Expert Networks Enter the Top 20 Highest Paid Investment Research Providers List for the First Time

Substantive Research,  the research discovery and research spend analytics provider for the buy-side, has completed a study examining how market share is changing in the investment research industry and which firms make up the list of highest paid providers in the industry.

Substantive Research analysed research budgets of buy-side firms representing a total of $6 Trillion in Assets Under Management (“AUM”).

Highlights include:

1. Expert networks make it into the top 20 for the first time, with GLG and Third Bridge in positions 8 and 14 respectively. It’s clear the pandemic created a surge in interest, how structural these market changes are will become evident in our next update in early 2022. 
2. Leading expert network payments per long only client rose dramatically in 2018, and continued to rise more modestly in 2020 as the pandemic created the opportunity and the focus on gaining market share. 
3. Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan and UBS retain their positions at the top of the league table - this is significant given the amount of churn going on below them, and Substantive’s analyst mapping data shows that these providers have hired/retained talent in key sectors. 
4. Research focused brokers Sanford Bernstein and Exane gain market share, whilst Jefferies maintains the material gains it has made in previous years - reflecting how investments in hiring and research quality quickly translates to greater rewards post-MiFID II.
5. Empirical Research Partners is a new entrant to the list and is the sole representative for Independent Research Providers (“IRPs”). IRPs suffered from MiFID II, but some firms have managed to increase market share in a market where price was decreasing overall. 

Mike Carrodus, CEO of Substantive Research, said: Our research shows that COVID, ESG and a growing focus on data has significantly churned market share outside the top 3 providers in the research market, and provided new opportunities for the expert network industry. On the broker side, clients are now much more astute and responsive in rewarding the providers that are investing in their core analyst teams. Long-only asset managers are also doing more and more with Expert Networks, which were once the preserve of hedge funds, consultants and private equity. This is against an industry backdrop where there is increased M&A activity within Expert Networks, with new entrants bringing AI-powered solutions to market and raising money in the process.  

“The regulatory drivers that changed the research market since 2018 have now been replaced by new client demand-based drivers, and 2022 will show us a dramatically different competitive landscape as a result.” 

Allevo, with the support of a grant from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA and Norwegian Financial Mechanisms 2014-2021, in the frame of the Program “SMEs Growth Romania”, successfully finalized the Whizzer project, as per the 2018/115906 contract, on November 29^th 2021.

The project was implemented in Bucharest, with a total value of EUR 738.375, out of which EUR 420.000 non-refundable grant. As part of the Whizzer project, an open source software solution was developed, which offers financial operations as a service to SMEs, to help them automate and centralize common financial flows, at a very low cost: balance sheet, salary payments, invoicing, money flow automation, accounts payable and receivable, cash reporting. The target group includes banks, financial service providers and SMEs across Europe, with focus on SMEs.

The project includes an artificial intelligence component that ensures a detailed analysis of processed data, which facilitates the reconciliation of sent or received invoices with payments or collections. This component is designed and developed by Bakken & Bæck AS, a company with advanced AI capability. This partnership is possible through the bilateral relationships between Norway and Romania, promoted by the financing program. The partnership helped Allevo to benefit from the complementary skillset of the partner’s team, to build a relevant solution for the financial industry.

The outcomes are:

1. An open source software solution license (GPL v3) developed by the promoter that offers financial operations as a service to SMEs, to help them automate and centralize common financial flows, at a very low cost: balance sheet, salary payments, invoicing, money flow automation, accounts payable and receivable, cash reporting;
2. Permanent full-time jobs created: 4 positions covering: 1 analyst, 1 developer, 1 tester, 1 deployment engineer;
3. An estimated growth in turnover of 28% by 2023 compared to 2018;
4. An estimated growth in profit of 66% by 2023 compared to 2018.

The project started from the need to increase the rate of financial inclusion, by addressing the ecosystem (banks, financial service providers and SMEs across Europe), with focus on SMEs, in terms of technical harmonization and communication on top of a well-built open banking layer.

The Whizzer project created a user friendly financial reporting tool for those SMEs who run a large enough volume of operations to require an application to aggregate data, but which cannot afford the investment in software sold by big global providers.

The project was promoted even while it was ongoing, ensuring an early dissemination of results to institutions able to offer support in creating awareness and driving adoption of the application by as many SMEs as possible. These institutions, banks, corporates or universities, were targeted to also create momentum for the future collective development of the application, after the project is finalized.

The source code is published in Github and is available via the https://fintp.org/ portal. The documentation is available on fintp.org. These dissemination elements are also accessible starting form Allevo website: https://allevo.ro/products/whizzer-project/.

Furthermore, the project has been disseminated in a large number of market relevant publications and events, as per the communication and wide dissemination plan. Part of the 2021 series of events was facilitated by associations and IT clusters like: Magurele Science Park, Asociatia Trezorierilor din Romania, Transilvania IT Cluster.

Allevo is now looking for a partner to host the application and offer it as a service to SMEs.

Supported by a grant from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA and Norwegian Financial Mechanisms 2014-2021, in the frame of the Programme “SMEs Growth Romania”, operated by Innovation Norway.

British Patient Capital announces a follow-on investment to Thought Machine, as the company announces the close of its Series C funding round at $200m. The new funding round raises Thought Machine’s valuation to more than $1bn. The round was led by Nyca Partners.

Thought Machine’s core banking platform, Vault, is now in production with major banks and fintech companies around the world. This announcement follows a period of accelerated growth, which has seen Thought Machine add more than 200 employees since the beginning of 2020.

British Patient Capital first invested in Thought Machine in its $125m Series B round in July 2020. This was as part of British Patient Capital’s long-term co-investment strategy that identifies and supports high-potential later stage UK companies in its underlying portfolio. In the case of Thought Machine, British Patient Capital had prior exposure via its commitment to Draper Esprit, who led the Series B round, and the IQ Capital Growth Fund. IQ Capital led the Seed round in the company in 2016.

Judith Hartley, CEO British Patient Capital said: “We’ve closely followed Thought Machine’s development and are delighted to see the company achieve unicorn status with this new funding round. This follow-on investment is a demonstration of our on-going commitment to Thought Machine and the company’s continued future growth.”

● Paysend strengthens its board with experienced payments professional

● Mr. Perez spent 25 years at Mastercard, with 15 years as President Mastercard  Europe 

● The new appointment follows the successful Series B funding round in which  Paysend raised $125 million at a valuation of $700+ million 

Paysend, the card-to-card pioneer and international payments platform, today announces the appointment to its board of former President Mastercard  Europe, Javier Perez, as a non-executive director.  

The news follows the company’s recent announcement of its growth to 5 million customers globally in under five years - with one and a half million customers joining in the last six months  alone - and that it has raised an additional $125 million Series B investment round in May. Last  week the company also announced that it has been ranked the third fastest growing technology  company in the UK by Deloitte, thanks to 14,498 per cent growth. 

Mr. Perez will have an active role in Paysend’s future business strategy, working closely with the  company’s senior management team to drive further global expansion. He will also help extend  Paysend’s ecosystem of strategic partnerships as well as lead Paysend’s global open banking  ambitions. 

Mr. Perez is currently the Founder and Managing Partner at Global PayTech Ventures, a venture  capital firm that invests in early stage paytech companies that are looking to raise seed, Series  A, or Series B round funding. A globally recognised payments industry professional, he spent 25  years at Mastercard, including 15 years as president of Mastercard Europe, and two years as  president of Mastercard Latin America and the Caribbean. In his time at Mastercard Mr. Perez  helped merge Mastercard with Europay, integrating two large players in the payments space and  taking the new entity to IPO. 

Ronnie Millar, CEO at Paysend, said: “Javier has an extensive and successful track record in new  business development, mergers and acquisitions and global strategy, and under his leadership,  Mastercard Europe was recognized as the leader in payments technology innovation. We’re  thrilled to welcome Javier to the Paysend board and look forward to the active role he’ll play in  helping to drive our business strategy as well as further cementing relationships with key players  in the payment ecosystem.”

Javier Perez, Founder and Managing Partner at Global PayTech Ventures and Non-Executive  Director at Paysend, said: “I am delighted to be joining such a pioneering and fast-growing  company in Paysend. The company is positively disrupting the payments market in making  financial services more accessible and inclusive for individual people and small businesses. I am  hugely excited by Paysend’s potential to become the number one payments platform of choice  for customers around the world.”  

Mr. Perez joins fellow experienced non-executive board members Mark Evans, a startup  technology investor; Michael Fazio, Chairman of MARCorp Financial; and, Humbert de  Liedekerke, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at One Peak Partners. Separately, Paysend’s  advisory board members include: Gary Kearns, President and CEO of Growth Analytics LLC;  Tom Zschach, Chief Innovation Officer at SWIFT; Brad Koenig, Co-CEO of Apex Technology  Acquisition Corp; Alireza Masrour, General Partner at Plug & Play Ventures; and, Jairo Riveros,  former Head of Market Models and Business Strategies for MasterCard Worldwide. 

Blockpass is proud to announce its latest partnership with FireStarter, the launchpad for Initial Metaverse Offerings. To ensure projects that it incubates and launches are secure and compliant, FireStarter will be using Blockpass' proprietary KYC solution, including the enhanced 'Managed Service' option to ensure its clients enjoy the benefits of extra reviews and a dedicated team focused on their processes.

Blockpass is a digital identity verification provider which provides a one-click compliance gateway to financial services and other regulated industries. Through Blockpass, users can create, store, and manage a data-secure digital identity that can be used for an entire ecosystem of services, token purchases and access to regulated industries. For businesses and merchants, Blockpass is a comprehensive KYC & AML SaaS that requires no integration and no setup cost. You can set up a service in minutes, test the service for free and start verifying and on-boarding users. Currently with more than 160,000 verified user identity profiles, Blockpass facilitates instant onboarding, and to date almost 5000 services have taken advantage of this opportunity to get access to users with reusable digital identity profiles.
"We're delighted to be working with FireStarter as they support new projects and start-ups," said Adam Vaziri, Blockpass CEO. "The fact that FireStarter has made the decision to incorporate our KYC so intrinsically to their platform shows their commitment to compliance and user security."

"Partnering with Blockpass has given our community and platform the necessary framework for success," says Brian Ball, Head of Operations at FireStarter. "In working with the top metaverse projects, a certain standard is needed for a safe and compliant KYC solution. Blockpass has gone above and beyond in setting that standard and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

Blockpass has grown significantly in size and use since its inception, both in the number and range of users and organizations it has partnered with and the scope of its work. Blockpass continues to develop its digital identity protocol with updates and additions to improve the compliance experience. The existential need for DeFi projects to be regulatory compliant and the recent integrations have led to a surge in interest for Blockpass' On-chain KYC(TM) solution which promises to change the way blockchains enable compliance. Through its recent work with Animoca Brands, Blockpass is developing the ability to provide KYC where the delivery of the verification result is provably sent and shown on a blockchain without sharing the underlying data. This represents a significant step towards the future Blockpass hopes to bring about where identity verification can be proved without revealing any personal information at all.

Today at the Building Bridges Summit in Geneva the Green Digital Finance Alliance and the Swiss Green Fintech network launches the world’s first green fintech taxonomy. The report entitled “A Green Fintech Taxonomy and Data Landscaping” invites feedback on the taxonomy with the aim of arriving at a final taxonomy in the first quarter of 2022. The role of the green fintech taxonomy will be to further mature and stimulate the green fintech market via enabling a harmonised approach for policy makers, investors, and market actor to assess green fintechs.

The time is right for the introduction of a green fintech taxonomy, given how much the past year’s fintech market evolution has been marked by a new wave of fintech solutions with a green intent. During the first years of the fintech market, various taxonomies emerged using categories such as digital lending, digital payment solutions, and digital wealth management. These categories largely mirrored established financial products segment, just recast in digital forms. Thereafter came the second wave of fintech market development defined by using new data sets to innovate entirely new digital financial products and services such as programmable utility tokens or security token offerings.

Now, the landscape has further evolved to encompass new types of commercial applications which collectively can be thought of as a third wave of fintech market development. This third wave is defined by fintech solutions designed to better align the behaviours of the financial system with green objectives—by either unlocking new and more green finance or by better aligning existing financial and capital flows with green objectives. Given this latest wave in fintech’s market evolution, an updated taxonomy is in order. This report constitutes an initial classification of green fintechs.

This publication first establishes the green fintech taxonomy containing the following seven green fintech categories:

• Green digital payment and account solutions
• Green digital investment solutions
• Digital ESG-data and -analytics solutions
• Green digital crowdfunding and syndication platforms
• Green digital risk analysis and insure-tech
• Green digital deposit and lending solutions
• Green digital asset solutions

The report also maps the main databases leveraged by each category of green fintech. The database mapping offers an overview of which datasets if made accessible could drive a greater supply of green fintech innovation. Some of the opens source datasets that have enabled most green fintech innovation include open-source earth observation data from Copernicus and NOAA databases, carbon inventories and carbon accounting databases, voluntary carbon credit registries and open banking data infrastructure. In addition, are proprietary company databases managed by ESG data vendors, which are highly leveraged in combination with web-scraping by green fintechs. IoT-generated dynamic data from asset level is one of the least leveraged datasets. However, structuring IoT and data in infrastructures such as national or regional data hubs holds the potential to accelerate green fintech innovations across the taxonomy categories.

Beginning with the Easy and Premier variants, the BoB-RuPay Credit Cards are set to offer a host of benefits to the customers

BOB Financial Solutions Limited (BFSL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bank of Baroda (BoB), has partnered with National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to launch BoB Credit Cards (Easy and Premier variants) on the RuPay platform. Launched on the JCB network, both cards support global acceptance. These cards come with various attractive benefits for the customers such as 5X Reward Points in selected merchant categories, fuel surcharge waiver, pre and post purchase EMI offers, up to 3 complimentary add-on credit cards for family members and several exciting merchant offers enabled both by BFSL and NPCI. BFSL and NPCI have utilized FirstVision(TM) from Fiserv, a core card processing platform for cards and transaction management, with a set of APIs and micro-services for seamless digital enablement.

The Easy Cardholders will earn 1 Reward Point for every INR 100 spent. Using this card for grocery purchases, shopping at departmental stores, and movie tickets, the cardholder will earn 5X Reward Points (5 Reward Points) on every INR 100 spent.

Users of Premier Credit Card will earn 2 Reward Points for every INR 100 spent with an advantage of earning 5X Reward Points (10 Reward Points) on every INR 100 on travel, international, and dining spend. The Premier Credit Card also offers 1 complimentary domestic airport lounge visit per calendar quarter and a personal accidental death insurance cover of up to Rs. 50 lakhs.

The Easy and Premier Credit Cards come with low joining and annual fees and attractive spend-based waivers. Moreover, the cards will be offered Life Time Free (LTF) for a limited period.

Talking about the launch, Mr. Shailendra Singh, MD & CEO, BOB Financial Solutions Limited said, "We are happy to partner with NPCI for launching BoB Credit Cards on the RuPay platform. Both Bank of Baroda and BFSL have a strong ongoing partnership with NPCI for their other products, and the addition of BoB Credit Cards will further strengthen this partnership. We are sure that the Easy and Premier variants will be popular with the respective customer segments, further strengthened by the offers and benefits that NPCI keeps bringing on RuPay cards."

Commenting on the launch, Ms. Praveena Rai, COO, NPCI, said, "We are happy to collaborate with BFSL to launch the Easy and Premier contactless credit cards on the RuPay platform. These cards are curated to address the credit and lifestyle needs of the customers. With attractive and rewarding benefits, we believe that both variants of the card will help transform the shopping experience of the customers. We have witnessed rapid adoption of RuPay cards among millions of customers and we are constantly working towards further strengthening our extensive network."

Further, Mr. Yoshiki Kaneko, President and COO, JCB International Co., Ltd., said, "JCB is delighted to welcome BFSL, as an issuing partner through our esteemed partnership with NPCI. The power-packed products come with many unique domestic and international benefits including access to the in-city exclusive lounges available only on the JCB network. These are specially curated lounges located in key international cities in prominent business districts, offering card members a lounge to relax and recharge. This, along with the many international offers and privileges, made available through our extensive global acceptance network, will enrich our card members international travel experience."

Yooz, the accounts payable automation provider, today announced that it has been selected as the winner of the “Best RPA Product of the year” award by the Documents Management Awards.

Since 2007, the Document Management Awards program rewards “the technology, tools and solutions that showcase the very best in the document and content management industries.”

Speaking on the award, Yooz Director, Magali Michel, said, “Yooz is a pioneering leader in the field of artificial intelligence dedicated to finance and accounting departments, which we have been implementing for more than 35 years to increasingly automate all types of documents that we capture electronically. We are proud today to be shortlisted in such a program as it represents a clear recognition of the excellence we strive to achieve.”

Yooz self-learning processing technology has been recognized as the most powerful AP automation technology by more than 4,000 clients and 200,000 users all over the world. It uniquely combines Artificial Intelligence, Big Data and Deep Learning, removing the need for all manual data entry, drastically cutting the invoice processing time from weeks to hours and eliminating the risk of errors such as duplicate/late payments, loss of documents, and fraud.

The software streamlines the AP workflow into a few automated steps: capture, enter, approve, pay and export, providing the highest automation rate on the market - 80% automation rates - into more than 250 ERP systems worldwide.

“Our solution goes beyond invoice automation and integrates fraud detection technologies and a reliable audit trail to offer to any UKI finance and accounting departments the single and perfect all-in-one platform supporting their document and process security and their legal compliance strategies,” Michel concludes.

^{About the Document Management Awards}

The Document Manager Awards - now in its fourteenth year- reward the technology, tools and solutions that showcase the very best in the document and content management industries.

The DM Awards brings the opportunity to think anew about the players in the industry who have upheld the traditions of the industry over the last year. Most categories are decided by the readers of Document Manager Magazine and the clients of the companies competing for the top honours. Featuring 26 categories the DM Awards allow companies from every sector of the industry to seek recognition for their efforts over the past 12 months.

Seamlessly combining payments solutions and third-party services, PPaaS empowers acquirers and Independent Software Vendors to enable merchants to create compelling commerce and payment options for their customers, bringing instore what has up to now only been possible online

Ingenico, a Worldline brand, announces the full commercial launch of PPaaS, its Payments Platform as a Service solution to its clients and partners. Built on a completely new cloud-based technology stack, PPaaS is a key component in the evolution of the Point of Sale (POS) into an ecosystem enabler.

PPaaS is a suite of payment and commerce services that combines proprietary solutions for managing terminals with third-party applications and alternative payment methods such as Alipay. The cloud-based platform is developer-focused and device agnostic, meaning it can work with any payment terminal, beyond the 35 million Ingenico POS around the world. Acquirers, Payment Service Providers and Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) can choose, integrate and manage the services their merchants need for instore payments. The platform’s design makes this a far quicker and easier proposition than any current technologies available. In a world where customer segmentation is increasingly reflected in how customers pay for what they buy, agility in incorporating these services is a key differentiator in the payments value chain.

Although online payment orchestration[1] has developed extensively for online retailing in recent years, instore orchestration and the ability to create seamless, omnichannel commerce solutions for customers has yet to fully materialize. PPaaS, with its unrivalled ability to connect to instore POS terminals, will enable this and change the way we pay. PPaaS also goes further, integrating with retailers’ online commerce and payments services to enable a true omnichannel customer experience and turn the payment experience from a point of transaction to a point of interaction.

For example, with PPaaS as part of the payment transaction, a customer can pay using a combination of a gift card and a local wallet; earn loyalty points on the transaction without showing their loyalty card and be prompted at the terminal to purchase product insurance before finalizing their transaction. Then, depending on the merchant’s and payment scheme’s terms and conditions, they could return the goods they bought from home for a full refund onto each of the payment methods used without having to return to the store.

Giulio Montemagno, SVP and Managing Director PPaaS at Ingenico, a Worldline brand explains: “Much of the recent innovation in payments has been focused on online payments and the instore experience hasn’t changed much over the years. With PPaaS, our clients can finally enable their merchants to make payment a real point of interaction with their customers, and the ecosystem of third-party service partners can easily bring their services to a wider audience. As we engage with clients and solution providers, we realise that the use cases for PPaaS are very significant as our customers envisage using it to facilitate a whole range of new services and payment methods to their merchants. We have started working on those use cases with clients already - including using PPaaS to enable APMs and a loyalty programme in Asia as well as in enabling vertical-specific services for an acquirer in Europe - and we are looking forward to seeing their new offerings using PPaaS live in action.”

Concrete use cases

• Alternative Payment Methods (APMs)

There are over 900 alternative payment methods around the world catering to different markets and segments but very few of these are accepted for instore payments. APMs such as Alipay increase revenues for merchants by enabling and enhancing demand from specific demographics. PPaaS facilitates APMs for retailers without the need for complex development and software updates.

• Loyalty & Omnichannel commerce

With Tokenization as a Service, PPaaS provides the missing piece in the omnichannel payments puzzle and creates new possibilities in customer loyalty. The payment card can become the customer’s unique identifier in a fully secure and compliant environment, expanding the ability to interact with the customer at critical moments in their purchasing journey.

• Enhanced reporting and data analytics

An important, and much requested, feature of PPaaS is its ability to provide significantly enhanced reporting and data analytics in a fully compliant and secure environment. This is because PPaaS consolidates information from the terminal and uses this to provide the insights and data merchants need to manage their business.

• Smart routing

Thanks to PPaaS’ connections to acquirers, the solution can optimise acceptance rates and costs by routing transactions to specific acquiring platforms based on pre-defined rules.

Supporting the complete payments ecosystem

In a payments environment where 34% of merchants say they would change their provider if they don’t get access to easy to use and quick to set up services from their acquirer, and 80% are prepared to pay 20-30% higher rates for better payments performance provided it measurably improves business,^[2] the market for providing such services is vast.

For this reason, PPaaS addresses a variety of actors in the payments ecosystem: banks and dedicated acquirers, PSPs, payment gateways and ISVs. It creates many-to-many connectivity, generating a network effect that benefits all parties as it continues to grow.

Adapting to customer needs – constantly

As an ‘as-a-Service’ offering, the PPaaS platform will evolve constantly, adding new features and onboarding new partners as part of a continuous dialogue with existing and future clients.

ABOUT WORLDLINE

British Patient Capital announces its participation in Quell Therapeutics’ Series B funding round as Quell announces the close of the round at $156m. The deal is the first life sciences  investment from Future Fund: Breakthrough, a £375m programme where British Patient Capital co-invests with private sector investors in innovative R&D-intensive UK companies.

Quell Therapeutics (“Quell”), which is based at the Translation & Innovation Hub in London, is a leader in the development of engineered T-regulatory (Treg) cell therapies for serious medical conditions driven by over activity of the immune system. Quell’s platform technology enables it to design, engineer and manufacture at scale therapeutic Treg products, which have greater stability, persistence and potency than earlier generations. One potential use of Quell’s cell therapies is to prevent the need for lifelong immunosuppression treatment after organ transplantation. This would improve the quality of life for patients, by reducing the risks of transplant rejection and side effects caused by chronic immunosuppression treatment while at the same time reducing the costs of care.

Judith Hartley, CEO, British Patient Capital said: “Future Fund: Breakthrough was established to help UK R&D intensive companies raise the patient capital they need, to fuel the later stages of their growth. In doing so, our aim is to help ensure the UK is a world leader in the industries of the future. Through our investment in Quell, we are supporting the continued growth of a UK life sciences leader, at the forefront of a new wave of cell therapy. Their transformative therapies have the potential to address major unmet medical needs. We look forward to seeing how the company develops.”

Iain McGill, CEO, Quell Therapeutics: “We are proud to have the support of British Patient Capital as part of a premiere syndicate of investors as we drive forward to our next stage of growth. With this financing, we have the full suite of capabilities – capital, cutting-edge science originating from leading UK and European universities, and a world-class team – to advance our pipeline and platform to key milestones on our path ultimately to deliver potentially transformative therapies to patients suffering from diseases caused by immune dysregulation.”