Strategic partnership positions OTP Group and the Ministry for Innovation and Technology (ITM) of Hungary as the European AI leader, enabling rapid transformation across the bank and the region for the next decade

SambaNova Systems, the company building the industry’s most advanced software, hardware and solutions to run artificial intelligence (AI) applications, and OTP Group, the leading banking group in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), today announced a strategic partnership to build the fastest AI supercomputer in Europe. Together, they will deploy a multi-rack AI system, built on SambaNova Dataflow-as-a-Service GPT,  for the most advanced language model in the world at a commercial bank. The system will be provided as a national AI resource to the public sector, private industry, and higher education in cooperation with the Ministry for Innovation and Technology (ITM) of Hungary.

“This is a unique collaboration between OTP Group, ITM, and SambaNova Systems to provide an incredible resource to the country and the Central and Eastern European region,” said Péter Csányi, Deputy CEO, head of Digital Division at OTP Group. “We are pleased to announce that this groundbreaking supercomputer will represent a unique AI capability to build GPT-3 level language models for languages across CEE.”

With this partnership, OTP Group takes the European lead in AI research and development. The Bank’s 17 million customers will experience faster, more personalized AI-based financial services with a supercomputer that can  process large amounts of text-based information and data in a short time. By significantly speeding up workflows and taking over repetitive tasks, creating more space for service development and human creativity, the innovation will have a positive impact on OTP Group’s employees across Europe.

“OTP Group has an impressive industry-leading plan to make AI its key technology driver for the next decade. With the support of ITM, the AI environment that they’re creating will provide accessible, cutting-edge infrastructure for universities, research centers, public and private organizations across Hungary,” said Prof. Dr. László Palkovics, Minister for Innovation and Technology in Hungary.

The partnership between OTP Group and SambaNova Systems is a multi-year collaboration agreement to deploy SambaNova’s Dataflow-as-a-Service GPT solution and build a one-of-a-kind Hungarian language model, one of the most complicated languages in the world, to be followed by the unique languages of other OTP Group countries. With this implementation, the bank will transform itself with AI and the power of SambaNova GPT, cutting across every corner of the enterprise, from the front office to the back office.

“Large language models are quickly becoming the primary interface to the enterprise and AI will drive the transformation of industries. This deployment at OTP Group will showcase what’s possible with advanced AI across document-heavy industries, such as banking and financial services,” said Rodrigo Liang, co-founder and CEO of SambaNova Systems.

The deployment is a technical feat; the project, had it been developed and deployed in-house, would have taken the bank several years and extensive human capital resources. With SambaNova, OTP Group can deploy in days or weeks. Once deployed, this AI supercomputer will enable OTP Bank to advance forward with AI and make further inroads across the global financial market.

Sber and its subsidiary SberCloud, a cloud service provider, have presented Russia’s all-new high-performance supercomputer Christofari Neo. Executive Vice President of  Sberbank, CTO of Sber, and Head of Technology David Rafalovsky presented the  supercomputer at the international conference AI Journey 2021. 

The performance of Christofari Neo approximates 12 PFLOPs (11.95 PFLOPs). The  supercomputer uses solutions by NVIDIA, a global leader in AI. At the core of the  supercomputer are A100 Tensor Core GPUs, which deliver unprecedented  acceleration at every scale for AI, while their 80 GB memory allows users to work with  large AI models and data pools.  

Christofari Neo is perfect for training and inference when it comes to transformer  models with the latest architecture trained on large data sets. SberDevices and Sber AI teams were the first to have pilot access to Christofari Neo. Thanks to ML Space,  the SberDevices team switched between the supercomputers seamlessly, optimizing  the costs and speed of training for the ruGPT-3 & family transformer models available  for further training and testing on SberCloud. 

David Rafalovsky, executive vice president of Sberbank, CTO of Sberbank Group, head of Technology: 

“The Christofari Neo supercomputer will enable Sber to bring computing speeds to the  next level, unlocking new opportunities for us to implement breakthrough services and  products with underlying cutting-edge technology. SberCloud’s current and new  customers will have access to the capacities of two supercomputers at once. The  important thing that has remained unchanged is the ease of use of the new  supercomputer since Christofari Neo is closely integrated with the ML Space and  Christofari platforms. This means customers can access the performance they need  as quickly and easily as ever.” 

According to the Robo.cash corporate statistics, the social and geographic shifts of the investors' audience is expressing the growing market potential.

The Robo.cash platform has significantly expanded its active investor base in 2021, representing a more than 70% growth. In addition to engaging an increasing audience, the market continues to penetrate various segments of the society. For example, the share of female investors on Robo.cash (among registered customers) grew from 20% in 2019 to 34% in 2021.

There is also a more active involvement of the younger generation. At the moment, the share of Generation Z investors has reached 4%. On the contrary, the share of millennials is slightly decreasing from 52.2% in 2019 to 51% in 2021.

It is worth noting the geographical shifts in the P2P market. Thus, the share of German investors on the Robo.cash platform decreased by 7% since 2019 due to the activation of the rest of the European investors. Since 2019, the share of Spanish and Italian investors has grown by 5% and 2% accordingly. France gained more than 3% and entered the top five, displacing Portugal.

"As Robo.cash statistics show, European P2P lending is becoming an integral part of an enlarging number of people from various social groups”. - platform analysts comment. “Despite the evident increase of the active P2P investors on the platform, it is still too early to talk about reaching the pre-crisis level of the P2P market as a whole, but investor confidence, expressed in fact in monetary terms, is definitely recovering steadily”. 

• The Money Talks card game will combine questions around money habits with a fun twist to help break the stigma around money
• Launching in collaboration with some of the UK’s most popular podcasters on the Acast Creator Network, including Vicky Pattison, Kate Thornton and comedy duo Will Mellor and Ralf Little, listeners will be able to hear the hosts play the game first-hand. Listeners will hear the worries and habits their favourite hosts have experienced and be encouraged to start their own conversations with their friends 
• The limited edition physical game will be up for grabs, with the game available online from 8th November 

Klarna, the leading global banking, payments and shopping service, has launched the Money Talks card game to spark genuine and meaningful conversations around spending, saving and shopping to help break the stigma around money. 

Informed by the Social Vulnerability Scale, which is proven to foster closeness in conversation through mutual vulnerability, Klarna’s Money Talks card game will facilitate open and honest discussions between players in a positive and fun way. Reflecting the Scale, the game comprises of three levels and a wildcard round, with each level touching on a different theme including relationships, personal habits,  mindsets and financial basics.

Launching in collaboration with some of the UK’s most popular podcasters on the Acast Creator Network, including Vicky Pattison, Kate Thornton and comedy duo Will Mellor and Ralf Little, listeners will be able to hear the hosts play the game firsthand. Listeners will hear the worries and anxieties their favourite hosts have experienced and be encouraged to start their own conversations with their friends. 

There will be physical copies of the game up for grabs from the Money Talks card game homepage, with winners randomly selected from a raffle.

Emily Thomas, UK Consumer PR Lead at Klarna said, “Sparking honest conversations about money is the first step in reducing the stigma and anxiety surrounding this taboo topic. At Klarna, we are dedicated to educating our users about responsible spending and encouraging financial wellness. The Money Talks card game will do just that, by having fun but also opening up honest discussions around spending, shopping and wellbeing.”

• Pleo announces new speakers from Zendesk, GoCardless and Hubspot for virtual leadership summit “Forward” to celebrate, challenge and inspire the future of business leadership

• Forward is a one-day conference featuring 25+ speakers and 15+ sessions focusing on business leadership, product innovation and people management.

Fintech scale-up Pleo, the smart spending solution, continues to strengthen and diversify the speaker roster of its inaugural leadership conference ‘Forward’, taking place Thursday 9th December. Adding to the already 20+ strong list of industry leaders attending Forward, Pleo is now excited to welcome a range of new speakers including; Morten Primdahl, Founder of Zendesk, Ben Knight, Head of Sustainability at GoCardless and Katie Burke, Chief People Officer of Hubspot. 

These experts will join the likes of speakers from Spotify, Netflix, Hopin and Airbnb, to be a part of the digital-first event, bringing together business leaders, industry thought-leaders, academics and futurists for one day to celebrate and discuss the future of business leadership. Other inspirational speakers, including Pen Hadow, Arctic Explorer and Ocean Conservationist, Futurist Ravin Jeusathan and Charlotte Sweeney OBE, Author of Inclusive Leadership, will also explore wider topics related to their personal experiences, and the future role of business within society.

Forward will involve a mixture of keynote talks, fireside chats, panels and curated workshops to address challenges businesses are facing while also looking ahead to a positive future. The digital event will lean into recent and emerging trends across business and leadership – exploring pressing topics such as mental health, diversity inclusion and equity. Other sessions will also reflect on product innovation, and how businesses can implement and build better solutions to support the future workforce.

Pleo is also pleased to announce Nathalie Nahai as the MC for Forward, who will lead the event, set up discussions and address future trends. Nathalie is a Psychologist and Host of the Hive Podcast as well as an international speaker, consultant and author of two books: Business Unusual, and business best-seller Webs of Influence: The Psychology of Online Persuasion. Her work explores the intersection between persuasive technology, ethics and the psychology of online behaviour, with past clients such as Google, Accenture, Unilever and Harvard Business Review, among others.

Confirmed speakers include:

• Pen Hadow, Arctic Explorer and Ocean Conservationist

• Alex Stephany, CEO of Beam

• Morten Primdahl, Founder of Zendesk

• Joi Thailon Ngo Torres, Global Inclusion + Diversity, Expedia

• Kim Scott, Author of Radical Candor and CEO Coach

• Geoff Mcdonald, Co-founder of Minds@Work, BBC Contributor and Former Global VP of Unilever

• Marc Mckenna Coles, Diversity, Belonging and Inclusion Lead at Spotify

• Karen Tobiason, Ex-CPO at Nordea and Phillips, and Author of the Heart Revolution

• Jessica Neal, Chief Talent Officer at Netflix

• Reshma Sohoni, Partner at Seedcamp

• Sarah Manning, VP of People at Hopin

• Quasar 'Q' Hamirani, Global Head of People Operations at Airbnb

• Charlotte Sweeney, OBE, Author of Inclusive Leadership

• Ravin Jeusathan, Futurist, Author and Global Leader of Transformation at Mercer

• Jeppe Rindom, co-Founder & CEO of Pleo

• Katie Burke, Chief People Officer, Hubspot

• Ben Knight, Head of Sustainability, GoCardless

• Olov Eriksson, Chief Product Officer at Pleo

• Daniel Illes, Head of People at Vinted

• Karina Howley, Head of Corporate Citizenship + Diversity, KPMG

• Nathalie Nahai, Best-selling author and host of The Hive podcast

• Peter Mulhmann, Founder of Trustpilot

Jeppe Rindom, Co-founder & CEO at Pleo, says:

“At Pleo we’ve seen first-hand how significantly the pandemic impacted our customers over the last two years. But although times have certainly been tough, it's inspiring to hear stories of innovative businesses surmounting challenges and beginning to thrive again in 2021. This is part of the reason we’re incredibly excited to be launching Forward - so we can hear the inspiring stories of leaders and founders, and learn from them to build even stronger foundations for the future of business. We’re looking forward to welcoming attendees from all backgrounds to Forward, and hope it is merely the beginning of an exciting platform for business leadership.

Registration for Forward is now available via the official landing page, here: https://pleo.io/en/forward 

SberCloud, a supplier of cloud services which forms part of the Sber ecosystem, has created a special hybrid version of its ML Space platform -  ML Space Private. This was announced by David Rafalovsky, Sberbank Group CTO and Executive Vice President, at the international conference AI Journey 2021.

ML Space from SberCloud is a platform for full-cycle ML development and joint work by DS teams on the creation, training and deployment of machine learning models. The platform contains tools that are familiar to data scientists and has pre-installed popular libraries and frameworks. It speeds up, optimizes and greatly simplifies model development, testing and deployment processes through the ability to use individual GPU V100 and A100 cards or the entire capacity of two supercomputers. 

ML Space Private offers absolutely all benefits of a public ML Space. Yet at the same time, it can be deployed in a hybrid regime – i.e., part of the platform can be installed on the client’s severs, while the other part performs computing tasks in the SberCloud cloud.

If required, ML Space Private can be certified to meet the information security requirements of any company.

Companies can also integrate the platform with their infrastructure and business services, such as service catalogs, billing systems, monitoring systems, logging, ITSM and so on.

The platform is popular amongst both Sber’s own ecosystem developers and data scientists in companies of any size and research organizations. In just one year it has been used by 1.5 thousand people from around 250 teams. In that time, they have used 2.5 petabytes of data and 300 mln GPU minutes.

David Rafalovsky, Sberbank Group CTO and Executive Vice President:

“SberCloud regularly receives requests from a wide variety of companies to work with the ML Space on-premises, because for one reason or another these companies are unable to use public cloud services. Of any providers – not just ours. Specifically for these clients we have created a special version of the ML Space platform – ML Space Private. I’m confident that this upgrade will open up broad opportunities to employ the most advanced ML technologies for many companies that have been unable to use the services of cloud providers due to regulatory or other restrictions.  Anybody who is interested can already submit an application to the website to test ML Space Private in operation”.

Cyber consultants call on businesses to act now, or risk budgets shrinking further in ‘real terms’ during 2022 – leading to increased cyber vulnerability 

The cyber budgets of UK enterprises actually shrank (-1%) during the pandemic, according to their cyber budget holders. This left cyber spend stagnating at an average of around £18 million ($24.9 million) for the 2021 financial year. This is despite the fact that 79% reported having suffered a major cyber incident. Of this group, the majority (73%) had experienced an incident in the past three years. 

Over half (54%) of organisations either ‘hit pause’ or decreased their cyber budgets during the pandemic. Now, IT leaders expect to increase their cyber budget by an average of 7.4% in the next twelve months, taking the average budget to £19.4 million. But taking into account inflation, which is currently 3%, this still may not be enough to make up for lost time during the pandemic. If this trend continues, a cyber spending ‘deficit’ will emerge that makes businesses more vulnerable to cyber incidents, as attacks become more frequent and more sophisticated.  

The problem is compounded by a lack of confidence among decision makers in how they spend their cyber budgets: 

• 40% said their organisation needed a better understanding of how to prioritise areas for cyber investment.  
• Half (50%) reported they had a cyber strategy but had not been able to fully implement it – meaning that cyber investments are not realising their full potential.  

“Businesses need to act now to lock in their cyber spending for next year,” said Jamie Smith, Head of Cyber Security at S-RM. “The readiness with which we saw businesses pull back their budgets during the pandemic is concerning. Next year’s cyber budgets cannot be futureproofed against all forms of disruption, but there are trends business leaders should watch closely. A major one is the rising cost of cyber insurance - premiums are going up. This is because cyberattacks are becoming more frequent. What’s more, insurers are looking to reduce the risk they take on when they provide cyber policies. As a result, insurers want companies to prove how cyber resilient they are before providing cover.” 

“UK cyber budgets shrunk at a time when the cost of cybercrime and frequency of attacks is increasing at an alarming rate. The average immediate damage of a cyber incident is in the region of £1.3 million,. But the secondary costs like higher insurance premiums and recovery services can more than double this.”  

“Businesses have been failing to keep pace, and if they don’t commit to strategic investment in their cyber security, they risk serious financial and reputational damage.” 

The analysis, developed by S-RM, will guide UK organisations who are looking to utilise their cyber spend more effectively. It also found a clear correlation in the data which suggests that cyber confidence comes from the top. Businesses with boards who had a highly proactive approach to cyber security were more likely to say they are investing cyber budget in all the right places (73%) compared to those who do not experience proactive support from the top (44%). 

Islamic Finance Heading Towards New Destination

The leading Islamic Finance consultancy services provider AlHuda Centre of Islamic Banking and Economics successfully organized International Conference on Ijarah (Islamic Leasing) and Takaful. The event was held on 10^TH -11^TH November, 2021 at Radisson Blu Sisli Hotel, Istanbul Turkey with collaboration of Leasing Association of Uzbekistan and Islamic Corporation for Development of Private Sector. ICD-IsDB is one of the premier Islamic multilateral financial institutions working for the development of the private sector including the Ijarah industry. The lead sponsor for this event was Caiz Holding AG and the technology partner was Codebase Technologies. The media partner for the conference is Web-TV powered by ProShare and Islamic Finance Weekly Nigeria.  The conference hosted delegates from Canada, Malaysia, Uzbekistan, Germany, Dubai, Pakistan and Turkey.

The conference agenda was to explore a new horizon for Ijarah (Islamic Leasing) and evaluation of new dimensions to the world of Takaful. This event projected Islamic finance, its challenges, global reach and future prospects, Ijarah (Islamic Leasing), products, innovative value addition in its product line, Shariah Compliance, Operational aspects, Ijarah Sukuk (Innovative solution to Governing bodies and Islamic Capital market), and Takaful (Islamic Insurance).

In the inaugural session, the Chief Guests were Mr. Ihsan Ovut (Secretary General), The Standards and Metrology Institute for Islamic Countries (SMIIC), and Mr. Botur S. Yusupov (Deputy Chairman) Leasing Association of Uzbekistan. AlHuda CIBE arranged an impressive lineup of 17 speakers from different countries on the subject matter to explore more options for Ijarah (Islamic leasing) and Takaful industry. Mr. Pervez Nasim (Chairman and CEO) Ansar Financial Development Corporation (Canada), Dr. Levent Sumer (Chairman) SMR Strategy Turkey, Ms. Ebru Cetin (Head of Turkey) The Digital Insurer, Mr. Muhammad Salman Anjum (Chief Executive) InvoiceMate, (Head of BSV Blockchain) in MENA and South Asia and many other leading names of industry have participated in the event.

Addressing to the audience, the organizer of International Islamic Leasing Conference, Muhammad Zubair Mughal Chief Executive officer said that Islamic Finance Industry is growing all over the world, for its future direction we need to remove barriers for developing it as equally beneficial alternative financial system. Ijarah is a very convenient product to launch in those jurisdictions where there is no proper legal and regulatory environment available to facilitate Islamic banking and financial products, he added. He argued that due to this feature Ijarah products can be introduced effectively and efficiently in financial markets without introducing any additional legal and regulatory framework for enabling environment for Islamic finance products. 

Muhammad Zubair Mughal said that Takaful is a key to unlock the independence of men. He highlights the concept of Takaful based on solidarity, shared responsibility, and brotherhood among communities to cooperate and be mutually responsible for each other's unwanted uncertainties and financial damages. While narrating the theme and core purpose of the 2^nd International conference on Ijarah (Islamic Leasing) and Takaful, Muhammad Zubair Mughal resonated his thoughts that economic prosperity and well-being massively depends upon banking and finance sector in any country around the world. It is also noteworthy that those sectors are growing. In this connection the Islamic Banking and Islamic finance sectors have shown tremendous emergence globally by double digit growth from the last several years.

The conference will be followed by One Day “Post Event Workshop on Islamic Leasing” dated November 12, 2021. This Workshop will cover a variety of allied topics. To learn more about please visit: https://www.alhudacibe.com/icit2021/.

Susannah Streeter, senior investment and markets analyst, Hargreaves Lansdown

“UK GDP data shows the engine of recovery is still spluttering, with the economy only inching ahead on its path back to full health. Although the September reading on output came in a couple of notches higher than expected at 0.6%, a downgrade of the growth picture in the summer showed just how much of a struggle there is for the economy to regain its pre-pandemic level. The sluggish picture is against the backdrop of the easing of social distancing regulations, offering fresh indications that many companies have struggled with the ongoing supply chain crisis and labour shortages. Nevertheless the FTSE 100 and the FTSE 250 have gained ground despite the downbeat reading, in expectation that the Bank of England maybe more likely to hold off a sharp tightening of monetary policy in the months to come. There is no easy manual to follow to make the further repairs needed for the economy and the Bank of England have held off tinkering with interest rates just yet, over worries that could further damage the pistons of recovery. The stark worry is that with rising energy costs, cuts to benefits, and fresh price rises to come consumers are already starting to feel the pinch and may become cautious in the spending patterns.

Mining stocks are among the biggest gainers so far on the FTSE 100 amid higher inflation readings around the world, partly indicating surges in global demand for goods. Auto Trader topped the FTSE 100 leader board as revenues revved up in the first half by 82%. Demand for second hand cars has soared, amid the supply chain shortages affecting new models, turning forecourt online advertising into an even bigger cash cow. The best ever six month results for the company sent the share price soaring by more than 11% in early trade.

Investors will also be drilling down into the trade figures out today and what they mean for the UK economy. The transition to a new era of trade post Brexit is still hurting with the trade deficit widening by £3.5 billion to £4.3 billion in the third quarter. This was propelled by rising imports but falling exports especially to non-EU countries. There had been high hopes that the UK would find new profitable trading friends around the world, but those relationships have clearly been harder to foster.

The data indicates that the big bounce of recovery appears to be behind the UK, and the next few months are likely to be an upwards struggle to regain pre-pandemic levels as companies and consumers are caught in a pincer grip between rising prices and higher taxes, which may limit interest rate rises next year.’’

• GFT conducts original research which confirms the critical importance of cloud adoption. 

• Banks who implement an effective cloud strategy now will be among the first to unlock lasting competitive advantages 

• Skills shortages and lack of experience stop progress

• GFT Cloud Services Framework underpins GFT’s work with world’s leading banks

Cloud comes first - 95% of banking executives cite speed to market as a driver for embracing the cloud. But banks can’t do it on their own. 

Representatives from 21 global financial firms confirm that since 2018 cloud migration has become a business-critical reality. GFT’s original Hybrid and Multicloud Research Summary is available to download here. Standout findings include:

• 86% have chosen the cloud for its unlimited scale opportunities

• 62% cited organisational culture and inertia as a key challenge

• 81% of respondents chose the cloud to optimise costs

GFT Cloud Business Unit addresses skills shortage

One area of major concern is that severe skills shortages remain an industry-wide issue. Despite this, GFT has amassed a deep pool of certified and experienced cloud engineering and subject matter expertise, enabling clients to accelerate their cloud adoption and migration goals by applying practical and objective advice and guidance based on many years of experience. 

Alpesh Tailor, Head of GFT’s Global Cloud Business Unit, commented: "The report highlights several key areas where the GFT Global Cloud team already plays an important role. It’s particularly relevant because of our extensive knowledge gained from working with all the major cloud vendors. We have proven experience implementing complex technology solutions within highly regulated enterprises. To add, our new Cloud Services Framework, which underpins the entire cloud migration and adoption journey, will resonate with clients and prospects worldwide.

The summary of GFT’s original research ‘Think Cloud. Use Cloud. Be Cloud for a secure and sustainable future’, provides analysis of this important research and its impact on the financial services industry.