FintechOS, a global technology provider for financial services companies, and Salt Edge, a leader in offering open banking and secure customer authentication solutions, today unveiled a partnership to provide innovative and secure technology services to joint clients within the banking industry.

This strategic partnership will enable financial institutions, banks, and EMIs, already using FintechOS’ high productivity fintech infrastructure (HPFI) to improve both the speed and quality of their regulatory compliance with the PSD2, as well as other global open banking standards, particularly within Europe.

Salt Edge solution for strong customer authentication – Mobile SCA, as well as the company’s other contributions to greater financial transparency and security for end-users, complement the benefits of FintechOS’ innovative technology. Banks and financial institutions can now attract and retain customers who are in search of quick access to personalised banking experience, with a deeper level of security.

Partnering with Salt Edge, clients already using FintechOS’ digital banking and insurance vertical solutions will enjoy access to an even broader range of possibilities when it comes to personalised products and services available via seamless experiences.

Paula Costea, Vice President of Product Management Lighthouse

Additionally, Salt Edge enables FintechOS to enhance the data aggregation capabilities of its core banking solution, allowing users to take full advantage of their financial data in numerous ways including visualisation of accounts, balances, and transactions from other 5000+ banks into their mobile banking.

Salt Edge aligns with the FintechOS vision to empower financial service providers to become truly customer-centric. With this partnership, more banks and EMIs will be able to deliver innovative solutions that have at the core a perfect match between customer safety and convenience.

Alexandr Lobaciov, Product Manager at Salt Edge

The partnership started last year in the European market and aims to expand to other geographies, making innovation more secure. Already two joint European customers are using Salt Edge data aggregation, as integrated into FintechOS’ core banking solution, to provide a hyper-personalised banking experience for end-users.

Refinitiv, an LSEG business, has announced the winners of its FX Trading Awards 2022 for Thailand's trading community.
The FX Awards aim to promote transparency and liquidity in the Thailand foreign exchange market and to recognize its importance to the broader local economy. Award winners were determined based on trading activity on Refinitiv's FX trading platforms.
Refinitiv was appointed as the Official Calculating Agent for the Bank of Thailand's transactions-based Thai Baht benchmark in 2019 to enhance Thailand's FX and implied interest rate benchmarks, and better reflect the growth and evolving nature of Thai financial markets.

Foreign exchange remains one of the world's most actively traded asset classes. The average daily volume (ADV) of foreign exchange trading across Refinitiv's FX platforms globally totaled $491 billion in January 2022, with the average daily volume for spot trading at $97 billion.

"Refinitiv would like to extend a big congratulations to all the winners at the 2022 Thailand FX Awards. This year we were honoured to have Alisara Mahasandana, Assistant Governor, Financial Markets Operations Group from Bank of Thailand, join us to deliver a keynote address on enhancing FX resiliency amid global uncertainties," said Nigel Fuller, Sales Director, FX Trading, Asia at Refinitiv.

He added "Refinitiv has had a presence in Thailand since 1996, and as one of the world's largest providers of financial markets data and infrastructure, we are committed to supporting an efficient, transparent and resilient financial marketplace in the Thai market."

The 2022 Thailand FX Award Winners are as follows:

• Best THB FX Data Contributor (THB Spot) - CIMB Thai Bank PCL
• Best THB FX Data Contributor (Local Cross Currency) - CIMB Thai Bank PCL
• Best THB Interest Rates Data Contributor (Interest Rate Swap) - Bangkok Bank PCL
• Best THB Interest Rates Data Contributor (Money Market) - Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Bangkok Branch
• Best OIS Data Contributor - Kasikornbank PCL, Siam Commercial Bank PCL, Bangkok Bank PCL and Standard Chartered Bank (Thai) PCL
• Best USD/THB FX Bank - Siam Commercial Bank PCL
• Best Foreign Currency FX Bank - Krungthai Bank PCL
• Best Bank - Refinitiv Matching - HSBC
• Best FXall Corporate Client - Toyota Motor Thailand Co., Ltd.

For further information on Refinitiv's FX solutions, visit here.

FintechOS, the global leader in high-productivity fintech infrastructure to companies that offer financial services, today announced its entry into the pet insurance space with its newest Accelerator, empowering insurers to offer hyper-personalized pet cover to a market worth over USD 7 billion. 

FintechOS has developed its new Accelerator to empower insurers to offer tailored pet insurance to a market that has seen significant growth due to COVID-19. To increase penetration into this valuable market, FintechOS is helping insurers to transition to data-driven, hyper-personalized experiences that switch the emphasis from pet insurance to pet wellness assurance. This will earn insurers greater customer loyalty, and those with a wider portfolio can leverage this to drive informed cross- and up-sell opportunities.  

Using the Accelerator, insurance customers can upload the details of their pet, including photos, to customize and tailor their experience and their cover. Furthermore, customers can combine multiple pet insurance policies for different pets under one account that can be managed through an integrated super app.  

"95% of pet owners consider their pet a family member, according to the Harris Poll.,” said Jonathan Philips, UK Insurance Sales Director. “Protecting your pet is a personal matter and customers are demanding a personalized experience from their insurers. We've worked hard to create a product that empowers insurers to enter this lucrative and growing digital space." 

The pet insurance Accelerator brings further innovations to the award-winning FintechOS platform. FintechOS’ Northstar insurance product empowers insurers to take advantage of digital innovation without the need to upgrade their existing infrastructure. The platform includes ready-made accelerators, products that are ready to launch on installation, and can be completely configured and tailored to insurer needs. 

Utilizing Accelerators within the FintechOS platform enables companies offering financial services to launch the products customers are demanding as soon as the need arises. Empowering FintechOS clients to build the future of financial services and insurance. 

Despite its critical importance, UK and Irish finance leaders are missing out on opportunities to effectively plan for the next 5-10 years new research reveals

New research has found that 46% of finance leaders aren’t long-term scenario planning, despite the disruption of Covid, the great resignation, and volatile market changes highlighting the critical importance of planning ahead, leaving the business without a 5–10-year plan.

The survey of 250 finance leaders in the UK and Ireland conducted by MHR International, the HR, payroll, and finance experts, discovered that 64% of finance teams are yet to invest in a resource that fully supports planning and analytics within the business, with many relying on legacy solutions to try and fulfil these initiatives. Those surveyed continue to utilise software that’s not suited to more advanced, long-term planning, such as Excel, with 51% still relying solely on spreadsheets for most of their finance processes. Rising inflation costs and ongoing market uncertainty are preventing finance leaders from being able to adapt and stay one step ahead, as even for those who do have financial solutions in place, less than a third (30%), are utilising them to efficiently support scenario planning.

Mark Jenkins, CFO at MHR, commented: “We need only look at recent headlines to see the ever-evolving scope of the challenges to be overcome. Finance professionals must get used to operating within an environment where the next financial hurdle constantly lurks around the corner.  But to do this, they need access to the optimum tools and solutions, so that they can effectively plan for future trends and work with departments to support wider long-term business initiatives.

“Modern financial planning and analytics has outgrown older and more traditional software, so now is the time to implement agile scenario planning solutions. With the right support in place, finance teams can plan and model for the future in a smoother, more intuitive way, enabling them to use their insights to inform strategic business decisions.”

The research also reveals that automation is an attractive prospect for many overstretched finance leaders, as it can free up time for critical strategic tasks like scenario planning. 40% of respondents regard cost and revenue forecasting as the most important process to automate, while automated periodic financial performance forecasts are desirable for 35% of finance leaders.

The zero-commission investment platform helps Indian investors easily diversify their portfolio by investing in the world’s largest stock market

Vested Finance, a California-headquartered online investment platform that enables Indian investors to invest in the US stock market, has raised USD 12 million in Series A funding. Ayon Capital led the round while the company received continued support from existing investors Tenoneten, Ovo Fund, Wedbush Ventures, IPV, and Upscale. New investors including 9Unicorns, Ankur Warikoo (ex-CEO of Groupon India), Dhruvil Sanghvi (CEO at Loginext), and Saumil Parekh (VP of Marketing at PharmEasy) have also come on board. Content creators like Akshat Shrivastava, Mukul Malik (Asset Yogi), Sharan Hedge (Finance with Sharan), Dhruv Rathee, Shashank Udupa, and others, are also investing.

Vested Finance stays committed to its aim of providing access to global wealth creation opportunities in an easy and cost-effective manner. A major step in this direction was achieved through the launch of Vested Direct which enables Indian investors to begin their US investing journey in just one day. Earlier it would take around 5 days. Vested Direct also substantially reduces the fund transfer costs with zero transaction fees and a fixed forex markup of 1.2%, one of the lowest in the industry. Recently, they also introduced features that allow investors to invest in stocks and ETFs on a recurring basis and to create their own portfolios (Vests).

Speaking about fund raise, Viram Shah, Co-Founder & CEO, Vested Finance said, “Today, the location where we are born determines the kind of wealth creation opportunities we get access to and that is unfair. Most of our portfolios lack global diversification. We want to enable investors across the globe to access global wealth creation opportunities in an easy and cost-effective manner. The growth that we have seen over the years is testimony to the interest of Indian investors in investing in the US markets. We want to use the funds to scale our team globally and expand our product suite to launch complementary products in the cross-border space while continuing to grow the core US investing user base.”

Speaking about the fund raise, Rahul Pagidipati, Managing Partner, Ayon Capital said, “For Ayon, leading this new round was an easy decision. Viram and his team are committed to their mission of making diverse markets accessible to Indian investors. Moreover, they have a strong culture and have shown their ability to be creative on the strategy side and execute with discipline. Vested is an integral part of Ayon's plan to provide a diversified suite of products for the large and growing Indian investor community to preserve and build their wealth.”

Vested Finance has processed more than $250 million in transactions in 2021 and also tripled the deposits on the platform in 2021. The company’s global team is based across India, USA, and Canada. To facilitate Indian investors to invest in U.S. markets, Vested has partnered with more than 35 partners including brokers, fintechs, and wealth management firms in India, including the likes of Axis Securities, Kuvera, Angel Broking, and 5Paisa. The company also offers easy-to-understand content on the US markets on its platform to help customers make informed investment decisions. Some of the other product features include instant account opening, Vests or curated portfolios that comprise stocks and/or ETFs, and easy tax filing based on Indian tax laws.

Bottomline, a leading provider of financial technology that makes business payments simple, smart and secure, today announced the NatWest Group has adopted Bottomline’s Confirmation of Payee (CoP) solution to service their Agency Institutions in the fight against authorised push payment fraud (APP) across the UK.

Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud has grown considerably in the UK financial services sector and is now considered by Pay.UK to be a material risk on the reputation of the Faster Payment Scheme (FPS). This concern comes at a time where the limit for individual FPS transactions has recently risen from £250,000 to £1 million.

In a bid to drive down APP fraud, UK Finance introduced Confirmation of Payee. This new fraud prevention service allows customers of participating Banks, Building Societies and Credit Unions to double-check, ahead of making a payment, that the account holder’s name matches the owner of the bank account number. 

James Hodgson, Chief Product Officer Take Payments at NatWest Group, said: “Our partnership continues to grow with Bottomline Technologies. The introduction of their SaaS solution for Confirmation of Payee increases the speed at which we want our Agency Institution customers to be adopting the latest beneficiary name checking service. It gives our customers a pedigree solution to protect customer funds from the rising incidents of Authorised Push Payment fraud.”

Paul Fannon, Managing Director of Global Business Solutions, Bottomline, said: “We’re delighted to work with NatWest customers in accelerating the use of Confirmation of Payee across the industry and the UK. We know that fraudsters target less well-protected parts of the payments process, so the goal has always been to identify those gaps and promote mass adoption of fraud prevention initiatives to protect customers and maintain trust in our payment industry. The Agency partnership with NatWest Group is a key accelerator.”

 Objectway, a global top 100 wealth, banking & asset management software provider, have partnered with novobanco enabling the leading Portuguese bank to provide an advanced financial advisory experience through a digital advisory platform, including goal-based investment planning, advice execution and risk optimised model portfolio creation.

With 1.4 million clients, novobanco is one of the largest banks in Portugal. The bank manages over €20 billion of assets and has a network of over 300 advisors in the affluent and upper affluent segments.
The firm was looking for a partner able to support their strategy to position themselves as a market innovator in investment services, by democratising their wealth offering with an efficient and scalable bespoke advisory platform, to service investors up from a minimum investment of €10.000.

Using Objectway’s Investment Advice solution, novobanco now has the capabilities of a centralised and structured investment tool that standardises the creation of personalised proposals based on risk optimised model portfolios, provides proactive, real-time bulk monitoring against client mandates and implements algorithmic optimisation and rebalancing. The bank is now able to provide a holistic view of a client’s total wealth, whilst aligning the investor’s risk profile and goals with the bank’s investment strategies and governance, in compliance with MiFID II regulation, thus creating an hybrid service where the solution and the advisors work together to create a suitable personalised proposal.

Objectway delivered the project using an incremental release plan adhering to agile principles. The solution is hosted in the Cloud and delivered as Software as a Service (SaaS), integrated with the bank’s existing security and data layers.

“The partnership with Objectway on our transformation program has been extremely collaborative and productive. We’ll bring our plans further by pursuing together with Objectway more enhancements to our financial advisory experience, such as ESG regulations, multi-goal approach and direct advisory, to mention a few,” affirmed Alexandra Tostões, Head of Advisory Service at novobanco.

“novobanco are now clearly ahead of their competition with their ability to provide a holistic analysis of the client’s asset allocation and deliver a MiFID II compliant recommendation, whilst maintaining product innovation and leadership over time,” commented Michele Tanzi, Market Solution Director at Objectway. “They now have the opportunity to achieve new goals in terms of growth and efficiency, relying on a leaner and more simplified process for the advisory network.”

The project is detailed in a case study available HERE for download.

Partnership with NYCE International introduces new biometric compliance platform to the industry

FinGo, a UK fintech behind the world’s first biometric identity authentication and payments platform, has entered the multi-billion gaming sector through a strategic partnership with NYCE International.

NYCE International, a subsidiary of Hong Kong investment company The Global Chain, will act as FinGo’s global representative in the gaming market.  The partnership will see FinGo and NYCE introduce a new generation of biometric age verification and cashless payment products for casinos, bars, and other entertainment venues, as well as the online gaming market.

FinGo’s technology works by taking a simple scan of a person’s unique vein pattern through an infrared device. This scan is connected to a person’s registered FinGo account, which can be linked to their verified ID or a digital wallet to enable payments. Registered users can then scan their vein to prove identity, age or make payments in any venue offering the FinGo system.

NYCE Managing Partner, Harmen Brenninkmeijer, commented: “Operators in gaming markets need to future-proof their business, and biometric technology can do just this. There is great responsibility to safeguard consumers, particularly young people, and being able to objectively and easily verify age and prove ID has huge potential”.

“Given recent changes in casino regulations in various markets across the world, and the explicit need for better age controls or spending limits, FinGo’s identity and payment expertise will enable a better gaming experience for operators and players, supporting player convenience and compliance. This partnership allows us to add considerable value to the gaming sector at this time.”

Simon Binns, FinGo’s Chief Commercial Officer, added: “We are thrilled to partner with NYCE, enabling our entry into the growing gaming market. The team has a track record for innovation, coupled with a deep knowledge and experience of the gaming industry. We are confident our biometric platform will help to solve age verification issues within in-person gaming, and open up new opportunities for this diverse, valuable and highly regulated industry. “

FinGo added age verification and digital identity services to its product portfolio in 2020, alongside its existing biometric-enabled payment platform. It was approved by Manchester City Council for use checking people’s age in licensed establishments, without use of ID.

In September 2021 it agreed a strategic partnership with Mastercard, significantly expanding company’s global reach by opening up access to a network of acquirers and millions of merchants worldwide. The partnership gives FinGo access to the white labelled Mastercard Payment Gateway Services (MGPS), enabling it to grow its footprint for payment services across Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, Asia Pacific, Australia and North America.

NYCE International and FinGo will be attending the ICE Totally Gaming show in London on 12^th-14^th April showcasing several new biometrically-secured services for the gaming industry with transformational potential.

Temenos positioned the furthest for its wealth management product strategy and strength of its offering

Temenos, the cloud banking platform, has been named a leader in The Forrester Wave™: Digital Wealth Management Platforms (DWMP) for Q1 2022.

Temenos received the highest scores in the strategy and current offering categories. The report states, “Temenos excels in most areas of product functionality…”, and “its innovation hub focuses on explainable AI/ML; environmental, social, and governance (ESG) capabilities; digital assets; and advanced analytics”.

The report, authored by Vijay Raghavan, Senior Analyst, Forrester, states: “Temenos’ wealth platform offers broad, off-the-shelf business capabilities along with access to a broad array of third-party fintech solutions. […] Temenos is a good choice for financial institutions worldwide looking for broad business capabilities, strong data and analytics, and a vendor with access to a global partner community and large marketplace of fintech solutions through its Temenos Exchange platform.”

According to the Forrester report, “Temenos stands out for its end-to-end digital wealth management capabilities. As one of the most established vendors in the DWMP space, Temenos’ knowledge of different markets has given it a diverse customer base in Europe, APAC, the Middle East, and Latin America, with a target of increasing market share in North America. Temenos excels in most areas of product functionality and has a roadmap and planned enhancements to ensure they will continue to do so.”

The Forester Wave™ evaluates the 12 most significant digital wealth management platform vendors against 27 criteria according to their current offering, strategy and market presence. Temenos received the highest possible score for various categories of the evaluation, including the Customer Experience, Execution Roadmap, Partner Ecosystem, and Planned Enhancements categories.

Max Chuard, Chief Executive Officer, Temenos, said: “We are proud of our leadership in this Forrester Wave, which is a testament to our continued investment in wealth management technology. With narrowing margins in retail, banks are focusing on wealth management in search of higher returns and business model diversification. The industry is also seeing a rapid change with a global generational transfer of wealth, steady growth of high-net-worth individuals, new asset classes, and new regulations. With superior digital customer experience, hyper-personalized services and highly automated processes powered by Temenos, these trends present real opportunities for wealth management firms to retain customers and attract a new generation of investors.”

Temenos believes that this position as a leader reflects Temenos’ commitment to wealth management and its global success serving some of the world’s largest wealth management firms. With Temenos Wealth solutions, banks can differentiate with hyper-personalized digital and human customer interactions. At the same time, wealth management firms can drive efficiencies through core automation and cloud technology.

Mollie and WooCommerce build long term partnership to grow global footprint together

Mollie, one of the fastest growing payment service providers in Europe, today announced the launch of Mollie Payments for WooCommerce in the UK. The plug-in offers UK SMEs with a WooCommerce webshop a seamless way to support both domestic and European payments. Mollie and WooCommerce, one of the world’s most popular open-source ecommerce solutions, already work closely together in other European countries and are now engaging in a long term partnership to grow their global footprint together. 

Mollie Payments for WooCommerce provides customers with critical success factors - it’s easy to install, easy to use, and supports businesses with UK and global payment methods such as debit and credit cards, PayPal and Apple Pay as well as more than 20 local payment methods including iDEAL, Sofort and Bancontact. All of which can be easily toggled on and off in the Mollie dashboard.

British ecommerce SMEs expanding into Europe risk making a major misstep if they can’t accept the payment types European customers favour. Mollie can support them with market knowledge, local payment methods, and key local integrations, such as bookkeeping software. The fully bespoke checkout system supports effortless payments, helping users increase conversion rates.

"WooCommerce research shows that 56% of UK merchants have added multiple or new payment gateways to offer their customers more options and better checkout experiences,” said Keala Gaines, General Manager Payments at WooCommerce. “Sellers should be implementing the preferred payment methods in the countries they're hoping to gain traction in. WooCommerce merchants love Mollie’s simple integration, international options, and hyper-localization.”

Mollie’s personalised dashboard allows access to real-time data and insights at any time, with flexible pay-outs to ensure businesses keep a healthy cash flow. The WooCommerce plug-in is already available to Mollie’s Dutch, French, and German customers.

Paul Falla, Co-Owner at UK heritage brand and launching customer of Mollie Payments for WooCommerce, Ernest Wright says, “I’m a fan of Mollie’s human style of customer service. On the one hand, Mollie is top-notch and modern, but it also has a personal touch. And the personal touches for me are much more important than the last penny. Although I want the last penny as well, of course — but solving the customer’s problem is more important.”

“We’re delighted to engage in a long term partnership with WooCommerce and grow our footprint together,” said Ken Serdons, Chief Commercial Officer at Mollie. “We’re supporting an increasing number of UK businesses with their domestic payments, in addition to helping them succeed cross-border in this post-Brexit world. Mollie’s ethos is to deliver the easiest online payments for our customers and through our partners. We look forward to continuing to deliver high conversions to allow ecommerce businesses to stay focused without having to worry about the payments side of things.”