• Temenos Infinity’s ready-to-go digital banking platform will allow Hattha Bank to quickly launch SME banking and support Cambodia’s Covid-19 economic recovery
• Seamless digital onboarding will allow the bank to rapidly grow its customer base and provide vital funding and banking services to 100,000 SMEs within five years

Temenos (SIX: TEMN), the banking software company, today announced that Cambodian Hattha Bank has selected Temenos Infinity to power the launch of its SME banking business. The world’s #1 best-selling digital banking platform provides ready-to-use digital banking features to enable the bank to quickly launch and deliver USD millions in vital SME funding during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. Temenos Infinity’s seamless customer onboarding will support the bank’s vision to quickly scale and reach 100,000 SMEs with vital funding and business banking services within five years.

Hattha Bank, a subsidiary of Bank of Ayudhya, the fifth-largest commercial bank in Thailand, was established more than 25 years ago as a microfinance deposit-taking institution and has expanded over time to offer commercial and retail banking services. By selecting Temenos Infinity, Hattha Bank aims to fulfil its socio-economic duty and provide Cambodian SMEs with essential funding and access to frictionless digital banking experiences.

SMEs comprise about 99.8% of all business entities in the country and 58% of GDP. Temenos’ open technology will support the bank’s vision to spur economic growth and generate jobs by offering business loans that enable SMEs to grow their operations.

Temenos Infinity’s open and flexible architecture will seamlessly connect to Hattha Bank’s core system and provide instant access to SME banking features, spanning onboarding, user management and entitlements, bulk payments and approvals and account and cash management. With no need for major customization, Hattha Bank can quickly launch the new business line and respond to the needs of Cambodian SMEs navigating through the pandemic.

Oknha Ieng Tong, President and CEO, Hattha Bank, commented: “We are thrilled to partner with Temenos as we grow our operations and empower Cambodian SMEs with frictionless digital banking services. Together, we will build a brighter future for our customers and our country. Temenos supports our objectives, giving us the fastest time-to-value so we can quickly respond to the needs of SMEs seeking critical funding during the pandemic. Temenos’ market-leading cloud technology will also provide us with a solid foundation on which we can hyper-scale our operations profitably and meet the needs of hundreds of thousands of SMEs.”

Jean-Paul Mergeai, President of International Sales, Temenos, said: “We are proud to partner with Hattha Bank on this important mission to make digital banking better and more widely accessible to Cambodian SMEs at this crucial moment. Temenos’ brings rich local experience to this partnership from our work supporting 20 Cambodian banks with market-leading cloud, open API- and AI-driven technology. Together with Temenos, Hattha Bank will set a new standard for SME banking in Cambodia, making frictionless business banking and human, digital experiences the norm for its SME customers.”

JCB International Co., Ltd., an international operations subsidiary of JCB Co., Ltd., has launched JCB Contactless payment service in the e-payment system of Long Win Bus Co. Ltd. ("LWB"), in partnership with Bank of China (Hong Kong) Limited ("BOCHK"). The new service is applicable to the whole LWB fleet. The Contactless payment service is now ready on about 1,300 buses and 100 bus routes in total, including the e-payment systems installed earlier in September 2021 on the buses of The Kowloon Motor Bus Co. (1933) Ltd. ("KMB").

The service adopts NFC technology and EMV(R) (*1) chip technology, ensuring payment security. JCB Contactless Card users can now pay on 100 designated KMB and LWB bus routes which involve around 1,000 KMB buses and 300 LWB buses, by using a physical card, e-wallet (*2) on mobile devices or smartwatches.

"We value customer payment experience," said Tomoya Ichino, Managing Director of JCB International (Asia) Limited, who is responsible for business in Hong Kong & Macao. "Following the launch of JCB Contactless payment on KMB and LWB buses, our cardmembers can just put their JCB Card or an e-wallet device to pay bus fares in no time. We thank BOCHK for their competence and ongoing partnership."

"KMB and LWB's diversified e-payment systems accept contactless credit cards, mobile payment devices and QR code scanning to bring more choices to passengers. We welcome JCB to join our cashless community to expand bus fare e-payment methods further," said Emily Cheung, Assistant Commercial Director (Acting) of KMB.

Colet Ng, Deputy General Manager of BOC Credit Card (International) Limited, said, "Since 2020, BOCHK has been providing e-payment collection support for the whole LWB fleet and designated KMB routes via the BoC Bill Integrated Billing Service. We are pleased to further cooperate with JCB to add JCB Contactless payment service to LWB's e-payment system, supporting passengers with an additional payment option. The total number of transactions recorded via BoC Bill on designated KMB routes increased by nearly 50% in the second quarter compared to the first quarter this year, representing passengers' growing demand for e-payment service. Looking ahead, BOCHK will continue to promote digital transformation and bolster fintech adoption to promote low-carbon living in the city."

JCB Contactless payment provides an enhanced and more convenient purchasing experience for both inbound travelers and for residents of Hong Kong and at the same time is simple for merchants to accept.

For details, please refer to the information (with Appendix) from KMB / LWB via links below.
https://www.kmb.hk/en/news/press/archives/news202108063887.html
http://www.lwb.hk/en/epayment.html

(*1) EMV(R) is a registered trademark in the U.S. and other countries and an unregistered trademark elsewhere. The EMV trademark is owned by EMVCo, LLC.
(*2) e-wallet service is available at selected participating banks and card issuers.
 

If all the people familiar with Forex lived in the same city, it would have to be bigger than Kuala Lumpur. This conclusion was reached by the analysts of the global broker OctaFX. The broker recently researched the Forex market capacity in Malaysia. While many people have at least heard about Forex, as discovered by the research team, how many of them use this investment tool regularly? Let's take a closer look.

According to the OctaFX research, almost 80 percent of the working-age population in Malaysia are familiar with the Forex market. This is over 12 million people—more than eight times the population of the country's capital.

The global broker conducted a large-scale study of Malaysia's population and found that a significant number of people of different sex, age and profession consider Forex a promising investment tool. In the related survey, more than 4.7 million people claimed to trade Forex actively.

In other words, one out of six adult Malaysians invests in Forex, and this figure is expected to grow. About 215 thousand residents of the country are actively engaged in trading every month.

Forex expert Kar Yong Ang makes an optimistic forecast about the Forex market growth in Malaysia: 'With the recent economic changes due to the pandemic and lockdowns, more and more people are seeking an alternative source of income, and I believe that trading is one of the most attractive vehicles to make an additional income. You can trade on the go or from the comfort of your own home. You can also choose how much time to dedicate to it. As more people start to realise the importance of investing, I believe many will also start to see the benefits of Forex as a way of gaining an additional income or even as their preferred investment type.'

The current number of active traders seems realistic, in particular when supported by similar figures from a reputable industry source. According to Finance Magnates, Malaysian traders invest over 76 million USD per month in Forex, making Malaysia one of the four most promising countries for development on this market.

One of the most curious results of the OctaFX study suggests that women are most interested in Forex trading between the ages of 18 and 29. Presumably, a liberal university environment allows women to think out of the box and feel more freedom to try new things. As the data shows, they willingly—and, quite successfully—claim their places in trading and other spheres traditionally occupied by men. Meanwhile, men are most active in Forex between the ages of 30 and 44.

The researchers were also interested to learn some common reasons for people to stop investing in Forex. As discovered, one of the significant barriers is a lack of knowledge or experience in trading. Fortunately, today there are many freely available educational materials—it just takes dedication to study them.

Trading expert Gero Azrul emphasises the importance of continuous training and development to trade successfully. 'Beginner traders or those who are not confident enough in their skills should consider first practising on demo accounts. Many brokers offer them, and they are a great tool for strategy testing. It is also necessary to dedicate enough time to reading educational articles, watching webinars, and attending Forex online courses. Also, it is always good to return to the definitions of basic terms, strategies, and theories. Finally, you should always follow the latest financial news,' noted Mr Azrul.

As Malaysia's Forex market continues to grow, expect more people around you to become involved. Watch out to not bump into a person in front of you, distracted by a phone. They are probably trading right now.

 CFPB Director Rohit Chopra released a statement today regarding the Report on Stablecoins issued by the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

Statement of CFPB Director Rohit Chopra

The United States must do more to nurture a fast, safe, and competitive payments system. New technologies can help to advance this goal, which would yield enormous benefits for consumers, workers, and small businesses.

Today’s report examines stablecoins. Stablecoins are digital assets that are typically pegged to a sovereign currency. Over the last year, stablecoins pegged to the U.S. dollar increased by nearly 500% to $128 billion outstanding. The report highlights how stablecoins could be vulnerable to runs and fire-sales in ways that could create stress on the broader financial system absent adequate oversight.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was not a member of the working group that prepared this report. However, the agency will be taking several steps related to this market.

First, the CFPB recently solicited public input on how Big Tech companies might leverage their existing online dominance to rapidly scale the use of digital payment networks, including cryptocurrencies. Our solicitation for input follows the agency’s recent issuance of orders to Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Square, and PayPal regarding their payments-related plans and practices. As the Report on Stablecoins notes, established players with large user bases could accelerate the adoption of stablecoins as a payment device, and lead to an excessive concentration of market power. 

Second, the CFPB is actively monitoring and preparing for broader consumer adoption of cryptocurrencies. Currently, stablecoins are primarily used for speculative trading in cryptocurrency markets. However, stablecoins may also be used for and in connection with consumer deposits, stored value instruments, retail and other consumer payments mechanisms, and in consumer credit arrangements. These use cases and others trigger obligations under federal consumer financial protection laws, including the prohibition on unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts or practices.

Third, given the rapid growth in stablecoins, we will closely engage with other members of the Financial Stability Oversight Council to determine whether to initiate designation proceedings and ascertain whether certain nonbank stablecoin-related activities or entities are systemically important.

 TripleBlind, the private data sharing company that offers proprietary cryptographically-enforced data privacy solution, announced today that it has been named a Cool Vendor in October 2021 Gartner Cool Vendors™ in Privacy report. Gartner subscribers can read the full report here.

“New technologies are emerging that promise a “win-win” proposition for organizations seeking to respect the privacy rights of individuals while using data for information sharing, advanced cross-entity analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) modeling,” states the report.

TripleBlind’s solution enables entities to share and collaborate with data anywhere in the world without the need to share raw data, thus preserving privacy and security while enforcing all data privacy and data residency regulations now in place in more than 100 countries, including HIPAA and GDPR, as well as similar regulations in four U.S. states.

“We believe, being recognized as a 2021 Gartner Cool Vendor is another major milestone in solidifying our position as offering the superior technology to enable enterprises to share the estimated 43ZB of data that are not commercialized today due to regulatory concerns,” said Riddhiman Das, TripleBlind’s co-founder and CEO. “Sharing data assets is quickly becoming critical to sustained, long-term growth for businesses in every industry, including healthcare and finance in particular. Providing enterprises with a solution that allows them to collaborate while concurrently enforcing data privacy and regulatory standards could not be more important at this point in time.” 

This news comes on the heels of TripleBlind announcing $24 million in Series A funding in an oversubscribed round led by General Catalyst and Mayo Clinic last month.

*Gartner, “Cool Vendors in Privacy,” Bernard Woo, Bart Willemsen, Michael Hoeck, October 21, 2021.

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GARTNER and COOL VENDORS are registered trademarks and service marks of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved.

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Broadridge Private Market Hub to provide Emerald and Northern Trust greater transparency and efficiency in managing the private equity fund lifecycle

Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc., a global Fintech leader, and Northern Trust (Nasdaq: NTRS), a global leader in asset servicing, today announced that Emerald Technology Ventures will utilize the Broadridge Private Market Hub ecosystem to gain visibility and reduce transaction friction to interact in real-time on all Guernsey domiciled funds.

Broadridge’s Private Market Hub, the industry’s first deployment of blockchain technology for the private equity market, helps solve the industry challenge of transparency by providing real-time access to data and a full view of the fund lifecycle. It provides connectivity to existing industry tools and technologies to help further automate workflows between front-, middle- and back-office functions. The solution enables investment managers to manage, communicate and engage with investors and other stakeholders with greater efficiency and data transparency, streamlined through a distributed ledger technology.

“We are pleased to have worked with Northern Trust and Broadridge on development of the Private Market Hub, using blockchain technology to deliver a full private equity ecosystem,” said Hans Dellenbach, Partner and Chief Financial Officer at Emerald Technology Ventures. “Through the use of the Private Market Hub, we now can directly interact in real-time and have a full, 360-degree view of all of our Guernsey domiciled funds, giving us better oversight and flexibility moving forward.”

Northern Trust has successfully migrated four Emerald Technology Ventures funds to the Broadridge Private Market Hub, providing a single, fully transparent view into all funds and allowing for interaction in real-time. Emerald Technology Ventures funds can now call and distribute funds directly through Private Market Hub and seamlessly process the fund lifecycle through an automated workflow solution.

“We are excited to have Emerald Technology Ventures join our groundbreaking Private Market Hub platform, which enables a frictionless digital experience for private equity stakeholders and participants,” said Brian Crowley, Global Head of Product and Product Strategy, Broadridge Asset Management Solutions. “Investors have shown an increased interest in private assets over the past decade amid a search for returns, and Broadridge is creating innovative technology-based solutions to create better operational structures and scalability.”

“Following the transfer of Northern Trust’s blockchain technology to Broadridge in June 2019, we continue to invest in cutting-edge technologies through thoughtful collaborations to deliver leading capabilities,” said Pete Cherecwich, President of Corporate & Institutional Services at Northern Trust. “This has resulted in direct efficiencies for our asset manager clients as well as for Northern Trust.”

Vladislav Kreynin, senior vice president and director of the Marketing and Communications Department at Sberbank, is participating in Web Summit 2021, the world’s premier tech conference, taking place in Lisbon on November 1-4. On the first day of the conference, he hosted a key session titled “What to Expect in Marketing and Martech Over the Next Five Years?”, where he covered key trends in marketing.

During the roundtable, Kreynin outlined five challenges for marketing:

• Speed of change: the next 10 years will see as much progress as the last thousand years. The challenge before us is adapting to this speed of change.
• 4D personality: today, one person has four different personas – online, offline, gaming, and secret. Marketing teams need to understand what we can offer the client to satisfy all four.
• Mixed experience: the physical user experience and the user interface are evolving into a mixed experience – one that combines all of these experiences in digital, offline, and meta-realities. We must keep up with the metainterfaces developing right now.
• Data & AI: the growing influence of neuromarketing, which blends neuroscience and marketing modeling to help brands gauge the emotional resonance and financial efficiency of their current and future marketing campaigns.
• Smart contracts for all marketing transactions: in five years, there may not be any C-level executives. We will all be using smart contracts, and we may be creatives or architects of marketing platforms, but not executives, because smart contracts will execute things for us.

Vladislav Kreynin, senior vice president and director of the Marketing and Communications Department, Sberbank:

“My colleagues – global experts – and I had a heated discussion in which we concluded that the ethics of marketing and martech are a key challenge for our professional community. How to protect customers from high-pressure advertising or toxic content, how to manage client consent to use communications, how to avoid crossing the line into hyper-personalization, how to set up marketing platforms to create value for people — these are the questions we must answer that will define the development of marketing and advertising technology in the next few years. I was flattered by my international colleagues’ reaction to Sber’s experience — we are known as a company that is developing a leading ecosystem in Russia and as a benchmark for many companies globally. Many others around the world are keen to learn from our experience.”

New leaders from JPMorgan Chase, eBay, and ZenBusiness to join Nav

Nav, the simple and intelligent financing platform for small businesses, today announced the recent addition of three new executives: Nicholas Guerrieri as Vice President of Marketing, George Kurtyka as Vice President of New Product Strategy, and Joe Martin as Vice President of Engineering. These leaders will help accelerate Nav’s growth and provide personalized financing options to small business owners, as well as the other solutions they need to thrive.

“Nav has helped over 1.4 million small business owners since our founding, and we’re continuing to serve even more in the future with our new leaders guiding the way. Our expanded executive team brings decades of invaluable expertise from across the fintech and ecommerce industry as we continue to grow the company,” said Greg Ott, CEO at Nav. “With their collective track record of successful leadership, we’re thrilled to have George, Nick, and Joe join Nav. Their experience and drive will strategically position us for our next round of growth and together, with our current management team, will drive our company’s culture and future.”

The company has continued to see rapid growth in 2020 and 2021, driven by the release of its Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) Loan Forgiveness Calculator, which simplified the submission process and helped over 189,000 small business owners obtain funds, as well as the expansion of its embeddable finance solutions.

Meet Nav’s three new leaders:

• Nicholas Guerrieri, Vice President of Marketing. Guerrieri spent over a decade at JPMorgan Chase and brings over 15 years of marketing and branding expertise to Nav. In his new role, Guerrieri will play an integral role in driving heightened awareness of Nav’s solutions by defining marketing strategy, ensuring brand alignment across all messaging, and accelerating customer acquisition and retention.
   
• Joe Martin, Vice President of Engineering. Martin is an accomplished technology leader with over 25 years of experience building and leading high performing teams and delivering world-class technology solutions. Before Nav, Martin served as COO of Aura, where he led all engineering and development for the company’s financial services products. Prior to Aura, he was SVP of Engineering at Indiegogo, and Senior Director of Engineering at eBay. Martin will lead Nav’s software, architecture, IT, and data science teams. He’ll also drive the company’s tech roadmap to deliver an excellent customer experience.
   
• George Kurtyka, Vice President of New Product Strategy. Backed by 20 years of fintech experience across a variety of growth stage companies, Kurtyka will work with our executive team to define and realize Nav’s strategic vision and business goals. Prior to joining Nav, Kurtyka was Vice President of Product at ZenBusiness. He co-founded fintech platform, Joust Labs Inc., and was its COO until its acquisition by ZenBusiness. Kurtyka also previously held leadership roles at JPMorgan Chase, BBVA, Simple, PayPal, Samsung, and Nokia.

These new hires mark another expansion of Nav’s growing roster of executives. Over the past year and a half, Rebecca Sandberger joined Nav as Vice President of Legal and Counsel, and Andrew Anderson was promoted to Vice President of Finance.

Interested in joining Nav’s team? Learn more about open positions and life at Nav on the company careers page. Are you a small business owner looking for personalized financing and credit card recommendations? Sign up for a free account.