What a week - congratulations!

Shout out to FINOS, Morgan Stanley & Morphir on the launch of the Morphir Showcase, Legerity on acquisition by InsightSoftware, and CWSI continued success. See you all at KPMG FM Innovation Event in Dublin next week April 28th, at Platform X.

FINOS & Morgan Stanley - Morphir Showcase

With automation and conversion that were previously unavailable in the field of finance-tech, there are tremendous benefits, because business logic can now move with the code, be easily understood, and adopted. Find out how in this showcase, on Morphir.

Zngly - Virtual tour of Platform X

A walk-though of KPMG's exciting Platform X ahead of the April 28th event Low Code / No Code: Innovation in Dublin.

TECH: No 10 network targeted with spyware, says group

Downing Street and Foreign Office computer systems were suspected to have been infected with spyware, according to a Canadian investigative group. The Citizen Lab says it informed officials that suspected Pegasus spyware was discovered in 2020 and 2021, with the Downing Street incident linked to operators in the UAE. Pegasus is sold by NSO Group to governments to carry out surveillance through infecting phones with malicious software. The Israeli-based company has denied the allegations, saying they are false and could not have taken place.

ART: ‘Migrantes’ Series wins Adam Ferguson the Photographer of the Year Award 2022

The series was conceived in early 2021, after Ferguson noticed a lack of photography from the perspective of migrants on the southern side of the US-Mexico border. The New York Times picked up his idea and greenlit the work, which was made in the Mexican border cities of Juárez and Reynosa in spring last year. There, along with Mexican journalists Ernesto Rodríguez, Silvia Cruz, Noe Gea Medina and Laura Monica Cruz Flores, he spent time with migrants staying in shelters over the course of 11 days. The people who participated in the self-portraits were handed a cable release and left to stage the photographs as they wished.

CULTURE: Radical Fringe Beliefs are on the Rise

The Next Wave of Extremist Cults Will Make QAnon Look Tame. The world was supposed to breathe a collective sigh of relief in 2021—at least when it came to extremist, radicalized thinking. Donald Trump was out of office. QAnon, that cult-like movement operating under the belief that a secret pedophile cabal runs the world, was losing steam. Vaccines were going to bring an end to the pandemic. But far from seeing the demise of cultism and extremist movements, 2022 will usher in their increase—and QAnon will prove to have been the first baby step, rather than the culmination, of the rising appeal of extreme fringe organizations and sectarian politics.

Jukebox 21.04.22

This week were blaring out the workout tunes - our favourite songs to get active to! Just in time to work off all those easter egg calories...

IN THE MARKETS: No wonder Netflix is bleeding subscribers – it’s become the new cable

After years of exponential growth, Netflix reported on Tuesday that it had lost subscribers for the first time in more than a decade. The announcement spooked Wall Street and sent shares plummeting more than 35%, erasing more than $50bn in market capitalization from a company whose stock was already down more than 40% on the year.

IN THE MARKETS: CWSI buys Dutch security company and nets €21m in growth capital

Irish mobile and cloud security provider CWSI has acquired Dutch enterprise mobile security company Blaud. The acquisition comes as Dublin-headquartered CWSI secured €21m in growth capital led by private equity fund Castlegate Investments. Under the terms of the acquisition deal, Blaud will become a wholly owned subsidiary of CWSI and its 20 employees will join the group.

IN THE MARKETS: insightsoftware Acquires Legerity, Adding Cloud-Based Accounting Rules Offering for Complex Financial Transformation

insightsoftware, a global provider of reporting, analytics, and performance management solutions, has expanded its footprint in Europe with the acquisition of Legerity, a provider of cloud-based accounting rules software. This deal brings a new solution set to insightsoftware, with opportunities to connect to existing product offerings that unlock business data for finance and operations teams and application developers at organizations of all sizes.