High-speed application development platform underpins ‘MyWorkSpace’ App and safe return to the office

OutSystems, a global leader in modern application development, teamed up with Sage to develop a ‘MyWorkSpace’ app, which enables colleagues to book desks and meeting rooms. This project has helped Sage colleagues return to the office under the company’s Flexible Human Work initiative.

Like many companies, Sage, the market leader in cloud business management solutions, implemented a work from home policy at the start of the COVID-19 crisis and is now helping its 11,000 colleagues return to its offices where guidance allows.

Having chosen the high-speed development platform, four graduates and a senior developer learnt about the OutSystems solution and built the company’s first in-house mobile app, ‘Colleague Hub’, designed to streamline internal approvals. In addition, it delivered a web application, integrated with Sage’s contact centre system, to allow customer service staff and managers to support customers as effectively as possible.

After Sage implemented a work from home policy across all of its global offices, the developers continued their work and found OutSystems helped them with collaborative development, as a result of its modular application architecture. OutSystems Cloud also enabled the team to move to a remote working environment with very little process or technology adjustment.

Using an OutSystems Forge template and supported by a Technical Success Manager, who provided coaching on rearchitecting the app as a web application, the team delivered the first iteration of the MyWorkSpace app in just six weeks. In the following months, regular updates by the development team added more features to the application, helping Sage colleagues safely return to office-based working while putting safety first.

MyWorkSpace includes a range of features, including the ability to choose an office location, date and area. It automatically assigns a desk and displays an interactive map that helps the user find it; QR codes at the desk allow easy check-in scans. Colleagues check out when ready, or the app notifies them when checkout time is imminent, so that they can vacate the space for cleaning.

MyWorkSpace also integrates into Sage’s intranet, providing employees with access to a comprehensive set of COVID-19 related information and instructions tailored to their office without leaving the app. Sage also simplified the desk booking process and built Sage-specific reports and dashboards.

As restrictions have eased nationally, the app is now aiding colleagues’ return to the office, under Sage’s Flexible Human Work initiative. Sage believes that the future of work is built on true flexibility and collaboration and that where or when you work is not as important as how we connect as humans to do the best work for customers.

Stephen Lukert, Global Director of Finance Solutions at Sage said: “In this new normal, like all businesses, we have to be able to adapt quickly. OutSystems has allowed us to do this and helped us rapidly deliver a tailored app that allows colleagues to book desks and meeting rooms – helping them safely return to the office.”

Mike Hughes, Senior Director, Product Marketing, OutSystems, said: “Sage really has seen the benefits of using our platform, with a small team developing a number of apps, along with its MyWorkSpace app. Using a team from its graduate programme, supported by OutSystems, it has developed a business-changing app that has helped the Sage team return to work safely in just six weeks.”

RIMES today announces the appointment of Justin Brickwood as Head of Benchmark Data Services.  In this role, Justin will be accountable for product innovation and transformation, further demonstrating RIMES’ commitment to bringing highly innovative solutions to its clients. Based in London Justin will join the Executive Committee and report to Brad Hunt, CEO of RIMES.

“I’m excited Justin is joining the team at this pivotal stage in our growth,” said Brad. “RIMES’ Benchmark Data Service is the best-in-class solution in the industry, and Justin’s extensive experience and engineering mindset will help us continue to innovate, collaborate and deliver the high-quality solutions our clients expect.”

Prior to joining RIMES, Justin was the Head of Corporate and Investment Bank Innovation at Barclays where he led and oversaw multiple, successful initiatives spanning machine learning, API strategy and business digitisation. Before Barclays, Justin spent 23 years at Goldman Sachs working across multiple asset classes and regions, effectively bridging business and technology. He most recently led the European equities Electronic Trading engineering team where he worked with sales and clients to deliver new products and drive execution quality.

“I’m thrilled to be joining RIMES and am looking forward to building on their existing momentum to deliver the next generation data and ESG solutions for our clients, as well as collaborating with Brad and the leadership team.”

The new Embedded Finance Experiences category is a vital evolution of embedded finance, unlocking deeper engagement for consumer brands 

Railsbank, the leading global Embedded Finance platform, has today launched a new industry category that is set to drive the next wave of innovation within financial services. Known as Embedded Finance Experiences, the new category and vision represents the next phase of growth for embedded finance, moving away from basic banking, card or financial products to deeper and richer financial experiences that are seamlessly part of a brand’s customer journey.  

Gone are the days where the consumer needs to visit a finance provider; embedded finance experiences deliver a financial product at a highly relevant moment to the consumer.

Research commissioned by Railsbank has uncovered growing demand for new and improved financial experiences and better rewards from consumers. It found that 39% of consumers are interested in accessing financial services like credit, loans or investments from brands they love and trust; rising to 51% of 18-24 year olds. At the same time, 41% would be interested in a credit card that offered early access to tickets, exclusive offers, or other high-value rewards from their favourite high-street brand. 

Nigel Verdon, CEO and co-founder, Railsbank says: “People don’t buy a car loan, they buy a car. Consumer brands understand what banks and fintech never could: finance is not about the product, it is part of an experience. Pioneers like Uber have already started to embed finance into their customer journey by removing the hassle of paying to complete your journey and get out of the taxi. Your financial transaction is so deeply embedded, you hardly notice it.” 

“The opportunity here is vast and hugely untapped. What if your football team’s app not only enabled you to buy tickets or merchandise, but also away day hotel and travel deals, together with exclusive services such as car hire and insurance? Instead of thinking in terms of delivering banking or cards, Railsbank is empowering brands to build next level financial experiences they always imagined, at a pace previously unimaginable. Embedded Finance Experiences are the future of finance.”

To realise its vision, Railsbank is launching a global embedded finance platform and a new identity; its first significant brand update since it was formed in 2016. In five years, it has grown to employ over 450 people across the UK and Europe, APAC and the US, and is approaching unicorn status. 

Railsbank is already working with brands including McLaren Racing team, Paceline and Status Money to design and realise embedded finance experiences. 

• 02.11.2021 -- 12:15 pm

AML app now live for banks to tap into on Finastra’s FusionStore

Finastra today announced the introduction of new anti-money laundering (AML) compliance capabilities integrated with its Fusion Global PAYplus core payments solution, via Fincom.co and the FusionFabric.cloud open developer platform. Banks can tap into the Fincom.co AML screening app to access real-time compliance screening functions in line with regulatory requirements, which only continue to increase in volume and diversity, lowering operational costs.

Gideon Drori, CEO at Fincom.co said, “Compliance screening is becoming harder for all financial services businesses to comply with, and banks can incur penalties if unregulated or unlawful transfers are made. In making our solution available to Finastra customers we are bringing intuitive compliance capabilities to a wider audience and are enabling them to do away with legacy solutions, reducing false-positive or false-negative rates.” 

The app uses Fincom.co’s ‘phonetic fingerprint’ system to enable searches and match entries across numerous databases in different languages, reducing the cost of implementation at the bank and enabling rapid time to market. This collaboration brings flexibility of choice for clients, faster time-to-value, and operational savings, made possible due to the reduction in false positives. The solution also provides an ongoing ‘Persistence Mechanism’ which is an automated process designed for ongoing verification to keep the system clean and updated, only alerting the company if there is a significant reason to do so.  

Based on an advanced mathematical algorithm, the phonetic fingerprint will act as a unique identifier and irreversible code, resulting in great accuracy and minimal false-positive results when compared with other technologies. It offers real-time transactions, reduces more than 30% of false positives, ensures there are no false negatives and provides significant operational savings. 

“Today’s announcement is testament to our commitment to helping financial institutions rapidly identify and adopt innovative technologies that complement their core software, via our open developer platform; In this case, helping organizations with compliance to better streamline the payments process,” said Oren Marmur, General Manager, Payments at Finastra. “This collaboration expands our service offerings, providing Finastra’s Fusion Global PAYplus client’s ready access to proven and highly effective AML and compliance screening solutions, out of the box.” 

• Tiger Global leads $12M pre-series-A round. This adds to February’s $13M investment allowing Tarabut Gateway to now announce its $25M total investment in the last eight months.

• The investment will be used to grow the scaleup’s tech and leadership teams, enhancing the first and largest Open Banking platform across the MENA region.

• Tarabut Gateway’s mission is to stimulate innovation and allow players within the market to build a new world of financial services by building a microservices-based platform that offers a single API (Application Programming Interface) that enables access to a multi-jurisdiction ecosystem. 

Tarabut Gateway, the Dubai headquartered Open Banking platform, has concluded a seed round of $13M and pre-series-A funding round of $12M led by Tiger Global in the last eight months. Tarabut Gateway’s solutions allow financial institutions and fintechs to leverage Open Banking to scale their businesses across the region. Tarabut Gateway welcomes new investors including the Dubai International Fintech Fund, the Investment Vehicle of Dubai’s International Financial Center (DIFC). 

The investment follows Tiger Global’s most recent investment in other Open Banking Players across the globe including Truelayer in the UK, Mono and in Africa. Since its inception in 2001, Tiger Global has made investments into 30 countries around the globe in key startup regions such as India, Asia and further afield.

As the first licensed Account Information Service Provider (AISP) and Payment Initiation Service Provider (PISP) in the Middle East & North Africa (MENA) region, Tarabut Gateway is fulfilling its mission to facilitate the creation and distribution of personalised financial services for banks and fintechs, as well as their end-users. 

John Curtius, Partner at Tiger Global Management said; “People are increasingly sophisticated in how they utilise their money, and in a marketplace rife with such exciting growth such as the MENA region, we worked hard to find a company on the ground that shared our vision. With its understanding of the different markets in the region and a proven track record of innovation, we are delighted to have had the opportunity to invest in Tarabut Gateway. We have followed Abdulla and his team for some time and are excited about the opportunity and potential that Open Banking presents in the MENA region.” 

Abdulla Almoayed, Tarabut Gateway’s founder and CEO highlighted; “The MENA region is a complex web of countries and regulations. This makes it a challenging area to serve with any single overarching financial product whilst remaining compliant in a highly developed landscape with many differing markets. I’m glad to say this round is living proof that Tarabut Gateway is successfully pioneering in developing a cutting-edge solution for banks and fintechs in the region”

In 2021 Tarabut Gateway raised $13M in seed investment, the largest seed round in the MENA region for a fintech company. This pre-Series A doubles down on the company's credentials, spurring it forward to serve millions more potential customers in this diverse region.

59% admit that their level of data literacy is below average, while 66% think that this is true for their business unit in general. 

Alteryx, Inc. (NYSE: AYX), the analytics automation company, today highlights a critical shortfall in the knowledge and skills needed by employees in the financial industry to deliver business value in the post-pandemic economy. 

In a research* of data workers within the European finance sector, commissioned by Alteryx, the majority revealed that they struggle with basic day-to-day data tasks such as data shaping or sorting (53%), data cleansing (54%) and visualisation (61%). That’s despite nearly two thirds (64%) stating that they believe data literacy is important to the success to their organisation.  

More worryingly, nearly half (48%) say their organisation’s employees lack the data literacy skills needed to tackle today’s business challenges. 

Data literacy skills are essential to the success of digital transformation strategies across the finance industry. According to a previous report, using data science and modern analytics would allow finance departments to complete financial forecasts 74% sooner, make decisions 25% faster, and improve financial report accuracy by 16%. And as more accounting processes become automated, data skills will become more valuable and sought-after.  

Unfortunately, the report found that 63% of finance workers don’t have the skills to construct a business case from data, while 66% admit they cannot use predictive analytics to identify or prevent the business from making the same mistake over and over again.  

Leaders in the finance industry may realise that upskilling and training initiatives could help to close this skills gap, but it seems they are failing to encourage their staff to do so: according to the survey, only 38% of finance workers say they are motivated to grow their skills. 

“The fields of data analytics and digital transformation continue to challenge companies to break the mould and deliver new and constantly evolving ways to upskill and deliver ROI.” comments Alan Jacobson, Chief Data and Analytics Officer at Alteryx. “A core feature of digital transformation that is often underconsidered is the human factor, and the development of the foundational skills required to make such projects a success. 

“With data workers entering employment at any and all skill levels across the analytic continuum, leadership must commit with conviction to evolve beyond any antiquated approach to data literacy and analytics upskilling and drive a cultural shift to learning within their organisation that scales with employees.” 

Pelican AI (pelican.ai), a global provider of Artificial Intelligence-powered payments and financial crime compliance solutions for banks and corporates, announced today that the Treasury Services business of leading global bank BNY Mellon is implementing its AI-based Pelican Secure Sanctions Self-Learning Optimization™ (SSLO) solution in the coming months to drive efficiency in their global sanction screening capabilities.

Pelican AI was successful in a competitive proof of concept – demonstrating that this AI-based solution will drive a high success rate for reducing false positives that require time-consuming investigations by operations staff.

Pelican Secure SSLO employs advanced AI technologies to analyze transactions that are flagged for investigation by the bank’s existing sanction screening tools. Pelican SSLO uses machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP) to understand and interpret human actions, helping to classify and explain the false positives generated. This allows the bank’s compliance operation to resolve false positives much more quickly – reducing inefficiencies and freeing up valuable resources.

“This is an important project within BNY Mellon Treasury Services’ compliance operation that is leveraging AI to improve operational efficiencies without compromising regulatory needs and simultaneously safely removing friction from the payments landscape for our clients,” said Matthew Wells, Head of Global Markets, Issuer Services and Treasury Services Operations at BNY Mellon.

“We decided to work with Pelican AI following a successful proof of concept using their SSLO product. This solution provides full control in this critically important part of the payments value chain. We believe that this is the start of a long-term relationship with Pelican and look forward to working closely to optimize our operations in the area of sanctions screening and payments,” Wells added.

Parth Desai, founder and CEO of Pelican AI commented: “It is a great privilege to welcome BNY Mellon Treasury Services as a Pelican customer. Pelican SSLO is designed to integrate with and complement existing sanctions screening tools, and dramatically reduce the time taken to process false positives from existing compliance systems. The system is able to continuously learn and maintains high levels of false positive reduction. We are confident that BNY Mellon will find that our technologies far exceed expectations as we embark on a long-term relationship together to build operational excellence in the areas of compliance and payments.”

Financial institutions face significant penalties and reputational risk for non-compliance with sanctions screening, but at the same time are under constant pressure to increase processing speeds and efficiency to enhance the customer experience. Sanctions screening systems are complex and process high volumes of transactions, so even a small amount of false positives requiring manual intervention drive costs for compliance on an ongoing basis. 

Pelican Secure Sanctions Self-Learning Optimization works with a range of existing third-party screening tools. The underlying Pelican AI technology platform has been live across a number of global banks for several years, processing over one billion transactions valued at over US$5 trillion.