HPS, the leading global provider of payment solutions, today announced that UNObank, South East Asia’s first full-spectrum digital bank, has selected HPS’ PowerCARD solution for its card issuing activities in Asia.

The news follows the announcement that Singapore headquartered fintech UNOAsia, one of the primary incorporators of UNObank, has received approval by the Bangko Sentral Ng Pilipinas (BSP) to operate a digital bank in the Philippines.

HPS will roll out its PowerCARD solution for UNObank as a service fully integrated in a robust digital technology ecosystem and hosted on Amazon Web Services. 

In today’s crowded payments market, established card issuers and new digital banks require flexible, APIs driven and robust solutions that enable them to design unique user’s experiences in a digital ecosystem and scale in a fast, seamless and secure manner.

Abdeslam Alaoui Smaili CEO of HPS commented: “Our mission at HPS has always been to provide our clients with cutting edge payments technology, and to enable them to bring new products to the market with ease and efficiency. For this reason, we are beyond thrilled that PowerCARD has been chosen by UNObank to bridge the financial inclusion gap through one card that gives access to a full spectrum of banking services, and we look forward to being a part of its latest venture into the Filipino market. UNObank’s trust in HPS comforts us on the consistency of our development strategy in South East Asia.”

Manish Bhai CEO of UNOAsia said: “We have selected HPS’ PowerCARD solution because of their deep understanding of the challenges new market entrants are facing and their advanced, cloud-based technology. We are confident that HPS will help us achieve our goal of

offering the Filipino public one app for all their financial needs, from savings to payments and investing.”

Virtual IBAN and corporate account provider, Monneo, is excited to announce the launch of its new card acquiring service. The development allows the company to offer a full payment ecosystem to its customers and represents a true end-to-end solution.

Monneo can now offer online merchants the same flexibility on card processing that it already provides through its leading digital banking service. With the company’s enhanced solution, customers get access to a PCI DSS Level 1 compliant gateway connected to several acquirers across Europe. In turn, online merchants have the freedom to choose where they process their transactions.

The upgraded service has been made possible through new partnership agreements with several major card acquiring banks in Europe. Whereas many alternative systems focus solely on providing either an ‘Open Banking’ or card acquisition service, Monneo’s solution now brings both tasks under one roof.

Built with risk mitigation in mind, the innovative platform is connected to multiple banks and card processing services. As such, merchants always have access to multiple channels and a dedicated back up for their card processing and banking operations should an issue occur.

The new launch forms part of Monneo’s overarching growth plans and will enable the company to continue scaling up operations in the near future. To support this rapid progression, Monneo is also delighted to announce the opening of a new office space in Sofia. The Bulgarian capital is one of Europe’s foremost FinTech hubs and provides a perfect fit for the company’s exciting expansion into card acquisitions.

Speaking on the development, Lili Metodieva, Managing Director at Monneo commented: “Today’s announcement has been a long-term goal for Monneo and allows us to continue on our growth journey. By providing a full end-to-end solution, we are now one step closer to facilitating a new payment landscape where innovative ways of thinking and business models can succeed.

“Alongside the new launch, we’re thrilled to announce the opening of a new office space in Sofia, which will give us greater capacity to support card processing services through multiple acquirers. In recent years, the city has become a veritable FinTech hub, so it stood out as an obvious choice when considering our expansion plans.”

As a business, Monneo understands the realities and constraints imposed on the eCommerce sector and is committed to helping the industry overcome these challenges. Through its platform, the company is able to respond to the needs of eCommerce companies, giving them access to the bank accounts, virtual IBANs, and the acquiring channels they need, from leading banks they can trust.

In addition, the company, which is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, recently announced a new partnership with leading cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, that will enable the payment of invoices in a range of digital currencies. Alongside today’s announcement, this development truly underlines the company’s forward-thinking approach to online digital banking.

The partnership will enhance Modern Exchange Co’s cross-border payments experience from Oman to all major currencies 

Global payments and cards issuance leader Nium and Oman’s leading remittance and money exchange company, Modern Exchange Co. today announced a strategic partnership that will see Modern Exchange Co. leverage Nium’s global payments infrastructure in key markets and regions such as APAC, Canada, Europe, Latin America, the UK and the US.

As the country moves rapidly towards a more digitised, seamless, and transparent system of processing both national and international payments, companies like Modern Exchange Co are embracing the adoption of digital payments and looking for trustworthy partners like Nium to help with their global growth strategy.

Through this partnership with Nium, Modern Exchange Co. will be able to connect to correspondent banks worldwide, wherein customers can make payments to beneficiaries’ accounts in real-time. Customers can access the Modern Exchange Co. mobile app and payment link for remittances to any country around the globe from anywhere, at very competitive charges and FX rates.

“We are honoured to partner with Modern Exchange Co., Oman’s leading remittance provider and a company that is at the forefront of technology and innovation. With 36 branches spreading over the entire Sultanate of Oman, the company is set to grow its footprint globally and develop its digital payments offering internationally and we are excited to be their partner on this journey. Our global platform will enable Modern Exchange Co customers to reach beneficiaries in countries across the globe and make payments in local currencies in a simple, timely and cost-saving manner,” said Frederick Crosby, Chief Revenue Officer at Nium.

Nium’s pay-out capability will enable Modern Exchange Co. to provide:

·     Seamless P2P and B2B cross-border payments in all major currencies 

·     Access to multiple real-time payment corridors

·     Instant, speedy settlements to customers

·     Competitive FX rates

“Our mission at Modern Exchange Co is to surpass customer expectations and create a seamless and positive experience for our clients. We provide the best services for our customers, as we continuously look for innovative solutions and partners, to help us achieve that. Accessing Nium’s global payments infrastructure, will enable us to provide the fast and efficient pay-out services to our customers, looking to remit funds in the biggest markets globally. The partnership with NIUM will redefine standards in the remittance business, especially for payments to Canada, USA, Australia, the UK and Europe; making it more cost-efficient in comparison to other financial institutions,” saidPhilip Koshy, General Manager at Modern Exchange Co.

Technology and Operational Outsourcing Enables Efficiency and Scale to Support Ambitions

SEI (NASDAQ:SEIC) announced today that Waverton Investment Management will adopt the SEI Wealth PlatformSM (SWP), a fully-integrated, single-infrastructure technology and operational outsourcing solution that enables organisational transformation and digitisation of the wealth management experience. 

Waverton chose SEI following a comprehensive, multi-stage selection process involving several providers. The strategic partnership with SEI will assist Waverton in achieving its objective of establishing an efficient, robust and scalable platform to help position the firm for its significant future growth plans. SWP is part of SEI’s Global Wealth Management services business, comprised of market-leading innovative solutions designed to support the future growth of investment and wealth managers globally.

There are no planned redundancies as a result of the partnership, and a number of Waverton employees will join SEI’s SWP operations team as part of the agreement. SEI and Waverton will work closely to ensure a smooth and successful transition to the SEI team. 

Commenting on the decision to partner with SEI, Nick Tucker, CEO of Waverton, said:

“I am delighted to have signed an agreement to adopt the SEI Wealth Platform as part of our strategy for growth, efficiency and maintaining high service levels for our clients. After a thorough selection process, SEI stood out due to their engagement, willingness to adapt, and significant investment in technology. Cultural alignment was a key part of our selection criteria, and it is clear to us that SEI understands our business and our culture and is focused on truly partnering with us to achieve our growth aspirations. We are committed to working closely with SEI to ensure the positive transition of our colleagues to the SEI team, which is a critical success factor for this project. We look forward to benefiting as a business from the access to SEI’s wider community of clients and deep pool of resources in the years to come.”

Brett Williams, Managing Director, SEI Wealth Platform, UK Private Banking, commented: 

“By partnering with SEI and taking advantage of our powerful SEI Wealth Platform, Waverton is well positioned to achieve their growth aspirations amid an increasingly competitive wealth management environment. The strategic partnership will enable Waverton to leverage our experienced team, proven process and leading technology. We look forward to welcoming some of Waverton’s valued talent to the SEI team and working with Waverton to deliver for their business and clients. ”

New report shows that ad fraud, a $42 billion a year problem, and skewed analytics both cost businesses 4% of their revenue

Netacea, the bot detection and mitigation specialist, today announced results from a new report that shows skewed analytics caused by bots cost businesses just as much as click fraud, despite click fraud’s much bigger profile.

Bots are used by hackers to buy goods before other customers, hack accounts using stolen passwords, check the validity of stolen card details and steal content or prices by bulk scraping. But even if they do not do damage directly, bots can skew data that leads marketing teams to make bad decisions. Analytics skewed by bots can hide what real customers are doing, making it impossible to target genuine audiences.

The report, The Bot Management Review: How Are Bots Skewing Marketing Analytics?, surveyed 440 businesses across the travel, entertainment, eCommerce, financial services, and telecoms sectors in the US and the UK. It found that click fraud, or ad fraud, affected 73% of businesses and cost an average of 4% loss in revenue. However, skewed analytics, while detected by slightly fewer businesses (68%), did a similar amount of damage, costing businesses an average of 4.07% loss in revenue. For the larger businesses surveyed for the report, with an annual turnover of over $7bn (25% of our respondents), 4.07% is $284,900,000 per year.

Ad fraud, where paid adverts are loaded and clicked on by bots rather than legitimate potential customers, is a phenomenon that receives far more attention than skewed analytics. Analyst house Juniper Research has calculated that ad fraud costs businesses $42 billion every year across the world, a number set to rise to $100 billion by 2023[1]. Netacea’s research suggests that skewed analytics is a problem of a similar scale.

The report also found:

o  Most businesses base at least a quarter of their marketing and other business decisions on analytics that are vulnerable to being skewed by bots.

o  Over half of businesses have run special promotions (54%), ordered new stock (55%), or “burned through” a marketing budget (55%) because of incorrect data caused by bots.

o  Most businesses think that DDoS protection (71%) and Web Application Firewalls (73%) will prevent bots when, in fact, they are ineffective against these specific attacks.

“Security teams are responsible for protecting websites from attack, but when it comes to bot activity it’s the marketing team that may be impacted first—skewed analytics affect their decision making and their effectiveness,” said Andy Still, CTO, Netacea. “Key to battling the issue of bot attacks is dialogue between these teams to ensure that any security solution put in place to stop bot attacks is also going to stop the bot impact on analytics.”

Earlier this year, Netacea’s previous report, The Bot Management Review: The challenge of high awareness & limited understanding[2] found that automated bots operated by malicious actors directly cost businesses an average of 3.6% of their annual revenue, potentially causing losses of more than a quarter of a billion dollars ($250 million) every year for some businesses.

 UKG (Ultimate Kronos Group), a leading global provider of human capital management (HCM), payroll, HR service delivery, and workforce management solutions, today announced a strategic partnership with Rain India, an earned wage access (EWA) and financial wellness provider to the Indian market. This collaboration will enable organisations leveraging UKG Dimensions to empower their employees with real-time visibility into hours worked and on-demand earned wage access — minimising the stress employees experience while waiting for salary to cover unbudgeted or emergency expenses and improving overall employee experience and retention. 

“In today’s turbulent world where uncertainty is the norm, offering instant access to earned wages can provide more stability to employees and improve employee engagement and retention,” said Sumeet Doshi, country manager, India at UKG. “With UKG and Rain, organisations can care for their all employees, including full-time and contract staff, and gain real-time visibility to workforce data, which is crucial to business success. The right technologies must be in place to facilitate this, and that’s what we’re providing to the Indian market today.”

UKG Dimensions provides in-the-moment insight into workforce data for business-critical decisions, putting the right people in the right place at the right time. The integration of the Rain mobile app will leverage this data — more specifically, the days and hours worked by an employee regardless of their status (full time or contract) — and provide on-demand earned wage access to the employee before their scheduled pay date to meet their financial obligations.

According to an industry report, 35% of individuals fall short on an expense between pay periods. Empowering employees with access to their wages early, via their mobile device and at no additional cost, can help ease the burden on individuals and families to cover emergencies or daily expenses. During a time when organisations are struggling to fill open positions as a result of the global labour participation shortage and “The Great Resignation,” offering access to earned wages before the formal payday can be a competitive differentiator in the war for talent and retention as well as assist with boosting employee engagement and productivity.

“At Rain, our mission is to regrow individual freedom by giving people control over their income and finances. Through this partnership with UKG, we’re able to make good on that mission,” said Akbar Khan, CEO at Rain India. “Joined by a shared passion to care for people and advance the world of work, we’re pleased to join the UKG partner ecosystem and to empower the financial well-being of the Indian workforce.”

The payments fintech is using ClearBank’s infrastructure to enhance its digital offering to its high net worth clients.

ClearBank, the cloud-based clearing bank, today announced its partnership with e-money scale-up  PRIVAT3 MONEY (“P3”). The partnership will improve the experience of clients using P3 accounts and e-wallets for deposits and payments, as well as multi-currency accounts and foreign exchange in the near future. ClearBank’s infrastructure will improve transaction speed and efficiency for P3’s clientele, which is primarily comprised of professionals, entrepreneurs and high net worth individuals.

P3 has chosen to work with ClearBank to deliver these improvements because of the latter’s ability to offer faster customer onboarding, instant account openings and rapid transactions, all through its API-driven solution. The enhanced services will be a prominent feature of P3’s core offering, its e-wallet, which is accessible via Apple and Android smartphones.

“There is now a huge demand for premium financial products and services that can offer a seamless user experience and unparalleled speed to consumers,” said Reda Bedjaoui, CEO of P3.

“We were seeking a partner with a comprehensive tech platform who could streamline our services and allow us to build and innovate again easily, when we are ready for the next stage of growth.

By working with ClearBank, we will be able to exceed our client’s high expectations, helping to provide super-fast onboarding times and digital accounts in the palm of our user’s hands. This will drive a new level of financial freedom among our clients and help underpin the growth of our business.”

“ClearBank is an API-native company, with this technology at the heart of our offering,” said Charles McManus, CEO of ClearBank. “We pride ourselves on working with digital-first firms such as P3 who are looking to differentiate themselves within the competitive fintech and financial services markets. It is great to have the initial offering up and running and we’re looking forward to further developing our partnership with P3 in the coming months and years.”

 FintechOS, a global technology provider for banks, insurers, credit unions and other financial services companies, has appointed Iain Chidgey as Chief Revenue Officer. Chidgey has been hired alongside three other new executives including a Senior Vice President of Product Management, a Senior Vice President of Customer Success and a Senior Vice President of Strategy and Business Development. The latest additions to the FintechOS team come as the company continues to grow following its Series B investment earlier in the year and expansion into the US.  

Iain Chidgey joins from Sumo Logic where he worked as VP and General Manager for EMEA. Iain has deep field operational experience with enterprise software companies focused on security, compliance, database and infrastructure solutions. He has previously played key roles at technology leaders such as Oracle, Portal Software, ArcSight, and Delphix. Chidgey’s appointment is seen as an instrumental one for the development of FintechOS moving forward. 

The other FintechOS appointments include: 

·         Márcio Spínola, SVP of Product Management joins FintechOS from Vision-Box where he was Chief Product Officer. He also spent 10 years in product roles for OutSystems and has extensive experience with turning companies into leaders in the low-code space, a technology FintechOS already offers and a reason for its success in Europe. Marcio’s mission is to make the product vision come to life.  

·         Matt Brook, SVP Customer Success joins from Appian, another low-code platform, where he previously held the position of VP of Customer Success and Professional Services. Matt has over 20 years’ experience in the world of IT delivery in consulting and outsourcing environments across major sectors. Matt will be growing FintechOS’ customer success and consulting teams in a hyper-growth global context and will work with the company’s client executives and strategic partners.  

·         Mike Fullalove, SVP of Strategy and Business Development was previously Global Head of Asset Management at Barclays and has over 17 years of experience in entrepreneurial, advisory and investor roles. Mike will work closely with the rest of the executive team to ensure smooth execution of FintechOS’ development and growth plans. 

These announcements come off the back of the company’s recent platform update, FintechOS 22. FintechOS 22 combines composable digital and core business blocks with a no-code/low-code approach, underpinned by cloud-native, data-at-the-core architecture, that allows institutions to modernize legacy systems and launch new, differentiated digital products faster, more effectively, and more efficiently.  

“The financial services space is going through an exciting phase where collaboration is the new competition, partnerships and technological advancements are driving innovation and FintechOS is at the heart of this,” said Iain Chidgey CRO at FintechOS. “FintechOS is a high-tech company delivering a technology-as-a-service platform for banks, insurance companies and enterprise financial services organizations who need to accelerate innovation, drive growth and retain customers through digital transformation processes. I look forward to working with two great founders in Teo Blidarus and Sergiu Negut and the very talented FintechOS Team.” 

Partnership supports Elavon’s UK SME customers with personalised, convenient funding  

Global payments company, Elavon, has partnered with Liberis, a global leader in providing embedded finance solutions, to offer funding for Small-to-Medium-sized enterprises (SME) in the UK.  

Through the partnership, Elavon’s SME customers will be able to apply for Liberis’ business cash advance for personalised and convenient financing based on their projected sales. Funding decisions can be made in as little as 24 hours for £2500 to £300,000. The financing can be paid back flexibly at a pre-agreed pace and percentage of their monthly card transactions. This will allow fast-moving and nimble SMEs to grow and scale. 

Many small businesses have begun to recover in the wake of the pandemic.  According to Elavon’s July 2021 research with Opayo, 72% of UK small businesses have seen a rise in overall revenue compared to just 46% in April 2021.  

Despite this progress, many SMEs have faced hurdles to secure the financing they need to grow. According to recent figures by the Federation of Small Businesses, as many as 76% of small businesses are also facing rising operating costs such as utility bills and fuel costs which can be major barriers to growth[1].  

Rafal Golebiewski, Head of SME, Elavon Europe says: “While most UK SMEs have seen their cash flow improve, many require financing to hire new staff, for refurbishment, purchasing new stock or investment to expand their business. Our business financing solution with Liberis is a fantastic added-value offering for customers that need it.” 

Liberis CEO, Rob Straathof adds: ““Our partnership with Elavon further strengthens our position in the global embedded business finance market. Our platform enables Elavon to integrate Finance as a Service into their ecosystem and offer Small Businesses access to fair and flexible revenue finance through a few clicks. Elavon has a large number of UK and Global SMEs who are looking for funding outside traditional bank loans, and we are well-positioned to support their growth and ambitions.”

Both companies have recently gone from strength to strength. Earlier this year, Elavon launched its award-winning Transaction Risk Analysis to help eCommerce businesses reduce payment friction and online cart abandonment while preventing fraud.  

Liberis recently expanded to Denmark. The fintech company is now active in seven countries across two continents and has provided over £500m in funding to more than 18,000 businesses. 

Opayo by Elavon, formerly Sage Pay, has successfully partnered with Liberis on its cash advance solution since 2018.  

Brewin Dolphin, one of the UK’s largest wealth managers, has gone live with Avaloq’s cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) solution. The partnership is part of Brewin Dolphin’s ambitious technology upgrade programme and is going to transform the firm’s core processing solution by enhancing its digital capabilities.

The new platform will replace a legacy core banking system and is a key pillar in Brewin Dolphin’s focus on greater operational efficiencies as well as technological agility to support its long-term growth strategy. Avaloq’s SaaS solution will deliver higher straight-through processing (STP) rates and richer data analytics, allowing for quicker product launches, and providing a superior client engagement proposition.

The successful go live showcases Avaloq’s proven expertise with wealth management firms and its ability to transform complex technological infrastructures across the back, middle and front office. With its cloud-based SaaS model, Avaloq delivers innovative digital banking solutions at scale, leveraging its long-standing experience of partnering with more than 150 leading financial institutions globally.

Brewin Dolphin has taken the opportunity to add additional functionality and to parallel run its Avaloq and legacy system to de-risk a very complex systems integration. The company will continue to work with Avaloq to fully integrate the new platform to enable the decommissioning of its legacy system next summer.

Sarah Houlston, chief operating officer at Brewin Dolphin, said: “Over the last three years, Brewin Dolphin has embarked on a transformation journey to modernise its core processing solution. We selected the Avaloq Core Platform as an enabler to support our growth strategy, to enrich our client and service propositions and drive efficiencies through increased STP rates. By moving to a SaaS model, we expect greater efficiencies, less overhead and greater agility as we look to focus on our core competencies of delivering world-class wealth management services. Brewin Dolphin and Avaloq have forged a strong partnership and we are impressed with Avaloq’s flexibility and the collaborative nature of the project delivery team.”

John Wilson, UK Managing Director at Avaloq, said: “We are thrilled to have reached this key milestone in our long-term partnership with Brewin Dolphin. Our innovative SaaS solution is designed to integrate fully into Brewin Dolphin’s existing front office platforms via APIs. The result will be a seamless user experience, delivering increased efficiencies as well as faster processing and enhanced digital capabilities. Avaloq is proud to be part of Brewin Dolphin’s digital transformation journey and we are looking forward to supporting the firm’s continued growth story.”