Welcome to the headlines from September. In global PMI, IPMI and travel, its coming up to conference season time, so news seems quite light.

However, it was good to see the new cashless IPMI claims app launched by Expatriate health with Mastercard, and the successful fund raise by online health insurer, Peachy.

Most of the action seems to have been in the services space. BUPA has renewed with Babylon and surveys continue to support the use of digital health, at least for routine situations in both physical and mental health. The global consolidation in EAP continues with Telus’ completed acquisition of LifeWorks, as another survey raises the question of how much do employees know of the mental health benefits on offer to them.

In the provider space, we see big moves too, by the pharmacists who are definitely taking a much bigger role. We have CVS completing the massive US Signify home health care deal, and moves by Walmart/ United Healthcare in the US and by Amazon in Japan.

In tech Verily, founded out of Google X and part of Alphabet, looks set to push on in the personalised (ie individual) data-driven healthcare product space, and Pfizer has acquired the very interesting ResApp, which focuses on respiratory disease diagnosis.

Worth reading generally, we direct you particularly to the Swiss Re report on deglobalisation, and to the World Travel and Tourism Council’s report on global travel market rankings.