ION, a global provider of trading, clearing, analytics, treasury, and risk management solutions for capital markets, commodities, and treasury management, has won Derivatives Trading System of the Year at the FOW International Awards 2021.

The award-winning product – ION Global Trading Platform (GTP) – provides comprehensive order management and execution across multiple asset classes. ION GTP offers high-speed access to the world’s leading exchanges, including 16 of the world’s top 30 futures commission merchants. Using unique distributed architecture, ION GTP routes orders to exchanges, achieving the best possible execution outcomes regardless of location.

Judged by an experienced panel, the FOW International Awards recognize those that excel in five categories within the global cleared derivatives industry.

The FOW International Award 2021 reinforces ION GTP’s position as the leading global EOMS platform. ION GTP’s client experience has been enhanced following several recent innovative updates. These include Bulk and Stitch functionality, ION Markets’ Fix to Spreader solution, an enhanced Low-touch service, increased alert capabilities and automated Trade At Settlement instruments.

“We are delighted to receive Derivatives Trading System of the Year for the ION Global Trade Platform,” said Francesco Margini, ION’s Head of Product Management, Cleared Derivatives. “ION GTP’s market share has tripled in the past five years, now serving over 3,000 users across the buy-side and sell-side. We are proud of this industry recognition. Thanks to continued investment and innovation, we are serving the derivatives industry better than ever.”

In September this year, ION GTP was also named Derivatives Trading System of the Year for Asia at the FOW Asia Capital Markets Awards 2021. ION previously won this award every year from 2012 to 2018.

Extends priority services and booking facilities on airasia.co.in and the AirAsia India mobile app to facilitate comfortable and easy travel for Persons with Disabilities

Marking the ‘International Day of Persons with Disabilities’, AirAsia India today announced the introduction of a new in-flight safety manual in braille, in collaboration with the Helen Keller Institute for the Deaf and Deafblind.

The airline emphasised their endeavour to provide a comfortable travel experience to persons with disabilities and limited mobility. Wheelchair assistance can now be pre-booked online from the website airasia.co.in or the AirAsia India app while booking a flight, at the contact centre or by approaching the airline’s guest services staff at the airport. Different types of wheelchair facilities are available to pre-book for persons with disabilities to access the ramp up to the ladder point or the aircraft door as well as to reach the cabin. Wheelchairs to assist guests to be seated inside the cabin are narrower, allowing easier maneuvering in the aisle of the aircraft. These facilities are provided to guests along with convenient seats at no extra cost.

To offer dedicated and priority services to persons with disabilities, AirAsia India has also recently demarcated Special Assistance Counters with Priority Services at all 17 airports AirAsia India operates from. The Special Assistance Counters have been made distinctly visible by showcasing the International Symbol of Access also known as the (International) Wheelchair Symbol. By using the Special Assistance Counters, guests can enjoy the benefit of priority check-in, and assistance while boarding and deboarding to facilitate comfortable travel from the beginning of their journey till they reach their destination. 

This launch is a step towards the airline’s venture to become more inclusive and attuned to the evolving and diverse needs of guests.

Speaking about the initiatives rolled out by the airline, Capt. Manish Uppal, Head of Operations, AirAsia India said, “As we work towards a future built on inclusion, equity and diversity, we need to be more accommodating of individual differences and preferences. It has been very fulfilling working with the Helen Keller Institute for the Deaf and Deafblind to launch our in-flight safety manual in braille. With this, we hope to extend ease of access, comfort, and safety to visually impaired guests and aid them in experiencing pleasant journeys onboard without impediments. Our core values of being ‘Guest Obsessed’ and ‘Sustainability Spirit’ guide us in enabling a more inclusive experience to pave the way for the future.”

Mr. Yogesh Desai, CEO, HKIDB, added “The institute’s focus stems from the strong belief to give every person every right that you claim for yourself” and was hopeful that other airline companies would share the same sentiment and assured full cooperation from HKIDB in this initiative”.

The analysts at UnaFinancial, a global fintech holding, surveyed current client experience with digital consumer lending services. With the satisfaction rate of the audience being high, the customers are ready to comprehensively master digital finance.

The current satisfaction of the survey respondents is very high. 87% said they were definitely/likely satisfied with digital lending services. Half of the customers already use instant transfers, with nearly half using digital bank accounts.

However, the current level of online financial services penetration is not sufficient, according to respondents, and they want to extend their digital financial experience. When choosing the aspects that borrowers are most lacking today, "functionality" topped the list (27%).

When asked what digital financial services respondents would like to integrate into their lives and use more effectively, 26% identified instant bank transfers and 26% chose virtual credit cards. Almost three-quarters of respondents indicated that they were prepared to fully utilize digital financial services only.

Analysts at UnaFinancial added: “The most commonly selected services from the survey are already included in the digital banking functionality. Notably, between 8% and 11% of the survey respondents said that they want to try all the suggested options - investments, telemedicine, insurance, etc. The large number of respondents interested in online financial services can be viewed as an indicator of customers' willingness to move to digital proficiency.”

 Crypto has had futures for some times and only recently has its structure developing more sophisticated in the traditional financial ecosystem. In early 2019, there was only $275 million of crypto collateral locked in the DeFi economy while it hits the milestone high of $200 billion today.

With the announcement of Facebook rebranding itself into "Meta", which referred to metaverse, a virtually-reality platform. More traditional giants are fastening their pace into "decentraland". Stablecoin, which designed to maintain a stable value relative to a national currency or other reference assets, is making its waves in global traditional economy.

"Although Bitcoin and Ethereum are currently the dominant cryptocurrencies, their prices fluctuate, which will hinder real-world adoption," said Eric from Capricorn Foundation"while emerging with the traditional finance sector,  neither businesses nor consumers want to face unnecessary risks. What I can foresee right now, for the adoption of crypto into real world business is stablecoin, and its advantages of being stable, reliable will definitely redefine our finance ecosystem."

Malaysia-based finance solution team has just release their concept of adopting stablecoin concept into real world finance with their Capricorn Protocol, which actively cooperates with various DeFi applications, such as lending, that has stable currency usage scenarios. Using collateral as value support, the Capricorn Protocol will fully utilize its advantages to empower traditional business.

Google recently released a Threat Horizons Report which is supposed to help organizations improve security and keep their cloud secure. The report noted that 86% of 50 recently compromised Google Cloud accounts were then used to mine cryptocurrency. A majority downloaded cryptocurrency mining software less than a half minute after being hijacked.

“Cryptocurrency mining is computationally intensive, and that leaves bad actors scrambling for ways to access that computing power. Any time there is value, there will be bad actors. These crypto scams are the modern-day version of ripping off armored stagecoaches delivering gold. If you recall, Wells Fargo and others, back in the day, were known for their armed guards and detectives. James Hume, a former El Dorado County Sheriff, managed Wells Fargo risk for several decades, using cutting edge practices, including what we might call extremely early ballistics comparisons and mugbooks, which compiled photographic evidence of scoundrels of the day. Anything of value will always inspire bad actors. It is up to those protecting the assets to employ the best available resources to thwart the criminals in their tracks,” said Richard Gardner, CEO of Modulus, a US-based developer of ultra-high-performance trading and surveillance technology that powers global equities, derivatives, and digital asset exchanges.

“Malicious actors were observed performing cryptocurrency mining within compromised Cloud instances,” Google wrote in an executive summary. Notably, most of the Cloud Accounts which weren’t used to mine cryptocurrencies were utilized to identify vulnerable systems.

“When you think about cryptocurrency, if it is worthwhile to take advantage of weak security practices in Cloud services in order to mine them, can you imagine the payoff to hack into an exchange or custody service to actually steal the assets? Especially when we’re talking about institutional investors which may be sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of digital assets. I think this Google report should be a reminder to all of us that there is extreme value in cryptocurrencies, and that value will always encourage bad actors,” said Gardner.

“Practically, that means that we must be ever-vigilant against malfeasance. For a long time, we’ve been talking about the need for exchanges to prioritize security, but as custody providers begin to gain steam, I think we should be equally insistent that the custody sector is as secure as possible. I mean, when you have an industry leader named in a lawsuit which alleges that they are responsible for the loss of $70 million in digital assets, it doesn’t inspire confidence. I think it is reasonable for folks to look at the current picture and say, ‘Yeah… custody definitely needs a reboot,’” Gardner said.

Modulus is known throughout the financial technology segment as a leader in the development of ultra-high frequency trading systems and blockchain technologies. Modulus has provided its exchange solution to some of the industry’s most profitable digital asset exchanges, including a well-known multi-billion-dollar cryptocurrency exchange. Over the past twenty years, the company has built technology for the world’s most notable institutions, with a client list which includes NASA, NASDAQ, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Barclays, Siemens, Shell, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Cornell University, and the University of Chicago.

“Whether you’re looking at exchanges themselves or the custody providers which are supposed to keep assets safe, or even tangentially related targets, like Cloud accounts utilized to mine digital assets, I think we’re at a point where the industry must demand better. In order to fully turn the corner so that every investor is comfortable with having a crypto component in their portfolio, the industry must always be three steps ahead of bad actors and their malfeasance. That’s where we’re at. Exchanges and custody providers must be expected to remain on the cutting-edge of technology,” said Gardner.

• Product Reviews
• 02.12.2021 05:01 pm

What does FourQ’s Paymaster do?

Paymaster from FourQ  is a robust billing and invoicing solution that automates and centralizes global invoice management processes, from invoice receipt and qualification through to validation and approval. The solution also promotes international tax compliance through system transparency and ensures companies do not pay more than they owe. It processes invoices at the lowest level of detail, increasing tax accuracy, and guaranteeing accurate, on-time payment.

Paymaster allows companies to:

• Automate manual AR/AP processes to increase productivity, improve accuracy, and reduce costs.

• Eliminate late fees, penalties, and past-due invoices with on-time vendor payments.

• Achieve balance sheet compliance and transparency.

Who needs Paymaster?

Any multinational company with complex supply chains and centralized service models needs Paymaster. Companies who can immediately benefit from Paymaster experience complexities that include:

• Cross-border tax compliance

• Indirect tax (e.g. VAT, GST, etc.) recovery

• Diverse ERP landscapes

• Manual payment processes

• Currency & FX restrictions

• Ever-changing regulatory environment

What's special about it?

Paymaster streamlines and automates the invoicing process to benefit both businesses and vendors.

Vendors benefit from:

• Consolidated payments

• 90% reduction in aged receivables

• Single point of contact for collections

• No misapplied or missing payments

• 100% tax compliance

• Effective dispute management

• Online issue / query resolution

• Competitive pricing/ offering

Businesses benefit from:

• Centralized and automated invoice processing

• Rate, inventory & usage accuracy

• Contractual service credits & rebates applied

• Tax accuracy and recovery in 100+ countries

• Financial statement accuracy and compliance

• Supports statutory & tax audits

• Documents in the cloud

• Decision-making supported by analytics

What features are relevant?

Paymaster, the full-service solution for centralizing and automating global vendor invoice management, includes features that deliver:

• Automated processes: A series of automated features saves time and increases team productivity in the process. The solution has systematic accounts receivable capabilities to streamline and simplify how invoices are processed. Payments to global vendors and other service providers can be scheduled in order to keep an operation’s supply chains running smoothly.

• Compliance: The solution provides a robust compliance toolkit that affords total system transparency. Organizational visibility helps reduce the number of fines and fees that are associated with non-compliance.

• Accurate taxes: Paymaster promotes accurate tax filing, which mitigates the amount of tax leakage that an organization encounters. Inaccurate tax calculations can cost an organization a significant amount of money with unforeseen fees, which is why the solution takes measures to ensure accurate tax calculation and validation. These measures also save time by reducing the hours one would need to spend adjusting both over and underpayments on taxes.

• Aged payables: This solution helps collect fees on unpaid invoices to prevent future late payments. It stops payables from piling up to maintain a steady stream of income for the business.

• International commerce support: The solution supports global business growth by allowing for companies to run and do business on the international stage. The solution comes with tools to provide receipts, validate requests, and perform comprehensive system audits. It helps navigate users through the complicated process of expanding services across the globe.

• Testing: Make the most out of Paymaster through robust feature testing capabilities. Optimize efficiency by creating and testing automated processes. Configure tailored reports to get the precise information needed for the job at hand.

Paymaster has recently added new features and capabilities to help multinational corporations better consolidate accounts payable in a world of large and increasingly complex invoices. They include:

• New invoice audit engine which provides a detailed audit trail of each invoice’s life cycle along with a visualization of the invoice’s creation to completed payment.

• New approval engine which shows the chain of the approval process, including a mass approval feature. This enables users to access specific invoice details in PDF format whenever additional insight is required to facilitate the approval process or to speed decision-making.

• Full spend analytics and invoice line-item details can be quickly accessed.

Who are some competitors?

Most companies rely on their ERP solutions such as SAP and Oracle to help manage their global invoice management process. However, these systems are not built to handle holistic tax and legal consequences and have great difficulty tracking the transaction of services. They are also not end-to-end solutions, and don’t consider all the process steps required to complete a transaction. Customizations of these ERPs are expensive, lengthy, and need regular updates which sometimes require the customizations to be reimplemented.

Other solutions/companies in the space offer one or some of the functions critical to managing intercompany vendor invoices. They can offer expense management, but they're not managing accounting allocation. They offer accounting allocation, but they don't have the centralization of invoicing and payments. 

What is a real case example?

With a market cap of $200 billion, a multinational company operating nine business units acrossv 170+ countries faced significant bill payment challenges. Each of the corporation’s businesses secured their own IT contracts with vendors, which made total enterprise IT spend far higher than if it was centrally negotiated for all business units. Broadening its focus from corporate security and overhead administration, the multinational’s shared services team began determining how it could reduce IT costs and eliminate inefficiencies by automating the bill payment process.

The introduction of the FourQ’s methodology and Paymaster helped the multinational client significantly reduce operating costs and improve the efficiency of its bill payment process. It moved 75-85% of IT and telecom transactions, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, onto the platform. This helped the corporation:

• Identify $22M of invoice errors from a service provider in year one of relationship

• Negotiate vastly improved terms with its vendors

• Avoid tax leakage as well as fees and penalties related to delayed payments

• Increase the accuracy and timeliness of financial reporting

• Implement a new and timely set of vendor analytics with centralized data to support decision making

• Streamline the accounting process to make accurate comparisons quickly and gain sourcing leverage through competitive bidding processes.

Leading-edge fashion footwear retailer selects Infor CloudSuite Fashion to unify and streamline operations

Infor, the industry cloud company, today announced that OFFICE, a leading-edge fashion footwear specialist and part of Truworths International, has chosen Infor CloudSuite Fashion to align multiple business processes within a unified ERP system. Delivered via multi-tenant cloud on Amazon Web Services (AWS), the solution will be deployed by Infor partner Fortude, and will help OFFICE simplify complex processes across merchandising, warehousing, allocations, planning and inventory management for greater business efficiency.

Learn more about Infor CloudSuite Fashion: https://www.infor.com/en-gb/products/cloudsuite-fashion

As part of its wider digital transformation strategy, OFFICE recognised the need to future-proof its merchandise management system and was looking for a solution that would simplify its complex business processes. OFFICE’s omnichannel model was placing considerable strain on existing IT resources and the business wanted to eradicate inefficiencies while securing real-time business insight to boost decision-making capabilities.

“Our IT infrastructure wasn’t keeping pace with the business’ rate of growth,” comments Jon Richens, OFFICE’s managing director. “Infor CloudSuite Fashion will provide the streamlined functionality that the business needs, resulting in real efficiency savings across the organisation. We will be able to deliver timely, accurate and insightful business information to the right people, at the right time, enabling faster, more pro-active decision-making.

“We’re a dynamic business and need systems to match,” Richens continues. “The solutions from Infor provide simplicity of architecture but with the depth and breadth of industry-specific functionality we need, all at an attractive price point and with the added resilience and agility of the cloud. The level of commitment from both the Infor and Fortude teams has been second-to-none, and we’ve established a truly collaborative working partnership, which I’m confident will stand us in good stead once we start implementation in 2022.”

“Our roots in fashion and skill in leveraging enterprise technology solutions were key to our selection for the project. Our knowledge and expertise ensure customers select the most effective solutions in meeting their specific needs — no matter how complex.” comments James Abdool, Fortude SVP for UK & Europe. “By working in partnership with Infor, we made sure we understood the challenges OFFICE was facing, and how Infor’s solutions could meet these challenges head on, by setting the right infrastructure in place to underpin best-practice processes right across the business.”

“The flexibility and agility of cloud technology is the perfect fit for growing businesses that are fully embracing an omnichannel model,” comments Anwen Robinson, Infor GM and SVP for UK & Ireland. “Infor CloudSuite Fashion offers industry-specific functionality to enable brands to respond quickly and effectively to shifting consumer demands. As OFFICE has recognised, it’s the ideal solution for fashion businesses that are keen to refine and streamline their key business processes. What results is comprehensive organisational visibility and insight, coupled with a rapid return on investment and a solid platform for sustainable business growth.”

Second fund offers venture capital to founders in booming sector

Maven 11 Capital, the crypto investment firm, closed its second fund, Venture Fund II, at $ 120 million on 30 November. Building on the success of their first fund, the Maven 11 Capital team will continue to scale their backing of incredible founders looking to build novel infrastructure protocols, DeFi primitives and Web 3.0 applications in the crypto industry.

Maven 11 Capital’s closing at $120m demonstrates an increasing appetite across the wider investor community to include crypto assets in their venture portfolio. “Investors clearly appreciate that besides participating through their investments, they also become active members of these communities and their ecosystems. Clearly this is a space that can no longer be ignored.” says Joost van der Plas, Partner at Maven 11 Capital.

The investors in Maven 11 Capital’s Venture Fund II come from a diverse group of backers. Among them are high net worth individuals with a background in finance and technology, crypto entrepreneurs, family offices, and institutional backers. The investors are not only enthusiastic about the opportunities this industry offers, but also about becoming ecosystem participants and learning more about the shift currently taking place towards a decentralised, trusted and incredibly exciting future.

Maven 11 Capital offers founders more than just funding. Portfolio companies are actively supported by the entire fund team to accelerate their development. An example of this is Maven 11 Capital assuming the role of Pool Delegate in supporting its venture investment in Maple Finance. “The abundance of capital in the industry right now means you have to bring far more to the table. The example of our involvement in Maple Finance in bootstrapping the liquidity on their protocol shows how we can do this. We always take a fit-for-purpose approach, as every founder and project has different needs.” says Balder Bomans, Partner at Maven 11 Capital.

Maven 11 Capital was founded in 2015 and has run a venture investment approach since 2017. With the fresh funding Maven 11 Capital is on a mission to be a partner and back phenomenal projects from inception to launch. Among previous venture investments from Venture Fund I are Celestia, Qredo, Nym Technologies and Spectral Finance. From Venture Fund II investments have already been made into, amongst others, Merit Circle, Maple Finance , Anoma and Zapper. “The traditional venture structure of this new fund allows us to take a multi-year time horizon on our investments. This enables us to back protocols that need to grow from just a strong founder with an innovative idea towards a fully-fledged DAO or proven protocol with strong traction among developers and users.” says Darius Rugys, newly joined Partner at Maven 11 Capital.