• Mastercard launches Thrive Street pop-up to support local small businesses in the Northeast by offering free retail space to promote business, network and learn from business experts.
• Thrive Street part of Strive UK, initiative set up by Mastercard to empower British micro and small enterprises to thrive in the digital economy, build financial resilience and improve growth prospects.
• Series of masterclasses at Thrive Street will support business owners to develop digital skills needed to achieve future revenue growth – estimated at up to £827 billion* over the next five years.
• Thrive Street opened by celebrity retail consultant, Mary Portas, and Mayor of Gateshead, Councillor Dot Burnett.

Today, Mastercard launches Thrive Street, a month-long event to support small business owners from the Northeast of the UK. Taking place in the Metrocentre in Gateshead throughout November, Thrive Street will provide local small businesses with an opportunity to sell goods and services from pop-up stands made available to them for free. Business owners will also be able to attend a series of masterclasses to develop skills to build long-term resilience and improve growth prospects, as well as network with other business owners within their community.

The event was opened by the Mayor of Gateshead, Councillor Dot Burnett, and retail consultant, Mary Portas, who delivered a talk about the impact of the pandemic on business and the importance of digital tools for revenue growth, especially for local, high-street retailers. Over the course of the first week (1^st – 5^th November), business owners will be invited to attend masterclasses covering a range of topics, including retail, marketing and PR, and digital skills. The masterclasses will be hosted by Strive UK partners - Enterprise Nation, Be the Business and Digital Boost, as well as well-known faces from the world of business such as Cecilia Harvey, Founder and Chair of Tech Woman Today, and Mark Martin, Urban Teacher.

While small businesses across the UK are unanimously in need of support, some regions will need more than others. Data from Mastercard’s Inclusive Growth Score shows Newcastle upon Tyne scored almost ten points lower than London in terms of socioeconomic growth from 2018 to 2021. This reflects a broader trend of decline in the north that has, in part, been driven by decreases in the percentage of businesses that have fewer than 50 employees, exposing an urgent need to support small business owners in the region to succeed.

Thrive Street forms part of Strive UK, a philanthropic programme created by Mastercard’s Center for Inclusive Growth, focused on supporting micro and small businesses around the country to succeed in the digital economy. Technology played a critical role in supporting small businesses through the pandemic, with a recent Mastercard/Cebr report – Striving to Thrive – finding that 41% of small business owners believe their company would not have survived without digital tools. Looking ahead, the role of digital in business growth is clear - 47% believe technology will become more important to their company’s success over the next five years, and around a third say technological adoption has led to increased turnover and increased profit.

Despite this, data shows that challenges remain for small businesses looking to integrate digital tools, with 39% businesses feeling overwhelmed by the amount of choice, and 32% wanting to use more digital tools but unsure which ones would be best for their business. This uncertainty rises to 49% in the case of businesses that are owned or run by individuals from ethnic minority backgrounds, highlighting a need for highly-tailored, focused support. Over the next three years, Strive UK will offer free guidance, helpful tools, and personalised, one-to-one mentoring in digital skills, aiming to help business owners from a range of backgrounds – in particular supporting female owners and those from minority ethnic backgrounds who are traditionally harder to reach.

Kelly Devine, President, UK & Ireland, Mastercard, comments: “Small business owners told us they hope to achieve a collective £827 billion in growth over the next five years, but this won’t happen without support, particularly when it comes to digital tools which have been so integral during the pandemic. Thrive Street, and our wider Strive UK programme, aims to empower small businesses with the skills they need to not just survive but thrive in the digital economy.” 

Emma Jones CBE, Founder of Enterprise Nation, comments: “Thrive Street brings a whole host of opportunities and support for small business owners in the Northeast of the UK. Working directly with local communities is so important when it comes to developing small businesses, and Thrive Street offers business owners an invaluable platform for connecting with their peers, learning essential new skills and testing out physical retail for those who have not done so before.”

 CloudBees has been selected by HSBC as its software delivery platform provider, supporting the bank to provide faster, easier and more secure banking to its 40 million customers. With CloudBees, the international bank will establish a unified end-to-end system of record for deploying software into production. 

The multi-year agreement, which includes both products and professional services from CloudBees, will enable HSBC to accelerate its transformation to a modernized software delivery system and improve productivity for over 23,000 developers. This approach will help deliver more digital capabilities and value to HSBC’s customers faster, bolstering the bank’s competitive position. 

The agreement includes all components of the CloudBees Platform including continuous integration, continuous delivery, release orchestration, and feature management capabilities. It expands HSBC’s existing relationship with CloudBees, which began in 2015. In 2019, HSBC extended its relationship with CloudBees as a strategic investor.

“As customers shift more and more of their banking online, software is at the heart of everything we do at HSBC,” said Ian Haynes, CTO shared services and cloud at HSBC. “We are digitizing the bank and innovating faster to improve the customer experience while prioritizing security and compliance. We’ve chosen CloudBees because standardization and automation across our entire software delivery system will enable our developers to get new digital products and services into our customers’ hands quickly and securely.” 

HSBC has faced common challenges associated with software delivery at enterprise scale. 

Thousands of development teams created a complex, challenging process that could hinder speed and bank-wide visibility. With CloudBees, HSBC has created a repeatable, secure, standardized approach to software delivery that gives developers the freedom to innovate more and deal with maintenance and rework less. 

“HSBC is an industry leader and the definition of ‘global enterprise scale.’ It doesn’t get more massive or more complex than the environment at HSBC,” said CloudBees CEO Stephen DeWitt. “Our fundamental goal is to help HSBC’s customers get the best and most secure banking experience possible and the way we do that is to make room for developers to write and safely deliver the best code possible and eliminate the tasks and interruptions that get in their way.”

HSBC operates a hybrid cloud environment, both off- and on-premise, necessitating the need for a powerful and flexible solution that can seamlessly unify deployments across both platforms. Expanding the commitment to the entire suite of capabilities in the CloudBees Platform will further enhance the automation and security landscape, simplify and unify software release automation across the entire global organization and provide governance and audit oversight of high-frequency deployments.

HSBC selected CloudBees because of its comprehensive and extensible platform that can 

integrate with its software delivery tools, minimizing disruption and allowing them to maximize existing software tool investments, thus enabling a best-of-breed approach. 

“The immense scope and scale of software delivery at HSBC requires a powerful suite of tools and we have to choose partners that allow seamless integration across our toolchain,” said Haynes. “CloudBees offers us a powerful platform for the capabilities we need while making it easy for us to have one unified platform that includes all the other tools we leverage. That is a key advantage for CloudBees.”

HSBC will put increased emphasis on implementing continuous compliance that is built into its software delivery process and include automation of the audit reporting, real-time tracking, tracing, and approval of software all the way through to production. 

British Business Investments, a commercial subsidiary of the British Business Bank, today announces a £30m commitment to UK focused small cap specialist, Mobeus Equity Partners to its Fund V.

Mobeus provide capital to smaller companies, to support their growth and take an equity stake, alongside existing management teams. The fund will support such management teams in growing their business and the capital will be used to fund capital investment or acquisitions.

British Business Investments aims to increase the supply and diversity of finance for smaller businesses across the UK by boosting the lending capacity of challenger banks and non-bank lenders. Since it was established in 2014, British Business Investments has committed over £2.5bn to providers of finance to UK smaller businesses.

Mobeus specialises in providing private capital solutions to high-growth businesses, with a 20-year track record, investing up to £20 million in UK SMEs across all sectors.

Judith Hartley, CEO, British Business Investments, said: “At British Business Investments, by supporting private capital providers such as Mobeus Equity Partners, we help companies across the UK to access the capital they need to grow.”

Medius, a leading provider of spend management solutions, has been recognized as a Visionary in the October 2021 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Procure-to-Pay (P2P) Suites report.¹

Medius believes this achievement is attributed to their innovative product development, truly customer-centric approach, and the modern technology powering Medius solutions.

Jim Lucier, Medius CEO, said, “We’re pleased to be recognized as a Visionary in the Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Procure-to-Pay Suites for the second time. We consider it’s a testament to our class-leading product development process, guided by customer feedback.”   

Lucier added: “Our extensive background in AP Automation and our comprehensive spend management suite give our customers the confidence that they have complete control of cost, cash, and compliance throughout the entire procure-to-pay lifecycle.

“We’ll continue to focus on rapidly developing and deploying innovative products releases to increase that confidence, especially during the uncertain times Covid-19 has brought for businesses.”

Medius credits its success to its customer-first approach. Branden Jenkins, Chief Strategy Officer at Medius said, “Customers trust us to help them reduce fraud and improve their business spend management processes.

“Customer feedback has helped shift our focus to several areas of investment on the horizon that will help reduce risk and give customers even more insights to categories of spend.”  

Jenkins added, “Game-changing efficiencies are vital in today’s market, keep an eye on how Medius continues to innovate. Now, in our 20^th year of business, the future of Medius is looking brighter than ever.”

^[1] Gartner®, “[Magic Quadrant™ for Procure-to-Pay Suites],” [Kaitlynn Sommers, Micky Keck, William McNeill, Patrick Connaughton], [25^th October 2021].

Gartner® Disclaimer:

GARTNER and MAGIC QUADRANT 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. 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.

Latest community insight draws back the curtain on open banking, the game changing approach to data, its major players globally and impact on the industry

A report released by The Payments Association (formerly The Emerging Payments Association (EPA)), confidently predicts that open banking is going to transform the payments industry in the coming years. Largely this is because new entrants are bringing solutions to market that are making accessing financial services more convenient, while creating new customer experiences or enhancing existing ones.

Open banking means giving customers more control of their financial data, more control of how they use their online bank account and more control over which channels they use to manage their accounts. Open Banking is starting to deliver in the UK; with over three million users of open banking services in 2021, it is spreading to more markets around the world each day, driven by new regulation and increasing consumer demand.

The newly released ‘Power to the People: How open banking is transforming how we access and manage our money’ insight paper provides an overview of open banking developments globally, the impact for end users, and a wealth of use cases across different industry verticals. These include use cases that directly serve consumers better like subscription payments management or personal debt management, as well as use cases that serve businesses like small business financial management and credit scoring. The report includes key findings from interviews with innovative players in this space: AccountScore, Ecospend, Minna Technologies, Snoop and Ordo.

It also explores the impact that it open banking is having in different markets around the world, outlining the position that North America, Latin America, Australia and New Zealand and Asia are taking, as well as those of other markets.

The Payment Association’s insight paper reports that together with ever-more sophisticated machine learning/artificial intelligence solutions, open finance will create a world where consumers are empowered with real insight into their financial positions and are supported by ‘self-driving’ solutions to achieve better financial wellbeing .

Tony Craddock, Director General at The Payments Association, commented: “Innovation has been driving the payments industry in recent years at a rate never seen before, but open banking is set to up the game once again. Its introduction hasn’t been a smooth road, but now that it is overcoming some of these early hurdles, it will be a force for good, driving industry competition and providing customers with greater transparency and better product choices.

He added: “The impact that open banking can have cannot be understated, from personal finance management, loyalty and rewards, and credit scoring to ethical and sustainable living.”

• A more than 600% increase in 3DS transactions in the past year corresponds with a 36% fall in e-commerce payment attacks according to the latest Cybercrime Report from LexisNexis® Risk Solutions
• 3DS authentication process aims to reduce fraud and enhance security in online card payments, as part of the Europe-wide drive towards Strong Customer Authentication (SCA)
• A 21% increase in overall e-commerce transactions was driven in part by 182% growth in Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) transactions

LexisNexis® Risk Solutions today reveals e-commerce fraud attack rates have declined 36% in the past 12 months, whilst 3DS transactions have grown more than 600% across the same period, led by uptake of the new 3DS 2.x protocol.

The 3DS protocol aims to reduce instances of fraud in online card payments by more accurately determining transaction risk. The updated 2.x protocol, currently being rolled out around the world, includes support for mobile payments and looks to reduce the friction along the customer journey associated with the original protocol. 3DS includes methods of two-factor authentication and is being more frequently introduced as part of the drive towards Strong Customer Authentication (SCA).

The decline in attack rates comes amid continued digital adoption, with a 21% increase in e-commerce transactions over the last year, driven in part by a 182% growth in Buy Now, Pay Later transactions, as well as the huge shift towards ecommerce driven by the global pandemic.

The 9% decline in automated bot attacks seen across e-commerce is in sharp contrast to a significant rise in attacks against media (174%) and financial services (28%) businesses. LexisNexis® Digital Identity Network® detected 189m bot attacks levelled against ecommerce, and a further 683m against financial services and 351m against the media industry in the first half of 2021.

Stephen Topliss, vice president of fraud and identity for LexisNexis Risk Solutions, comments:

“Today’s results speak positively of the revised 3DS 2.x protocol and its impact on protecting consumers and businesses from fraud risk, made possible by our evolving regulatory environment.

“The ability to more easily leverage a global network of online behaviour, locational data, device analysis and other inputs within the 3DS protocol means that issuing banks and merchants can more accurately identify both criminals and legitimate, trusted users.”

“Given the vast increase in ecommerce transactions during the government-imposed lockdowns of the last year, it could be predicted the industry would struggle to cope with fraudulent activity within this period. However, a reduction in attacks suggests 3DS 2.x is playing its part in reducing fraud, therefore safeguarding consumers and defending businesses.”

 Tradeteq, the leading technology provider for bank asset distribution, together with Commerzbank AG (Commerzbank), AKA Ausfuhrkredit-Gesellschaft mbH (AKA), and Texel Finance Limited (the Texel Group) have announced that following a successful proof of concept phase, Tradeteq Connect, an expansion of the firm’s existing platform to support distributing bank risk resulting from trade products such as letters of credit (LCs) and guarantees, has been implemented by Commerzbank AG, AKA, and the Texel Group and shall become the new technology standard for trade asset distribution.  

By establishing this new technological link between them, Commerzbank, AKA, and the Texel Group form the nucleus of the Tradeteq Connect network of grantor and participant banks as well as insurance carriers and brokers. Additional banks and credit insurers will now be selectively invited to join Tradeteq Connect. 

Tradeteq Connect provides trading automation, limit system, and network-as-a-service for participants to trade within their own private network with counterparties they choose. Where previously this process relied on spreadsheets, Tradeteq Connect is a single system that can handle the full distribution chain end-to-end in one place. 

It’s the first tailor-made bank-to-bank and bank-to-credit insurer distribution tool and it offers Tradeteq’s global network of users the ability to seamlessly and securely connect, interact, and transact. Tradeteq Connect reduces the dependency on manual workflows and error-prone processes, eliminating friction for streamlined distribution. An intuitive dashboard highlights the most important information. Automated notifications make sure institutions are fully in control of opportunities, events, and deadlines. And with full API integration, which should always be the ultimate goal of the implementation, users can continue to work in their familiar environment. 

Tradeteq Connect runs on Microsoft’s Azure cloud, the world’s leading cloud platform. Tradeteq Connect gives institutions the same security, privacy, and compliance protections that are used by global banks and 95% of Fortune 500 companies. By holding data in their own dedicated ‘Tradeteq Pod’, located in one of 61 regions across the globe, Tradeteq Connect users can meet even the most demanding data residency, compliance, and resiliency requirements. Tradeteq Connect allows users to stay fully compliant with their country’s or region’s legal and regulatory requirements on location of their data. 

Tradeteq Connect not only vastly improves bank-to-bank distribution of core trade but it also enhances the capability of distributing other trade finance products such as receivables and supply chain finance to other investors. This will help to close the USD 3.4 trillion trade finance gap, that was highlighted in a 2020 ICC study, thereby supporting smaller businesses that previously would have been unable to receive the finance they need. 

Nikolaus Giesbert, Divisional Board Member Institutionals at Commerzbank, comments: 

“In line with our published strategy, we continuously seek to automate and digitise our processes. Our collaboration with Tradeteq will allow us to achieve these goals and thereby to reach a broader, deeper and more differentiated investor base for trade finance risk.” 

Mario Messerschmidt, Head of Structured Finance & Syndication at AKA, adds: 

“Cooperation and empowering our partners as a complementary, non-competitive enabler and solution provider was the reason for AKA’s foundation in 1952, and still is today.  

“Our agenda: facing the challenges, but even more using the chances and opportunities the digitalisation has to offer. Within an international network of strong trade finance banks and companies, we are serving our partners by developing and supporting digital solutions like SmaTiX and the Tradeteq platform, but also investing our risk capacity in ventures of our partners.  

“The pandemic crisis discovered very clearly shortfalls in efficiency due to the lack of digitalisation in trade finance. The Tradeteq solution is able and ready to solve the risk distribution task by providing a high efficient platform solution. AKA is very proud to become a part in this new standard in trade finance risk distribution, with an outlook that goes far beyond that.” 

Simon Bessant, Global Head of Insurance at the Texel Group, said: “The credit insurance market can provide banks with a deep pool of risk sharing capacity to help them manage balance sheet concentrations and capital adequacy, but inefficiencies in the traditional insurance processes need to be overcome to truly scale the support available from the credit insurance market. Connect allows banks to distribute trade finance assets to insurers in real-time, with insurers able to manage their exposures using rules and eligibility-based controls bespoke to each bank. Texel’s opinion is that Connect will help to remove current credit insurance market inefficiencies and allow banks, credit insurers and brokers to build deeper and more dynamic relationships with each other.” 

Nils Behling, Co-Founder and CFO of Tradeteq, said: “Innovations in trade finance technology are making transactions easier to conduct, more efficient, and less reliant on error-prone manual processes. Through Tradeteq Connect we help close the trade finance gap, providing greater connectivity between banks and other institutions. We look forward to working closely with Commerzbank AG, AKA, Texel, and other forward-thinking institutions to continue to evolve the trade finance sector for the better.” 

Research by The DPO Centre reveals that senior leaders in large organisations are less likely to understand the impact of privacy and data protection regulation or engage with it, compared to their counterparts in smaller organisations.

Over 400 data protection experts were asked how well senior leaders of their organisation, as well as all other employees, understood and engaged with privacy issues such as accountability, compliance and data security.

Across all areas of privacy and data regulation, the privacy experts working at the largest organisations in the UK (those with over 5,000 employees) rated their senior team as the worst at engaging with and understanding privacy laws.

When asked how well they thought the senior leaders in their organisation understood the impact of and engaged with the issue of accountability and the need to demonstrate compliance, experts working in companies with over 1,000 employees rated their senior teams an average of 5.4 out of 10. This was significantly lower than those working in medium-sized companies who rated their senior teams an average of 7.1 out of 10.

Similarly, when asked the same question about how senior leaders understand and engage with the issue of data retention, the average score given across all companies was 5.9 out of 10. Organisations with 10,000+ employees scored the lowest with an average of 4.2 out of 10.

Finally, looking at the question: ‘To what degree do you think staff in your organisation recognise the importance of data protection and privacy regulations and how they apply?’, the results show that respondents from medium and smaller-sized companies were more likely to say that employees recognise the importance of privacy and data protection regulation.

Companies with under 1,000 employees were more likely to score 7 or higher, with those with 500-1,000 employees getting an average score of 7.7. By comparison, larger companies received scores far lower on average, with organisations with more than 5,000 employees only scoring an average of 6.2 out of 10.

Rob Masson, CEO at The DPO Centre, said: “Our research clearly highlights that it is the larger companies that are struggling to engage with privacy and data protection regulation, not only amongst their senior leaders but also their wider staff.

“Data protection and privacy is a boardroom issue, and senior management need to lead by example to ensure that data protection is taken seriously throughout all levels of the organisation. Going forward, privacy and data protection issues are increasingly becoming the cornerstone of doing business, so cultivating great staff awareness and a culture of compliance is going to be essential for businesses of all sizes.”

1 Research conducted by The DPO Centre and the Data Protection World Forum amongst privacy experts in July 2021

Insig AI, the technology company that provides machine learning solutions for asset managers, is proud to announce that it joins EDF Energy, CBRE Global Investors, KMPG in the UK and others as a sponsor of the All-Party Parliamentary Group ("APPG") on Environmental, Social, and Governance ("ESG"). 

APPGs are cross-party groups which exist to facilitate impartial discussion on specific topics between parliamentarians, British businesses and sector experts.  The groups examine policy and development around a certain issue by bringing together stakeholders and government ministers and publishing research whitepapers, and often hold inquiries into a pertinent matter.

The APPG on ESG includes members and officers from all sides of the house, including Conservative, Labour, Green, and Liberal Democrat MPs and peers. APPG's agenda is focused on promoting the holistic understanding, strategic adoption and standardised assessment of the principles of ESG in the UK. 

Insig AI joins as the first technology company among the sponsors and will be engaging collaboratively with these other members to support the APPG's aims.  These include to:

●     Deepen the understanding of ESG principles and values among British businesses, helping corporate leaders to build it into business strategies and decision-making at the highest levels.

●     Champion the need for businesses to have dedicated ESG appointments to their boards.

●     Ensure the importance of ESG is recognised not just in the corporate world, but also by government departments.

●     Assist in making sure that clear metrics for understanding and assessing ESG are outlined, understood and accepted by government and business, and designed to help guide investment. 

●     To act as the forum for business, government and the consumer to discuss issues of ESG and to drive forward measures which will ensure a sustainable, responsible, and successful UK economy.

Steve Cracknell, Insig AI CEO, said "We believe technology has a valuable role in facilitating best practice in ESG awareness, research, assessment and decision-making, so the UK can be an international leader in sustainable investment."

Diana Rose, Insig AI ESG Research Director, said "We are delighted to be around the table with ESG thought-leaders from government, business and other stakeholders who are driving forward and helping to define the future of the UK's ESG strategy."

Alexander Stafford, Chairman of the APPG on ESG, said "ESG progress requires bold approaches, which are able to adapt to a rapidly changing regulation framework. Insig AI's granular understanding of ESG strategy and scoring, combined with its innovative machine learning approach, will be a valuable addition to the APPG on ESG."