New digital ecosystem delivers greater customer choice, deeper engagement and a more sustainable travel insurance model

Allianz Partners launches the Metaportal to support changing rewards and loyalty programs.Greater customer choice through personalised travel insurance experiences.Scalable technology platform built for future growth and innovation.

BRISBANE, Australia, Sept. 28, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Allianz Partners today announced the launch of its next-generation travel insurance ecosystem, powered by its proprietary Metaportal platform, providing banking and loyalty partners with a more flexible, customer-centric approach to travel insurance at a time of significant change across the payments and rewards landscape.

The announcement comes as Australian financial institutions respond to regulatory reforms affecting interchange revenue and card payment economics, prompting many organisations to reassess how customer benefits are funded and delivered.

The Metaportal is a new digital platform that helps banks and loyalty partners offer travel insurance in a simpler and more flexible way. Customers can easily activate and manage their cover online, with the option to personalise their travel insurance by selecting additional cover and benefits that suit their individual needs and travel plans.

“Travel remains one of the most powerful ways organisations can engage with their customers,” says Damien Arthur, Executive Head of Travel, Allianz Partners Australia.

“For many years, travel insurance attached to financial products has largely operated as a one-size-fits-all proposition. Customer expectations have evolved. Today’s travellers want cover that reflects how, where and why they travel, while businesses want solutions that build stronger customer relationships and support long-term loyalty.”

“The Metaportal gives partners the flexibility to provide a preset level of cover while allowing customers to tailor their protection through optional upgrades and additional benefits.”

Through a seamless digital journey, customers can activate cover and select additional protection based on their individual needs — including options for cruise, snow sports, adventure travel, higher cancellation limits, extended trip durations and reduced excess levels.

For partners, the platform introduces a configurable framework allowing travel insurance programs to be tailored at a segment level, with control over included benefits, cover structure and generosity across customer groups.

“What makes this approach different is that it is not simply a product enhancement; it is an engagement platform,” says Arthur.

“Partners can integrate travel protection into their own digital environments and use it to strengthen customer relationships. The experience remains in-brand, within owned channels, and can be configured to support a range of acquisition, retention and loyalty strategies.”

“By combining flexible insurance propositions with modern digital infrastructure, we’re helping partners create lasting value for customers while positioning travel insurance for the future.”

The Metaportal is underpinned by a MACH-aligned architecture designed for scalable deployment, reusable integration and future expansion into new products and industries.

About Allianz Partners

Allianz Partners is a world leader in B2B2C insurance and assistance, offering global solutions that span international health, travel insurance, mobility and assistance. Customer driven, our innovative experts are redefining insurance services by delivering future-ready, high-tech high-touch products and solutions that go beyond traditional insurance. Our products are embedded seamlessly into our partners’ businesses, sold through intermediary channels or directly to customers through the Allianz, Allianz Global Assistance and Allianz Care brands. Present in over 73 markets, our 22,200 employees speak 70 languages, handle over 89 million cases each year, and are motivated to go the extra mile to offer assistance to our customers around the world.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/allianz-partners-unveils-next-generation-travel-insurance-platform-to-help-partners-navigate-changing-landscape-302890098.html

SOURCE Allianz Partners

The Equipment Financing Veteran Has Returned to Continue the Growth Story She Began

WOBURN, Mass., Sept. 27, 2026 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — TimePayment, an award-winning fintech company specializing in commercial equipment financing, has elevated Joanna Markos to the role of Chief Revenue Officer.

Markos has over 13 years’ experience in the equipment financing industry. She joined TimePayment in 2013 as an Account Executive and over the next decade rose to become its Vice President of Sales. Along the way, she founded TimePayment’s Water unit, building it to $4MM in monthly sales. Markos left TimePayment in 2023 for a fresh leadership role in the equipment lease financing space, but returned in 2025 as TimePayment’s Director of Growth.

That story continues as she steps into her new position as Chief Revenue Officer. “In recent years, we’ve been very focused on efficiency, process, and becoming even better at what we do—and we’ve succeeded,” Markos explains. “Now we’re all about growth. So I’m leading the charge to build out our sales team, expand the verticals we serve, and make growth the focus of our decision-making.”

“What Joanna brings is that track record, that proven leadership that makes her uniquely positioned to lead our sales organization at this important point in our growth,” says Alyce Reilly, TimePayment’s Chief Operating Officer. “As we sharpen our focus on growing originations, expanding our partner relationships, and reaching more businesses with the financing solutions we provide, Joanna’s leadership will be instrumental in turning that strategy into results.”

Markos’ strength as a relationship-builder is also paramount, Reilly adds. “She’s someone our customers really value working with. I’ve seen firsthand the energy, experience, and commitment she brings to TimePayment and to the people around her. She understands our business, our partners, and the opportunities ahead of us as we continue building for our next phase.”

Visit TimePayment.com to learn more about TimePayment’s commercial equipment financing products and technology support for B2B equipment dealers and brokers. To contact Joanna Markos about strategic growth opportunities, connect with her on LinkedIn or visit the Contact page at TimePayment.com.

Media Contact
Noelle Cook
TimePayment
1 (480) 332-2042
noelle.cook@timepayment.com
https://timepayment.com

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prweb.com/releases/timepayment-names-joanna-markos-as-chief-revenue-officer-302890854.html

SOURCE TimePayment

SHENZHEN, China, Sept. 26, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — On September 23, the 5th GMIF2026 Innovation Summit successfully concluded at the Renaissance Shenzhen Bay Hotel. Co-hosted by the Shenzhen Memory Industry Association (SMIA) and School of Integrated Circuits at Peking University, the summit, themed “The Future Built on AI Memory and Storage,” has brought together industry forces from IDMs, controllers, and memory solution providers to OSATs, equipment and material suppliers, server and AI infrastructure vendors, automotive electronics companies, AI applications developers, academic institutions, and investors. In-depth discussions explored the evolution of memory and storage technologies, industry trends, and application innovations in the AI era.

As AI training and inference workloads continue to scale, the boundaries of memory and storage technology and its applications keep expanding — from storage media and controllers to system architecture and AI applications themselves. GMIF 2026 approached the industry through the lens of the token economy, spotlighting inference efficiency, enterprise-grade storage, cloud-edge-device coordination, industrial capital, and the shifting global competitive landscape.

Five Years of GMIF: A Platform Built Around the Memory & Storage Industry

The summit officially kicked off with an opening remarks from Rixin Sun, President of the Shenzhen Memory Industry Association (SMIA). He looked back on GMIF’s growth since its founding in 2019. Now in its fifth consecutive year, the summit has steadily expanded in scale, industry reach, and influence, with its agenda consistently tracking the pulse of the storage sector.

President Sun said GMIF will continue to pursue a more specialized and differentiated approach going forward — staying close to frontier industry trends and supply-chain coordination, while connecting storage companies with adjacent players in AI compute and end-user applications to drive technical exchange, supply-demand matching, and ecosystem collaboration.

As AI Inference Accelerates, Memory & Storage’s Value Climbs

Daniel Yen, Executive Director at Morgan Stanley, opened the technical discussion with a look at how generative and agentic AI are reshaping infrastructure demands. As model weight loading, KV cache management, and data read/write scheduling grow more complex, Daniel noted that AI capital expenditure keeps rising — and memory and storage’s share of that investment, and its strategic value, are rising with it. He pointed to the “memory wall” as a defining challenge now driving fresh innovation in storage architecture, advanced packaging, and related technologies.

Yimao Cai, Dean of School of Integrated Circuits at Peking University, addressed the topic from the angle of AI inference architecture, discussing the growing role of high-bandwidth storage and multi-media integration. As large model inference drives up demand for capacity, bandwidth, and cost efficiency, Prof. Cai suggested that high-bandwidth flash (HBF) and heterogeneous multi-media storage architectures stand to play a larger role — combining HBM, NAND, and RRAM to strike a better balance between performance, capacity, and cost for AI inference.

Global IDMs Race to Meet the Demands of Agentic AI

Kevin Yoon, CVP & CTO of Samsung Memory China at Samsung Electronics, discussed memory architecture in the age of agentic AI. As agentic AI drives token generation and KV cache volumes to new heights, AI systems are placing greater demands on capacity, bandwidth, and energy efficiency. He outlined Samsung’s progress on Z-NAND, PCIe Gen6 SSDs, and ultra-high-capacity data center SSDs, and discussed how tiering across different storage media can more efficiently support KV cache and model weight storage.

Maya Zhang, Senior Director of Product Marketing at Sandisk, focused on data storage needs in the age of AI inference. As multimodal models, long-context processing, and increasingly sophisticated agents continue to grow KV cache demands, she noted, NAND flash is becoming ever more central to AI infrastructure. She added that more flexible data tiering and reuse across SSDs can improve efficiency for different AI workloads, and that high-density technologies like QLC are set to see broader adoption in AI use cases.

Benny Ni, GAR Sales VP at Solidigm, addressed enterprise SSDs’ role in AI infrastructure amid growing data volumes and operational demands. As model size, token counts, and inference complexity all continue to climb, he said, memory offloading and data tiering are becoming core components of AI system architecture — with high-capacity QLC SSDs paired with high-performance storage offering a more efficient, cost-effective data foundation for inference.

Cloud, Edge, and Device: AI Opens New Ground for Memory & Storage

John Xavier Lionel, Head of Global Storage Business at Arm, spoke on system-level coordination in AI inference, noting that inference spans compute, memory, storage, and data movement — all of which require holistic architectural optimization. As small models, quantization, and heterogeneous NPUs continue to advance, he said, AI deployment will increasingly span cloud, edge, and device, with local storage taking on a larger role in hosting model weights, knowledge bases, and application data.

Stanley Huang, AVP at Silicon Motion, focused on storage requirements in multi-agent, concurrent-use scenarios, where differing tasks demand tailored QoS, latency, and resource allocation. He described how Silicon Motion’s controller and resource-scheduling technologies improve storage efficiency under complex workloads, spanning enterprise SSDs, server storage, mobile UFS, autonomous driving, and robotics applications.

Sam Sun, Chairman at BIWIN, discussed how AI is simultaneously driving storage demand across data centers, edge, and endpoint devices — each with distinct requirements. In data centers, he noted, AI training and inference are pushing up demand for enterprise SSDs and server memory; at the edge and endpoint, applications like AI/AR glasses, AI PCs, smart vehicles, and industrial equipment are pushing storage toward smaller form factors, lower power consumption, higher reliability, and tighter system integration. Sam Sun said BIWIN continues to leverage its integrated solutions and manufacturing capability across enterprise, embedded, PC and mobile, industrial, and automotive product lines — with innovations like Mini SSDs, ultra-compact embedded storage, and wide-temperature industrial SSDs opening new ground in the AI era.

From Compute Infrastructure to Token Production, Deeper System-Level Integration

Tao Zhou, General Manager of the Server Division at Lenovo ISG China, discussed the concept of the “token factory.” As enterprise AI moves from proof-of-concept to large-scale deployment, he said, improving the efficiency of AI infrastructure and sustaining stable token output have become critical industry priorities. He also described how top-level design, data governance, compute optimization, and security management — combined with pooled training/inference resources and hardware-software coordination — are helping enterprise AI infrastructure evolve from simple compute buildout into systematic operations.

Fan Zhang, Chief Computing Architect at NEXWISE, discussed integrated management and scheduling across cloud, compute, and storage resources from an operations standpoint, showing how coordination across compute, storage, and software platforms can improve overall infrastructure efficiency.

Wei Xiong, CTO of Infplane, focused on storage tiering in large model inference, explaining how hot/cold data tiering and intelligent scheduling can shift more inference workload onto SSDs — reducing memory footprint and improving token output efficiency.

Across servers, AI computing centers, and storage systems, deeper coordination among compute, memory, storage, networking, and software scheduling is emerging as a defining trend in AI infrastructure.

From Core Technology to Real-World Application, AI Memory & Storage Ecosystem is Converging Fast

As AI continues to move into automotive, robotics, and enterprise applications, the connection between the storage industry and AI use cases keeps deepening.

Junjia Chen, AI Product Director at SYNCORE, discussed the application of agent architecture in automotive scenarios, focused on smart cockpits and vehicle-wide intelligence.

Lusha Chen, General Manager for APAC at Dify, introduced a “workflow plus agent” model for enterprise AI, connecting large models, corporate knowledge bases, business systems, and end-user applications to embed AI more deeply into enterprise workflows.

Gongjie Liu, Regional Director for Central & Southern China & General Manager of Branch Office at Paratera, discussed multi-model access, unified management, and enterprise AI services built around a MaaS platform.

Zhen Li, VP of Genstoraige, spoke to the concept of “storage-powered compute,” covering data hosting, high-speed interconnects, and intelligent scheduling within AI systems.

Yunjie Ye, Chairman of Numbers Law, presented the company’s work on next-generation mechanical storage architectures for large-capacity data storage.

Ming Zhao, General Manager of OKN Technology, addressed testing requirements for the AI era, describing how test equipment is evolving to support higher speeds, more complex scenarios, and real-world workload simulation for PCIe 6.0 SSDs, memory, and increasingly demanding AI applications — laying the groundwork for the development and large-scale deployment of next-generation storage products.

The Future Built on AI Memory & Storage

From AI inference to agentic AI, from emerging storage media to enterprise SSDs, from data centers to edge and endpoint devices, and from controllers, packaging, and testing equipment to servers, AI computing platforms, and applications, GMIF 2026 highlighted the technological innovation and industry transformation taking place across the memory and storage ecosystem in response to AI.

The massive volumes of data that AI generates, retrieves, and moves are steadily elevating memory and storage’s role within the broader computing stack. Demand for high-capacity, high-bandwidth, and high-reliability storage in data centers continues to climb, while emerging endpoints — AI PCs, smart vehicles, AI/AR glasses, robotics — keep opening new application space. Together, cloud, edge, and device are shaping a richer and more complex set of storage requirements for the AI era.

Meanwhile, the technology itself keeps moving — HBM, HBF, NAND flash, enterprise SSDs, and a handful of newer media all advancing in parallel, with controllers, packaging, testing, and software scheduling evolving alongside them into tighter, more coordinated systems.

Now in its fifth successful year, GMIF has established itself as a leading platform for exchange across the global memory and storage industry. Looking ahead, GMIF will continue to focus on technological innovation, industry trends, and supply-chain collaboration — bringing together key players from across the global industry, pursuing an increasingly specialized and differentiated event model, and fostering deeper exchange and cooperation across the storage value chain.

Media Contact:

Carina Gu
wenjing.gu@gmif.com.cn 

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ai-memory–storage-the-5th-gmif2026-innovation-summit-successfully-concludes-in-shenzhen-302890873.html

SOURCE Shenzhen Memory Industry Association (SMIA)