Block chain Steem

Mastercard's hub in Sydney: Nearly half of Mastercard's 800 staff in Australia are technology engineers, leading the card network to open a technology and innovation in Sydney, its only such facility in the southern hemisphere, reports Australian Financial Review. The center will focus on artificial intelligence, blockchain, natural language processing and robots. Other work will focus on use cases for augmented reality, serving use cases such as allowing consumers to see how furniture will look in their homes before making a purchase and applications for artificial intelligence to power fraud detection. Language technology will support internet banking prototypes in which users can speak to Alexa or Google Home to make a purchase. Mastercard has additionally used technology picked up from acquisitions of loyalty and rewards business Pinpoint, lab-style technology development from DataCash and artificial intelligence company Brighterion.

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Payments venture in Poland: Blik, a European mobile payment scheme that relies on collaboration among banks, acquirers and merchants, has received a major regulatory boost in Poland. The Polish central bank has approved the scheme as a national payment system, making Blik the country's first non-card based payment system and giving it immediate access to about 70% of the banking market in Poland. The approval certifies that Blik follows all regulatory requirements and meets standards for security and stability. Blik is built on a partnership of Poland's six largest banks, supporting a single integrated payment platform across all mobile devices, a model it hopes to expand to other countries. Mobile payments technology has expanded quickly in Poland. ING recently added Mastercard to its digital wallet; and Poland was an early market for Android Pay.

Blockchain Steem: Global Blockchain Technologies Corp. has entered into an agreement with Steemit to establish a $20 million Steem Fund. The fund will invest in startups building on the Steem blockchain and others designed to expand the Steem ecosystem. The Steem Fund's startups will support the Smart Media Token (SMT) protocol on the Steem blockchain, which is designed to allow organizations and companies to integrate a token system to their website, portal or platform. Publishers can use SMTs without changing any website infrastructure or functions, a structure designed to hasten fintech development and support improved payments and content connections among consumers, companies and content creators. Global Blockchain and Steemit will determine the ticket size and distribution of all investments, which are planned for full deployment by 2020.