Artificial Intelligence Journey, Sber’s international three-day online conference on  artificial intelligence (AI), opens today, November 10. Held by Sber in collaboration with  top Russian and foreign technology companies over three days, the conference is one  of the key events of the Year of Science and Technology in Russia. 

The conference will be opened by Alexander Vedyakhin, first deputy chairman of the  Sberbank Executive Board, and Maxim Oreshkin, aide to the President of the Russian  Federation. The first day of the conference will be dedicated to the application of AI in  sustainable development for society, state, and business, as well as key issues on the  ESG agenda. 

Alexander Vedyakhin, first deputy chairman of the executive board, Sberbank: 

“Our conference, AI Journey, the foundations of which we laid in 2016, has quickly  evolved from a national event to a global one. Each year we raise the bar higher and  higher, striving to attract the most competent experts: professionals who create  technology that transforms the world, as well as those who fully understand these  changes, caution us against mistakes, and predict future developments, including in the  context of ESG. I strongly believe that this is one of the most important platforms for  open dialogue of our era, because AI’s influence on all aspects of our lives will only  increase, and this automatically raises a host of issues that we will only be able to  resolve through international discussion.” 

The first event on the agenda will be the panel discussion on “The Strategic Role and  Economic Potential of Technology Companies in Solving ESG and Sustainable  Development Tasks,” moderated by Alexander Vedyakhin. The participants will include  Tom Gruber, the co-founder, CTO, and head of design for the team that created Siri,  founder and former head of the Advanced Development Group at Apple, and founder of  Humanistic AI; Shukri Dabagi, SAS CEMEA regional vice president; Ambarish Mitra, co founder of Greyparrot and founder and chief product officer at Blippar; and Andrey  Chernogorov, founder and CEO of Bidzaar. 

The conference will also feature a panel session titled “AI and ESG: Solutions for  Businesses” with the participation of the following experts: Daniel Zhou, Eurasia  Region president at Huawei; Ralph Haupter, president of EMEA at Microsoft; Anton  Kosach, managing director and partner at Boston Consulting Group (BCG); and Olga  Uskova, CEO of Cognitive Pilot. Moderating the discussion will be Elina Tikhonova,  RBC television presenter. 

In keynote talks and workshops, experts and entrepreneurs from budding startups will  discuss the role of AI in tackling ESG tasks, discuss how high technology contributes to  the attainment of sustainable development goals facing mankind, present their ESG  designs, and share their opinions on the future and economic potential of AI  development in areas such as medicine, finance, industry, retail, and more. In addition,  an AI ethics forum titled “Laws of the Future 2.0” is scheduled to take place. 

On the second day of the conference, which will be opened by Alexander Vedyakhin  and Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko, experts will discuss the scientific  aspects of AI. The focus will be on the development of artificial general intelligence 

(AGI), natural language processing (NLP), computer vision, recommender systems,  automated machine learning (AutoML), speech analytics, and other areas of knowledge.  David Rafalovsky, executive vice president of Sberbank, CTO of Sber, and head of  Technology, will present Sber’s new technological products. AI Journey Junior, a  conference for middle and high school students interested in data science and AI  technology, will be held on the third day. 

The conference will also feature an awards ceremony for the winners and runners-up  of AI Journey Contest, an international online DS/AI competition for adults, and the  international artificial intelligence contest for children organized by Sber and the Artificial  Intelligence Alliance. 

The Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (AIRI) will also present the initial results of  its projects. Jürgen Schmidhuber, chief scientific advisor at AIRI and scientific director at  the Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence (IDSIA) (Switzerland), will speak at AI  Journey, as usual. 

The online conference will bring together global AI experts from academic institutions,  international organizations, and the business sector, including: Tomáš Mikolov, senior  researcher at CIIRC CTU; Michael Bronstein, professor at Imperial College London and  USI Lugano and head of Graph ML at Twitter; Marc Hamilton, vice president at NVIDIA;  Catherine Mohr, president of the Intuitive Foundation; Somdeb Majumdar, machine  learning research lead at Intel AI Lab; Stephen Brobst, CTO at Teradata; Anshumali  Shrivastava, associate professor at Rice University and founder of ThirdAI Corp.; and  more. 

Last year’s AI Journey was the world’s largest AI and DS event, with around 30,000  specialists from over 100 countries taking part in the conference. The conference  featured 225 speakers, and their presentations garnered over 30 million views. 

MFS Africa, Africa’s largest digital payments network, has raised US$100 million through an equity and debt financing round. The fundraising marks another milestone in MFS Africa’s expansion, following a series of acquisitions and investments in other African fintechs, including the recently announced acquisition of Baxi in Nigeria. 

The new investor, AfricInvest FIVE, is one of the most experienced private equity investors in the continent and co-led the round with existing investors Goodwell Investments and LUN Partners Group (“LUN Partners”). CommerzVentures, Allan Gray Ventures, Endeavor Catalyst and Endeavor Harvest also joined the round as new investors, while ShoreCap III returned as an existing investor with other funds. Providers of debt financing included Lendable and Norsad.  

MFS Africa’s vision is to make borders matter less, which it enables through interoperability across payments schemes, borders and currencies. Over the last year, MFS Africa has accelerated its expansion efforts across Africa. The company has opened new offices in Abidjan, Kampala, Kinshasa, Nairobi and Lagos, in addition to establishing London as its new headquarters. MFS Africa recently signed an agreement to acquire Baxi, a leading super-agent in Nigeria, and plans to build Baxi into a key node, allowing regional payments into and from Nigeria. 

MFS Africa is continuing to expand its network and will be opening additional regional offices in key African markets, as well as in the USA and China. The new funding will enable MFS Africa to hire additional talent in Africa and globally to support its exponential growth.  

Furthermore, part of the new funding has been earmarked to continue strengthening the company’s Governance, Risks and Compliance (GRC) functions as well as its treasury and liquidity pool. MFS Africa will be continuing to invest in fintechs across the African payment ecosystem, 

Dare Okoudjou, Founder and CEO of MFS Africa, said: “This round of funding marks the beginning of the next phase in our growth. We greatly appreciate the renewed and continued confidence in us by our longstanding investors LUN Partners, Goodwell Investments, ShoreCap III and others. We are also delighted to welcome our new investors AfricInvest, CommerzVentures, Endeavor Catalyst and Endeavor Harvest on board. This new fundraising round further demonstrates our commitment and the scale of our ambitions. For our clients across Africa and beyond, this is also a validation of the choice they have made to partner with us in building a network of networks that make instant cross-border payments as simple as making a phone call. We look forward to continuing to work with them to expand and deepen that network in the years to come.” 

The pan-African investment platform, AfricInvest, has in-depth expertise in the African financial sector and a significant footprint across the continent, having made over 180 investments across more than 25 markets. As an established and highly respected private equity firm it provides MFS Africa with access to the considerable expertise of its African growth strategy and its advocacy efforts around the inclusion of less developed but high potential markets.  

The series also saw Frankfurt-based fintech specialist investor CommerzVentures make its first investment in Africa. This partnership offers MFS Africa closer links with EU financial institutions and helps strengthen the company’s financial services capabilities and offerings.  

Discussing the investment, Julius Tichelaar, Partner at AfricInvest FIVE said: “MFS Africa provides broad access to a large range of payment services for individuals and companies on the African continent, including remittance and trade-related financial services. This resonates well with AfricInvest FIVE’s financial inclusion strategy. Cross-border payments remain an important challenge in many African markets today and MFS Africa is uniquely positioned to confront this. We are excited to join MFS Africa’s world-class management team on its mission and to support its growth journey”. 

Wim van der Beek, Managing Partner at Goodwell Investments says: “We made our first investment in MFS Africa four years ago, and throughout this time their team have consistently delivered on their plans. Over the years they have built a powerful platform, a strong network of partners and a world-class passionate and diverse organisation. We are delighted to co-lead their Series-C round together with AfricInvest FIVE. We look forward to continuing to support MFS Africa in their next stage of growth, delivering on their vision to deliver affordable payments and other financial services across Africa and beyond." 

Peilung Li, Chairman of LUN Partners Group, added, “We are very proud to be a partner to Dare and MFS Africa and have continuously supported the Company through multiple rounds of investment since we led the Series-B round. We have also been working closely with MFS Africa to build cross-border payment gateways between Africa and China and have supported the Company through several transformative M&A transactions. I am excited to see MFS Africa continue to build its financial ecosystem and in becoming a dominant player in the region.” 

In 2010, MFS Africa forecast that mobile money wallets would be the most dominant digital wallet in Africa. Today, its hub connects over 320 million mobile money wallets. Through its network of over 180 mobile money schemes, banks, money transfer operators, and over 250 global enterprises, millions of Africans can exchange value with each other and the world.  

 The Government Actuary's Department (GaD) has been hit by an average of 24,740 malicious emails a month. The data, obtained and analysed by a Parliament Street think tank via a Freedom of Information (FoI) act request, revealed that a total of 74,221 malicious emails, including phishing, malware and spam had been sent to the GaD over July, August and September 2021.

The Government Actuary’s Department provides actuarial solutions including risk analysis, modelling and advice to support the UK public sector. GaD has about 200 employees across two offices - London and Edinburgh - of whom around 165 are actuaries and analysts.

The majority of threats received by GaD were spam emails, with 38,653 attacks. In the three-month period, there was also 35,497 phishing attacks and 71 malware or virus emails in circulation.

The total amount of phishing attacks decreased over the three-month period. In July, a total of 15,233 phishing attacks came through. In August, this number reduced to 12,111 attacks and in September, the figure lessened again, to 8,153 phishing attacks.

On average, there were 12,884 spam emails at GaD across the three months. These emails could download viruses onto staff computers, and steal passwords and personal information.

The government is investing heavily in its IT infrastructure — to the tune of almost five billion pounds annually. The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) alone spent almost two million pounds on laptops and smartphones last year. Some 1,216 mobiles were issued to departmental staff in 2020, with 1,557 computers or laptops also added to circulation.

Tim Sadler, CEO and co-founder of Tessian comments:

"The number of phishing attacks organisations have to deal with is relentless. Phishing is one of the easiest ways for cybercriminals to hack into a company - and they just need one distracted or tired employee to miss the cues of an attack in order to be successful. 

"While it's encouraging to see that the government is investing heavily in IT infrastructure to support workforces, they must also address whether robust security measures are in place to protect their employees - i.e. the people actually working from the devices. Failure to do so means that the risk of security incidents caused by human error - like falling for a phishing scam - will only continue to rise." 

     66% of finance organisations are prioritising Digital Workspace solutions in the year ahead –

• 14% now say sustainability is key to their IT decision making –

A new report from Softcat offers an exclusive snapshot of the finance IT landscape and what technologies organisations are prioritising in the year ahead.

The findings are based on the views of nearly 1,250 organisations in the UK and Ireland, across 23 industries including finance.

Looking at a sector level, the report reveals 66% of finance organisations are now prioritising Digital Workspace solutions above all other technology areas.

The banking and finance sector is under increasing pressure to deliver intuitive, accessible and mobile-friendly consumer experiences, while continuing to offer important face-to-face services.

The sector has also responded to changing work styles and COVID-19 restrictions by introducing greater flexibility and remote working. For staff to work effectively, from anywhere, they need a frictionless, connected environment where user experience and security are central. Something Digital Workspace technologies can provide.

Digital Workspace solutions put people first and technology second. They enable true collaboration and deliver a great user experience by securely connecting people, applications, data and devices together, helping employees to do their job seamlessly – wherever they are.

Cyber Security is the second most cited technology investment area for the next year, with 64% of finance organisations saying it’s an important part of their IT strategy.

Today’s financial services are entirely dependent on computer systems, making it a lucrative target for cybercriminals. Data security is a major issue for the financial sector, which plays a key role in the economy. A security incident in a banking institution can have consequences on the day-to-day operations of an entire country, or even an entire region of the world.

Hybrid Infrastructure, comprising Datacentre and Cloud, Public Cloud and Managed Infrastructure, is ranked as the third most important IT priority within finance, according to the study with 47% of respondents citing it.

The bank of the future will look very different from today. Faced with changing consumer expectations, emerging technologies, security risks and alternative business models, banks need to start putting strategies in place now to help them prepare for this future. And the shift to cloud will underpin future success.

Importantly, organisations were also able to rank sustainability as a focus for the first time. And 14% of those in the finance sector (compared to a 10% cross-sector average) cited sustainability as an important factor in their IT strategy for the coming year, signalling a shift towards greener and more ethically conscious decision making.

Technology has a vital role to play in supporting organisations in meeting their sustainability goals, to ensure compliance with tightening legislation and help the global community meet science-backed climate targets. 

Richard Wyn Griffith, Managing Director of Softcat commented on the findings:

“Over the past 18 months or so, the financial sector has been heavily challenged; working hard to limit the impact on business-as-usual or respond to unprecedented surges and pivots in demand.

“People, empowered by technology, have made navigating this uncertain and disruptive period possible. And this will only continue as we learn to live and thrive with new ways of working.”

• Bite Investments is launching its first ever commingled private markets product to meet the needs of high-net-worth investors and wealth managers
• The fund is a one-stop solution offering a diversified strategy mix to support wider portfolio objectives
• By expanding access to private markets, Bite solves an acute problem in wealth management

Bite Investments[i], a digital asset manager and fintech company specialised in alternative investments, launches the Bite Private Markets Portfolio, offering investors the opportunity to access a diversified allocation to alternatives with one investment.

From this week, investors can get diversified exposure across investments strategies, geographies, and fund managers in one ticket. The Bite Private Markets Portfolio will allocate capital into 8-10 underlying top-tier funds, assessed and selected by Bite Investments’ expert investment team. The minimum investment size is $100,000 and the core sectors are: Healthcare, Information Technology, Software, Business Services, Financial Services, Consumer, and Industrials.

“The promise of alternatives is excess of returns in comparison to risk. For far too long, individual investors have not been able to capitalise on this. Through technology, we are now pleased to offer them exceptional access to the best parts of private markets via a single ticket investment”, says Henry Talbot-Ponsonby, Co-Founder and President at Bite Investments.

Companies are staying private longer

There has been a profound change in the way companies grow and raise money, by staying private. Their eventual success may never actually be accessible via public markets. This means investors who ignore private markets now, may be limiting their potential for the future.

Not only has there been a growth in in the number of private firms, but since 2000, buyout asset value has grown 3.5 faster than public equity market capitalisation, according to Bain’s Global Private Equity Report 2020.

“Historically, individual investors have neither had access to top fund managers, nor have they been able to reap the benefits and value created as companies stay private for longer. Tomorrow’s unicorns may never even go public”, says Anna Barath, Investment Director at Bite Investments.

Technology removing barriers for growth investing

Private equity has been one of the best performing asset classes globally over the last 3 decades, according to McKinsey’s Global Private Markets Review 2020. However, due to a combination of high fees, high minimum investment amounts, and lack of access to top funds, wealth managers, RIAs and IFAs have not been able to access this investment strategy. As a result, high-net-worth investors are under-allocated as compared to other investors.

“By making alternatives more accessible to our clients, we are helping them diversify instantly. Using technology, we enable individual investors to access, unlock and invest bite-sized amounts into some of the most exciting private markets strategies out there”, says Henry Talbot-Ponsonby, Co-Founder and President at Bite Investments.

The growing market for private equity

Estimates predict that private investment markets will grow. A Deloitte Insights article forecasts global PE assets under management to reach almost US$6trillion in the next four years and it has shown great resilience to recent downturns, including the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-09 and the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020-21, as shown in McKinsey’s Global Private Markets Review 2021.

“With the public markets not generating alpha to satisfying levels and the current low-interest rate environment, investors are turning to the private markets. Our new Private Markets Portfolio is suitable for clients looking for long term capital appreciation with alpha outperformance potential provided by co-investments and venture capital strategies”, says Anna Barath, Investment Director at Bite Investments.

A seasoned team

All funds are assessed by Bite’s investment committee before being offered to investors. The selection basis includes, but is not limited to, underlying fund market opportunity, team, track record, fund terms and fit with Bite’s investor base.

The investment team has advised on over $13 billion of capital raises and conducted in-depth due diligence on over 100 funds and co-investments. Fund and direct commitments made across private equity, private credit, and real assets are in excess of $4.2 billion total.

[1] Bite Investments (Cayman) Ltd, and its affiliates including Bite Investments (UK) Ltd, and Bite Asset Management (together, "Bite Investments" or "Bite")

    NFT’s are a key player for consumer brands to connect and engage with their customers in a new wave of blockchain tactics 

·       The evolution of NFTs is opening a varied yet practical launch pad for many younger and non-traditional audience demographics to join global blockchain revolutions and create a new future across multiple gaming platforms

·       No longer will big name developers dominate the marketplace; decentralized blockchain governance gives even boutique developers the chance to grow their audiences and engagement

 Rcently, the use of NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) in gaming has come under some scrutiny, with game stores such as Epic permitting games that use NFTs or Cryptocurrencies, whilst not necessarily directly supporting the cause themselves.  Regardless of stance, the potential pot of gold at the end of the NFT gaming rainbow is huge; after several months of billions of dollars in trading, the NFT space generated over $4,200,000,000 in October 2021.  

One of HeliconNFTs core aims was to become an educator in the NFT gaming space, taking valuable advice from developer studios and seasoned gaming communities alike to avoid anyone potentially being misled regarding any false dangers of NFTs, and digging to the true potential value to the gaming industry, including heightened security and direct community engagement. 

By understanding the flexibility of NFTs as a collective, the global gaming community may be able to build a true and open NFT trading platform where gamers, developers, and creators can trade their created, bought, and earned NFTs between each other, as well as mint their own from their online assets – from cosmetics to signed memorabilia. The true meaning of a decentralized culture and democratic platform is to be a tool which brings traditional games and NFTs into the same sphere and adds value to the industry at every level.

Minting A Marketplace

At the core of creating NFT’s is the process of “minting”, turning your digital files into unique tradable assets on the blockchain, typically on Ethereum. Advance warning, you will need first to have a crypto exchange setup to pay for the one-time setup fee for minting an asset.  Practically any digital asset can be “minted” – effectively uploaded to the blockchain and verified as a unique asset belonging to that user. Once minted, NFTs can then be traded or sold like any other token on the blockchain. The current, most popular use for NFTs is either the exchange of (already established) high value items, or assets being bought with the hopes of being sold for more later.

Tom Palmer, HeliconNFTs CPO made it a point that: "We are bridging the gap between centralized games and decentralized NFTs. We are giving power to communities to mint game items as NFTs by themselves, and we will implement centralised game functions through blockchain technologies, creating a user-friendly experience."

For players and content creators (modders, streamers and UGC creators for example), you can mint your own NFTs whilst enjoying smart contract security in your purchases, allowing you to monetise your time and effort in-game. For developers, you can diversify your revenue streams, mint your own potential high-value NFTs, and reach larger audiences more easily. For platforms and publishers, you can not only diversify your revenue streams, but also have another source of user acquisition tools at your disposal. NFTs will be the future of the gaming space, so making sure they’re fair and secure is key for the industry. 

The Right Tools For the Job

The question on many peoples lips is, are the current tools of the gaming industry fit for purpose for this model?  From the App Store wars on platform percentages to Steam key scams and Ad Frauds, the power struggle and capability of bad actors to come into play seems relatively high. The market need appears to be a new set of tools which allows the gaming industry to collaborate – one that allows true ownership and verification of games and assets, so that the future of gaming can take hold, and it is on this premise that HeliconNFT was first designed.  There are hundreds of sites, bad actors disappearing without a trace, and crypto’s being intrinsically tied to platforms and games. 

Through use of smart contracts, NFT marketplaces and gaming stores such as HeliconNFT with their activity carried out on the blockchain are able to fully ensure when two parties agree on a deal, it’s automatically carried out. Therefore the new tools of online governance would seem to favour blockchain technology as the conduit for a new gaming metaverse.

The Game is Always Changing in the Middle East

The number of Middle East gamers as of 2021 is estimated at a little over 100 million, which in a multi-billion-dollar industry with cult followings and a massive internet penetration in the MENA region means gaming in the GCC is as certain a growth area as any investment can be.  James Magee CEO HeliconNFT is banking on MENA being a big new player in the future of gaming developers. “With $3 Billion invested from the Middle East in game developers and publishers in the last 12 months this really is the place to be for the Gaming industry in 2021 and beyond, we are offering a showcase for any developer/publisher who would like to present their proposition to investors and learn new ways to create new revenues for their games', he said.

“At Helicon we’re gamers at our core, having launched numerous gaming festivals and esports tournaments across the world for 100s of millions of gamers. Best of all, we’re backed by blockchain experts, some of whom basically pioneered tokenisation and have been testing it for as many years as tokens have existed. The decision to launch HeliconNFT is many years of work on many continents, with the very best people. We’re quite literally trying to change the game.”, he added.       

One development studio that is excited about what the future of NFTs could mean for gaming if utilised correctly, and the potential scope for growth in the MENA region is Bad Fox Studios. Bad Fox has partnered in the early stages with HeliconNFT to help shape the platform, and focus the direction of how a fairer economy could develop. Bad Fox comprises a diverse cross-section of gamers and are currently working on multiple IPs. Understanding how NFTs can benefit both developers and gamers is essential to be portrayed correctly. 

“It’s about being secure, open, and honest and respecting the true value of trading and exchanging merchandise currently being sold by developers and bought by gamers, plus giving true value to the hard work which often goes unrewarded by the vast modding community that generates so much for gamers. Hopefully NFT’s can make for a fairer economy for all, however we see the Middle East has incredible potential, being an early adopter of all things blockchain so early in the game” says Studio Head, Barry Hudson.

If you’d like to see more of what HeliconNFT has to offer yourself, visit Blockchain World 15-17 December, at ADNEC in Abu Dhabi, to meet the team and maybe even play a game or two. 

 

Form3, a leading cloud-native payment technology provider and Barclays have announced the addition of a SEPA Credit Transfer (SCT) service to their combined directly connected access solution.

The partnership, already live with SEPA Instant, now offers full reachability for SEPA payment transactions through a connectivity service available to Barclays’ customers who are regulated payment service providers.

This specialised cloud-native SEPA solution enables scheme connectivity for both SEPA Instant and SCT.

Barclays’ fintech customers can now benefit from direct technical access to the SEPA payment schemes, with connectivity enabled by the fully managed Form3 technical service accessed through a single API. Barclays will support in its role as a dedicated liquidity service provider enabling settlement with the schemes on the fintech’s behalf. For fintechs, this direct technical connectivity was previously only an option for credit institutions holding their own liquidity.

“Form3 has been working with Barclays since day one and together we are committed to making payments faster, easier and more cost effective for the global financial community, including non-banks. We are delighted to expand our partnership with Barclays to allow the fintech community and financial institutions more broadly to access the full range of SEPA services, thus enabling them to reduce costs and provide a much-improved experience to their end customers.”

Michael Mueller, CEO Form3

Our continued close collaboration with Form3 has allowed us to add a SEPA Credit transfer service alongside our SEPA Instant proposition which we jointly launched in 2020. This is another key step in enabling Payment Service Providers to offer comprehensive pan-European payment and receipt solutions to their underlying customers.

Martin Runow, Global Head of Payments, FX and Digital, Barclays Corporate Banking