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.

• 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.”