Today, Bottomline and Strategic Treasurer announced the 2022 Treasury Fraud & Controls Survey results, highlighting findings of corporate and banking experiences, plans, and actions regarding fraud. It is the 7^th annual survey between the two firms, whose research partnership also includes the annual B2B Payments Survey.

Results of the 2022 survey show that with an increasing reliance on remote work, banks and corporates are experiencing greater risk exposure from internal factors. Four of the top six factors include increased exposure, directly or indirectly, intentional, or not – resulting from employees’ actions. As seen in previous years, business email compromise (BEC) continues to be the highest risk factor to banks, which are experiencing more losses than corporates. Concurrently, banks continue to encourage corporate clients to adopt various bank security services. This push highlights the need for companies to increase fraud awareness training and use the security services that their banks offer.

“Across the stage of bad acting, countering both internal and external actors, there is now more technology available to detect, investigate and prevent ongoing systemic risk. Banks, corporates, and the industry together need to spotlight that reality,” said Omri Kletter, VP, Cyber Crime and Fraud Management at Bottomline. “This is another call-to-action moment for us to collaboratively encourage adoption of readily available solutions that support the cause. Among survey findings, it’s good to see that AP, AR and Treasury departments all indicate plans to increase spending on fraud detection and prevention controls. Our role as partner to both banks, in the provision of security services, and to corporates directly, is one of the most important that we at Bottomline play.”

The survey data also demonstrates that investigating financial crimes has taken a front seat, with more than two-thirds (67%) of respondents indicating their plans to use network visualizations and analytics as part of their strategies to investigate financial crimes. Visualization is a superior method to identify attack activities after the fact compared to audit trail information. The majority (88%) of respondents indicated data security, and 78% stated employee education as current controls in place to prevent fraud. Additionally, 85% of respondents indicated that Accounts Payable (AP) and Accounts Receivable (AR) are key areas to bolster with fraud prevention and control investments.

Corporations are increasingly concerned about the rise in the threat level over time. Craig Jeffery, Chief Researcher at Strategic Treasurer, comments, “The compounding view of an increased cyber threat level is astonishing. From 2019 to 2022, the percentage of companies indicating a significant increase in the threat level has risen from 16% to 29% of all respondents.” He further notes that, “this consistent secular increase in the top-level concern is an alarm for companies who may not be strengthening all elements of their defenses: systems, processes, people, and structure.”

The 2022 Treasury Fraud & Controls Survey was conducted in the last calendar quarter of 2021, with nearly 100 questions and over 300 respondents globally. More extensive results from the survey are available via a downloadable report, an infographic, and a webinar on March 22, 2022. Replays will be available on Strategic Treasurer’s website following the event.

Computer Services, Inc., a provider of end-to-end fintech and regtech solutions, has been recognized for the second consecutive year on Forbes’ list of America’s Best Midsize Employers. Presented by Forbes and Statista, CSI ranked 71^st for this prestigious award highlighting the 500 organizations that employees most confidently recommend.

Founded in 1965, CSI employs more than 1,200 individuals nationwide, and strives to provide long-lasting, rewarding careers. The organization is committed to maintaining a diverse, people-centric culture that encourages each employee to pursue learning opportunities, broaden their skillsets and advance in their careers.

Additionally, CSI plays an active role in its local communities and fosters a spirit of service through its company-wide volunteering initiative, CSI Cares. The initiative gives employees paid time off to volunteer in a charitable capacity, such as participating in community service or supporting a nonprofit.

“Since CSI’s inception, we have worked tirelessly to build a company culture that makes every employee feel valued,” said David Culbertson, CSI’s president and CEO. “While many employees view their work environment differently today, in light of the pandemic, CSI’s commitment to life/work balance and treating all employees with dignity and respect has not. CSI’s inclusion on Forbes’ Best Midsize Employers list demonstrates that our employees recognize our commitment to their professional and personal development.”

To determine the list, Forbes and Statista surveyed 60,000 Americans working for companies with at least 1,000 employees. Participants across 25 industry sectors were asked to rate their willingness to recommend their employers to friends and family, and to nominate organizations other than their own that stood out positively or negatively. The 500 companies that received the most recommendations were recognized on Forbes’ list of America’s Best Midsize Employers for 2022.

For more information about America’s Best Midsize Employers, including full eligibility criteria, visit www.forbes.com.

VRGL, Inc, today announced the launch of the VRGL (pronounced Virgil) platform, a revolutionary wealth management technology designed to help investment advisors grow their business by leveraging institutional-grade analytics and advanced technology to build trusting relationships more quickly with their prospective and existing clients. 

VRGL accelerates the front end of the Client Acquisition and Proposal Management process (“CAPM”) and allows advisors to deliver immediate value by incorporating brokerage statements and held-away assets using a no-touch, fully integrated statement aggregation process. VRGL’s suite of capabilities accelerate time to revenue by employing its proprietary 5 Pillar^TM analytics on prospective and current client information.  Unlike traditional offerings, VRGL presents a consolidated investment picture at the front end for the advisor and prospect, enabling the advisor to contextualize their investment offerings against the current portfolio. The VRGL platform incorporates aspects of several downstream workflows and can assist advisors with business development, onboarding, proposal management, portfolio management, rebalancing, risk and performance reporting.  

“VRGL is the first solution that allows advisors to sit down with a prospect, upload the prospects’ PDF statements from multiple brokerage accounts into the system, and within minutes present a suite of analytics and a complete and transparent view of the prospects’ entire investment portfolio. Advisors can also leverage VRGL to quickly contextualize their own investment offerings and advice helping accelerate the prospect decision process. Our initial beta clients were able to generate significant value for their prospects, ultimately helping them to close substantial business more quickly,” said Josh Smith, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer for VRGL.

VRGL was created to provide an unmatched level of transparency and collaboration between financial advisors and their new and existing clients. By delivering a comprehensive view of a current and future portfolio, VRGL empowers advisors to score client and prospect portfolios faster and more accurately than legacy methods and deliver the tangible quantitative results their clients demand.  Advisors can demonstrate how and why they add value by objectively scoring and analyzing a portfolio based on VRGL’s 5 Pillar^TM analytics, incorporating detailed information on performance, risk, diversification, taxes and fees. Advisors using VRGL can leverage its institutional-grade platform to eliminate traditional manual data processing and accelerate time to revenue, grow their AUM and gain a significant competitive advantage.

Pipe’s New API Powers Financing Options for the Entire Recurring Revenue Industry

Pipe, creator of the world's first trading platform for recurring revenues, launched an innovative “Mine Now, Pay Later” financing offering for bitcoin mining hardware and hosting companies. This empowers bitcoin mining hardware companies to offer payment terms to their customers on mining equipment and services. In conjunction with this launch, Pipe released the Pipe API that now allows any company with a recurring revenue business model to securely sync to the Pipe trading platform to get up-front capital for their future recurring revenue streams. These two initiatives further establish Pipe as the platform of platforms creating the building blocks for embedded finance and access to the capital markets for any business with recurring revenue.

Bitcoin mining is performed on dedicated mining hardware—ASICs—that solve computational math problems at a very fast rate. Currently, ASICs cost upwards of 10,000 USD apiece, and the price is climbing steadily due to supply constraints and the exceptional return on investment that mining provides. To date, there have been very limited financing options for these devices by traditional financial institutions. Now, Pipe is providing access to the capital markets for bitcoin mining hardware companies and other industries with innovative business models for which traditional finance has not historically provided support.

“The launch of Pipe’s bitcoin mining solution and the Pipe API are a clear sign of our intention to shine the light on markets and businesses that have flown under the radar of traditional debt and equity financing,” says Harry Hurst, co-founder and co-CEO of Pipe. “2021 was a watershed year for Pipe and the recurring revenue asset class, and by starting 2022 with initiatives like these, we are demonstrating our commitment to making Pipe the platform of platforms for any company with recurring revenue looking to grow their business on their terms.”

Compass Mining, the world's first and largest online platform for bitcoin mining hardware and hosting, has been working with Pipe on the  “Mine Now, Pay Later” offering for several months and is the first company to broadly offer it to its customer base. Customers who purchase Compass Mining’s bitcoin mining equipment can now pay for managed hosting services in monthly installments and Compass Mining can trade these contracts on the Pipe platform to get fully paid up front. 

“We believe everyone should be able to mine bitcoin, and Pipe’s ‘Mine Now, Pay Later’ is a big step in this journey,” says Whit Gibbs, CEO of Compass Mining. “Together with Pipe, we are accelerating the growth of bitcoin mining by democratising access to the critical financing options that traditional banking institutions have ignored.”

The Pipe API is the logical extension of the Pipe trading platform that enables companies to instantly transform their recurring revenue into up-front capital. Companies in various markets have been testing the beta version of the API. The bitcoin mining and hosting vertical is a unique example of the power of the API and how it will help extend access to financing for less traditional industries.

Reach’s rapid expansion continues as it helps online merchants and marketplaces increase conversions, lower foreign payment processing costs and gain international customers

Reach, the leading global eCommerce payments enabler has secured a $30 million investment, as it bids to accelerate its mission of unlocking a global customer base for merchants through a streamlined payments, tax and fraud platform.

The round, led by Vistara Growth, includes investment from Bluesky Equities, Tribune Capital, and Rising Tide. The capital will be used to dramatically scale up Reach’s development teams, with a focus on merchant success and onboarding, as well as expansion into new shopper geographies to help grow local acquiring networks for both merchants and partners.

With ecommerce cross-border transactions set to surge to an estimated $1.2 trillion in 2022, consumer trust in foreign merchants has never been higher, with more customers than ever looking beyond their own localities for their ideal purchase.

However, despite increased demand, many merchants continue to see cross-border ecommerce as complicated and expensive, while potential customers increasingly abandon carts on discovering the inability to transact in their own local currency, or when redirected to an unknown third-party checkout.  What’s more, should a consumer overcome these hurdles, the transaction is often rejected when foreign payment processors are not integrated with popular local payment methods.

Reach’s seamless checkout experience provides customers with a localized experience leading to higher conversions and lower costs through the ability to dynamically transact in more than 120 local currencies with no currency risk and true local processing in more than 40 markets.

Sam Ranieri, CEO at Reach, comments: “Our pioneering solutions are helping companies to meet growing global customer demand through localized payment methods, optimized checkout conversions, and best-in-class fraud prevention services.

“Ecommerce giants, such as Apple, Amazon, Netflix, & Spotify to name a few, have the resources to open operations in every new market to set up local processing, have large treasury teams dedicated to managing currency risk, and heavyweight legal teams to comply with every country’s regulations and tax structures. The vast majority of businesses do not, thus creating a large competitive disadvantage.

“Our unique platform allows companies to leverage our vast entity and banking network, unlocking the true power of local currency and local payment processing while eliminating the complexity, cost, time, and risk to set up directly.

“We are proud of bootstrapping to significant scale and achieving a fourth consecutive year of 50% year-on-year growth. With demand accelerating, it was time to bring on experienced financial partners to help build on the foundations for our next phase of growth.”

Agustin Farias, VP of International at Everlane, comments: “We’ve worked with Reach and the whole team has been an extension of our business. Time and time again, it has been a key partner in our international growth and we are excited to see it fulfil the ambitious plans for expansion into new markets that will only be a positive for its merchant partners across the globe.”

The development of Reach’s dynamic, scalable solutions have helped businesses accept cross-border payments through localized processing, providing access to optimal foreign exchange currency services – increasing conversion rates and allowing small and medium-sized businesses to compete with some of the biggest names in the industry.

Noah Shipman, Partner at Vistara Growth, commented: “Reach is a unique company that is loved equally by sales and marketing, international operations, IT and finance teams at its merchant and marketplace customers. It is rare to find a solution that materially improves customer experience and conversions, is easily integrated, and dramatically lowers the cost of delivery.”

Derrick Hunter, President at Bluesky Equities, added: “Sam is building a strong team with incredible momentum in the fast-growing global payment processing market. Reach is a market disruptor that is doing something new, and Bluesky is excited to invest in this round.”

Reach’s model and platform is trusted by customers including innovative fashion brands Revolve and Everlane, jeweller James Allen, and high-growth digitally native consumer startups Current Body and BlendJet.

Paylink Solutions has partnered with online banking provider, Ecospend, to allow customers who’ve fallen behind with repayment plans to make instant payments and get back on track with their arrangements.

Customers will be sent a link for them to make the previously failed payments, either over the phone with an agent or online at a time that suits them.

‘Pay by bank’ provide an alternative option to card payments and move money from people’s bank accounts in real-time. All customers need to do is log into their online banking, authorise the transaction using secure biometrics and their payments will be taken straight away.

Susan Rann, CEO of Paylink Solutions, said: “This type of payment particularly benefits financially vulnerable people as their funds are instantly moved, which allows them to budget and manage their money more effectively.”

James Hickman, CCO at Ecospend, comments: “We’re delighted to be working with Paylink Solutions to help their customers make payments quickly and easily. It’s a great opportunity for us to deliver the latest advancements in payment innovation that will make payments more convenient for customers, while removing any additional stress and cutting the cost of payment fees.”

Rann continued: “Open banking has helped to limit the impact of the current downturn by providing new experiences, helping customers manage debt, adjust budgets, and make full use of new government initiatives. We’re excited about enhancing our digital affordability software – and being able to support clients and their customers even more.”

Hickman concluded: “We believe the efficiencies that our account-to-account payments match perfectly with the needs and goals of Paylink Solutions and its customers.”

Paylink Solutions is one of the UK’s leading fintech companies that delivers technology across the financial services sector. Its award-winning platforms are used by some of the UK’s most well-known banks and building societies and assist thousands of customers every day.

Veteran compliance executive to enhance the Trulioo mission to establish trust online

Trulioo, the leading global identity verification company, today announced the appointment of Reno Mathews as the company’s first Chief Compliance Officer. Mathews has 20 years of experience in building global compliance programs and leading remediation efforts related to regulatory enforcement actions in the banking, money service businesses, crypto and broker-dealer industries. Mathews is a former executive at Google and most recently Meta (aka Facebook).

“Reno’s global compliance expertise is perfectly aligned with the Trulioo mission and will be integral to our continued growth and success around the world,” said Steve Munford, Chief Executive Officer of Trulioo. “His deep understanding of regulatory and compliance needs from a customer’s perspective will inform our product development and ensure we’re continuing to be trusted partners to our clients.” 

As Director of Product Integration and Compliance at Meta, Mathews led the new legal obligations program that oversaw the design and implementation of compliance controls globally. Prior to that, Mathews was Chief Operating Officer of Robinhood Money, and Global Chief Compliance Officer of Payments at Google where he managed regulatory licenses and applications across the United States, Europe, Malaysia, Korea, Japan, Australia and Brazil. Mathews has also previously held senior compliance roles at CIT and Citibank.

“Now more than ever, innovation in digital identity across the world is critical, whether it's navigating across the metaverse, or moving money between countries,” said Reno Mathews, Chief Compliance Officer of Trulioo. “I was born and raised in Zambia and the Trulioo mission of global financial inclusion is core to my values. Joining a team that is at the cutting edge of this effort and is committed to infusing compliance in its product design is incredibly exciting.”

In his role, Mathews will build and oversee compliance programs that support Trulioo customers’ regulatory needs as the company expands its enhanced end-to-end identity platform via Trulioo GlobalGateway, the world’s largest network of identity data and services. 

Finaro names former Mastercard, Citi, DIMOCO and P3 Financial Group executives to lead ambitious sales and growth strategies in three of Europe’s fastest-growing eCommerce regions

With Finaro’s $575 million acquisition by Shift4, new appointments will identify and generate enhanced seamless payment opportunities for merchants and shoppers across Europe

Finaro, the global cross-border payment provider and fully licensed bank empowering international commerce through brilliantly simple payments, has today announced a significant expansion of its management team to capitalize on rapid ecommerce growth in three of the fastest-growing eCommerce regions of Europe.

Ruben Frimand Nielsen joins Finaro as Vice President of Sales and Business Development for the Nordic region to lead Finaro’s growth plans in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Faroe Islands, Iceland and Greenland. Prior to joining Finaro, Ruben was responsible for international portfolio management, sales and product strategy and overall finances for the international payments division in Mastercard.

In the DACH region, Finaro has appointed Clemens Leitner as Vice President of Sales and Business Development to lead Finaro’s expansion in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Before joining Finaro, Clemens was responsible for business development, carrier management and product marketing management at renowned payment and messaging innovator DIMOCO Carrier Billing.

Or Frankenstein Paran has joined Finaro as Vice President of Sales & Business Development in the UK, leading Finaro’s growth in Europe’s largest eCommerce market. With a background in strategic business development encompassing fintech, trade and treasury solutions at Citi and d-local, Or brings vast experience in identifying commercial opportunities and complex project management to Finaro.

Itamar Kummer joins Finaro as Director of Sales & Business Development, overseeing the expansion activities of Finaro in Israel. Itamar’s wealth of expertise in securing lucrative, long-term business opportunities includes stints at P3 Financial Group in Finland and AGT International in China, making him ideally-placed to drive new global growth initiatives for Finaro.

With their wealth of experience and successful management track records, Ruben, Clemens, Or and Itamar are primed to bring Finaro’s brilliantly simple multi-dimensional payments solutions to merchants and help them connect to more customers both at home and abroad.

German, Austrian and Swiss consumers spent a combined €100 billion in 2020, a record spending milestone driven by the online buying shift during the pandemic. Germany has the biggest ecommerce market in the DACH region, with consumers there spending over €83 billion in 2020 (up 14.6% from 2019), Austrian consumers spent €8.5 billion (+17.4%), while Swiss online shoppers racked up €11.9 billion (+27.9%) in spending in 2020, up 27.9% from 2019.

Danish, Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish consumers spent a combined €46.5 billion online in 2020, with 19% of Nordic shoppers making cross-border online purchases. In Denmark, over 90% of consumers shopped online in 2020, followed by 87% in Norway and 86% in Sweden. 

In the UK, eCommerce turnover hit €236 billion in 2020, making it the largest eCommerce market in Europe, driven by an online shopping penetration rate of 92%. The growing importance of eCommerce in overall retail sales is shown by the fact that in 2020, eCommerce comprised 9.92% of GDP, up from 6.17% in 2015.

These figures are set to surge in 2022 as merchants and consumers across the Nordic, DACH and UK regions embrace new ways to make and accept payments, and increase usage of mobile commerce like digital wallets and in-app payments. 

Achiya Fried, Chief Commercial and Strategy Officer at Finaro, comments: “I am pleased to welcome such key talent to the growing Finaro family. We have ambitious growth plans across Europe, and their dynamic expertise and proven management success will certainly be a catalyst for Finaro’s growing momentum and I look forward to seeing what they will do for the team and the company.”

Igal Rotam, CEO at Finaro, says: “This is an incredibly exciting time to be joining Finaro and to be part of its stellar growth and ambitious plans for the future. We’re thrilled that these men are joining us to support this growth and expand merchants’ access to the innovative, cutting-edge payment solutions they need to serve their own growing global customers.”

In March 2022, Finaro was acquired by US payment processor Shift4 in a ground-breaking $575 million deal, highlighting the strength of Finaro’s cutting-edge payment solutions and hyper-personalized customer-centric service. Shift4 will utilize Finaro’s market-defining infrastructure and products to embark on its global expansion plans.

These appointments follow Finaro’s recent rebranding from Credorax, to reflect its new identity and commitment to realizing its vision for payments, where commerce is untethered and free from technological, physical and geographical limitations.

After an incredibly successful 2021, with over $10 billion in total processed volume for more than 5,000 merchants, Finaro is dedicated to making complex payments simple, combined with its innate passion for customer service that goes above and beyond.  

Dynamic Planner, today announces the appointment of Christophe Ponette* as  Managing Director for Europe to lead the company’s EU expansion. Christophe was previously  the MD of Avaloq, the European Banking and Wealth Technology Provider for Benelux, speaks  multiple languages and has over 25 years’ experience working in sales and management positions  in European markets including The Netherlands, Switzerland, France, Luxembourg and Belgium.  

His appointment follows an extensive, two-year exploratory process which has looked intensively  at the needs of European financial services firms, asset managers and clients as a result of MiFIDII,  IDD and the growth in risk-based investing.  

Christophe will work in collaboration with Simon Colboc who has joined Dynamic Planner in a non executive capacity. Simon has 25 years’ experience in Financial Services, including executive positions at Fortis, BNP Paribas and Prudential Plc. He heads up FECIF's work on pan-European pensions and runs the Financial Services Practice of Paris-based firm CMI Strategies. 

Dynamic Planner has signed an agreement with The European Federation of Financial Advisers  and Financial Intermediaries (FECIF) an independent and non-profit-making organisation  exclusively at the service of its financial adviser and intermediary members, who are from the 27  EU countries plus the UK and Switzerland; it is the only European body representing European  financial advisers and intermediaries. FECIF is based in Brussels, at the heart of Europe and will  be working with Dynamic Planner to identify and introduce potential partners. 

Dynamic Planner has already completed the localisation of its risk and sustainability profiling  instruments for France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Belgium working with in-country experts and  financial advisers to ensure they adapt to local requirements. Dynamic Planner will localise its full 

functionality including: reviews, goal based cash flow planning and suitability reporting to provide  its one financial planning system to European clients. 

Ben Goss, CEO, Dynamic Planner said: “Backed by almost two decades of experience of Dynamic Planner in the UK, we are now taking our leading financial planning system to the Continent. Europe is in the foothills of an enormous shift in the way that advisers help households manage their finances and prepare for retirement in terms of the investment risk they need to take and the regulation that they face. The market feedback we have had is that we can help financial services firms successfully meet these challenges as we do in the UK. 

“This is a natural progression for Dynamic Planner and an incredibly exciting time for us as both a team and a business. We have already learnt a great deal from our engagements with European partners, advisers and experts about how financial advice is given in different countries, for example in the area of sustainability, and much of this will be beneficial for our overall product for our UK clients too. 

“Our mission is to help firms match people to suitable portfolios through engaging financial planning  and we believe there is a huge opportunity to contribute the expertise and one financial planning system technology we offer in the EU.” 

As part of the exploratory process, Dynamic Planner’s Head of Psychology and Behavioural  Insights Dr Louis Williams, conducted a large-scale country specific and analysis study** of a  cross section of the populations in France, Germany, Italy, Belgium and Spain to understand  attitude to risk (ATR) and views on sustainability to assist in the creation of bespoke psychometric  questionnaires for each territory. Local financial advisers reviewed translations and provided their  views on the question set and framework. 

Key differences between the five European countries and UK population include: ATR Profiling: 

▪ Belgium and Germany have significantly higher average levels of risk tolerance in regard to investments compared to France, Italy and Spain; 

▪ All European countries appear to be more risk averse than the UK population; ▪ Significantly more Europeans from all five countries were a risk profile 2 (4.49%- 7.54%) and 3 (11.52%-18.87%) and fewer a risk profile 5 (14.75% - 18.62%)***; 

▪ Significantly fewer UK respondents were a risk profile 1 (0.23%), 2 (0.74%), 3 (3.55%)  and 4 (14.09%), and more a risk profile 5 (31.23%), 6 (27.19%) and 7 (16.7%).

Sustainability: 

▪ French respondents have significantly higher average scores when measuring the importance of sustainability in comparison to Germany, Italy, Spain and Belgium; ▪ More European respondents view sustainability as of higher importance than UK  counterparts; 

▪ Significantly fewer respondents from France, Germany, Italy and Spain (10.69% - 14.76%) have a low importance sustainability profile. The UK have significantly more  within this profile (27.67%); 

▪ Significantly fewer respondents from the UK consider sustainability to be of high (8.24%) and very high importance (3.8%). 

Christophe Ponette, Managing Director, Europe, Dynamic Planner said: “We have undertaken extensive country specific research to enable us to understand what is needed and begin to adapt what we offer to each market. This has already informed the design of a range of country specific, multi-language risk profiling and sustainability questionnaires. This insight has also highlighted a need for more education around financial risk and this is central to what we do at Dynamic Planner.  

“Large organisations in Europe face many challenges – ageing populations; low savings rates and clients with assets held across different institutions. Above all there is a need to create a culture of investment, improving the overall customer experience and establishing a better and more efficient integration of the financial planning process. We believe Dynamic Planner can provide the answer to these challenges.”