Give the gift that can arrive today, avoiding the supply chain squeeze with EML's Perx and Retail festive gifting and rewards solutions.

EML Payments (ASX: EML) (S&P/ASX 200), is the biggest name in retail gifting card solutions worldwide, powering some of the largest retailers in the world and supporting local communities globally with fast and fun Christmas gifting solutions. The products are accessible to employers and corporates with personalised virtual gift card options available via the innovative Perx gifting platform.

Sustainable, same-day virtual cards power the circular economy with an eco-friendly solution ideal for multinational companies with an attractive cross-border gift and reward offering.

This year could be the biggest gifting season yet, with Visa's Spending Momentum Index (SMI) showing consumers already spending more than they did a year ago with a rebound in consumer confidence for the second consecutive month - October and November 2021. This Christmas, the need for fast and sustainable gift-giving solutions is more important than ever due to the pressure on physical supply chains worldwide.

EML is excited to partner with retailers, corporates and employers across the world in helping to spread gratitude and festive cheer with same-day virtual gift cards.

It's not too late for those who have yet to organise employee or corporate gifts with Perx:

· Turnaround in 2 to 5 business days.

· Virtual cards arrive in the inbox of employees/recipients the same day.

· Backed by EML's Change For Good commitment to remove plastic and reduce its collective carbon footprint with no need for physical deliveries.

''It's exciting to see our retail partners emerge from the ashes of COVID during the Christmas frenzy. And for organisations wishing to spread joy and gratitude with their own branded virtual gift cards, we're delighted to offer a one-stop-shop with innovative and sustainable options,'' noted Sarah Bowles, Group Chief Digital Officer at EML.

Organisations wishing to fulfil their gifting and rewards needs in time for Christmas can contact: GlobalSales@emlpayments.com

Switchboard clients’ post-trade data can be automatically streamed to Tradefeedr’s advanced analytics platform 

Reactive Markets, provider of Switchboard, the cutting-edge cross-asset trading and price streaming network, has formed a strategic partnership with Tradefeedr, the leading independent data and analytics provider. 

Under the partnership Switchboard clients can choose for their Crypto and FX post-trade data to automatically stream to Tradefeedr. The new service is live and fully integrated with Switchboard, meaning that clients who opt-in will see their post-trade data streaming from Switchboard to Tradefeedr within minutes.

Switchboard is the first open and transparent liquidity network for Crypto and FX trading, where clients can trade on a fully disclosed basis with their relationship LPs at no cost, connecting via a single high performance API or front end trader desktop.

Tradefeedr has created a common, truly independent trading database, which allows the sell-side, buy-side, regional banks, hedge funds, brokers, and central banks to connect, analyse their trading data, and collaborate. In June 2021, Tradefeedr launched its ground-breaking data analytics platform with more than 15 leading sell-side and 20 major buy-side firms onboarding and another 20 in the pipeline.

“By working with Tradefeedr we are able to offer clients market-leading and complementary services for trading and data analytics in Crypto and FX asset classes,” said Phil Morris, CEO of Reactive Markets. “We continue to attract new clients to Switchboard, as firms look to improve their execution, and we expect our strategic partnership with Tradefeedr to accelerate growth for both firms.”

“There is a great deal of synergy between Reactive Markets and Tradefeedr. Both offer best-of-breed specialist services, both are open platforms designed to improve trading for all market participants, and both have zero fees for buy-side clients,” said Balraj Bassi, Co-Founder of Tradefeedr. “As the market continues to move towards an unbundling of services, this partnership simplifies client access to the leading platforms for Crypto and FX trading and analytics.”

·       Liquid’s Quick Exchange app to be made available through Finastra’s Fusion Essence core banking solution

Finastra and Liquid have today announced plans to make Liquid’s Quick Exchange (QEX) app available through Finastra’s open developer platform and app store, FusionFabric.cloud. Through integration with Finastra’s Fusion Essence core banking solution, QEX will enable banks to meet rising interest in cryptocurrency by offering services including buying, swapping and payments.

QEX provides bank customers with access to over 150 cryptocurrencies, enabling them to buy and trade instantly in a simple, fast, and secure manner. Customers benefit from Liquid’s highly competitive fee structure and the platform provides flexibility for traders, offering low minimum order requirements and the ability to lock trade rates for up to two minutes. The platform can easily be integrated with Finastra’s Fusion Essence core banking solution through open APIs and its low friction KYC process helps banks to keep customers in their ecosystem. This means customers can access the burgeoning crypto market without leaving their familiar, trusted banking environment.

“Interest in cryptocurrency investment is surging and forward-thinking banks are looking to meet this demand to gain a competitive edge. With QEX, banks can get to market faster and offer reliable services based on proven technology,” said Mike Kayamori, CEO at Liquid. “Having QEX available on FusionFabric.cloud means hundreds of banks globally will be able to introduce their customers to crypto services quickly and seamlessly. The Fusion Essence core banking solution also provides many benefits, such as valuable data and analytics capabilities, making Finastra the right partner for us in helping more banks enter the crypto space.”

“More and more people are taking their fiat currency out of banks and investing it into crypto assets. Rather than simply losing this capital, QEX offers banks an opportunity to benefit from these transactions and even capture new account holders,” said Eli Rosner, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Finastra. “QEX also enables banks to leverage the trusted brands and relationships they have built over many years to offer crypto services in a familiar environment, creating the exciting potential to capture the business of investors who are curious but cautious. As an ecosystem orchestrator we aim to bring partners together to fulfil the needs of customers, so we look forward to working with Liquid to drive the expansion of accessible cryptocurrency services in retail banking.”

Ashish Chandra joins CoinSwitch Kuber with over 20 years of experience across internet and tech giants including WhatsApp India, Netflix, and eBay.

CoinSwitch Kuber, India's largest (in terms of user base) and the most-valued crypto unicorn, has appointed Ashish Chandra as the General Counsel. Chandra will play a pivotal role in building a conducive legal framework for the business as crypto-asset adoption continues to grow amidst the mainstreaming excitement.

During the last two decades, Chandra has played an active role in the evolution of the legal and regulatory ecosystem of fintech in India. He is known in the industry for his contribution to the fintech industry from its early days of ATMs and cheque truncation technologies, to building the payment intermediaries and payment wallets, and most recently UPI-based WhatsApp Payments in India.

Most recently, Chandra was the Associate General Counsel of WhatsApp India and was handling its legal, regulatory, and litigation affairs.

Ashish Singhal, Founder, and CEO, CoinSwitch Kuber, said, "At CoinSwitch Kuber, we are building an asset investment platform that regulators and customers can trust. In our endeavour to simplify Crypto investing with customer protection at the center, I am delighted to welcome Ashish Chandra to the team. Ashish's unparalleled experience in launching revolutionary products in the fintech space, coupled with his understanding of regulations and jurisprudence in the overall Indian internet and technology, will further enable us to capture our customers' lifetime value with investment as the use case."

Ashish Chandra, General Counsel, CoinSwitch Kuber, said, "I have been following the Crypto industry developments since 2013. Crypto can play a crucial role in shaping the future of fintech while keeping customer protection at the forefront. I am excited to be part of CoinSwitch Kuber and contribute to our mission of making money equal for all by building a platform that investors and regulators can trust."

CoinSwitch Kuber has raised $260 million in Series C funding from Coinbase Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) in September 2021 to become India's most valued crypto Unicorn at a valuation of $1.9 billion. In October 2021, the company crossed 11 million registered users in a record 15 months and now plans to deliver diverse investment options to its growing customer base. 

The Crypto unicorn has been expanding its senior leadership team over the past few months with leadership level appointments, including Krishna Hegde (Senior Vice President - New Initiatives), Sarmad Nazki (CFO), Jayram Krishnan (VP – Product), Nishant Das (Global Head of Talent Acquisition), and Zeeshan Ramlan (Director and Head of HR).

SmartSearch, the leading anti-money laundering specialist, is providing its industry leading customer verification system to Alto, the leading cloud-based software for agents and part of Zoopla.

The new partnership will result in Alto benefiting from SmartSearch’s state-of-the-art customer verification platform, which accurately identifies customers in just two-seconds. SmartSearch’s unrivalled system also negates the need to use physical copies of documents, as it uses electronic verification to identify each client.

The SmartSearch system uses credit reference data, combined with trusted public sources to generate a composite digital identity that is virtually impossible to fake. All it needs is the name and address of the customer, date of birth is optional, and the system will return a pass or fail.

For Alto customers, this means they can streamline the AML process and meet their legal requirements quickly and easily, without leaving the software platform.  In turn, their agency is protected against fraud and money laundering, and they can also save precious time.

John Dobson, CEO of SmartSearch, explained it is essential that those involved in property transactions are using the latest technology to prevent money laundering and fraud.

He said: “Criminals are using cutting-edge technology to create fraudulent documents and it’s imperative that everyone involved in the property purchase process is using the most effective methods to prevent money laundering.

“As a disruptor which has successfully changed the property industry, the Zoopla family of brands has constantly been at the forefront of developing new technology. Its system is designed to make the process of finding a house as simple and efficient as possible.

“This philosophy completely matches with our ethos at SmartSearch, as our customer verification platform is designed to make the process of on-boarding new clients as effective as possible.”

Andy Marshall, Chief Commercial Officer at Zoopla added: “ The customer experience is imperative to Alto’s functionality. Designed to deliver a seamless service to our agent partners who use Alto, this integration with SmartSearch is a real milestone on our journey.

“We’ve been very impressed by the ease of use of the SmartSearch system; it provides a one-stop-shop for our anti-money laundering checks and the searches can be completed in seconds, providing a big benefit to our customers.”

For more information about anti-money laundering solutions in the UK, please visit: www.smartsearch.com

Tinkoff’s Centre for AI technologies has unveiled ETNA – the first service on the Russian market that helps to analyse and predict a wide range of data-driven processes, ranging from precipitation levels in upcoming winter months to a company’s recruitment needs. 

About ETNA

ETNA is an open-source tool that is currently available in the programming language Python, but will in the future become accessible to a wider audience of users. 

It is an open-source tool that uses data uploaded by users and gathered from public sources to conduct analyses, verify hypotheses and generate forecasts. Among its capacities, ETNA can be used to determine those factors that most affect a company’s profit, forecast demand for specific products, and calculate next year’s budget.

ETNA uses machine learning algorithms and neural networks, while ensuring total data security by storing downloaded information directly on the user’s computer and not sharing it with third parties.

How Tinkoff uses ETNA

Tinkoff uses ETNA to plan its hiring process, determine its need for office supplies, and assess how various business processes affect one another.

To give one example, ETNA helps forecast demand for cash withdrawals and deposits at specific ATMs in order to determine their replenishment schedule and analyse whether or not they need additional cash.

Experts at Tinkoff are also using ETNA to determine whether it is possible to predict the future spending of Tinkoff customers across various categories of goods, in order to help them plan their budget more carefully.

How ETNA was created and how it differs from international equivalents

Similar tools have been developed by a wide range of companies across the globe, including research institutions, startups that sell these technologies to businesses, and IT giants (Facebook, Amazon, etc.). The latter developed tools similar to ETNA for in-house use, before scaling them into standalone B2B products. 

Tinkoff’s Centre for AI Technologies developed ETNA for the same reason – to handle in-house tasks related to the Tinkoff ecosystem. After discovering that none of the tools available internationally were flexible enough to meet all of the company’s business requirements, company experts decided to make their own and adjust it to Tinkoff’s specific needs. 

ETNA outperforms similar international solutions due to both its user-friendly interface and its wide range of data processing methods and forecasting models. 

How ETNA became an open-source project

Tinkoff decided to bring ETNA to the market after seeing how effectively the tool was able to solve the internal problems of a leading fintech company. ETNA is now an open-source tool, which means that anyone can customize it by changing its parameters, adding or removing certain functions, or modifying its software to better suit a particular industry.

To get a closer look at ETNA and start working with it, please visit our website, where you can test the tool’s capabilities through a series of examples that open directly in browser.

Pavel Kalaidin, Director of Artificial Intelligence at Tinkoff: 

“ETNA is the first open-source project from Tinkoff’s Centre for AI Technologies. It is an incredibly flexible tool for data processing that includes all those things we couldn’t find in existing international solutions – namely, a convenient user interface and a much wider range of analytical methods and forecasting models.

At present, this tool can be used by developers and analysts familiar with Python. But we know the importance of open-source software for the scientific and business community, and are ready to further our contribution. We plan to make ETNA accessible to a wider audience in the future”.

ETNA is a proprietary product of Tinkoff’s Centre for AI Technologies. The Centre boasts over 20 teams and more than 200 machine learning experts. Products developed by the Centre include Tinkoff’s voice assistant Oleg, its VoiceKIT technology for speech synthesis and recognition, and predictive models for the company’s lifestyle services, content-based projects, and investment products.

Tinkoff ecosystem

Tinkoff is an online financial ecosystem centred around the needs of its customers.

The Tinkoff ecosystem offers a full range of financial services for individuals and businesses. With a focus on lifestyle banking, the Tinkoff ecosystem enables customers to assess and plan personal spending, invest their savings, earn loyalty programme bonuses, book trips, buy movie tickets, make restaurant reservations and much more.

All Tinkoff services are accessible via our mobile applications and on the Tinkoff.ru website.

The Tinkoff ecosystem is branchless: its proprietary network of smart couriers can deliver the Company’s products anywhere in Russia in the shortest time span possible, and customer service is handled online and by call centres (both office and cloud-based). Tinkoff is delivering its AI Banking strategy and makes active use of AI and machine learning technologies to streamline communications. Their AI voice assistant, Oleg, handles 40% of customer inquiries via chat without any employee involvement and resolves clients’ questions in the call centre in an average of 40 seconds.

All Tinkoff products and most of its IT systems have been developed in-house. Some 80% of the bank’s HQ staff are IT specialists.

Tinkoff Bank is among the Bank of Russia’s list of 13 systemically important financial institutions. The bank was named “The Most Innovative Digital Bank in Central and Eastern Europe” (Global Finance, 2021), “World’s Best Consumer Digital Bank” (Global Finance, 2018, 2020), “Best Digital Bank in Russia” (The Banker, 2020), “Best Digital Bank in Central and Eastern Europe” (Euromoney Awards for Excellence 2021). In 2020, Forbes included Tinkoff among the top the three Best Russian Employers.

The bank’s parent company, TCS Group Holding PLC, has been listed on the London Stock Exchange and on the Moscow Exchange. IFRS net income of TCS Group Holding PLC in 2Q 2021 amounted to RUB 16.1 bn. ROE was 46.1%.

• Product Reviews
• 10.12.2021 05:49 pm
• oneZero

• What does the product do?

oneZero’s Institutional Hub is a robust, market-neutral Software-as-a-Service platform that gives brokers and banks full control of how their risk and orders are managed. Its award-winning modular trading technology is a one-stop solution for price formation, distribution, risk management and quantitative trading analytics. 

• Who needs the product?

The Institutional Hub is particularly relevant for the institutional market, offering trading with high throughput, a strong focus on risk management and a greater understanding of the complex workflows faced by institutional audiences. Institutional brokers and banks from across the globe are already using our platform to manage and route tens of millions of trades daily. 

• What is special about the product?

We believe a fully customized approach is paramount. oneZero allows our clients to source and aggregate liquidity, deliver end user price streams which are customizable by client segment, and manage resultant market risks in a way that incorporates both market conditions and likely market impact. The result is more control for brokers and banks, who can then understand and react to the needs of their customers. These advancements are also relevant to hedge funds and proprietary trading firms whose customers are internal portfolio managers, execution desks or systematic trading strategies who oneZero will introduce to the benefits of the Hub.

• What features are relevant?

One key feature that empowers institutional clients is the Algorithmic Pricing Module, a powerful addition to the Institutional Hub that was introduced in March 2021. It enables clients to insert their own native code for greater control of the elements used and the construction of the price algorithms which run in real time on the same hardware as the oneZero Hub to maximise performance. As an additional benefit, brokers need not expose proprietary processes, allowing them to maintain their edge.

• Who is the competition?

Many other FX solution providers are only now adding automation into their systems. We come at this from an opposite angle. Our solution has always been automated, which has allowed us to uphold the huge quantities of trades that go through the system. Now we’re taking that scale and overlaying higher-order capabilities in terms of FX derivative support, manual trading workflows and data-driven analytics. The result has been a product that is proving to be very attractive, especially with sell side market participants who are struggling to scale their legacy solution.

• What are some real case examples?

Although we cannot disclose current clients, we are delighted to have won industry awards in the institutional space. For example, selected by our industry peers for our offering for institutional brokers and banks, we recently won the TradingTech Insight Awards USA 2021 award for Best Trading Solution for Foreign Exchange (FX) Markets.

• 55% increase in job vacancies posted compared to pre-pandemic
• The North the fastest growing region in UK – representing 17% of all job vacancies posted this year
• Within accounting sector, tax roles increased by +30%
• Banking & Financial Services role up 30% on 2019 – despite Executive Management roles declining by -20%
• 23% increase in job vacancies within legal sector -
• 62% increase in job vacancies within technology – with further growth anticipated for new year

After a year where vacancies have hit record levels, the number of job adverts have taken a downward turn – where in November vacancy volumes were the lowest seen since May.

In November, national vacancies dropped -9%, ending an 10-month hiring spree where vacancies steadily increased by +6% each month from early 2021 (an average of 32,377 new professional vacancies per month).

The findings - from professional services recruiter Robert Walters ahead of the launch of their 2022 UK Salary Guide – found the biggest contraction in November to be in The North (-14%) – following the announcement that the HS2 Northern Powerhouse Rail will be downgraded. Contractions were also felt in The South (-10%), London (-9%), and The Midlands (-8%).

Chris Poole – Managing Director of Robert Walters comments:

“It is not surprising to hear that hiring slowed somewhat in November – where following the reopening of many sectors post lockdown, businesses made immediate staffing assessments based on people leaving or not returning, which in-turn led to a short-term spike in hiring that was always going to be temporary.

“The emergence of a new variant has yet again left members of parliament sitting on either side of the lockdown argument – creating a lingering air of uncertainty across businesses, particularly within the retail, leisure and hospitality space.

“Nonetheless, the UK is better placed to handle COVID over winter than other European countries – in part due to an early lift of lockdown measures, backed by the vaccine and booster programme roll-out. This means that while in other countries we may well see a complete recruitment freeze take place in certain areas, this is unlikely to happen in the UK.”

A Record Year Across England

Nationally, professional vacancies are +110% up on 2020 and just as importantly +55% up when compared with 2019 pre-pandemic numbers. With that, June 2021 was the record month across the period with almost 3x the number of vacancies compared to June 2020 (+263%), and over 60% more jobs when compared to June 2019.

Across all professional areas, London has consistently maintained approximately 41-42% of the national vacancies.

Outside of London, the South is the largest region (Sout East, South West, and East of England) but national share of professional vacancies has slipped from 28% in 2019 to 26% so far this year.

Instead, regional growth has been across the Midlands and The North. Midlands share of professional vacancies is up from 9.9% to 10.4% and in The North from 15.2% to 16.5% - making it the fastest growing part of the country.

Hiring from ‘The Big 4’ muted

Vacancies within the accounting sector have reverted to 2019 levels, however the increase this year has been primarily from outside the ‘Big 4’ accounting firms.

To illustrate this; in 2019 approximately 77% of all accountancy vacancies come from the Big 4, whereas in 2021 (year to date) this has dropped to 69%.

Not surprisingly, the key hotspot role within the sector has been tax, with vacancies +30% up on 2019 – as the Government continue to discuss changing taxes to help plug rising costs around COVID and social care.

Financial Services makes moves outside of London

Financial Services roles continue to be at record levels – with vacancies up by +76% on average since 2020, and by +30% when compared with 2019 levels.

During the past year there has been a move of recruitment away from London to regions such as Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham. In 2019 46% of vacancies in the sector were in the capital, and in 2021 this has fallen to 39%.

However, the bulge bracket firms have broadly kept their recruitment into London in line with regional recruitment. Bulge Bracket firms have had +29% increase in vacancies in London in 2021 year to date (compared with 2019).

Results show a notable decline in the number of executive management roles advertised this year (-20%), instead replaced by a rise in short-term consultants (+395%)

Across financial services firms, risk & compliance roles continue to surge (+40%). In contrast within Bulge Bracket, the growth has been in IT & Tech roles – increasing by +63% when compared with 2020, and 71% when compared with 2019 vacancies.

Roles for Liability Management (-44%), Corporate Treasury (-39%), Private Equity (-30%), and Commercial Banking (-4%) are yet to meet pre-pandemic levels.

Unprecedented year for legal sector

The legal sector has also had a record year – where hiring has already surpassed pre-pandemic 2019 levels by +23%, with one month left on the year.

Within London; lawyers specialising in the following areas have been in particular demand - Banking & Finance lawyers (+84%), Company/Commercial (+72%), Family (+66%), Corporate/M&A (+48%), Real Estate (+31%), Energy (+27%), Regulatory (+19%), Restructuring/Insolvency (+12%) and Tax (+11%).

Chris Poole adds: “Going into next year, our forecast is that activity in the legal sector will continue to mirror what is happening across financial services and real estate. The busier those two industries are, the more the law firms will recruit.”

London continued to account for a quarter of all legal vacancies – consistent for three years. In part this is due to Magic Circle recruitment in London outpacing other firms – where Magic Circle vacancies up from 7% in 2019 to 11% now of all legal vacancies.

Technology

IT continues to be the area which bucks the COVID trend, where despite the slowdown in other areas during lockdown, recruitment continued in this area unabated with roles growing on average by +100% since 2020 and +62% when compared with 2019 levels.

October was a record month for vacancies across technology, media and telecoms companies - and September, October and November 2021 were all in the top three months in terms of total vacancies over the last three years.

Chris Poole comments: “The ongoing growth in the technology sector can be attributed in part to the increasing amount of investment from VC and Angel firms – with 2021 already shaping up to be a record year for investment into start-ups (now the fastest growing part of the sector).

“We can see this in the way hiring has continued to shift to IT, Product and Project Management roles (+83%) - with specialists being recruited at pace to help lead on bringing solutions to market.

“The technology sector, in particular, we expect to outperform 2021 next year as there are no signs that funding is going to dry up. Fintech has become a major area which the UK leads on, similarly new areas are emerging, such as AI and green technology - which the UK is making smart moves to lead on.”

IT support (+105%), consultants (+92%), cybersecurity (+77%), development (+74%), infrastructure (+54%), and analyst (+43%) roles have all been in high demand when compared to 2019 levels.