Bloq, a provider of blockchain technology solutions for global enterprises, announced that it has acquired Skry (formerly Coinalytics), a pioneer in blockchain analytics, to accelerate the development of its analytics capabilities and open the door for Artificial Intelligence (AI) on its platform. With the acquisition, Bloq wants to enhance its suite of analysis tools and position itself to maximize the value of blockchain data sets through AI and machine learning. The Chicago-based company focuses on solving key business issues surrounding security, provenance, authentication and reconciliation. The new acquisition, whose detailed terms haven't been disclosed, includes Skry's intellectual property and team, which seems a perfect fit for Bloq's focus on empowering better visibility and decision-making in a multi-blockchain, multi-network world. "Financial institutions will need a full suite of tools to take blockchain [technology]'s role from high-tech database to business-driver," Bloq's Co-Founder and Chairman Matthew Roszak explained to Bitcoin Magazine.

BNP Paribas Securities Services has acquired a minority stake in Fortia Financial Solutions. This deal helps Fortia, a start-up that provides compliance software to the financial services industry, cement the relationship it formed with the bank during the inaugural session of the fintech accelerator by L'Atelier BNP Paribas. Fortia's marquee product, the Innova software platform, comprises eight modules that use machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to help manage, process, control and understand data. The solutions are tailored to help companies monitor risk, analyse data, manage AML and KYC requirements, and provide support for overall investment compliance. "Fortia's Innova solution tackles two very real challenges for financial services companies and institutional investors – growing regulatory requirements and mounting volumes of data – by applying new technologies in an intelligent and innovative way," says Jean Devambez, global head of product and client solutions, asset and fund services, at BNP Paribas Securities Services.

SoftBank also sells the Pepper human-shaped companion robot for homes and businesses, and runs a solar energy business in Japan, highlighting a critical stance against nuclear energy that has spread since the 2011 Fukushima disaster. Its investment empire encompasses financial technology and ride-booking services.

This week saw the placation of GST bill on logistics along with many more news such as evolvement of digital payments and artificial intelligence in E-commerce industry. The meeting of AI and e-commerce could not only transform the way jillions of online transactions are done, but also change the in-store purchase behaviors which are influenced by digital interactions. According to Sachin Bansal, CEO, Flipkart, artificial intelligence is a key differentiator in the fiercely competitive e-commerce business. Digital payments will grow 10 times to reach 500 billion by 2020 and contribute 15% of gross domestic product (GDP). Some of the key reasons of these acquisitions include privacy of customer's payment data, secured payment facility and use of payment data for big data analysis to the company.

This story was delivered to BI Intelligence "E-Commerce Briefing" subscribers. To learn more and subscribe, please click here. The online marketplace has acquired AI company Expertmaker to enhance the way products display on eBay's pages, according to Internet Retailer. This purchase is part of eBay's structured data push for sellers, which utilizes eBay's standard way of categorizing and displaying products for sale on its marketplace. The use of structured data is not mandatory, but eBay has been strongly encouraging sellers to adopt it.