding, which was worth $10 million. After Apple released the quarterly report, its share plunged by over 4 percent. To that end, Levoff avoided a potential loss of approximately $345,000.

Apart from this, prosecutors also claimed Levoff bought and sold more than $14 million of Apple stock, including $10 million in July 2015 alone, after being given draft earnings materials but before the results were made public.

Apple confirmed that Levoff conducted illegal trades during his tenure at their company.

The tech giant clarified that it had initiated an internal investigation against Levoff after receiving a tip from the SEC in 2017. They ended up terminating him in September 2018 after placing him on a two-month leave.

Josh Rosenstock, Apple’s spokesperson, told Bloomberg that, “After being contacted by authorities last summer, we conducted a thorough investigation with the help of outside legal experts, which resulted in termination.”

The US attorney has also filed criminal charges against Levoff which could have him face up to 20 years in jail and a $5 million fine.

Charges against Levoff were levied in New Jersey, where authorities said the servers were located for firms that handled Levoff’s illegal trades.

The cases are the U.S. v. Levoff, U.S. District Court, District of New Jersey, No. 19-mag-03507; and SEC v. Levoff in the same court, No. 19-05536.

These allegations are a black spot for Apple, which mostly had a clean record over financial reporting issues.

The earnings report of the previous year was released on Thursday evening, and it revealed that Canopy, the leading pot seller, showed a 300% growth in revenue. The company’s shares also rose by 4.4% the same day following the announcement of the earnings report.

Co-Chief Executive Bruce Linton came out saying that the company hoped to continue being the leading pot producer in the world. He also says that they have a clear plan to stay at the top.

He caught up with MarketWatch on the phone the Friday morning and revealed the top three priorities that would help the company to achieve its targets.

According to him, a combination of the right people, good capital expenditures, and appropriate allocation of the company’s supply of cannabis will make the business hit all the necessary heights.

Those three things go together — they have a synchronizing effect,” Linton said.

Canopy has reportedly invested largely in increasing its employee base. The number of employees grew from 700 to 27,00 which is a whopping 285% growth.

“You do what can be done, by a group of people,” Linton said. “We are constantly scanning for new personnel — working against evolving priorities. There is never a week that goes by that we don’t.”

The recent success of the company is due to the legalization of recreational Marijuana in Canada last year.

Revenue for the fiscal third quarter hit as high as 282% compared to the previous year. Chairman and Co-CEO Linton said that the key to succeeding in the market was to make early calculated investments that would help the company to grab the share of the market while the law took effect.

Canopy Growth had claimed a wider loss this year following its heavy investment on research, development, and marketing. However, this did not bother the investors as the company’s stock rose 4% Friday. The shares are up by 80% this year.

Last year, the company managed to lock down a third of its rising recreational cannabis market. The company was confident that the investments and product development campaigns would keep it in that position.

BMO Capital Markets released a note on Friday saying that Canopy’s sales volume in terms of recreational Marijuana showed a market share of 30%.

Mr. Linton was asked if this was the position the company was expecting to hold on to in the coming years. He said that talk in the coming quarters would shift more towards the possibility of converting cannabis into more consumer products.

Meanwhile, there is a visible inclination towards legalization of recreational Marijuana in the United States. More states are legalizing the drug’s use for recreation. Besides, many brokerage firms have shown interest in the companies too.

Reports and speculation about Apple’s video streaming subscription where going around the corners for years now and finally Apple is all set to launch its new TV subscription service. Reports say that Apple is expecting to launch its new service in April or in May.

Apple currently is working in the final development phase and getting its new video streaming services ready for deployment. The new video streaming services include free original content feature basically for device owners and offer subscription service for users to subscribe to other digital services. Subscription TV series are offered by Viacom Inc., CBS and Lions Gate Corp’s Starz along with its original content.

Major video streaming partners like Netflix and HBO are not expected to be the part of it, while the services of Netflix Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. Prime video is most likely to be damaged, reports according to a few reliable persons.

Apple had planned about the new video services and is spending almost $2 billion in Hollywood to form its video content and singing content with star-like Oprah Winfrey. The new video streaming is to be launched worldwide.

The main goal of the service is to enable customers to sign up for the existing streaming products and allow them to access it on their iOS TV application, just like Amazon’s Prime Video Channels. Apple seeks to simplify the mobile video viewing feature by assembling all video content in a single app rather than allowing the user to install various apps for every service. It is quite an important step to counter its rivals Amazon’s Prime and Netflix Inc.

According to Bloomberg, Apple is expected to launch both of its service namely, new video service and subscription service on March 25 at a service event. Apple Inc. has already invited big Hollywood celebrities like Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Aniston, director JJ Abrams and Jennifer Garner for the event.

The service is likely to be distributed across the various Apple App stores and will be available in 100 + countries.

Apple Inc. is careful about the plans and how is it going to distribute the shows is still a secret. The investors have started to focus on the revenue from the paid subscriptions as an alternative means for the increase in iPhone sales. From the holiday season onwards there is a decline in the sale of iPhone’s for the first time in its history during last year.

Some people say that Apple Inc. is negotiating with HBO, WarnerMedia owned by AT&T Inc. to be a part of its new service, although it is not yet been decided and may take a call before the launch of the new service while HBO has not rendered with the same terms that Amazon Inc. has offered it.

Apple Inc. has developed its own service segment which helped them for the plan to launch the television service; the service segment brought $37.1 billion during 2018 fiscal.

The accurate details about the disagreement between Apple Inc. and HBO are not known; however, media companies are worried about the data sharing and revenue split as Apple tries to offer the existing services to the customers in all new way.

Those customers who will subscribe for top video service by using it new streaming services will be applicable for 30 percent cut and Apple is pushing this plan forward. At present, Apple Inc. takes 15 percent cut on revenue from the users who have signed up to HBO Now and Netflix and also other video streaming apps via the App store, people mentioned.

People also say that neither Netflix nor Hulu are part of the Amazon Prime Video Channels and they are even not going to be the part of Apple’s product.

However, CBS, HBO, Starz, Viacom, and Netflix have not responded to the comments.

Apple has worked with various media companies for over the years now, only to access its content. Apple CEO Tim Cook, last month during its earnings conference call has viewed the new service offering.

The customer behavior has changed over time and is currently changing, we believe the change will be significant in the years to come, and there will be a decrease in the use of the cable bundle. We believe that the change will take place at a much faster level during the year, Tim Cook mentioned. We will be stepping into original content world.

We have signed a long partnership deal with Oprah, and as of now, I don’t want to go in-depth about the conversation. Highly motivated people have been hired who are superb confident enough and will be able to talk more on it later.

Apple has decided to play various movies and series on its new service which includes animated movies, reality shows, dramas and comedies which will be collected by Macworld.

European aircraft manufacturing giant Airbus has decided to no longer produce the A380 Superjumbo, according to an announcement made by the company on Thursday. The cruise liner was Airbus’ big bet on its quest to become the king of the skies, but the sales figures have not quite been up to the company’s expectations. The Superjumbo is the world’s biggest airliner, and Airbus wanted it to be a direct competitor against the iconic 747 that is produced by rivals Boeing. However, the plan completely backfired as the airline industry went in a different direction altogether. Airlines are nowadays buying smaller aircraft, and consequently, the demand for large planes like the Superjumbo has nosedived. It is not a surprise that the company decided to cut its losses and stop production altogether.

According to the statement delivered by the company, the last Superjumbo would be rolled out in 2021 and no more after that. However, ending the A380 Superjumbo production also places thousands of jobs at risk and Airbus did say in its statement that they would soon dive into discussions with the unions regarding the matter. Over the years, Dubai based Emirates Airlines was the company’s biggest client and had ordered the highest number of Superjumbos. However, the airline decided to reduce the number of orders for the A380 Superjumbo and instead decided to go for smaller airlines produced by Airbus. That has, without a doubt, been the biggest reason behind this decision. The other major client is Japanese airline ANA, and according to the statement, Airbus will make 3 more A380 Superjumbo planes for them and 17 more for Emirates before ceasing production altogether.

The chairman of Emirates Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed al-Maktoum expressed his disappointment about the developments. He said, “Emirates has been a staunch supporter of the A380 since its very inception. While we are disappointed to have to give up our order, and sad that the programme could not be sustained, we accept that this is the reality of the situation.”  The Superjumbo had been one of the most ambitious projects by Airbus that was aimed at ending the near monopoly of Boeing in the large commercial aircraft space and after a good run since 2005; the development of twin-engined planes badly hit the demand for aircraft like the A380. The talks about the end of production had been in the works for quite some time now, and it remains to be seen what the company does next to boost revenues.

Indian commercial vehicle giant Tata Motors has announced that it, along with Tata Motors Finance, will be entering into a strategic tie-up with Kool-ex Cold Chain Limited, a leading pharma cold chain logistics service provider, to supply 200 factory built reefer trucks. It will be a first of its kind transaction for both the companies.

This unique tie-up will see Tata Motors manufacturing specially built reefer trucks which will be pharma compliant. It will be a one-stop solution for Kool-ex Cold Chain and will be covered under the Tata Sampoorna Seva umbrella of value-added services. The project will be funded by Tata Motors Finance Group with a mixture of equity and debt, making it a single window transaction. In a statement, the company stated that these reefer trucks would be built on the popular Tata LPT 1613 MCV and Tata LPT 2518 multi-axle trucks.

Kool-ex has been one of the most loyal clients of Tata Motors for the past sixteen years. The company is all set to become one of the largest pharma cold chain logistics players in the country, and this partnership is being considered as a stepping stone in the journey. The company will also be shortly entering in the cold chain warehousing segment, with its first commercial project expected to materialize near Pune, making it a completely integrated 3PL cold chain logistics service provider.

Kool-ex Cold Chain Director, Rahul Agarwal, has said that Tata Motors has been an integral part of the Mumbai based company since its inception. He further added that Kool-ex is strategically expanding its product portfolios and reinforcing its expertise in various segments to cater to growing customer requirements. Agarwal also said the company believes that specialized needs of the ever-expanding e-commerce and cold chain industries will give birth to newer opportunities for niche organized logistics players in the near future.

Commenting on this collaboration, R T Wasan, marketing, and sales head, Tata motors CVBU, stated that as the leading commercial vehicle player in the industry, Tata Motors aims to work closely with its customers and to offer them appropriate solutions for their transportation and logistics requirements. He also said that Tata Motors in association with Kool-ex has co-developed a fully built reefer unit. This will help meet sophisticated and rapidly growing logistics requirements of the pharma industry due to the anticipated changes in regulations concerned with transportation and storage.

Shyam Mani, Managing Director of Tata Motors Finance Group, said that the company was elated to be a part of this one of a kind collaboration to provide one-stop finance solution to Kool-ex Cold Chain. He informed that as a part of this tie-up, they will not only be providing vehicle finance through Tata Motors Finance Limited (TMFL) but will also provide mezzanine equity finance to the company through Tata Motors Finance Solutions Limited (TMFSL), making this a structured financing deal.

The announcement of this collaboration saw the stocks of Tata Motors soar by 4.45% to Rs 159.45. Last week, the prices fell by 29% after the company posted a Rs 26,960 crore loss in Q3.

A US court has rejected the demand by two civil rights groups for the release of documents by Facebook to decrypt the conversation that an MS 13 gang had on Facebook’s messenger app. On Feb11, the US judge rejected the demand, the issue came up after a joint investigation by the Federal and state investigation agencies wanted Facebook to decrypt the voice conversations the MS-13 gang had on their Messenger service. Facebook uses end-end encryption to protect calls from being intercepted. That essentially means only the two conversing parties will only have access to it and nobody else can intercept it.

All telecom companies in the US have to give access to calls to the police under its Federal laws, but those apps which use the internet are exempt from it. Facebook claims that its Messenger app also falls under that exemption. The filings made by the two civil groups and the public filings in the Fresno case states that the government intercepted all ordinary phone calls and texts that happened between the MS-13 gang members and the affidavit says that only a few Messenger calls were not heard. Despite not hearing the conversations, the gang members were arrested.

Many groups which include the ACLU or the American Civil Liberties Union contend that the public had the right to know the laws on encryption and it outweighs the reason the Justice Department may have for a criminal probe. Even the Washington Post filed a brief to decrypt the records. The US judge in Fresno Lawrence O’Neill judged that the documents were sensitive and that it would not be possible even to release the revised version of it as it is a sensitive law-enforcement technique. He addressed that ‘The materials at issue in this case concern techniques that, if disclosed publicly, would compromise law enforcement efforts in many, if not all, future wiretap investigations.’

The arguments made by Facebook and the Justice Department to ACLU’s statements are kept as a secret, but the judge in his statement wrote that Facebook had supported the ACLU’s request to release the documents with some revisions while the Government was against the decision. Both the US Justice Department and Facebook have declined to make any comment publicly about this case as the court has passed a gag order against speaking in public. However, there have been reports of investigators failing to convince Facebook in a courtroom to wiretap specific messenger calls.

As per a recent news correspondence, a lawyer has been appointed by a Nova Scotia’s court in Canada to have access to the encrypted laptop of the deceased CEO, Gerald Cotton of QuadrigaCX, which is a major Canadian crypto exchange. The laptop which is believed to provide access to $190 million of QuadrigaCX customer funds has been currently handed over to someone for monitoring. The Court has appointed a monitor, Ernst & Young Inc., an independent third party to oversee these proceedings, so that customer obligations are addressed. Even, creditor protection has been filed which would allow to work diligently through the process and ensure the viability of the company. The laptop was previously held by QuadrigaCX representatives.

QuadrigaCX which is a cryptocurrency exchange, or a digital currency exchange (DCE) provides its customers services for the exchange of virtual currency into various assets, such as fiat or other digital currencies. The platforms usually work solely online, providing transactions in electronic forms and taking fees for them, though there are also some brick-and-mortar businesses that use traditional payment methods. Debit and credit cards, postal money orders and other kinds of money transfers are accepted to make an operation using a DCE.

Currently, the assets are stored in a cold wallet, and the court believes this QuadrigaCX case is not a case of typical bankruptcy. The creditors have the rights to consider changing the jurisdiction to proceed with the case in future.

This week the company has been asked by the court to appoint one of the ‘Big Four’ auditing firm, the Ernst & Young as an independent third party to follow up and monitor the proceedings. Ernst & Young (EY) which is a British auditing and consulting company would be following up the company financials. In terms of cryptocurrency, EY representatives have a positive attitude toward the technologies of blockchain and digital currency. Unlike the other three companies in the Big Four, EY supports the Bitcoin community.

The QuadrigaCX management has asked for a month of stay for proceedings which is expected to end on Mar. 7. The investigation team would be searching almost $190 million which is apparently inaccessible following the death of Cotton. In the worst scenario, if the missing keys are not found, the lawyers representing QuadrigaCX would be looking forward to selling the company to satisfy the debts.

Recently, QuadrigaCX which is a Canadian cryptocurrency exchange had to face financial difficulty since the death of the CEO, Gerald Cotten who reportedly died of complications from Crohn’s disease.

One of the leading publications in Canada has published the death certificate and have expressed their concerns about Cotten’s death. The users do not have access to its wallets, and the CEO has not left evidence of passwords.