Temenos, the cloud banking platform, announced that Flowe, the digital bank of Banco Mediolanum, has reached a major milestone with 700,000 accounts in its first 18 months since its launch. With Temenos open platform for composable banking, Flowe is growing twice as fast as its nearest competitor. It received 150,000 new sign-ups in one week with peaks of 30,000 new customers per day.
 
Flowe offers digital services at scale, paving the way for future profitability and bringing sustainable banking to over 60 million Italians. Supported by Temenos cloud technology, Flowe is the first bank in Italy to be certified as a B-Corp and become carbon neutral. Flowe’s CEO will be speaking on the topic of ESG at Temenos Community Forum, 17-19 May in London.
 
Flowe’s mobile banking app combines fully-automated onboarding, a first-class user experience and eco-friendly banking services. Its target market consists of young people who need to manage their money effectively to pay rent and other bills and prefer to use innovative, ethical service providers.
 
Through a fully remote implementation with Temenos, Flowe went live in a record time of just five months, in June 2020. Temenos pre-composed banking services and simple customization through open APIs significantly accelerated the process. The bank’s highly differentiated value proposition has paid off – in 2021, Flowe won the prestigious Prodotto Dell’Anno (Product of the Year), an Italian product innovation award based exclusively on consumers’ votes. 
 
Ivan Mazzoleni, Chief Executive Officer, Flowe: “We chose Temenos Banking Cloud because it enabled us to go live fast, scale massively, and provide a seamless onboarding experience to our customers. Flowe went live in a record time of just five months, and we onboarded 15,000 customers in our first week alone. With Temenos, we’ve been able to bring new products to market quickly and offer truly personalized experiences in line with our sustainable mission. Supported by Temenos Banking Cloud, we can grow sustainably, passing on benefits to customers for a cleaner, greener planet and a better society.”
 
Max Chuard, Chief Executive Officer, Temenos, said: “Digital innovation in banking is thriving in Italy. And it’s an important market for Temenos, where we have a strong and growing presence.  Banks are ready to break free from the legacy core banking systems that have inhibited innovation, whereas new digital entrants are coming to the market. Flowe’s success shows that Temenos open platform for composable banking can help Italian banks provide highly-differentiated, sustainable banking experiences at scale. Congratulations to the team for demonstrating that a powerful mission combined with leading technology can change the face of banking.”
Cloud adoption has accelerated since the pandemic. A recent Economist Intelligence Unit report supported by Temenos finds that more than seven in ten banking respondents state that incorporating the cloud into their organization’s products and services will help them achieve their business priorities. Challenger banks specifically look for agility, scale, and easily composable banking services that allow them to assemble best-of-breed providers into an open ecosystem. On Temenos Banking Cloud, pre-composed banking services can be consumed from a self-service portal, easily configured, extended, or deployed anywhere. Composed Temenos Banking Services consist of pre-configured and pre-assembled Temenos Banking Capabilities plus optional integrated third-party solutions from the Temenos Exchange.

Yapily announces it has signed an agreement with SCHUFA to acquire finAPI, the leading provider of open banking solutions in Germany.

The deal is set to make Yapily the largest open banking payments platform in Europe; over the last 12 months, the fintechs have enabled customers to process a combined total of $39.5 billion in payment volumes and connect to more than 1 million monthly active data users. The acquisition will double Yapily’s customer base, adding well-established finAPI customers to its roster, including over 50 large enterprise firms in the financial, insurance, and IT industries.

As a result of the acquisition, Yapily will have a clear leadership position in two of Europe’s largest markets: the UK and Germany. In addition to its existing coverage of 16 European countries, Yapily will enter new territories including Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary, broadening its geographic footprint and accelerating the roll-out of open banking to millions of people and businesses across Europe.

finAPI customers will benefit from new opportunities for business growth, gaining access to pan-European markets through greater coverage and resources. The combined offering will also bring a number of finAPI solutions to the table for new and existing Yapily customers, including Identity and Age Verification and legally compliant KYC checks, and Digital Account Checks that can be used for automated credit scoring.

SCHUFA, Germany's leading credit bureau, will continue to cooperate with finAPI, both in the use of products and services as well as further product development.

Stefano Vaccino, Founder and CEO of Yapily, said: “This is a hugely exciting milestone for Yapily on our journey from disruptive start-up to ambitious scale-up. Within three years from launch, we have commercialised our platform, grown our customer base, and now have the largest open banking payments volumes in Europe. Working with finAPI, we can gain more speed, agility, and depth to accelerate innovation and shape the future of open finance in Europe and beyond.”

Dr. Florian Haagen, Founder and CEO of finAPI, said: “Yapily’s core DNA as a fintech and open banking enabler is equally aligned with our belief in an infrastructure-first approach. From the products we’ve built to the industries our customers operate in, our complimentary offerings mean that together, we are perfectly placed to spearhead Europe’s open finance agenda and make the financial lives of millions of people more resilient, simple, and secure.”

Tanja Birkholz, CEO of SCHUFA, said: “Our strategic focus is to further strengthen client centricity. Open banking is one of the technological levers advancing Europe’s digital economy. How transparently and appropriately the benefits of these technologies can be utilised will be very important for our customers and stakeholders. We know the customers’ needs, and together Yapily and finAPI will accelerate innovation to meet them."

The deal is subject to regulatory approvals and expected to complete in H2 2022. For now, finAPI will continue to function as an independent, regulated company in Germany. SCHUFA Holding AG will sell its 75% participation in finAPI to Yapily. Following the transaction, finAPI and SCHUFA will continue to play a role in the future of the unified entity.

By partnering with the London Stock Exchange, TreasurySpring can now offer investment corporations a unique opportunity to access short-term sustainable funding from its fast-growing client base of 100+ cash rich investors.

Through the London Stock Exchange’s Issuer Services platform, TreasurySpring offers issuers a unique opportunity to access short-term sustainable funding from its fast-growing client base of 100+ investors. TreasurySpring’s clients will soon be able to access, sustainable cash investment products from investment corporations, in addition to the 300+ products already available through TreasurySpring’s Fixed-Term Fund (FTF) platform. The partnership leverages TreasurySpring’s existing infrastructure and technology, with the London Stock Exchange providing an accreditation for sustainable issuers, based upon clear, transparent criteria. 

This collaboration builds upon TreasurySpring’s central belief of delivering ‘a better way’ for investment firms to raise short-term funding. Through the TreasurySpring platform, corporations will now have a simple, digital route to seek to raise short-term (<1 year) sustainable borrowing that aligns with their broader Environmental Social Governance (ESG) objectives, diversifies their financing sources, and can reduce funding costs.  

For TreasurySpring’s clients, the initiative offers a new opportunity for excess cash investment to contribute positively to a firm’s ESG agenda, without compromising on core goals of maintaining security, matching liquidity and earning a fair return.

The London Stock Exchange continues to further its vision of serving customers across the funding continuum, encouraging innovation and reaffirming its commitment to supporting the growth of sustainable finance.   

The London Stock Exchange’s Issuer Services platform offers issuers access to the TreasurySpring platform through its Digital Treasury solutions, unlocking opportunities to manage their funding needs in an innovative and sustainable way. 
 1 Sign a simple, short-form unsecured facility agreement via the TreasurySpring platform.
 2 Specify the desired amount, term, currency and rate of financing.
 3 Go live on the TreasurySpring platform, enabling investors to view the offering.
 4 Receive funds when interested investors subscribe.

TreasurySpring’s FTFs are financial products that offer exposure to debt from a single investment grade issuer, for a fixed term. 
FTFs can provide access to highly-rated financial institutions, sovereigns, supranationals or corporations. 
All issuance vehicles on the TreasurySpring platform are regulated by the Jersey Financial Services Commission as alternative investment funds pursuant to the Alternative Investment Funds (Jersey) Regulations 2012. 

The London Stock Exchange will provide an accreditation to recognise sustainable issuers through the TreasurySpring platform. This will utilise LSEG’s ESG data and methodology to identify companies that meet certain ESG metrics or are contributing to the green and sustainable economy through their business activity and funding frameworks. 

To be considered a “Sustainable Issuer”, an issuer must meet at least one of the following criteria: 
 • Have a Refinitiv ESG score of at least B+, meaning that it ranks in the top third of its peer group. ESG scores are provided by Refinitiv, an LSEG business. 
 • Qualify for London Stock Exchange’s Green Economy Mark, i.e. issuers listed on its equity markets derive at least 50% of their revenues from green environmental products and services, as defined by FTSE Russell’s Green Revenues Classification System 
 • Display its securities on the Sustainable Bond Market, with its published ESG framework aligning with:
 ◦ the ICMA Green Bond Principles 2021, 
 ◦ the Social Bond Principles 2021, and/or 
 ◦ the Sustainability-Linked Bond Principles 2020.

Each of the above requires a firm to have implemented a sustainability strategy at issuer level.

“We are thrilled to be entering into this exciting partnership with the London Stock Exchange. Our collaboration is built on a shared passion for finding a better way to deliver greater access, transparency and liquidity to markets in general and to short-term funding markets in particular, underscored by a strong commitment to the growth of sustainable finance.”
Kevin Cook, CEO and Co-founder, TreasurySpring

“Integrating our unique technology and infrastructure with LSEG’s experience, data and frameworks, means we can build a simple, digital solution to a problem that the market has been grappling with for some time. Bridging the gap between significant investor demand for transparent, sustainable cash investment products and the ever-increasing desire for large corporations to align their funding to their firm’s ESG agenda enables us to deliver genuine innovation in sustainable finance.”
Henry Adams, CPO, TreasurySpring

“As a market infrastructure provider, committed to encouraging innovation, we look forward to collaborating with TreasurySpring. The London Stock Exchange is committed to supporting the expansion of sustainable finance through its equity and fixed income markets, and we look forward to extending this to the short-term debt markets through our Issuer Services platform.”
Darko Hajdukovic, Head of Platforms and Product, Primary Markets, London Stock Exchange

 Today Finastra announces the launch of Finastra Managed Services (FMS) on Amazon Web Services (AWS) to enable banks and financial institutions to access FMS in the AWS cloud. FMS being available in the AWS cloud has already demonstrated its benefits, helping a large multi-national U.S. bank on the West Coast roll out its lending solution.

Users of FMS in the AWS cloud benefit from increased efficiency and scalability, which improves spending and reduces carbon footprint. AWS empowers organizations to modernize their infrastructure, meet rapidly changing customer behaviors and expectations, and drive business growth.

Neil Budd, VP Finastra Managed Services said, “The move to bring our customers high quality managed services with AWS is a great step for Finastra. We’re committed to helping drive efficiency and reduce total cost of ownership (TCO), so this move aligns closely with our strategy to help our FMS customers specifically to accelerate their move to the cloud and access the benefits it affords, including scalability and security. It is also a commitment to our FMS multi-cloud strategy which enables us to support customers who value a choice of cloud vendor.”

Yves Dupuy, Leader for Global ISVs, Financial Services EMEA/APAC at AWS said, “We are pleased to provide Finastra with the capability to bring Finastra’s Managed Services customers a secure and resilient global cloud infrastructure that will enable them to differentiate themselves today and adapt to the needs of tomorrow.”

SME funding provider Accelerated Payments today announced the appointment of Steven Conrad as Vice President of Business Development for North America.  Conrad brings over 20 years of experience to the role and will be instrumental in managing the regional growth of the company. He will be based out of Toronto.  

An internationally experienced, multi-disciplined professional, Contrad is a proven leader with career highlights in business development, strategic marketing, finance, audit, HR, communications and change management. He comes into the role with valuable board level experience and a track record of consistently achieving results in challenging corporate environments. 

The new hire comes hot on the heels of last month’s appointment of Industry veteran Neil McMillan as Head of North America and is a strategic move for Accelerated Payments, as it beefs up the size of its local staff to accelerate the fintech’s regional dominance in the alternative finance sector.   

Commenting on Conrad’s strategic role in the company, Ian Duffy, CEO of Accelerated Payments said: “We are delighted to welcome Steven to the team.  He has a proven track record for success and a reputation as a dynamic and strategic thinker. His experience in leading and influencing change in organisations has also consistently delivered results in improving client focus and developing more efficient internal operations. This skill set will be extremely valuable to our company as we continue our rapid expansion into North America.” 

Founded in 2017, Accelerated Payments is one of Europe’s fastest growing fintechs. It provides finance to businesses with an immediate need for working capital to fund new opportunities for growth or keep the show on the road while they wait to get paid. The company’s industry leading platform makes it simple, affordable and quick to access funds in less than 24 hours.  Based in Dublin, with offices in London and Toronto, the company has reported more than 56,000 invoices financed to over 300 companies since it began.

“This is an excellent time to enter the US market and AP is primed for success as invoice financing gains momentum among fast growing companies as a viable option for working capital,” said Conradm “AP’s deep expertise in the US and its hands-on approach to customer support has played a pivotal role in its growing popularity, and in the coming months I will looking forward to helping the firm win more clients across North America - particularly those wishing to expand locally and internationally. Joining AP is a tremendous opportunity for me to play a role in shaping the world of alternative finance and helping to provide much needed liquidity to great companies that are ripe for growth but are not supported by the traditional banking system. ”  

New Partnership Steps Up Cyber Resilience for Critical Systems

Kroll, the leading provider of data, technology and insights related to risk, governance and growth, today announced its partnership with Armis, to expand Kroll’s cyber preparedness and response services for operational technology (OT) and industrial control systems (ICS) to secure clients far beyond the traditional endpoint.

Armis is a leader in unified asset visibility and security and has a knowledge base of over two billion connected devices, notably in the health care industry. Its asset discovery, network configuration and traffic flow capabilities give Kroll incident responders visibility into ICS and OT environments, which are continually secured through a managed detection and response (MDR) solution, Kroll Responder. The partnership will bring together Kroll’s experience of responding to more than 3,200 incidents every year and Armis’ technical visibility and expertise, to drive threat intelligence, detection and response capabilities. Through the partnership, Kroll is able to minimize the risk exposure of OT and ICS environments for clients, make informed recommendations to improve resilience and respond in the event of suspicious activity.

David Creed, Vice President, Worldwide Service Providers at Armis, said: “By leveraging Armis’ industry-leading platform, this partnership will help both Kroll and Armis clients stay better protected against cyber risks. Together, Armis and Kroll are uniquely positioned with their capabilities and offerings to serve organizations across industries, providing enhanced preparedness, response and unmatched visibility.”

Marc Brawner, Managing Director and Global Head of Managed Services for Cyber Risk at Kroll, said: “Identifying and protecting difficult-to-manage OT and IoT devices is an increasingly critical aspect of a modern cyber security program. The proliferation of these devices and related vulnerabilities is opening new avenues of attack by threat actors. By bringing together our extensive experience in responding to thousands of incidents every year with the Armis platform, together we can significantly reduce these risks. We look forward to working with Armis to further strengthen our client’s cyber resiliency.”

In 2021, Kroll expanded its MDR capabilities with the acquisition of Redscan. Armis further boosts Kroll’s MDR solution by integrating Armis’ agentless architecture to secure clients’ environments far beyond the traditional endpoint.

HCL Technologies UK Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of HCL Technologies (HCL), a leading global technology company, has signed a definitive agreement for the acquisition of Confinale AG, a Switzerland-based digital banking and wealth management consulting specialist and Avaloq Premium Implementation Partner. Through this strategic acquisition, HCL will increase its footprint in the global wealth management market with emphasis on Avaloq consulting, implementation and management capabilities.

Founded in 2012, Confinale focuses on IT consulting in key specialist areas in the banking and wealth management sector. Confinale has one of the largest independent pools of Avaloq-certified specialists in Europe and its in-house developed products and solutions accelerate the implementation of the Avaloq platform. Confinale is one of only four companies to be awarded the title of Avaloq Premium Implementation Partner. With offices in Switzerland including Zurich, Zug and Geneva; as well as Düsseldorf and London, Confinale works with a host of leading banks and wealth advisors.

The intellectual properties that are a part of this acquisition support HCL’s strategy to create specialized vertical domain capabilities and positions the company as a leader in end-to-end implementation and lifecycle management of the Avaloq platform. This builds upon HCL’s recently expanded global partnership with Avaloq and its acquisition of German IT consulting company gbs in association with apoBank in December 2021.

“Becoming part of HCL is an exciting new chapter for Confinale,” said Roland Staub, CEO, Confinale. “We strongly believe in the need for banking expertise combined with software competence and HCL is the perfect fit for this. It is a truly global player with strong heritage in the financial services sector. HCL’s reach will enable us to further our growth and at the same time expose our team to new learning and innovation opportunities.”

“There is significant disruption taking place in global wealth management and this means an opportunity for technology-led innovation,” said Rahul Singh, President of Financial Services and Digital Process Operations, HCL Technologies. “This acquisition significantly strengthens HCL’s digital wealth and asset management capabilities and expands our presence in the heart of the global investment banking sector. We welcome the team from Confinale and look forward to continuing to drive digital banking innovation alongside Avaloq.”

“At Avaloq we welcome the coming together of two of our key strategic partners,” said Martin Greweldinger, Co-Chief Executive Officer, Avaloq. “Both HCL and Confinale have considerable domain knowledge in financial services and deep understanding of our technology. We see the combination as immensely beneficial as Confinale has strong implementation credentials, including being awarded as best implementation partner in 2020 and 2021. We believe that this coming together will help accelerate digital wealth transformation for our clients and in turn increase the pace of adoption of Avaloq’s products and services globally.”

Early results indicate potential for 42% more auto-approvals for auto loans and 45% more auto-approvals for unsecured loans

Leading global AI-powered credit decision platform provider Scienaptic AI announced today that Levo Credit Union, a 30,000 member strong credit union serving the South Dakota region, is live on its platform. Scienaptic’s platform will allow Levo to increase approval rates, augment its credit decisioning process and improve member experience with faster processing and approval times.

Originally chartered in 1934 and named as the Sioux Falls Federal Credit Union, Levo has, over the past nine decades, garnered over 30,000 members throughout Minnehaha, Lincoln, McCook and Turner counties of South Dakota, providing a full range of consumer and business financial services across its six Sioux Falls locations. Implementing Scienaptic’s AI-powered credit underwriting platform will allow the community-focused, members-first institution to boost credit access for both current and potential borrowers.

“When we re-branded ourselves as Levo with the vision of going ‘forward together,’ we intended to empower members to experience the uplift they get when they collaborate with a credit union that understands its members’ needs, and offers services in a personalized, localized manner,” said Steve Stofferahn, VP of Lending at Levo Credit Union. “We believe in the philosophy of giving back, and Scienaptic’s AI platform deployment is another step towards understanding our members better and in a smarter way, approving their loans faster, and enabling them to flourish financially.”

Pankaj Jain, Co-founder and President of Scienaptic commented on the deployment, “It is incredibly satisfying to play a role in a member's journey towards realizing their dreams and through this deployment with Levo, we are able to deliver on this mission by enabling advanced and faster loan decisioning. Our platform enables Levo to give back to their community, and Levo is able to strengthen their decision making infrastructure and approve more members than ever before.”

Early results indicate potential for 42% more auto-approvals for auto loans and 45% more auto-approvals for unsecured loans

Leading global AI-powered credit decision platform provider Scienaptic AI announced today that Levo Credit Union, a 30,000 member strong credit union serving the South Dakota region, is live on its platform. Scienaptic’s platform will allow Levo to increase approval rates, augment its credit decisioning process and improve member experience with faster processing and approval times.

Originally chartered in 1934 and named as the Sioux Falls Federal Credit Union, Levo has, over the past nine decades, garnered over 30,000 members throughout Minnehaha, Lincoln, McCook and Turner counties of South Dakota, providing a full range of consumer and business financial services across its six Sioux Falls locations. Implementing Scienaptic’s AI-powered credit underwriting platform will allow the community-focused, members-first institution to boost credit access for both current and potential borrowers.

“When we re-branded ourselves as Levo with the vision of going ‘forward together,’ we intended to empower members to experience the uplift they get when they collaborate with a credit union that understands its members’ needs, and offers services in a personalized, localized manner,” said Steve Stofferahn, VP of Lending at Levo Credit Union. “We believe in the philosophy of giving back, and Scienaptic’s AI platform deployment is another step towards understanding our members better and in a smarter way, approving their loans faster, and enabling them to flourish financially.”

Pankaj Jain, Co-founder and President of Scienaptic commented on the deployment, “It is incredibly satisfying to play a role in a member's journey towards realizing their dreams and through this deployment with Levo, we are able to deliver on this mission by enabling advanced and faster loan decisioning. Our platform enables Levo to give back to their community, and Levo is able to strengthen their decision making infrastructure and approve more members than ever before.”

Early results indicate potential for 42% more auto-approvals for auto loans and 45% more auto-approvals for unsecured loans

NEW YORK – May 9, 2022 – Leading global AI-powered credit decision platform provider Scienaptic AI announced today that Levo Credit Union, a 30,000 member strong credit union serving the South Dakota region, is live on its platform. Scienaptic’s platform will allow Levo to increase approval rates, augment its credit decisioning process and improve member experience with faster processing and approval times.

Originally chartered in 1934 and named as the Sioux Falls Federal Credit Union, Levo has, over the past nine decades, garnered over 30,000 members throughout Minnehaha, Lincoln, McCook and Turner counties of South Dakota, providing a full range of consumer and business financial services across its six Sioux Falls locations. Implementing Scienaptic’s AI-powered credit underwriting platform will allow the community-focused, members-first institution to boost credit access for both current and potential borrowers.

“When we re-branded ourselves as Levo with the vision of going ‘forward together,’ we intended to empower members to experience the uplift they get when they collaborate with a credit union that understands its members’ needs, and offers services in a personalized, localized manner,” said Steve Stofferahn, VP of Lending at Levo Credit Union. “We believe in the philosophy of giving back, and Scienaptic’s AI platform deployment is another step towards understanding our members better and in a smarter way, approving their loans faster, and enabling them to flourish financially.”

Pankaj Jain, Co-founder and President of Scienaptic commented on the deployment, “It is incredibly satisfying to play a role in a member's journey towards realizing their dreams and through this deployment with Levo, we are able to deliver on this mission by enabling advanced and faster loan decisioning. Our platform enables Levo to give back to their community, and Levo is able to strengthen their decision making infrastructure and approve more members than ever before.”

 Goldman Sachs announced that it was looking into the use of NFTs, particularly as it relates to the “tokenization of real assets.” Among the many potential real-world uses, real estate and other big-ticket items can be bundled up and tokenized. A major financial player like Goldman Sachs stepping up in that arena would be highly consequential, says one fintech CEO.

“The way that the industry is moving, tokenization could be a gamechanger in the financial sector. Imagine the opportunities, just in real estate alone, that would emerge with tokenization mainstreaming. It would allow middle-class families a way to invest in financial instruments that would have, not long ago, been completely outside of their reach,” said Richard Gardner, CEO of Modulus, a US-based developer of ultra-high-performance trading and surveillance technology that powers global equities, derivatives, and digital asset exchanges.

"We are actually exploring NFTs in the context of financial instruments, and actually there the power is actually quite powerful. So we work on a number of things," Mathew McDermott, Global Head of Digital Assets at Goldman Sachs, said at the Financial Times Crypto and Digital Assets Summit.

“In many ways, the blockchain movement is one which is not just completely revolutionizing the financial sector, but it is evening the playing field. Between the movement for a digital currency and payment mechanism which is not beholden to government or big tech, and the ability to tokenize assets, blockchain-based technologies are changing our everyday financial lives in a way that we haven’t seen since the advent of consumer credit,” noted Gardner.

Modulus is known throughout the financial technology segment as a leader in the development of ultra-high frequency trading systems and blockchain technologies. Modulus has provided its exchange solution to some of the industry’s most profitable digital asset exchanges, including a well-known multi-billion-dollar cryptocurrency exchange. Over the past twenty years, the company has built technology for the world’s most notable institutions, with a client list which includes NASA, NASDAQ, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Barclays, Siemens, Shell, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Cornell University, and the University of Chicago.

“Technology has always been the great equalizer. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from. If you can build a technology which improves lives or business processes, you’ll find success. Now, blockchain is bringing that concept to a brand new level,” said Gardner.