Northern Bank Ltd, trading as Danske Bank UK is announcing that it has partnered up with the European open banking platform, Aiia (recently acquired by Mastercard) to deliver innovative digital solutions to help its more than 20.000 business and corporate customers through its business banking platform, District.

The partnership will give all of Danske Bank UK’s customers a hassle-free and simple approach to managing company funds in one place and remove obstacles from switching between business banking platforms to get a full overview of their financial situation across banks. The new feature ‘Accounts from other banks’ utilises open banking and provides real financial transparency for business customers. In the coming weeks, Danske Bank will pilot this new feature with businesses keen on using the new product extension. 

The partnership also opens up for a new market entry for Aiia, who will be focusing heavily on empowering the UK and Ireland with their high quality and privacy driven approach to open banking. Today, the open banking platform connects to more than 3,000 banks across Europe and the UK is a key market in Aiia’s expansion plans for 2022.

Commenting on the collaboration, David Thompson, Head of Digital Channels of Danske Bank UK says: 

“We’re delighted to sign this agreement with Aiia, which will allow us to deliver innovative digital solutions for our customers. Many of our business customers use more than one bank and they have told us it's difficult to overview all their accounts and transactions. In response to this feedback we’ve developed “Accounts from other banks”, which enables businesses to view accounts and payments across banks in a single view in our business banking platform, District. Partnering with Aiia in the UK was the natural choice for us, as they’ve shown full commitment to building a secure and compliant platform through a quality driven approach”

Commenting on the collaboration, Jonas Vogt Rasmussen, Head of Banking of Aiia says: 

“We’re happy and honored to empower Danske Bank UK and enable the bank to enhance user experience for their business and corporate customers. With Aiia, Danske Bank starts by solving the inconvenient and time-consuming affair for multi-banked businesses of switching between different banking platforms to get a complete financial overview. The solution will be a one-stop shop for businesses and shows exactly that the core of open banking and the future of financial services is about delivering convenience on a day-to-day level. Yet again, Danske Bank proves that they’re at the digital forefront of banking innovation.”

In the future, Danske Bank UK plans to add open banking payments, make the open banking features available to their retail customers as well as power other impactful use cases with open banking

Circuit Breaker enables merchants to intelligently block suspicious transactions – and the fraudsters behind them

Today, we’re hugely excited to launch Circuit Breaker – the first fraud prevention solution developed exclusively for the open banking space.

It’s been clear for a while that such a solution is needed. While open banking doesn’t create new fraud risks per se, it does create opportunities for fraudsters: account takeovers, for example, or targeting banks’ own PSD2 implementations for PIS.

This was illustrated in no uncertain terms in October, when millions of pounds were stolen from Barclays accounts – by a fraudster using a Monzo account and a PISP.

Circuit Breaker prevents such high-velocity attacks in two ways. First, its flexible rule system – which applies a score to each payment received. This score is based on rules like volume of transactions, number of initiated transactions, and transaction amount.

If the additive score triggered by these rules equals 100 or higher, the transaction is blocked and the fraud attack prevented. These rules can be amended by merchants according to their changing needs – for example, during a period of growth.

Second, Circuit Breaker enables merchants to create blocklists of confirmed fraudsters based on set criteria such as the bank they’re paying from, their device fingerprint, and their email address. To build them, merchants simply choose their preferred criteria, set a value against them, and select ‘block’.

Steffen Vollert, Volt’s Chief Technology Officer, said: “Circuit Breaker is designed like a surgical tool – to specifically address issues with specific banks or clearing mechanisms, and to overcome the operational inhomogeneity of the European banking landscape. One big problem is that banks apply their fraud prevention systems – designed for a cards world – to open banking. This can result in merchants being blocked, often without explanation, in the event of a fraud attack. 

Circuit Breaker overcomes this by ‘filtering at the gate’ before sending transactions to the bank. Circuit Breaker is especially effective when used in combination with Volt Connect because, together, they offer merchants full-payment-cycle insight. This is a first for open banking.”

Tinkoff Capital has set up three new exchange-traded funds (ETFs): the Tinkoff ESG Leaders Fund, the Tinkoff Cybersecurity Fund and Tinkoff Emerging Markets Fund. The new ETFs facilitate investments in companies operating in segments that are enjoying strong growth: cybersecurity services and ESG leaders as well as the most promising industries in developing countries.

Many companies included in the funds are not available to unqualified investors.

The Tinkoff ESG Leaders Fund was developed by Tinkoff jointly with Sustainalytics (Morningstar Inc.), a global leader in assessing corporate sustainability. The fund tracks the Tinkoff World ESG Leaders Index*, which has enjoyed annual growth of 16.1%, in dollar terms, since 2002.

The fund’s portfolio includes 50 companies ranked at the top of Sustainalytics’ ESG rating. They are all leaders in their industries in terms of their compliance with standards of social responsibility, corporate governance and environmental protection; they have also reported a positive operating cash flow according to International Financial Reporting Standards for at least the last five years. They include Sony, Moody’s, NVIDIA, HP, Adobe, Adidas and others.

The companies within the fund represent diverse industries: 34.8% of the fund is represented by manufacturers of consumer goods; 27%, by IT companies; 14%, by suppliers of goods and services in the healthcare sector.

The Tinkoff Cybersecurity Fund invests in companies developing software and hardware solutions for cybersecurity – one of the fastest-growing and most promising sectors in the IT industry.

The fund tracks the Tinkoff Cybersecurity Total Return Index USD*, which includes 31 publicly traded companies from the United States, Israel and India. These companies’ main revenues come from cybersecurity solutions. The index has demonstrated annual returns of 25.7%, in dollar terms, since 2016.

The following companies are just some of those included in the fund: Zscaler Inc, an American developer of cloud-based software for the secure operation of applications online; McAfee, a leading global developer of antivirus software; and Cisco, one of the world’s largest suppliers of network hardware and software (Cisco is also included in the Tinkoff Sustainable Development Leaders Index fund).

The Tinkoff Emerging Markets Fund invests in 50–60 of the largest companies in developing countries, where growth rates exceed those of developed countries. The fund tracks the Tinkoff Emerging Markets Total Return Index USD*, which includes public companies with the largest market capitalisation in developing countries. This strategy has resulted in annual returns of 23.2%, in dollar terms, since 2016.

Diversified both by country and by industry, the fund’s portfolio includes companies from 10 different industries in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, South Africa, Taiwan, Turkey and Uruguay. Energy companies account for 20.2% of the fund; companies in the raw materials industry, 19.2%; consumer goods manufacturers, 16.7%; and companies operating in the financial sector, 14.1%.

Ruslan Muchipov, CEO of Tinkoff Capital Management Company, said:

“When setting up the new funds, we were guided primarily by the growth potential of the represented markets and industries. This is an investment in the future, when business will focus on social responsibility and an ethical attitude to available resources, i.e. ESG principles.

“Transparency and business management security are one aspect of ESG; in a rapidly digitalising world, the only way to achieve this is by developing cybersecurity technologies. According to MarketsandMarkets forecasts, the global information security market in 2021 will be worth USD 217.9 billion, and it will reach USD 345.4 billion by 2026. There will be a steadily growing need for data protection as a result of the further penetration of digital technologies into various spheres of life, which means that there will also be greater demand for stock in the companies developing such technologies. This is an indication of the potential earning capacity of investments in the Tinkoff Cybersecurity Fund, the first Russian fund to invest in this industry.

“Emerging markets are another area of investment with potentially high returns. These countries’ emerging economies are enjoying rapid growth at a rate that surpasses that of developed countries. Therefore, the Tinkoff Emerging Markets Fund will enable investors not only to earn potential profits from this growth but also to maintain diversification in terms of countries.”

Shares in the companies included in the new funds are weighted based on the market value of their share capital. No single instrument can account for more than 5% of the total portfolio.

The funds are available at all Tinkoff Investment tariffs without any brokerage fees for buying or selling units on the Tinkoff Investment platform.

*The Tinkoff Cybersecurity Total Return Index USD, Tinkoff World ESG Leaders Index and Tinkoff Emerging Markets Total Return Index USD indices are calculated by JSC Tinkoff Bank.

The securities and other financial instruments mentioned in this overview are provided for informational purposes only; the overview is not an investment idea, advice, recommendation or offer to buy or sell securities or other financial instruments.

illimity Bank S.p.A. is on “Accelera con  Amazon”, the free-of-charge training programme for Italian SMEs promoted by Amazon and a  limited group of entities involved in supporting the transition to digital, with the aim of providing  business owners with the tools and expertise needed for anyone seeking to launch or further  develop their online activity at a national and international level. 

Leveraging on the fact that it is both a Bank and a digital company, illimity will be able to enrich the  programme with a training course focusing on banking and credit issues, in this way continuing its  progress towards supporting the growth of Italy’s entrepreneurial fabric. 

“Accelera con Amazon” provides for a series of webinars dedicated to “doing business”, available  to people enrolled in the training programme, in which top members of the Bank will be involved as  instructors. In addition, with illimity, video training pills with a specific focus will be created for the  first time as part of the project, for example on the new creditworthiness variables, digital reputation  and sustainability. The contents of the training course are characterised by their simple and  immediate language to ensure maximum usability by a wide audience. 

illimity will also give ample space to listening to businessmen’s needs by promoting surveys  designed to identify their training requirements. 

The first Virtual Academy is planned to take place on 18 November with registration possible  through the following LINK. 

The programme responds to a real need in Italy’s entrepreneurial fabric: only a third of SMEs are  digitalised and only one in seven (of those with more than 10 employees) has a significant online  presence (1). In addition, Italy is ranked 25th out of the 28 Member States of the European Union in the 2020 edition of the DESI Digital Economy and Society Index. 

Carlo Panella, Head of Direct Banking in illimity, commented: “For illimity, this initiative consolidates the collaboration with Amazon that began in 2019 and represents an important  opportunity for fostering financial education in the country’s SMEs by putting its expertise in the  credit and digital fields at their disposal. In this respect we believe that the drive towards the  digitalisation and internationalisation of businesses also passes by way of an extended knowledge  of the tools available and a greater awareness of their potential. We are proud to be the first banking  partner of “Amazon Accelerate”, because we strongly believe in the spirit of the project and its  efficacy as an outreach model”. 

(1) Source: Netcomm B2C eCommerce Observatory – School of Management of Milan Polytechnic, 2020

illimity Bank S.p.A., Sede Legale Via Soperga 9, 20124 Milano, Italia - www.illimity.com 

“Customers’ purchasing habits are changing. And these changes mean opportunities. Each day we  innovate to help small and medium-sized companies develop their business to become more  competitive in the local and global markets, and the aim of Amazon Accelerate is to provide specific  training to support the road to digitalisation”, commented Xavier Flamand, VP, EU Seller Services  in Amazon. “The Italian SMEs that sell on Amazon generated more that 600 million euro of foreign  sales in 2020: a figure that confirms that this is the right way of supporting the growth of their  business.” 

New research by global fintech think tank findexable shows that 1.5% (16) of 1,032 best-funded private fintech firms globally are founded solely by women and receive just 1% of total fintech venture funding.  The Fintech Diversity Radar research reveals women make up 11% of all board members and 19% of company executives. The majority of women (26%) in the sector are Chief People Officer or Head of HR, followed by Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Financial Officer. Of all fintech CEOs globally, 5.6% are women - less than 4% of women globally hold the title of Chief Innovation or Technology Officer.

The inaugural Diversity for Growth Report forms part of the Fintech Diversity Radar, the first global big data initiative tracking diversity in fintech by findexable in partnership with fintech firms Chargebacks911 and Global Processing Services (GPS) and a global alliance of supporting organisations, women founders and fintech industry champions.

The report examines the role that women play – or, rather, don’t play – in global fintech, and how the industry can build more balanced, inclusive and representative businesses that are fit for the future. The research comprises data from just over one thousand of the world’s best funded privately owned fintech firms, 36 in-depth interviews with founders and senior executives from large financial service providers. Insights are also drawn from a survey of 250 employees working across the financial services landscape.

Simon Hardie, CEO and co-founder of findexable says: “Global prosperity is more evenly distributed than at any point in history, yet our data shows the massive imbalance between men and women in innovative financial services firms. Fintech is a key enabler in the digital economy and the sector plays an outsize role in reducing economic exclusion and powering digital transformation.

The data released today bears witness to the birth of a new ‘1% club’ in the amount of funding raised by sole women-founded firms. A number that should be celebrated and commisserated in equal measure. The data also reveals how globalisation of technology and financial services is playing out: fast growing markets score better by proportion and numbers of women founders and women in key positions - numbers that are a mirror image of the distribution of global venture funding.”

West is (not) best: regional dynamics

Hubs for women founders, executives and board members are globally distributed:

●       Asia has the highest proportion of female founders at 7.7%, followed closely by Africa at 7.4% - this compares to North America at 4.8% and Europe at 6.5%.

●       Africa has the highest proportion of female board members at nearly 15%

●       Africa and the Middle East are the leading regions for the proportion of female CEOs

●       North America has the highest proportion of executive team members

●       Female CEOs are more likely to call Dubai, London, São Paulo, Buenos Aires or Lagos home.

●       Only eight female founded companies have more than 1,000 employees, with five in Asia, two in Europe and one in Latin America.

Green shoots?

While across the data good news is hard to come by there are some bright spots:

●       Companies with at least one female founder increased from 6% in 2010 to 30% in 2020.

●       Companies founded by men got the lion’s share of funding over the years and that’s true in every region, however women punch above their weight when it comes to funding:

-   In Latin America, APAC, and Africa, the companies that secured the highest median funding were those with only women founders.

-   In North America, companies with one or more female founders got the highest median funding.

-   The pattern changes slightly with average funding: in both Latin and North America, the biggest average goes to companies with at least one woman founder; in the Middle East and Africa, male only founders get the biggest average; and in Europe and APAC, women only founders get the biggest average.

Denise Gee, co-founder of findexable says: “While the research paints a disappointing picture of fintech’s performance at building an industry that reflects the real world, this research should be viewed as a line in the sand. From today all of us - from government to regulators, ecosystems and financial services firms of all sizes - need to ‘dig in’ (not lean in) to make the case and accelerate the progress of women and diverse teams.

Building a future fit finance industry starts here. Today’s report outlines recommendations to make that happen. From here we’ll be convening the London Roundtable of global stakeholders in December to take the report’s recommendations forward and build a global index to track and accelerate progress. Change has to come from within and we’re asking for support from across the ecosystem for the initiative - including completing our global survey that will be used to build the index - to meet the 30:30 challenge: 30% of fintechs to be founded or led by women.                                                                                                                        

Monica Eaton-Cardone, Founder and COO of Chargebacks 911 says: “This report is a welcome addition to the growing body of evidence that things need to change in the technology industry. Although progress is being made, statistics citing that only 1.5% of Fintech companies are founded solely by women highlights deep, systemic problems. However, there are signs of hope in the progress being made in the Middle East and Africa, where significantly more women are present in boardrooms. In this report, findexable have given the industry another wake-up call, and now it’s down to all of us to listen.”

Twenty7Tec, the market-leading mortgage tech provider, has released its monthly findings from the UK mortgage market for October.

Key findings for October 2021 include:

• Purchase mortgage search volumes are at their lowest proportion of the market since May 2020
• First time buyers are at their lowest proportion of mortgage searches since June 2020
• Searches for mortgages products in the 95% LTV range have also dropped - now half the volume at the time the guarantee scheme was introduced
• Buy To Let had its second best month of 2021 (after March) 
• Fixed mortgages now constitute a greater percentage of the total than at any time since we began reporting the monthly mortgage figures
• In another first, remortgage ESIS documents came close to overtaking purchase ESIS documents this past week
• Nine of the ten busiest days in 2021 for remortgaging ESIS documents were in October 2021
• October saw the six single busiest days for mortgage searches where one of the applicants was retired.

James Tucker, founder of Twenty7Tec says:

“The market is changing, and fast. We should be in the midst of a house purchase boom right now as we traditionally are in the 11 weeks prior to Christmas. Instead, the purchase market is not as firm as we’d expect, and remortgages appear to be the order of the day.

“With a drop off in first time buyer activity and a lower proporion of searches coming in the 95%-100% LTV range, we believe that the pre-Christmas mortgage market is slowing a little.

“Buy To Let remains strong, with five of the eight busiest days this year all within October 2021. Buy To Let is picking up the slack from First Time Buyers.”

Fund Administration division gears up for continued success in the region

Maitland has made four senior appointments within its Guernsey Fund Administration division, as it continues to service its growing Guernsey client base. Harry Rouillard has been appointed Director, whilst Luke Smith, Aimée Gontier, and James Taylor have been appointed as Assistant Mangers.

Guernsey Managing Director, Wikus van Schalkwyk, commented: “Now in our fifth year of operation, our Fund Administration business has gone from strength-to-strength via continued robust organic growth. Cultivating our own talent is integral to Maitland’s growth strategy, and we are delighted to have been able to promote staff internally into new roles created to support this.”

Leading the team, Rouillard brings in-depth experience in delivering operational excellence across a broad range of asset and fund types. He joined Maitland in 2019 having previously held the position of Head of Fund Accounting at Northern Trust.

Harry Rouillard, Director, adds: ‘“I’m pleased to be able to continue driving the growth of our Guernsey practice alongside my colleagues at what is an exciting time in fund services. Maitland Guernsey’s team delivers first rate client service, supported by the Group’s technology infrastructure. Whether it is supporting emerging requirements in corporate governance or compliance, or accounting for complex fund and fee structures or asset valuations, the team really allow clients to focus on their core activities”

Maitland Guernsey administers a wide range of open- and closed- ended private and listed collective investment schemes and related corporate structures.

• EY has provided limited assurance of the methodology underlying the Meniga Carbon Index assessing its reliability, transparency and suitability for estimating the carbon value of banking transactions

• Meniga Carbon Index is the first global transaction-based carbon index to have undertaken such a third party review

• The Meniga Carbon Index is the foundation for Meniga’s ‘Carbon Insight’ product, which allows banks to help their customers to track and reduce their carbon footprint based on their everyday consumption

Meniga (www.meniga.com), the global leader in digital banking and personal finance solutions, today announced that the index underpinning its innovative green banking solution ‘Carbon Insight’ - which allows banking app users to track and reduce their carbon footprint - has been reviewed by EY, one of the “Big-4” accounting & professional services firms in the world.

Following the limited assurance (according to the ISAE 3000 standard), EY has made a conclusion regarding the reliability, transparency and suitability of the methodology for estimating the carbon value of banking transactions. For the full auditor’s report, see https://www.meniga.com/download/meniga-carbon-index.

With EY’s conclusion, Meniga continues to bolster its offering of green banking products, enhancing the credibility of the Carbon Index and establishing it as a possible benchmark for carbon footprint measurement tools. Meniga’s Carbon Index is the first solution of its kind to receive such a review, further underlining Meniga’s credentials as the leading provider of carbon footprinting solutions in the world.

Bragi Fjalldal, CMO & VP Business Development, comments:

“EY’s assurance is a major milestone on our journey towards mass adoption of our Carbon Insight solution by banks across the world. We expect our solution to be live in 5-6 countries by the end of the year as more and more banks recognize the opportunity they have to take a firm position in the fight against climate change together with their customers”

“Third party review is key to establishing credibility for a solution of this complexity and this has been a clear expectation of the banks who have signed up to date. We are extremely proud to be the first solution of this kind to go through this independent assurance”

According to EY‘s Future Consumer Index, people increasingly want to make sustainable choices and companies need to respond to growing demand for eco-friendly products & services. Financial services organizations are no exception to this – and many banks are recognising the unique opportunity and tangible business value that green banking solutions can bring in serving the needs of the rapidly growing segment of carbon-conscious consumers. According to a recent survey by Meniga, 62% of European consumers want their bank to provide them with an overview of their carbon footprint.

Thomas Holm Møller, Partner EY-Parthenon & Co-Lead EMEIA Digital, comments:

“Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our lifetime, and at the same time the innovation opportunity of a generation. The involvement of consumers is critical in order to accelerate our journey to net zero emissions. Banks find themselves in a unique position to empower a rapidly growing movement of carbon conscious consumers by providing real-time access to carbon footprint data and insights. These types of advanced data analytics solutions need third party reviews to ensure quality and credibility to both banks and consumers"