More member approvals and better member experience for auto and loan portfolios

Leading global AI-powered credit decision platform provider, Scienaptic AI announced that deployment of its platform at Northern Credit Union is now live. This deployment will enhance and augment Northern Credit Union’s credit decisioning and underwriting capabilities for new and prospective members.

Founded in 1955 by a group of New York Air Brake employees, Northern Credit Union serves more than 36,000 members through nine Relationship Center locations across the North Country and a comprehensive online and mobile banking program. Throughout its history, Northern Credit Union has helped its members by providing the financial services, resources and education they need to achieve their financial goals. From its beginning and far into its future, this has been and will remain Northern Credit Union's foremost commitment.

“As an organization that aspires to be the recognized standard of excellence in all our markets, we humbly embrace the higher expectations and responsibility to continuously improve for the betterment of our members,” said Dan St. Hilaire, CEO at Northern Credit Union. “Northern is blessed to have partnered with a forward-thinking organization whose mission, vision and culture, uniquely aligns with ours. Working with Scienaptic has been effortless, educational and a whole lot of fun! Our collaborative success will be premised on this foundational advantage. We are excitedly eager to release our pent-up excitement for the profound impact this platform will surely have on the financial well-being of our members and organization.”

"We are driven to improve the financial lives of members Northern Credit Union serves through credit empowerment and personalized decisions,” said Pankaj Jain, Co-founder and President of Scienaptic. “In our shared passion to WOW members and exceed their expectations, we feel privileged that our AI is increasing credit access and supporting Northern Credit Union members in fulfilling their dreams.”

Temenos AG (SIX: TEMN), the banking software company, today announced it has strengthened its Executive Committee with the appointment of Erich Gerber as President and Chief Revenue Officer. His appointment is effective March 1, 2022.

Reporting to Temenos’ CEO, Max Chuard, Erich Gerber will lead the company's global Customer Operations to accelerate and scale expansion to new market segments and territories. He and his organization will focus on generating new revenue streams through partnerships and increasing the company’s presence in large tier 1 / 2 banks.

Erich Gerber comes with over 30 years of experience in leading sales organizations for large technology companies in enterprise software and cloud services. He has a proven track record in transforming sales functions into high-performing organizations and accelerating growth in subscription-based models. Gerber spent the last 13 years at TIBCO Software Inc., in various leadership roles across sales and business operations in several regions. Most recently, he was Senior Vice President for Europe Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and Asia Pacific and Japan. While at TIBCO, he also held the role of Vice President Global Sales Operations and Transformation out of the U.S. Prior to TIBCO Software, Gerber served at BEA Systems, IXOS and BMC Software.

Erich Gerber, President and Chief Revenue Officer, Temenos, said: “I’m excited to become part of the global success story of Temenos. I’m looking forward to working with our partners and alongside everyone at Temenos to accelerate revenues and capture new market opportunities. Together, we will continue to deliver unparalleled value to our customers helping them to digitalize their processes, offer hyper-personalized experiences and transform their business.”

Max Chuard, Chief Executive Officer of Temenos, said: “I am delighted to welcome Erich to Temenos as our President and Chief Revenue Officer. His expertise in building and running organizations globally and his deep customer and partner relationships make him a perfect fit for this crucial role. Erich has led successful transitions to subscription sales in the past and understands the value equation that this change can bring.  With sales, business operations and partner teams under his leadership, we will accelerate our sales efforts and broaden our reach into new markets and segments through the strength of our open platform for composable banking. Erich’s passion for customer success will be invaluable as we continue to help traditional banks modernize their legacy systems and enable non-incumbent players to scale fast with our cloud technology.”

In the last three years, financial regulators worldwide have been actively highlighting the need for responsible use of Artificial Intelligence/ Machine Learning (AI/ML). What have they been saying? What common underlying concerns and regulatory themes are emerging? What can the industry expect in the coming years, and how can it start responding now?

By Shameek Kundu, Head of Financial Services and Chief Strategy Officer at TruEra.

What have regulators actually done so far?

To date, no major financial regulator has introduced explicit regulations dedicated to the use of AI/ML. Recent regulatory activity has mostly taken the form of guidelines, consultation papers, clarifications around existing rules for Model Risk (e.g. SR 11-7 in the US), data management and anti-discrimination considerations, and the occasional public pronouncement on high-profile cases of potentially unethical algorithms (e.g., the Apple credit card or discrimination on the basis of religiosity in the US).

Globally, the Monetary Authority of Singapore kicked things off in 2018 with its Fairness, Ethics, Accountability and Transparency (FEAT) guidelines. Similar guidelines have since been issued by financial regulators in Hong Kong, Canada, the United Arab Emirates and many others. In the US, five banking regulators ran a large-scale joint consultation exercise in 2021. In the UK, the Bank of England (BOE) and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) have been running an AI Public Private forum since 2020 (a report is expected soon). 

In Europe, the European Central Bank (ECB) recently provided suggestions to the European Commission around the banking obligations of the (industry-agnostic) 2021 draft AI law. There have also been a few examples of sector-specific exercises outside banking, such as those around Insurance in Europe and the US, and securities in the US.

(Why) Does AI/ML require a specific regulatory lens?

Banks and insurers are no strangers to statistical models (e.g., actuarial or capital calculations), or to automated decision-making (e.g., insurance pricing, credit decisioning) based on such models. Regulators and industry participants have extensive experience of understanding and managing the risks associated with such models. Existing risk management frameworks around the management of model and data risks and fair treatment of customers provide a robust foundation.

However, the use of AI/ ML techniques to build such models calls for an enhanced approach. AI/ML models have several unique characteristics (Figure 1). Collectively, these can result in increased levels of model risk, as well as higher focus on data risk (e.g., disclosing or using personal data inappropriately), operational resilience challenges (e.g., being unable to ensure that critical systems remain available), conduct and regulatory risk (e.g., being unable to meet obligations to treat customers and staff fairly, information security risk (e.g., creating additional vulnerability points for critical systems) and reputational risk (e.g., due to bad press from poorly communicated use of AI models with customers)

What common themes have emerged?

For Financial Institutions (FIs), particularly those operating under multiple regulatory regimes, there is a risk of getting overwhelmed by overlapping and/or divergent requirements. Luckily, there appears to be a remarkably high level of alignment among regulators world-wide around their key objectives.

1. First, they expect robustness in AI/ML models. Predictions should be reliable, not just with the data used to initially test the model but also over time as internal and external circumstances change (stability). The model should perform well across all the segments of the population to which it is meant to apply, and not be overly dependent on a small number of training data points (overfitting).

2. Second, they expect FIs to be sensitive to the potential for AI/ML models to introduce or worsen unfair biases against particular groups, and to have mechanisms in place to detect, investigate and mitigate such unfair bias. A related expectation is the need for FIs to be ethical in the use of personal data in data hungry ML models.

3. Third, they expect FIs to be able to understand, explain and justify the model’s decisions, internally and to regulators. Most often, this can be achieved through ML explainability techniques such as feature influences, and by allowing human experts to test the model’s behaviour and explanations for conceptual soundness.

4. Fourth, where appropriate, they expect FIs to provide transparency to data subjects impacted by the decision (e.g., Is my insurance claim being decided by an algorithm? Why was it refused? What data was used to arrive at the decision?), and avenues for redress (e.g., the right to request a manual or automated review, and to correct any incorrect data used by the FI for the decision-making). 

5. Fifth, they expect FIs to demonstrate accountability for their use of AI/ML. One key aspect is Board and Senior Management awareness around AI/ML use and risks. Another is the introduction of appropriate policies, standards, procedures, tools and training must be put in place to operationalise AI/ML governance. A third is the need to put in appropriate levels of human oversight over final decision-making, depending on materiality and confidence in the AI/ML solution. Many regulators also explicitly include a complexity vs benefit assessment when using AI/ML. Finally, regulated FIs are expected to be responsible for any third party AI/ML models (e.g., external credit scores, anti-fraud and anti-money laundering software)

What to expect next?

Predicting regulatory moves is difficult, but based on regulators’ public consultations over the last three years, FIs can probably expect the following from regulators in the next 2 years:

• A continued desire to balance AI/ML innovation and risk

• Closer collaboration with non-financial regulators (e.g., data privacy, antitrust)

• Incremental enhancements to existing rules (e.g., those around Model risk, data risk and conduct/fairness), rather than brand new ones dedicated to AI/ML

• An appetite to work together with the industry to flesh out the details. The Veritas initiative in Singapore is a recent example of a regulator-led industry consortium translating AI/ML guidelines into detailed ‘how-to’ guides and toolkits

• A level of strategic ambiguity around contentious topics like the definition of fairness metrics or minimum technical standards for algorithmic transparency (reflecting the immaturity of industry thinking in this space)

• Tolerance for a materiality-based approach (e.g., one regulator intends to limit fairness considerations to situations impacting natural persons or small businesses)

Notwithstanding the above, however, FIs should be prepared for supervisory examinations around responsible use of AI/ML. Indeed, in several jurisdictions, regulators have already begun such exercises within the remit of existing model risk or conduct regulation.

Leading adopters of AI/ML have responded by pulling together an umbrella framework for managing AI/ML risk (Figure 2), which they can tweak continuously on the back of evolving regulatory and industry thinking. They have also started to embed responsible AI/ML considerations into the end-to-end model lifecycle - e.g., through tools for AI/ML model transparency, quality assessment and monitoring; updates to customer-facing communication and third party engagement protocols; and dedicated training for staff. Finally, they have been actively engaging industry bodies to contribute to and shape the conversation around responsible AI/ML.

About Shameek Kundu

Shameek is a leading expert in AI from both a tech and business strategy perspective and has spent most of his career driving responsible adoption of data analytics / AI in the financial services industry. He is Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Financial Services at TruEra. He sits on the Bank of England’s AI Public-Private Forum and the OECD Global Partnership on AI. In 2018 he was part of the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s Steering Committee on Fairness, Ethics, Accountability and Transparency (FEAT) in AI and is currently part of the MAS-led industry consortium that was set up to develop the FEAT methodologies, tool kit and business use case studies in the banking and insurance sectors. 

Prior to TruEra, Shameek was Group Chief Data Officer at Standard Chartered Bank, where he helped the bank explore and adopt AI in multiple areas (e.g., credit, financial crime compliance, customer analytics, surveillance). 

Company progresses its Strivers Initiative to elevate and support Black women business owners with funding, mentorship, as well as the digital and cyber tools to get their businesses online and grow

Nearing the anniversary of the launch of the Strivers Initiative, Mastercard is reaffirming its commitment to Black women small business owners through an expanded partnership with Fearless Fund in its joint mission to fund and support Black women-owned businesses, a Priceless mentorship program, an updated suite of tools aimed at digitally fortifying their operations and a new digital marketplace where consumers can shop, share and support their businesses across the U.S.

Black women received less than 1 percent of venture capital funding given in the first half of 2021[1] despite building businesses at a faster pace than any other segment. Acknowledging the discrepancy between potential and support, Mastercard is celebrating Black History Month by kicking off a yearlong program that drives awareness and impact to these women’s success.

“As Black women business owners look towards the recovery of the pandemic, Mastercard’s commitment to empowering this community of Strivers for long-term growth remains stronger than ever,” said Rustom Dastoor, EVP of North America Marketing and Communications at Mastercard. “Together with our partners, with tools and resources, data, mentorship, partnerships and brand power, the impact we're able to make on individuals and in turn society at large, is truly Priceless.”
 

Fearless Strivers Grant Contest

Mastercard is proud to partner with Fearless Fund, a venture capital fund built by women of color for women of color, in our joint mission to fund and support Black women owned businesses. With Mastercard prizing, Fearless Fund will provide Black women small business owners across the country with $10,000 grants, digital tools and mentorship to help them build, protect and sustain their business through its second annual Fearless Strivers Grant Contest*. The contest will award one  national winner per month throughout 2022. In addition, city-specific grant opportunities for Black women small business owners will be launching shortly in Mastercard’s In Solidarity cities .

 “We are thrilled to continue Fearless Fund's partnership with Mastercard and host the Fearless Strivers Grant Contest for a second year," said Arian Simone, Co-Founder and General Partner of Fearless Fund. "Women of color-led businesses continue to be one of the fastest-growing economic forces, and Mastercard’s commitment to help us create a more equitable playing field for these women is exactly the kind of support needed to ensure their success.”
 

Priceless Mentorship

While 76% of people believe that mentorship is critical for their career, only 37% have one[2]. Specifically, Black entrepreneurs are less likely to have access to mentorship networks and are also less likely to seek out professional services[3] . The newly formed Strivers Mentor Collective – subject matter experts, celebrity entrepreneurs and Mastercard ambassadors who have lived the entrepreneurial journey firsthand – will host Priceless one-on-one sessions. Fearless Fund Co-Founder and General Partner Arian Simone, World Golf Hall of Fame golfer and entrepreneur Annika Sörenstam, L.A. Dodgers manager and business owner Dave Roberts, professional golfer and restaurant owner Graeme McDowell, Founder of Create & Cultivate Jaclyn Johnson, James Beard Award-winning chef JJ Johnson, Red Rooster Harlem’s acclaimed chef Marcus Samuelsson, Founder & CEO of Blavity Inc. Morgan DeBaun, Olympic medalist and NYC Marathon champion Shalane Flanagan, Mastercard’s own experts and others are signed up to recount their experience and support the next generation of small business owners.

"Small business owners are bonded by the entrepreneurial journey we face.  It's often an uphill battle," said Marcus Samuelsson, Red Rooster Harlem’s acclaimed chef. “Black-owned restaurants and businesses, in particular, have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic.  Now is a time to rebuild and grow, which is why I am proud to work with Mastercard in helping entrepreneurs at this moment in their path forward."
 

Digital Tools and Resources

With more businesses operating and transacting online, the need for cyber security is critical now more than ever. 88% of small business owners felt their business was vulnerable to a cyber-attack, yet many don’t know where to begin or have limited time to devote to cybersecurity[4]. Which is why Mastercard will give away 1,000 licenses to its Trust Center Marketplace. Distributed to Fearless Strivers grant recipients, as well as the small business community at partner events throughout the year, the Mastercard Trust Center Marketplace provides access to a suite of Mastercard’s cyber solutions, including: My Cyber Risk, Identity Theft Protection, Trust Center and Cyber Insurance.

Mastercard will also continue providing small business owners with foundational online tools and resources to digitally transform their business through Mastercard Digital Doors™.
 

Digital Marketplace

A new Mastercard Small Biz Marketplace provides an online destination for a curated selection of Strivers’ goods and wares. Powered by Pinterest, an inspiration to realization platform where 9 in 10 Pinners use the platform to enhance their shopping experience, consumers can discover, share and support Black women owned small businesses across the U.S. To learn more about the marketplace visit here.

These efforts build on the company’s sustained efforts to build a more inclusive digital economy, to help close the racial wealth and opportunity gap, and to commit half-billion-dollar commitment to support Black communities over the next five years.

Source

Over the past decade, the online lending industry has grown into an important source of financing for everyday consumers and small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). In the United States, online lending companies offer both quick cash products, such as peer-to-peer and payday lending, as well as longer-term, secured loans for mortgages and business financing.

Today, the online lending market has grown into a truly global industry, with many of the larger companies operating in multiple countries. Unfortunately, the industry is still maturing — thanks to variable consumer demand and a lack of regulatory coordination, the online lending market in one country can look and function very differently from the online lending market in another. As a result, many borrowers continue to struggle with limited access to international lending options.

That being said, the online lending industry is catching up quickly. To help guide you through this evolving and competitive market, we've put together a brief rundown of some of the biggest players operating around the world. We'll start with Australian online lenders, and work our way around the globe.

What is Online Lending?

Before jumping into the details of the Australian online lending market, it's worth taking a step back and defining what we mean by online lending. Simply put, online lending is an umbrella term for a variety of financial products and services that allow retail consumers and businesses to borrow money online. Because these loans are processed and underwritten online, loan providers can make and process loans faster and at a lower cost than brick-and-mortar lenders.

One of the other key advantages to using an online lending company is the convenience of online accessibility. As long as you’re able to satisfy a company's credit and eligibility requirements, you can have your loan application reviewed and funded within a matter of minutes. This quick turnaround time allows you to avoid the lengthy approval and underwriting processes that are often involved with traditional banking loans.

Online Lending Options Around the World

While far from exhaustive, the following list offers a snapshot of some of the most prominent online lenders across four major international markets.

Australia

• OnDeck: One of the largest alternative lending companies in the world, OnDeck has altered the landscape of small business lending in Australia, offering accelerated loan applications and business loans between $10,000 and $250,000.
• Prospa: Specializing in small business loans, Prospa customers can take advantage of a range of online loan products, from fast-tracked micro loans to ongoing credit lines.
• Harmoney: Offering unsecured personal loans between $2,000 and $70,000, Harmoney is a popular option for Australian customers looking for a quick and easy way to access credit.

United States

• SoFi: Boasting flexible repayment terms and no prepayment, origination, or late fees, SoFi customers can apply for personal loans of up to $100,000. 
• Rapid Finance: Known for its wide variety of loan products and $1 million maximum loan amount, Rapid Finance offers cash advances, business lines of credit, and Small Business Administration bridging loans.
• Earnest: Specializing in student loans, Earnest offers flexible repayment options and competitive credit terms for undergraduate and graduate students looking to fund their education.

Canada

• LendDirect: One of Canada's most popular online lending companies, LendDirect offers qualified borrowers access to unlimited cash advances through a $15,000 line of credit.
• LendforAll: Functioning as a matching service for a range of domestic loan providers, LendforAll connects borrowers to a wide range of different loan products, including debt consolidation, equity loans, personal loans, and business lines of credit.
• GoDay: Specializing in micro and payday loans, GoDay supports personal, short-term loans of up to $1,500, with an average approval time of 5 minutes for eligible borrowers.

United Kingdom

• Capalona: Catering to SMBs and start-ups, Capalona offers both secured and unsecured loans, with loan amounts ranging from £1,000 to £500,000.
• Sunny: Boasting fast approval times and discounts for early repayment, Sunny offers high-interest payday loans between £100 and £2,500.
• Post Office: Backed by the Bank of Ireland, Post Office is a popular service which provides instant approval for eligible borrowers for personal loans up to £25,000.

The Bottom Line

The online lending industry has grown tremendously over the past few years, with the number of online lending companies skyrocketing from only a handful of players to thousands of companies around the world.

The growth of the online lending market has been fueled by the increasingly global nature of consumer spending. As more and more consumers turn to the convenience and low fees offered by online lending companies, it's becoming easier than ever to access capital in new markets where traditional banking is unavailable or limited.

Ultimately, the proliferation of online lending companies is a reflection of the growing demand for convenient, consumer-focused financial services. With the continued growth in online lending in emerging markets, it will only be a matter of time before the online lending market becomes ubiquitous around the world.

SMC Entertainment, Inc. (“SMC” or the “Company”) (OTC: SMCE) and its majority-owned subsidiary, Genesis Financial, Inc. (“Genesis”) - an integrated financial technology company (“Fintech”) with a full suite of digital financial services solutions, is pleased to announce that on February 9^th the company appointed Ms. Sachie McQueen to the Board of Directors.

Ms. McQueen is an acknowledged senior investment banker with over 10 years of global equity sales and research experience in top investment banks such as Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse. She has been rated Top 3 in Institutional Investors Magazine survey for five consecutive years from 2004-2009. In 2010, Ms. McQueen started working at Amazon.com INC headquarters in Seattle serving as a senior financial analyst providing financial analysis and oversight for Amazon's financial operations.

Quoting Ms. McQueen “I am extremely excited to join the SMC/Genesis Financial as an Independent Director. Knowing that the Company has such high growth potentials, unique opportunities and strong pipelines in the $3.9 billion Australian Wealth Management industry, I am looking forward to contributing my experience and expertise in the financial industry to expand the business, explore new sources and connect the two nations with my fellow Board members. I look forward to helping the company execute in the near future”

“I am honored and look forward to having Sachie join our Board. She not only brings substantial financial business experience but a meaningful understanding of international markets. This compliments the group we are assembling to provide a worldwide investment organization providing products and services to our clients and Advisors without being hampered by geographic boarders.” Stated Chuck Provini Chairman of the Board

Investors are invited to attend Innovate UK KTN’s CyberASAP demo day on 17 February to meet ten teams with commercially promising cyber security innovations, either online or in person at Level39, London.

The event, which is free-to-attend to investors and potential collaborators, showcases innovations with real commercial potential founded by cyber security academics who have received backing, training and guidance from Innovate UK KTN via its CyberASAP programme.

Now in its fifth year, CyberASAP is part of the National Cyber Strategy from DCMS intended to develop the world’s best and most secure digital economy.  Notable alumni include London-based Graphics Fuzz which was acquired by Google, Bristol-based KETS Quantum, Cardiff-based AWEN Collective and Manchester-based cyber edtech company, CAPSLOCK Education.

The teams seeking investment partners at this year’s demo day are:

• UltraNetAi: Network search technology for front-line policing
• CyberSignature: Secure and frictionless online checkout authentication using digital behaviour intelligence
• Royal-Imperial Black Box (RIBB): Moving Target Defence for Enhanced Protection of Cyber-Physical Systems
• FeDCam Limited: Ground-breaking new federation of AI-based cameras to transform crime detection & policing
• OSIRT: Online investigations, simplified
• WalletFind: Discover it, Recover it, Control it, WalletFind manages your cryptocurrency wallets and activities
• MLighter: The holistic tool for security evaluations of machine learning systems
• Tymlo Technology Ltd: An innovative platform consisting of three toolkits ensuring trust, quality and explainability to AI-based decisions
• Tensorcrypt: Empowering organisations to securely share and analyse confidential datasets
• TAIMAS: Building Management System (BMS) cyber-attack and tamper detection in a single box ‘system as a service’ solution

Emma Fadlon, CyberASAP co-director at Innovate UK KTN, says, “CyberASAP is designed to accelerate the commercialisation of cutting-edge cyber security research and development.  Over five years, we’ve helped our alumni secure more than £17 million in funding to set up their businesses and further the Government’s aim to help the UK economy remain confident, capable and resilient in the fast-moving digital world.

“The demo day on the 17^th will showcase our latest batch of promising innovations that are pushing the envelope in cyber security. This is an unmissable opportunity for investors to get in on the ground floor with projects that are ready for commercialisation.”

Banked Ltd (“Banked”), provider of a new payment method enabling consumers to pay from their existing mobile banking app, today announced the completion of a $20 million Series A funding round. The investment was led by Bank of America and Edenred Capital Partners. Existing investors Acrew, Force Over Mass, Firestartr, OM2, Love Ventures Kuvi Capital and Paul Forster (founder of Indeed.com) have participated again. New investors include Sidekick Partners, 9Yards and Huey Lin (ex-PayPal). This brings the total investment raised to date to over $30 million and the participation of new U.S. based investors supports the company’s plans for U.S. expansion. 

Founded in 2018, Banked is aiming to become the leading provider of alternative card payment methods.  Unlike other mainstream global payment methods, users do not need to create an account or pass any login information to Banked – they simply choose their existing bank at checkout and are securely connected to their mobile banking app to biometrically authenticate the purchase. Total checkout time for a first-time user is under 30 seconds and no financial details are shared with Banked which boosts security. For merchants, costs are significantly lower, transactions take place in real time and settle instantly. The market for Pay by Bank payments is growing rapidly. Recent research by Allied Market Research predicts the market will reach $43 billion by 2026 in Europe alone.  

Kickstarted by regulatory changes across Europe with Open Banking, Banked has focused on developing a unique solution for enterprise clients including Acquirors, Gateways and Payment Providers known as Pay by Bank. The product sits alongside existing payment methods and operates inside existing delivery infrastructure. Banked has established consumer appeal by building a brand, a best-in-class user experience and instant refunds. It has also added incentives including a reward programme with British Airways. 

 “Banked has built a product that can operate inside tier 1 banks, payment providers, gateways and technology platforms to allow them to offer Pay by Bank to their merchants. We have had a maniacal focus on infrastructure, security, and end consumer experience. Our clients only need to focus on integration. We really want to work inside the existing ecosystem and are building out very strong partnerships to deliver Pay by Bank globally. 2022 will see some really big brands go live with Pay by Bank, driving at the heart of delivering innovation at point of purchase to both the merchant and consumer”  

• BRAD GOODALL BANKED CEO

“We are pleased to be a lead investor for Banked and they have already demonstrated a proven ability to develop unique e-Commerce solutions with Pay by Bank. We look forward to seeing the benefits that this investment round will bring to Banked’s fast growing client base.”

• FAIZ AHMAD, HEAD OF GLOBAL TRANSACTION SERVICES, BANK OF AMERICA