• Company raises further funding from leading Dutch banking giant Rabobank
• Supports Aito’s continued growth in the haptic feedback market
• Company will use funds to accelerate growth with further tier one consumer technology brands

Leading Dutch technology start-up Aito today announces a further investment – this time from the start-up and scale-up team of leading Dutch banking giant Rabobank. 

The additional funding, following the Spring 2021 raise of €4 million, provides the company with further finance to accelerate the growth and extend its award-winning finger sensing and haptic feedback solution to more tier one consumer technology brands.

Nedko Ivanov, CEO of Aito comments: “Following a strong start to 2022, Rabobank has provided investment to help support our ambitious plans to further commercialise our award-winning patented technology with other world leading consumer technology brands.  Digital Trends highlighted haptic touchpads as a key technology trend for 2022, becoming increasingly mainstream across laptops and other consumer devices.  We are now well positioned to extend our unique and versatile haptic touch solutions to further brands and devices.”

Aito’s integrated and scalable technology helps consumer technology brands transform the design and user experience of their devices. 

Aito’s finger sensing and haptic touch solutions offer:

• The most accurate and richest haptic experience available on the market today
• The industry’ slimmest finger sensing and haptic feedback solution – less than 2.4 millimetres
• Ultra-local haptic feedback: ‘only where you press’
• Fully scalable technology to offer the largest edge to edge haptic surfaces on the market with seamless design

Aito’s technology has already been integrated into laptop touchpads, but it is also relevant to the wider consumer electronics market:  it enables technology brands to build more functional accessories, display screens, gaming devices and AR/VR solutions that deploy the power of touch to transform user experiences. 

Robbert Lut of Rabobank comments: “Aito’s ground-breaking and patented technology offers new design options to create more compact and versatile laptops, accessories, displays and other devices delivering new tactile experiences.  The company helps consumer technology brands differentiate products in highly competitive markets, offering significant return on investment.  This investment demonstrates our confidence in the company’s current product portfolio and ambitious further growth plans.”

Nedko Ivanov concludes: “With more than 85 patents, we have built a significant portfolio of intellectual property across all the key aspects of the technology to enable integrated finger sensing and haptic feedback experiences, including sensing andcontrol, signal processing and mechanical construction.  An increasing number of technology companies are deploying our integrated solution to create intuitive touch experiences housed in elegant new designs. This investment will further accelerate our growth in a dynamic, ever evolving potential market.”

CMC Markets Connect, a leading global provider of institutional trading and technology solutions, has today announced a distribution agreement with Integral. Acknowledged as the world’s most advanced technology provider of cloud-based eFX workflow solutions, the award-winning platform brings together a wide variety of liquidity providers into a single, integrated network.

CMC Markets will be distributing its Spot FX and Indices, Treasuries and Commodity CFDs including over 12,000 CFDs covering a range of single stocks and ETFs. Integral clients will have the ability to access pricing as well as execute trades.

Richard Elston, Group Head of Institutional at CMC Markets Connect, commented:

“The partnership with Integral is the latest step in our mission to continue extending our institutional reach. By leveraging the network of a recognised industry leader, we’re making our pricing and liquidity available to an even wider audience, whilst our single stock CFD offering truly strengthens the wider Integral offering.”

Harpal Sandhu, CEO of Integral, commented: “By continuing to include more high-quality liquidity providers in the network, we ensure that our clients are consistently receiving a quality service across all market conditions. Our recently launched CFD Prime service is the latest innovation improving the trading experiences of our clients.”

In recent years, CFDs have been seen as an increasingly flexible tool for clients looking to gain long or short exposure to single stocks. This has resulted in CMC Markets rapidly expanding the range of instruments it offers within the asset class, including equities on 23 global markets.

Leading audit firm Grant Thornton announces an extended partnership with Validis to enhance their audit services for thousands of Australian businesses, powered by leading Open Banking capabilities.

Grant Thornton’s partnership with Validis will take advantage of the new Consumer Data Right (CDR) access model that has been developed in response to the government’s recent amendments to the CDR rules to encourage increased participation in Open Banking. This access model allows for existing unrestricted accredited data recipients, such as Validis, to act as a principal for trusted advisors, and therefore allows access to data with the banking customer’s consent.

The latest Open Banking capabilities and using third party software such as Validis, enables Grant Thornton’s audit practice to boost audit quality becoming more efficient by improving the quality of banking transactional data and information on account balances that are critical to validating existence of assets or the occurrence of cash in/out flows.

Global fintech Validis supports a wide-range of large banks, lenders and top audit firms who use its platform to instantly access business data from major accounting packages. This latest innovation of integrating Open Banking data into the audit process is the first of its kind in the sector.

Paul Thomas, CEO of Validis said, “We’re thrilled to be building on our successful partnership with Grant Thornton and embedding a unique Open Banking capability into their already advanced digital audit process. Australia is seeing a continued growth in the SME market with almost 2.5m incorporated businesses operating across the country and following the events of the last two years, businesses and audit teams now have a higher expectation and need to interact remotely. We’re now in a new era of normality and Grant Thornton are investing in innovation to deliver an enhanced audit experience that meets this expectation. Alongside instant access to accounting data, Grant Thornton will have secure, consent-driven connectivity to bank transactional data through a single portal. We’re delighted to be supporting them on this innovation journey.”  

Liam Te-wierik, Partner and Head of Data Assurance at Grant Thornton Australia, said: “Open Banking affords us the opportunity to streamline internal processes, improving the audit experience for our clients and people, and leveraging deeper analysis of external data to provide additional insights to clients. As a successful and respected service provider to financial services entities, we recognise the immense value in engaging with CDR as the regulations mature and barriers to entry decrease.

“Over the last 12 months we have been working with Validis to access and analyse accounting data from our clients’ internal systems for which we have seen great success. The extension to Open Banking was a natural fit thanks to the single API access for both accounting and banking transactional data. We’re excited to be working with Validis to launch this additional capability and continue to push the industry forward through digital transformation that delivers enhanced audit quality and efficiency.”

Andrew Rigele, National Managing Partner - Audit & Assurance, said: “As technologies advance in the sector, fintech regulations can become even more challenging, however there is an increased need for ease of access to information by financial services to create efficiencies. The Phase 3 launch of the Consumer Data Right (CDR) this month has allowed customers from a wide range of banks to share information on overdrafts and business finance, which in turn provides exciting opportunities for us to implement bespoke data solutions for our clients. Grant Thornton’s ethos encourages our people to think creatively and explore fintech offerings to deliver our core accounting services more effectively.”

Fusion Risk Management releases MuleSoft Certified Template for Fusion Framework System to simplify integration to the Fusion Framework System and help companies to create seamless digital experiences, faster

Fusion Risk Management today announced it has joined the MuleSoft Technology Partner Program and has contributed to the partner ecosystem by releasing a MuleSoft Certified Template for Fusion Framework System. The Fusion Framework System template, accessible in Anypoint Exchange, will allow companies to simplify integration to the Fusion Framework System and drive operational resilience initiatives while increasing ROI, accelerating value, and significantly reducing related IT and maintenance expenses.

With MuleSoft, Fusion’s joint customers can quickly connect with the systems and applications risk and resilience teams use every day to break down silos and aggregate data from anywhere in an organization. This empowers risk and resilience teams to partner with their IT teams in building integrations 57% faster. Together with MuleSoft, Fusion accelerates data-driven approaches to resilience by empowering organizations with complete visibility into risks and disruptions so they can respond before incidents escalate.

“Today’s risk and resilience teams understand they need real-time data to inform their operational resilience plans, but many are challenged by siloed systems and limited resources,” said Michael Campbell, CEO of Fusion Risk Management. “The escalating number of disruptions to daily operations makes it critical that businesses have the ability to identify and respond to those incidents in minutes, not days. Fusion is committed to helping our clients move from reactive to proactive resiliency, delivering the North Star of resilience. With MuleSoft, we can quickly integrate siloed systems to create a complete, real-time view of risk and resiliency, empowering business teams, and giving them the confidence to develop secure integrations and applications that scale as their business grows.”

“Industries are facing new demands that push them to accelerate the pace of digital transformation,” said Brian Miller, senior vice president of business development, MuleSoft, “The Connectivity Benchmark Report shows that integration challenges are slowing down critical digital initiatives for 85% of IT organizations. This partnership allows our mutual customers to create a composable enterprise by securely unlocking and integrating their data and apps to deliver new levels of speed, agility and efficiency.”

The MuleSoft Technology Partner Program includes leading enterprise software companies across both functional applications, such as CRM, enterprise resource planning (ERP), marketing automation, and HCM, as well as across industries, including financial services, healthcare, retail and media and telecom. Using MuleSoft, technology partners help customers achieve greater speed, agility, and efficiency by making it possible for companies to turn every asset in their organization — data, bots, and applications — into reusable building blocks to scale and increase the speed of work.

Anypoint Platform customers can learn more about Fusion Risk Management by visiting:  https://anypoint.mulesoft.com/exchange/?search=fusion%20risk%20management.

Fusion Risk Management customers can learn more how to integrate data from siloed apps and systems faster and automate complete workflows more efficiently with MuleSoft’s Anypoint Platform at: https://www.mulesoft.com/platform/enterprise-integration.

New global survey finds businesses using spreadsheets for cash management twice as likely to have high number of overdue invoices

• 42% of businesses still reliant on spreadsheets reported a high ratio of late payments
• This figure almost halved to 22% for those using dedicated software
• 72% of teams that only use spreadsheets to manage payment delays are unsatisfied
• 79% of respondents say that Artificial Intelligence and automation will be a strategic priority

Sidetrade, has today revealed the detrimental impact spreadsheets have on business team’s effectiveness, in “Cash Culture Pulse” 2022.

Cash Culture Pulse 2022, conducted by Sidetrade, interviewed international firms across the UK, Europe, US, Asia and the Middle East to explore ways to improve efficiencies in the management of unpaid invoices in B2B and the current cash culture trends.

Key to this new study was a focus on measuring the direct impact of the use of accounts receivable software in improving the cash collection results:

• It revealed that 42% of finance teams still heavily reliant on spreadsheets reported a high ratio of late payments overall (15%).
• Conversely, this number was almost halved (22%) for finance teams that use a cash and credit management software.

Nearly ¾ of teams using spreadsheets are unsatisfied

Cash Culture Pulse 2022 provided insight into how businesses track customer payments, and measured the satisfaction and expectations of the teams in charge of this business area:

• While 87% of finance teams still relying on spreadsheets to manage accounts receivables - either fully or partially - 72% claim to be dissatisfied with the process.
• In contrast, 80% of teams that use a dedicated solution to manage this process are satisfied.

Artificial Intelligence: a strategic priority for cash & credit management

While 61% of finance departments are not taking full advantage of new technologies, this trend is expected to change in the coming years, as 79% of respondents say Artificial Intelligence and automation will be a strategic priority to generate cash faster and more efficiently.

In the fallout from the pandemic, cash culture has been positioned higher on business leaders’ agendas, as companies look to secure and accelerate cash flow generation and establish a 360° vision on the whole Order-to-Cash cycle. This paradigm shift provides seamless collaboration among Finance, Sales and Support functions and ensures that Finance has the best technologies available.

Sidetrade’s CFO, Philippe Gangneux, commented: “It's clear that spreadsheets have an increasing number of limits and complexities. Now intelligent technologies support changing methods of delivering enterprise business capabilities. CFOs have a vested interest in including these intelligent technologies in their new roles and new challenges, or risk missing opportunities to optimize value and drive growth. The modern CFO should now take advantage of AI technology to streamline financial processes, particularly in cash management, and receivables.

“Beyond this, there are a whole host of other ways in which spreadsheets prevent finance leaders from reaching their potential; they limit an organization’s ability to instill a cash culture, they don’t provide any intelligent recommendations, and they cannot promote data centricity and visibility across the business. The crisis we have been through has revealed the importance of securing cash flows, and more and more financial leaders are recognizing the benefit of working with a dedicated technology for enhanced Order-to-Cash performance.”
  

• Introducing authentic feedback reviews into all BR-DGE’s client payment checkout processes allows merchants to effectively track customer satisfaction in real time
• Ambition to power 1 billion review led transactions per month
• Partnership another milestone for BR-DGE as it continues to innovate to solve merchant payment issues

Payment orchestration provider BR-DGE has formed a strategic partnership with market-leading feedback company eKomi.

By integrating eKomi’s technology into its platform, BR-DGE’s merchant clients will be able to embed an entirely authentic review process into the customer checkout experience. This decreases the reliance on external feedback platforms where the authenticity of a review cannot be verified, often at great reputational risk to the merchant.

Through the BR-DGE/eKomi workflow, customers will choose their goods and add them to a basket before entering their payment details as normal. While payment is being taken, the customer is then prompted to leave a review. By using this unique technology, merchants will be able to accurately track customer sentiment in real time with 100% reassurance the data and opinion received is accurate and fair.

BR-DGE’s platform promises to simplify payment infrastructure and revolutionise the payment process for online merchants and their customers. Through a single point of integration, BR-DGE’s merchants can access a world of payment providers and alternative payment methods. Offering greater choice and flexibility for merchants increases the likelihood of payment success due to offering optimal payment experience for local markets. The eKomi and BR-DGE partnership is another example of how this technology can dramatically improve merchant workflows across pre-and post-payment initiatives. From improved account checking, fraud detection, loyalty programmes and embedded reviews; security, compliance, customer experience and loyalty can all be enhanced.

Discussing the partnership, Brian Coburn, CEO at BR-DGE, said “This is a totally unique partnership and one we’re very excited about. We are on a mission to put power back in the hands of merchants, while providing the most innovative solutions which encompass all their needs. Partnering with eKomi does just that. Reviews are a vital lifeline for merchants, and we’re delighted to be embedding such a smart and innovative technology into our workflow.”

Michael Ambros, CEO at eKomi added “This is a great example of using technology to improve the customer experience. BR-DGE is at the forefront of revolutionising a dysfunctional payment system and will enable billions of transactions per month. The inclusion of eKomi's authentic review system means that thousands of online merchants will now have access to vast amounts of authentic real-time data and opinions. This will help them adapt their growth strategies and generate more sales."

CanDeal, the leading provider of Canadian financial markets, data and information services, is integrating its proprietary market data into the IHS Markit platform providing a new level of fixed income pricing accessibility for the Canadian market. With the unparalleled accuracy of dealer-sourced pricing that CanDeal Data & Analytics (DNA) provides, this partnership will directly address one of the most pressing issues facing Canadian capital markets.

Leveraging the most up-to-date data for Canadian fixed income market participants has been a lingering challenge for decades due to insufficient accessibility solutions. By integrating CanDeal’s 1pm, 3pm, and 4pm snapshot pricing, IHS Markit customers will have access to best-in-class market datasets and more accurately and efficiently be able to make better-informed pre and post-trade decisions, while mitigating market risk.

“Canadian institutions need tools that are tailored for their market. Providing CanDeal’s pricing alongside IHS Markit’s evaluated bond pricing will give customers the right tools for their valuation, risk management and trading needs from a single provider,” said Krishna Shetty, Executive Director, Fixed Income Business Development at IHS Markit. “We are excited to partner with CanDeal to provide additional coverage and transparency to our Canadian customer base and those trading in the Canadian market.”

“There’s a shift taking place in Canadian fixed income markets that is being driven by greater access to data and broader adoption of analytics tools,” said Robin Hanlon, Director, Product Marketing & Sales at CanDeal Data & Analytics. “A major player like IHS Markit leveraging CanDeal’s fixed income data will help accelerate this positive momentum and continue to bring the efficiencies to Canadian bond markets that participants have been seeking for years.”

CanDeal DNA delivers a range of pricing services and performance analytics that it creates daily to address the needs of Canadian buy- and sell-side traders, including composite pricing, evaluated bond pricing, and independent pricing verification (IPV) services for financial reporting. Since its launch in 2020, CanDeal DNA has been expanding its fixed income data pool to give unrivaled pricing and liquidity to Canada’s bond market landscape, including its acquisition of CIBC’s fixed income business in 2021.

Financial services providers rely on identity verification for seamless and secure customer onboarding

Trulioo, the global identity verification leader, today announced four new customers in the banking industry: Bambu Systems, Guardian Gold, Nerve and Simba. With Trulioo GlobalGateway, the world’s largest network of identity data and services, financial institutions can deploy identity checks that help them satisfy Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) compliance requirements.

“Expectations are at an all-time high when it comes to digital experiences and Trulioo is proud to help organizations meet their customers’ needs,” said Steve Munford, CEO, Trulioo. “At the onset of the pandemic, we examined consumer perceptions around digital account opening. We found that when a financial services firm incorporated real-time identity verification as part of their onboarding, 83% of people were less likely to abandon the account creation process.”

In addition to adverse effects on customer acquisition, poor onboarding experiences detrimentally impact brand perception, with Trulioo research revealing that 80% of consumers held greater trust in brands that use identity verification as opposed to those who didn’t. 

“Both legacy and challenger banks trust Trulioo and its range of solutions to scale innovative global compliance programs while delivering positive customer experiences. We’re pleased to partner with these organizations to continue to support their compliance and risk mitigation initiatives and to help them onboard customers around the world,” added Munford.

The following financial services providers are amongst Trulioo’s growing roster of customers around the globe:

• Bambu Systems, a digital bank advancing financial inclusion by offering services and products for the unbanked.

• Guardian Gold, a subset of Guardian Vaults, provides a seamless solution for buying and storing physical gold and silver bullion.

• Nerve, the embedded banking platform for the creator economy. 

• Simba, a digital bank with a focus on financial products for immigrants in the U.S., offers a mobile platform, no fee banking and free international transfers. 

GlobalGateway provides access to over 400 data sources to reliably and securely verify the identities of over 5 billion individuals around the world through one API.