Sentinels’ risk-based model boosts accurate detection rates and provides flexibility to monitor transactions across all B4B Payments’ solutions

Sentinels, Europe’s leading transaction monitoring platform, today announced a partnership with leading global provider of card issuing solutions for businesses, B4B Payments. The Sentinels platform will facilitate B4B Payments in meeting anti-money laundering (AML) compliance requirements by improving the accuracy of fraudulent transaction detection across its portfolio of products.

A leader in innovative fintech solutions, B4B Payments requires a flexible AML solution that meets the monitoring requirements of the company’s diverse product and customer range – encompassing both corporate accounts and individual cardholders. The solution must also be scalable to support its increasing number of transactions as it expands its portfolio of payment solutions for businesses.                                                 

Sentinels was selected due to its ability to monitor transactions globally, together with the platform’s highly adaptable risk-based approach which results in quicker and more accurate identification of fraudulent transactions.

Using data-driven insights, Sentinels optimises AML and transaction monitoring processes and generates real-time insights to streamline workflows and compliance. Rules-based alert shaping reduces the number of false positives and provides a clearer, more comprehensive view into the transaction environment.

Paul Swinton, CEO at B4B Payments, explains: “The AML solution from Sentinels offers an intuitive environment for our compliance officers to monitor transactions, as well as the ability to easily edit monitoring rules. As compliance requirements become more stringent across Europe, partnering with Sentinels ensures that we are in the strongest position to meet these obligations and provide our stakeholders with the highest assurance that we are committed to supporting anti-money laundering efforts across the board.”

The Sentinels platform combines information from different data silos with external sources to feed its insight engine. Historical data and client feedback shape recommendations for next steps so that the platform’s insights continuously improve and grow in sophistication.

Joost van Houten, CEO of Sentinels, comments: “We're excited to onboard B4B Payments to provide highly accurate data-driven insights that improve AML detection rates and increase efficiency across compliance workloads. Our partnership stems across multiple jurisdictions, enabling B4B Payments to operate in line with the varying AML requirements of its current regulators – the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority and the Bank of Lithuania. We look forward to providing the nuanced support required as it expands its services further across the globe.” 

The most innovative fintech bank in Kazakhstan, Kaspi, will use Smart Engines' AI to credit card scanning in its mobile applications

Smart Engines rolls out its AI-driven software in Kaspi to support automatic credit card scanning for the bank's mobile app (iOS and Android). As an innovation-driven company, Kaspi has a proven track record of introducing cutting-edge products and services that its customers quickly adopt. The partnership of Smart Engines and super app Kaspi.kz follows the consumer-focused approach by crafting seamless customer experience leveraging state-of-the-art technology.

With Smart Engines' SDK installation, Kaspi managed to significantly reduce friction, upgrade work speed, and reduce input time data from bank cards. Now the input time has been reduced by 9 seconds. At the same time, the recognition process on smartphones of all kinds takes about a second. The mobile SDK can scan a credit card on a modern smartphone at an average speed of 35 ms per frame.

Online payments and Card2Card transfers have become a seamless process in Kaspi mobile bank app through the introduction of Smart Engines technologies that allows quick scanning of all the types of bank cards, including embossed and flat, as well as vertical cards and cards with data on the back. The Smart Code Engine system allows Kaspi customers to make purchases safely, payments, and money transfers directly in the mobile application without manually entering bank card details.

The Smart Code Engine software is based on the flagship GreenOCR® technology, which provides an instantaneous speed of recognition of a bank card. The accuracy of scanning the card number reaches 99.68%. The optical recognition systems work in all-natural conditions – in low and excessive lighting, on the go, and taxi or public transport. The scanning is performed in a fraction of a second. It is secure regarding personal and confidential data processing, as all the calculations are done on the mobile device without transferring the document image to a third-party service.

"When it comes to customers, we share the same values as our partners from Kaspi - the customer comes first. It's a huge responsibility to upgrade the quality of user experience, and we are proud Kaspi chose Smart Engines technology to reinforce it", says Vladimir Arlazarov, CEO of Smart Engines, Ph.D.

The roller coaster ride resumes on the financial markets

Susannah Streeter, senior investment and markets analyst, Hargreaves Lansdown

“The roller coaster ride has resumed on the financial markets with yesterday’s rally looking more like a break run between a double dip of losses.  Investors are now strapping themselves in for a volatile ride anxious for any further news which could lift sentiment or send it plunging again, such as the comments from Moderna’s chief executive that current vaccines will struggle with Omicron because of the high level of mutations on the spike protein. It’s not known just how less effective they may be, and the waiting game continues as scientists scramble to assess the new variant, but amid this state of uncertainty, nervousness is high, with the FTSE 100 falling 1% in early trade. 

Amid the pessimism about the effectiveness of vaccines, AstraZeneca is among the biggest fallers on the FTSE 100 so far. Its vaccine has been produced at cost and now investors are clearly wondering if they will ever see a profit from this part of the business.

Energy stocks and banks are among the biggest fallers as investors worry about the economic effect of Omicron, as it risks dampening down demand and becoming a significant set-back for global economy. Brent crude fell 3% to $71 a barrel, pulling down energy stocks like BP and Shell by more than 1% in early trade.

Lloyds galloped into the red, followed by Barclays and HSBC amid expectations that Omicron makes the already fragile recovery in the UK even weaker. Hopes are fading that the Bank of England will raise interest rates later this month, which means chances of clocking up bigger profits in their lending businesses are receding.

For now travel stocks are managing to keep out of another tailspin, having already been left reeling by the steep black Friday losses. British Airways owner IAG clawed back into positive territory after briefly opening lower. Airlines have been boosted by an upbeat note from EasyJet which is still predicting, despite worries about the new variant, that capacity will soar back to pre-pandemic levels by next summer. This is, after all, a white knuckle ride companies have already experienced. Although they know all too well how consumer sentiment can drop at every sharp turn, it can also rebound if good news comes knocking.

Ocado is one of the few FTSE 100 risers, amid expectation that online orders will rebound once again if nervousness returns about trips to bricks and mortar supermarkets. That worry may be partly behind Sainsbury’s 2% fall today. There are also concerns though that fresh restrictions may make supply chain issues even worse, and the retailer has already raised the alert about shortages of some items at its Argos arm. J D Sports 80% fall today however, isn’t over pandemic concerns but due to the fact the stock split comes into effect today, which reduces the prices as the number of outstanding shares has increased.”

Regtech pioneers CUBE today announced a partnership with MetricStream, the global market leader in integrated risk management and governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) solutions. The partnership enables customers to utilise CUBE’s automated regulatory intelligence alongside the MetricStream Platform, allowing businesses to create rich analyses and derive deep insights for driving business decisions.

CUBE ensures that throughout the regulatory change management lifecycle, only relevant data will be presented to the users for further action, including impact analysis, compliance mitigation, or downstream policy/procedure updates.

“We are delighted to partner with MetricStream, said Ben Richmond, Founder and CEO, CUBE “This partnership represents a significant opportunity to deliver extensive coverage of international regulation to MetricStream’s global customer base and leveraging CUBE’s 10 years of experience and expertise in transforming regulatory data into regulatory intelligence”

“Partnering with CUBE allows us to further automate regulatory intelligence practices, eliminating costly data gathering and verification exercises for our customer,” said John Johasky, Chief Sales Officer, MetricStream. “Customers need valuable risk management insights, and this collaboration represents a significant step forward in terms speed and access.”

MetricStream and CUBE have established a real-time API connection to ensure that all data is available directly to MetricStream, and all associated client processes. Clients can utilise CUBE’s platform and content with MetricStream GRC products as an end-to-end regulatory intelligence solution, automating data gathering, triage and applicability. This allows end-users to focus on value added analysis and action, with the opportunity to shift their compliance and regulatory change regime to 100% proactive. Integrating with MetricStream Regulatory and Corporate Compliance solutions organizations can track regulatory changes and enact the required changes in their compliance program to ensure they are meeting the new compliance obligations.

CUBE’s unprecedented regulatory coverage for Financial Institutions across 180 countries supports clients to operate their regulatory change management program within a single, unified source. CUBE is driven by AI, Machine Learning, and RPA and monitors over 3000 issuing bodies including regulators, government, associations, agencies. It enhances the data by classifying against a Financial Services ontology - automatically translating to English from 60 languages - establishing direct linkages across alerts and in force requirements.

SteelEye, the compliance technology and data analytics firm, has launched an automated Three-Way Reconciliation solution to tackle MiFIR transaction reporting issues.

The technology enables firms to fulfil their reconciliation requirements, validate their MiFIR reporting data and easily address errors – ensuring that reporting has been done completely and accurately.

Complete and accurate reporting data is critical for regulators to maintain fair and orderly markets. However, the industry has struggled with data integrity issues since MiFID II came into effect.

The reconciliation requirement (under Article 13 (3) and (4) of RTS 22) exists to enhance reporting quality by making firms validate that the data they have reported matches what was received by the National Competent Authority (NCA) (or Approved Reporting Mechanism/Venue where the NCA doesn’t provide samples). However, many firms have faced difficulties in doing this – often ending up with error prone and manual validation processes. Others have disregarded the requirement entirely.

To enhance confidence in the financial markets, the industry needs to improve reporting completeness and accuracy. This is widely recognised and regulators in the UK and EU are intensifying their enforcement action. SteelEye’s Three-Way Reconciliation solution helps firms address data integrity issues by automating the reconciliation process between the regulated firm, NCA and/or ARM.

Commenting on the announcement, Matt Smith, Chief Executive Officer at SteelEye said: “MiFID II has presented firms with an array of challenges, and many have struggled to meet their reconciliation requirements. This has a detrimental downstream impact on the regulators’ ability to monitor the market for systemic risks. Given our mission to help establish and maintain trust in the financial markets by making it easy for firms to accurately comply with regulations – this was something we were keen to address.”

Also commenting on the launch, Matt Storey, Chief Product Officer at SteelEye added: “Our three-way reconciliation solution has been designed to eliminate manual error by automating the process of validating regulatory transaction reports. We believe this will go a long way in addressing reporting errors while also enabling firms to free up time and resource. In line with our other products, the Three-Way Reconciliation solution provides firms with a ‘single source of truth’ of data.”

Taking the next step in safe and user-friendly online identification

Worldline (Euronext: WLN) has become a member of the FIDO Alliance, a worldwide organisation that aims to standardise and bring interoperability in the authentication world. Through this membership, Worldline is taking a further step in its online identification strategy, as it is convinced that strong authentication, interoperability, and the use of biometrics are crucial in this regard.

The FIDO Alliance is a global open industry association that aims to create authentication standards to help reduce the world’s over-reliance on passwords. To this end, it promotes the development of, use of, and compliance with standards for authentication and device attestation.

The FIDO Alliance is working to change the nature of authentication with open standards that are more secure than passwords, simpler for consumers to use, and easier for service providers to deploy and manage. Worldline fully endorses these initiatives and is proud to collaborate with the FIDO Alliance and its other members in these areas to provide safe and user-friendly identification solutions to its clients.

“The FIDO Alliance welcomes our new sponsor member Worldline and thanks them for their commitment to strong authentication in the interest of the online community of providers and users. Worldline understands the need for a new model in user authentication that both confirms and protects user identity, while simplifying the user experience,” says Christina Hulka, executive director and COO of the FIDO Alliance.

Important benefits
“To us, it’s really important to be a member of the worldly renowned FIDO Alliance”, says Wolf Kunisch, Head of Strategy & Public Affairs at Worldline. “It gives us the opportunity to be part of this important working group, which defines the specifications of the relevant standards for safe online identification. In addition, it helps us to stay up to date regarding the latest trends in this field, and to ensure that the results of the working group become part of our own product roadmap. As a result, we will be able to further optimise our services towards our customers.”

The FIDO Alliance membership offers several other key benefits to Worldline and its customers:

• The alliance aims to develop interoperable identification solutions that minimise the reliance on passwords for all markets and use cases. This would make it both easier and more secure for consumers to identify themselves or authenticate online decisions.
• The objective of the FIDO2 standard is to offer the biometrics authentication without the need of having a mobile application. For Worldline, this for instance means they can offer it through their WL Trusted Authentication on browser.
• With FIDO, merchants can use their own authentication for e-commerce payments. They can use delegated authentication and keep the full user journey and do not have to use the authentication of the issuers.

 BMLL Technologies, the leading, independent provider of harmonised, historical Level 3 data and analytics has been named the “Best Workplace for Technologists” in The Financial Technologist Top 1% Workplace Awards 2021. Singled out from over 100 nominees, BMLL was recognised for fostering an exceptional workplace for technologists.

The judges highlighted access to market leading tools used to solve complex problems in a dynamic high-profile sector.  They also noted the open culture at BMLL which encourages teamwork and gives everyone a stake in the firm's future.  

Paul Humphrey, CEO, BMLL Technologies, said: “We are pleased to be recognised as the best place to work for technologists.  At BMLL we have worked tirelessly to create an environment where technologists can truly make a difference, and this award is a testament to our talented team that has built this culture.”

Angie Sadler, Head of People, BMLL Technologies added: “Our employees are the present and future of the success of BMLL, and we will continue to develop our workplace where they can thrive and be proud of their work. We look forward to welcoming new members to our team as we scale and grow.”

Earlier in November Tinkoff disclosed its full carbon footprint for the whole  value chain 

Tinkoff has become the first Russian financial institution to join the Science Based  Targets initiative (SBTi), a global body enabling businesses to set ambitious science based emissions reduction targets in line with the latest climate science. It is focused  on accelerating companies and financial institutions across the world to halve  emissions before 2030 and achieve net-zero emissions before 2050. 

The SBTi champions science-based target setting as a means of limiting companies’  and financial institutions’ environmental impact and boosting their competitive  advantage in the transformation to the low-carbon economy. Science-based targets  are greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets that are in line with the level of  decarbonization required to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement – to limit global  warming to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursue efforts to limit  warming to 1.5°C. 

By joining the SBTi, Tinkoff has committed to set science-based emissions reduction  targets — across the entire value chain — that are consistent with keeping global  warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Tinkoff has also committed to a long term target to reach net-zero emissions by no later than 2050. 

Setting a science-based target is a five-step process, that, alongside signing the  initiative, also involves developing science-based emission reduction targets in line  with the SBTi criteria, validating them with the SBTi, announcing them to the market,  and disclosing their progress according to SBTi protocols. As a signatory, Tinkoff is  committing to complete the first four steps by August 2024, and to achieve net-zero  emissions by no later than 2050. 

The initiative is a partnership between the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), the  United Nations Global Compact, World Resources Institute (WRI), the World  Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and one of the We Mean Business Coalition  commitments. By joining SBTi, Tinkoff is joining Business Ambition for 1.5°C and  Race to Zero, the UN-backed campaign. 

Oliver Hughes, co-CEO of Tinkoff Group, commented: “Tinkoff has always  been a driver of change in the financial services sector, fueling innovation and  implementing the latest technologies to build out its financial and lifestyle  ecosystem. We are now applying the same drive and energy to help tackle the most 

pressing global challenge of our time: climate change. As a financial organization,  we are uniquely positioned to influence other actors through our operations and we  are committed to make sure we are making progress across all our business  activities and the whole value chain.  

Earlier in November we disclosed our full carbon footprint across the whole value  chain for the three scopes, making us, to our knowledge, one of the first fintechs in  the world to do so. 

We are proud to become the first Russian financial institution to join the Science  Based Targets initiative and look forward to doing more together with our partners,  subcontractors and other stakeholders to develop our business sustainably and to  reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” 

Alberto Carrillo Pineda, Managing Director of the Science Based Targets  initiative, said: “There is no time to lose. The transformation to a net-zero economy  is unavoidable. Hundreds of businesses are leading the way by setting ambitious  1.5°C science-based targets. To stand a fighting chance of maintaining a habitable  planet, we urgently need more companies to act on climate science and to  decarbonize our economy.”  

Greenhouse gas inventory disclosure 

Tinkoff analysed and recently published its greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory for all  three scopes for the entire value chain for 2019 and 2020. To access the data, the  methodology and other related information, please follow this link. 

The total carbon footprint of the Group is significantly lower than that which traditional financial institutions and IT companies generally show. 

Emissions of the seven GHGs listed in the Kyoto Protocol were assessed. The analysis of the Company’s business processes shows that its operations result in  CO₂, CH₄, N₂O (Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3), and HFCs (hydrofluorocarbons)  (Scope 1) emissions. Direct and indirect energy-related emissions accounted for  0.7% and 1.1% of total emissions in 2020 and 2019, respectively, while other indirect  emissions account for about 99%. 

To ensure that Tinkoff’s results are comparable with those of other companies, the  world’s most widely-used standard, the GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting and  Reporting Standard (GHG Protocol), was used. This methodology was used to  determine the calculation boundaries, the main approach to the calculation, and the  supporting methodological documents used for the calculation.  

Tinkoff has also applied additional generally accepted calculation methodologies for  certain emission categories, such as the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National  Greenhouse Gas Inventories, International Energy Agency (IEA); IPCC, IEA, UK  Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, and Quantis Scope 3  Evaluator.

Horizon Software, a global leading vendor in Market Making and Algo Trading Technology, announced today the expansion of its Electronic Trading platform to include market making and agency trading functions in one single platform, powered by its algo framework.

Initially designed for Market Making and Algo Trading services, Horizon is now bringing Agency trading to the next level, by leveraging its expertise in latency, scalability and sophisticated algo and execution strategies to banks and brokers.

With advanced functionalities in high touch, DMA, DSA and global order routing for equity and global derivatives, Horizon enables banks and institutional and retail brokers to meet the trading challenges of today and tomorrow.

Clients using Horizon for their Market Making are now expanding towards client order flow and execution through one single platform, optimizing their running cost and implementing cross businesses logic such as Internalization or Central Risk Book. Moreover, with Managed Services and Hosting, Horizon acts as a one-stop shop and takes ownership of upgrades, monitoring, configuration, and full users support.

Mr. Sylvain Thieullent, CEO at Horizon Software, said: “In today’s highly competitive and regulated environment, financial institutions must handle most of their order volume automatically, while still having the ability to work larger orders with care where required. At the same time, they also need to be continuously refining their market making approach to reflect technical advancements.

“Our highly automated hybrid agency and market making trading platform scales across asset classes and geographies to provide high touch and DMA functionality required to meet demands for high quality service from clients.”