Two industry leaders team up to support growing demand for subscription-based business across Europe

Worldline, the European leader in the payments and transactional services industry and #4 player worldwide, and Chargebee, the leading subscription billing and revenue management platform, today announced their collaboration to provide an end-to-end payment, subscription and revenue operations solution for merchants operating in a subscription model.

With a single, integrated solution, Worldline and Chargebee help merchants improve and expand business operations, efficiently and at scale. The combination of Worldline’s state-of-the-art payment gateway and Chargebee’s comprehensive subscription management solution means merchants of all sizes and industries can manage subscription billing and recurring payments through one central solution that covers all operational and payment aspects.

The collaboration gives Worldline’s merchant customer base access to a recognized leader in subscription management. Chargebee powers thousands of companies in over 50 countries. Using its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform, any subscription-based business can automate and scale core processes including subscriptions, payments and revenue recognition processes, resulting in increased customer retention, reduced failed payments and actionable metrics and insights that can be converted into new business opportunities. With minimal implementation time, merchants can quickly and seamlessly offer an enhanced end-user experience with self-service capabilities and an easy integration with all business and marketing tools.

“Worldline serves 1 million merchants across the globe, and we share with Chargebee a belief in making payments simple to allow businesses of all sizes to scale up. We are very excited to join forces and combine Chargebee’s vast expertise in the subscription economy with our expertise in payments to offer the best user experience for our customers,” said Daniel Nordholm, Head of Worldline’s Merchant Services division for Regional Businesses.

“The addition of Worldline into the Chargebee ecosystem was a natural fit to help advance our expansion strategy of ‘think global and act local’, while keeping our customers’ needs top of mind by providing a seamless experience that can grow and scale with a business of any size,” said Eric Chan, Head of Partnerships at Chargebee.

One stop business payment solution provider, Safenetpay, Financial Supervisory Authority, following the establishment of a Danish subsidiary.

Being granted this EMI licence will give Safenetpay the freedom to promote and provide services across the EU/EEA (subject to passporting), without the need to negotiate arrangements and obtain separate licences in other member states countries. Furthermore, establishing a Danish subsidiary and obtaining a new EMI licence and will allow Safenetpay to expand its operations in Europe and provide SMEs and sole traders across the continent with smarter business solutions.

As with many UK-based FinTechs, Safenetpay was looking for European base to continue their ambitious growth plans post Brexit. Safenetpay initially considered Ireland, the Netherlands, France and Cyprus, but ultimately opted for Denmark. 

Sanjar Mavlyanov, Founder and CEO, Safenetpay, says:

“We chose Denmark as our European base because it is home to one of the most thriving start-up cultures in Europe and is has one the most digitalised economies in the world. The Danish regulators encourage Entrepreneurial spirit, collaboration and the pursuit of innovative solutions to complex problems.”
 
Safenetpay will be hiring a local team to oversee its entry into to the Danish market, with a focus on targeting domestic SMEs and sole traders before branching across Europe in the future. The team will work under the Danish subsidiary of Safenetpay, with UK operations continuing to be managed from their London headquarters.

 

Global pioneering infrastructure and connectivity provider, BSO,  has today announced it will upgrade its Tokyo to London and Tokyo to Singapore connectivity routes. The routes are available from November to new and existing customers, offering market-leading connectivity between the three major equities and FX hubs.

Achieving fast connectivity between London and Tokyo has long been a challenge for telco providers and so this upgrade solves an important problem. Tokyo is a key section of the FX arbitrage triangle between Europe and Asia and the revamped routes builds on BSO’s award-winning global trading network to deliver more resilient and even lower latency networks.

The new routes also extends BSO’s recent enhancements to its connectivity links across high-growth hubs in Asia including Shanghai and Hong Kong. In addition to the current upgrade BSO has one of the leading connectivity routes between New York and Tokyo.

“Connecting financial traders to the complex Asian landscape is an ongoing challenge, but when demand for connectivity from our customers grow, we rise to the challenge and push the limits of our networks to keep pace. Over the past year we’ve made continual improvements to our routes connecting major Asian financial hubs to other hubs around the world, cementing our market-leading position.” says Michael Ourabah, CEO and Founder of BSO.

“Our investment in these Tokyo routes is yet again another demonstration of our continued commitment to providing the FX trading community with resilient and competitive access to Asian markets and one of the busiest FX circuits in the world.” says Tony Jones, Head of Low Latency Strategy, BSO.

Worldline will propel Volt’s secure, real-time open banking payment method across Europe while expanding its global footprint into high-growth markets

Volt, the London-based leading open payments gateway, today announces a new partnership with Worldline -- the European leader in the payments and transactional services -- that will give over 600 enterprise-level merchants globally access to Volt’s open payments infrastructure, driving significant levels of transaction volumes.

Now, thanks to exclusive partnerships with merchants and bolstered by a seasoned sales force, Worldline can accelerate the adoption of Volt’s unique open payments gateway throughout Europe, while continuing its expansion into Asia and Latin America. This news is the latest milestone for Volt in the last few months, following is record-breaking Series A funding and several partnership announcements.

Combining Worldline’s pedigree as a leading European payments platform with Volt’s expertise, agility, and scalability, means Worldline can gain a first-to-market competitive advantage with a unique open banking offering. The partnership brings the latest payments innovations and features to the fingertips of Worldline customers, allowing businesses to launch their own branded payment method with real-time settlement and substantially lower fees, leading to an improved user experience and conversion rates.

Roger Niederer, Chief Market Officer, Merchant Services at Worldline, said: “Our partnership comes at an exciting time for payments, as PSD2 spurs on open banking innovation. Industry analysts are expecting massive adoption in the near future, with a predicted global market value of more than $40 billion in the next five years. The Volt team impressed us early on with their ability to respond to changes swiftly during product development. As such, we are incredibly excited today to bring this product to market; it’s unprecedented and truly unlocking value for our prospects and customers. Together with Volt, we are at the forefront of the digital revolution shaping new ways of paying and doing business online.”

Tom Greenwood, CEO at Volt, added: “This collaboration will power a bold new open banking offering. The commercial benefits are a no-brainer: merchants need more cost-effective payment alternatives to card payments, and much faster settlements. Open banking payments are real-time, and are inherently more secure as the danger of card fraud is eliminated. Working with Worldline, we will support hundreds of businesses in their adoption of this new-generation, real-time payments service. We are delighted to be working with a leading brand and global platform to achieve this.”

Industry’s first solution to marry intercompany with global vendor invoice management to centralize and automate invoice receipt, validation, audit, approval, payment, and disputes

FourQ, the leading provider of intercompany financial management software to streamline the global operations of the world’s largest companies, unveiled significant new capabilities for its Paymaster product line. The full-service solution for centralizing and automating global vendor invoice management has added new features and capabilities to help multinational corporations better consolidate accounts payable in a world of large and increasingly complex invoices.

“The complexity of global vendor invoice operations for large multinationals can be daunting, and restricts an organization’s ability to scale elegantly,” said Robert Kugel, Research Director at Ventana Research. “They’re frequently dealing with hundreds of thousands of detailed invoices and disparate financial operations that all too often rely on brute force manual processes. This means accounting teams cannot validate the accuracy of invoices and allocate costs appropriately, leading to late fees and strained vendor relationships. Solutions like Paymaster help multinationals simplify and scale the process for auditing and paying complex invoices.”

Already having processed more than $1 billion of payments, the newly enhanced solution offers an even more efficient way to process large volumes of invoices. Paymaster helps multinationals quickly realize savings and efficiencies by automating manual AP processes to eliminate late fees, penalties, and past-due invoices. It audits not only what is being charged, but inventory and usage, as well. Paymaster clients consistently achieve on-time vendor payments to improve vendor relationships and services. Fully automated tax optimization capabilities reduce tax leakage and improve deductibility. Smart, intuitive dashboards provide clients with real-time status updates and reports. These capabilities help corporations achieve significant economies of scale, negotiate vastly improved contract terms, and dramatically improve their vendor relationships.

Key new enhancements to Paymaster include:

• New invoice audit engine which provides a detailed audit trail of each invoice’s lifecycle along with a visualization of the invoice’s creation to completed payment
• New approval engine which shows the chain of the approval process, including a mass approval feature. This enables users to access specific invoice details in PDF format whenever additional insight is required to facilitate the approval process or to speed decision-making
• Full spend analytics and invoice line-item details can be quickly accessed

“Paymaster’s mass approval feature is a complete game-changer,” said Varun Tejpal, co-founder and CEO of FourQ. “Long considered important to help better streamline the invoice management process, we’re thrilled to be the first intercompany accounting provider to meet this need. As a result, we’re seeing more interest in Paymaster than ever.”

Paymaster also enables intercompany accounting teams to analyze vendor performance in terms of both accuracy and resolution. It keeps track of dispute tickets and establishes a mutually fair dispute resolution process that benefits the vendor by reducing or eliminating the revenue assurance activities they undertake. Every aspect of an invoice is audited so the corporation and the vendor are alerted whenever there is over- or under-billing.

For example, one of FourQ’s clients found that 28% of the invoices received from a corporate real estate services vendor were incorrect, which delayed payments up to 30 days or more. Using Paymaster, the multinational was able to create checks and balances for the vendor, and ultimately make 100% of their vendor payments on time.

Users of FourQ’s OneBiller will also be happy to know that Paymaster syncs effortlessly with the automated intercompany accounting solution. These FourQ solutions work together to deliver all the functionality of a centralized invoicing and payment process with the allocation logic to place all costs where they should be on customers’ ledgers. By contrast, other vendor solutions offer one or the other – but not both.

“Paymaster offers all the insights needed for better decision making about what you’re consuming, how you’re consuming it, if you should continue to consume as you are, and who you are getting it from,” notes Varun Tejpal of FourQ.

For more information on FourQ’s Paymaster solution, please visit: www.FourQ.com/Paymaster.

FinTech driven specialized lender to repurchase up to 2 million outstanding common shares

Legion Capital, a FinTech driven, publicly traded specialized business lender providing growth capital to small and medium sized companies and real estate developers, announced today that its Board of Directors has authorized the repurchase of up to 2 million shares of the Company's outstanding common stock. The repurchase program will be commenced as of October 18, 2021 and will involve both open market and private purchase transactions. The Company did not specify a particular number of shares or purchase price or terms.

Commenting on the stock repurchase program, James Byrd, Chairman of the Board, said, “We are very pleased with the current state of our business and are excited about our prospects for future growth. This repurchase program reflects our belief in the long-term value of our company and stock – while we all understand the great degree of uncertainty in predicting ultimate value and price of a public stock, we feel the current market price provides an opportunity for us and our shareholders to further participate in the long-term potential for Legion.”

The Company advises that it has not agreed to any particular minimum purchase quantities – actual purchases will depend upon market conditions, availability of capital and other business and corporate needs, as well as regulatory and legal limitations associated with such a repurchase program.

The repurchase program has no expiration date and will be funded using the Company's cash on hand, and cash from operations. As of June 30, 2020, the Company had cash and cash equivalents of approximately $4.964 million. Legion had approximately 16,673,732 million shares of common stock outstanding as of June 30, 2020, per the unaudited balance sheet of Legion Capital.

Repurchased shares may be canceled, held as treasury shares, resold privately or in conjunction with a future equity financing. There is no guarantee as to the number of shares that will be repurchased, or as to what terms and the repurchase program may be extended, suspended or discontinued at any time without prior notice, at Legion’s discretion.

About Legion Capital
Legion Capital (Symbol: LGCP) is a FinTech driven specialized lender providing growth capital to small and medium sized companies. Legion provides bridge funding, acquisition finance, development, and growth capital in a highly customized and expeditious manner, addressing a large and growing segment of small business lending that is under-served by banks and institutions.

Legion Capital serves our Investors and Financial Advisors through a suite of diversified equity and debt investment products, many of which offer attractive yields, non-correlation to traditional financial markets, and defined liquidity dates. For more information, please visit www.LegionCapital.com.

New Partner hire signals major investment in region’s booming finance sector.

PKF, one of the UK’s largest and most successful accountancy brands, has today announced ambitious plans to grow its Northern office with the creation of a new Financial Services team. Spearheaded by new Financial Services Partner, Martin Watson, PKF’s expansion will create up to 50 new jobs in Leeds over the next three years.

Financial services hub

The decision to invest in Leeds, serving businesses across the North, reflects the region’s dominant position as the leading Financial Services hub outside London. The city’s finance sector is booming, and Leeds was the obvious place to base the new specialist team.

Martin Watson, Partner, says: “Now is the right time to be investing in Yorkshire. You only need to look around to see the buzz in the region. But companies based in Leeds and beyond are telling us they want a credible alternative to the ‘Big Four’ in the region; they are crying out for more choice. It’s our goal to offer them that choice”.

An all-round service for FS companies

The new Financial Services unit will join PKF’s existing restructuring and advisory teams at its Park Row offices. Building on the well-respected practice in Leeds, PKF will be creating a local external and internal audit and outsourcing offering for financial services clients - the first for the firm outside London.

James Sleight, partner in PKF’s Leeds Office, said: “Martin’s appointment demonstrates PKF’s commitment to the North of England. We know the area well and we understand the challenges and opportunities facing the region’s businesses. That puts us in a strong position to help.

“Martin’s presence further strengthens our offering in the financial services market and kick-starts the next phase of our investment in Yorkshire. PKF is growing from a strong foundation and the region’s financial services market is in great shape – it’s an exciting time for all of us at PKF Leeds.”

Building the team

As part of PKF’s plans to build the team, Martin Watson is encouraging people at all levels and with a mix of experience to come forward. Martin continues: “We have ambitious plans for our Leeds office and are looking for local people who want to help make our vision a reality – the type of people who enjoy making things happen. It’s our goal to build a diverse and dynamic team that encourages everyone to fulfil their potential and achieve a sustainable work-life balance. The conversations that I’ve had with candidates locally make it clear that people want a great place to work with flexibility, challenge and support – that’s exactly what we are creating here in Leeds. Our ethos is that ‘we work with people rather than just numbers’ – which is a bold claim for an accountancy firm to make, but one that accurately reflects our distinctive approach.”

All vacancies can be found at www.pkf-l.com/careers/ where applications from those who are looking to work flexibly or preferring to work part-time or reduced hours are encouraged. The firm has a number of opportunities for qualified or part-qualified accountants looking for their next step on their career. Interested applicants should contact PKF on recruitment@pkf-l.com.

New partner appointment

Martin Watson recently joined PKF as Financial Services Partner after 13 years at Deloitte, the last four of which were spent in Leeds, and is driving the ambitious expansion and recruitment plans in the region. With experience of working across the full spectrum of financial services clients - from FTSE/AIM listed down to smaller privately or member owned businesses – Martin has developed a strong focus on the insurance sector. Martin previously served as a Board member on the Investment & Life Assurance Group (ILAG), a trade body representing the life assurance and wealth management industry, and currently chairs its Financial Reporting Practitioner Group. He also contributed to numerous PRA and FRC working groups during the design of the audit requirements for the regulatory regime for insurers in the UK.

Martin says: “I’m excited to have joined PKF at this time. The firm has continued to invest in its people and processes despite the pandemic, and this has been reflected in the major new clients that it is winning, both within the Financial Services team and more broadly across the firm. Clients are crying out for more choice and our expansion in Leeds will offer a credible alternative to companies beyond the ‘Big Four’.”

“I’m looking forward to playing my part in helping PKF to realise its plans, developing its offering to financial services businesses and also building the team in Leeds.

“There has never been a better time to think about joining PKF as we look to accelerate the next phase of development in Yorkshire. We’re actively looking to add talented people to our team at all levels. The region is booming, and it’s a great time to join a growing firm with ambitious plans.”

Petroleum Service Corporation (PSC), the North American leader in product handling, site logistics and sustainability services for the petrochemical and refining industries, has selected corporate performance management (CPM) vendor OneStream Software to streamline and unify the company’s finance operations.

After a thorough evaluation process, OneStream was ultimately selected for its comprehensive platform and commitment to customer success. PSC will replace Excel with OneStream’s Intelligent Finance platform to unify their financial processes across planning, reporting and account reconciliations.

“Selecting OneStream was based on a valued partnership, building a solution that will modernize our complex financial processes across PSC in a single, unified platform,” said Lynn Nazareth, CFO at PSC. “OneStream’s Extensible Dimensionality® will allow us to derive key insights across multiple lines of business with the flexibility to scale as the company continues to grow, while the seamless integration with ADP and NetSuite allows for a single source of truth for data across the enterprise.”

PSC has chosen OneStream Diamond Level Partner and global digital consultancy Perficient as their implementation partner. Phase One of the project will include workforce planning and reporting, focusing on a direct connection to NetSuite and integration to ADP. Phase Two will include a roll-out of additional planning and reporting capabilities and solutions, along with account reconciliations. Following Phase Two, PSC will explore utilizing OneStream for account reconciliations as well as close management and consolidations. “Perficient is proud to be selected as PSC’s implementation partner to help transform their financial processes. Together we will build an enduring solution that will evolve as PSC grows, leveraging modern tools and technologies to drive success for their customers,” said Charles Ramirez, CPM Practice Director at Perficient.

“We are honored to be chosen by PSC as a trusted partner to modernize their financial processes,” said Mark Ardis, Named Account Manager at OneStream. “OneStream’s platform capabilities proved to be the best fit to meet PSC’s needs as they digitally transform, with the OneStream MarketPlace offering solutions for PSC to expand their use of the platform into people planning, capital planning, task manager and parcel services to provide innovative insights across the enterprise as the company continues to grow.”

The joint project of Rosbank, part of the Societe General Group, and Diasoft has been named finalist of the global Banking Tech Awards 2021 in the category “Best Use of IT for Lending”. The large-scale IT transformation project “Core Engine for Loans and Deposits” (CELD) based on Diasoft’s digital solutions allowed the bank to fully move its corporate lending business processes into the digital environment. The prestigious award highlights global technology projects in the lending space, which have resulted in tangible benefits for the end-user and the organization, brought clear improvements, increased the organization’s efficiency and competitiveness, and are commercially viable.

Rosbank’s strategy focuses on the continuous improvement of its customer services through implementation of innovative IT solutions and services. The bank has been implementing a large-scale IT transformation program, which includes migration from the legacy monolithic system and implementation of independent flexible solutions based on modern technologies for support of separate LOBs

Replacement of the core system for corporate and business lending is an important stage of the bank’s overall IT transformation. The new corporate platform - Digital Q.Corporate by Diasoft – has been rolled out to the whole bank branch network in Russia.

The project milestones included migration of products and contracts from the legacy Misys system, integration with internal bank systems (CRM, Core Banking, front office), separation of product and financial accounting, and acceleration of such business processes as creation and launch of new credit products, support of individual credit offers, implementation of innovative business functions. The solution provided a reliable platform for the further development of the corporate business.

“The new core system provided us with flexibility to streamline our corporate lending business processes and reduce TTM for new products. The functional capabilities and technological features of the Digital Q.Corporate platform created a reliable basis for effective expansion of our corporate banking business”, comments Kirill Pokladov, Director of the IT Department of the Corporate, Investment and Custody Business at Rosbank

“Implementation of microservice technologies in the bank Back Office is an important technological innovation, new for the market. This architectural approach provides such technological advantages as scalability and reliability, flexible replacement of components, their independent enhancement and development. As a result, the bank obtained a modern platform which enabled technological and business transformation of its corporate banking business”, Leonid Khorevsky, Member of the Management Board, Head of Operations Management Solutions at Diasoft.

More information on the award is available at: https://informaconnect.com/banking-tech-awards/

Former Microsoft, VMware executive, and pioneer of cloud computing, will focus on strengthening Acronis’ position as a leading vendor of cyber protection products and services to service providers.

Acronis, a global leader in cyber security and data protection, today announced that Paul Maritz has been appointed as the Chairman of the Board of Directors, effective 21 September 2021. Maritz will be responsible for the governance and leadership of Acronis as it strengthens its position in the service provider market preparing for significant growth in the future.

Earlier this year, Acronis raised $250M at a $2.5B valuation, and announced former GoDaddy’s partners business president, Patrick Pulvermüller, as the new chief executive officer. The strengthened management team will use the momentum to provide Acronis' partners with the tools that they need to deal with a rapidly changing digital world.

The challenge of providing MSPs with effective tools to manage the environments of their customers is becoming increasingly complex, particularly in a world where security is becoming an overwhelming issue. Security can no-longer be handled by having an SMB end customer put together a plethora of individual tools. Modern threats have exposed the need for an integrated approach and automated cyber protection that solves the safety, accessibility, privacy, authenticity, and security (SAPAS) challenges of the modern digital world.

Acronis Cyber Protect provides all the management tools of the future that service providers need to do an effective job for their customers to help them grow their business. As well as developing its own technology, Acronis will continue to make acquisitions to become one of the world’s major players of providing the most innovative backup, security, and management tools on the market. Over 12,000 service providers trust Acronis Cyber Protect to manage over 2,000,000 workloads around the world, positioning Acronis for even more company growth in the future.  

“Paul brings a wealth of experience developing products to meet market demands and take companies to the next level. His becoming Chairman represents another step forward for Acronis in solidifying its position as a global leader in cyber protection. Paul’s experience with innovations at scale will help us to continue delivering easy, efficient, and secure cyber protection to service providers and their customers of any size,” said Patrick Pulvermüller, Acronis CEO.

“With its strength in backup and security, Acronis is well positioned to build a platform for a comprehensive list of management tools, helping service providers deliver modern cyber protection to their customers today and in the future. Acronis Cyber Protect is a great example of what can be done. Acronis will continue extensive research and development in this direction, helping partners optimise their operations and stay ahead of the competition,” said Paul Maritz, Acronis Chairman of the Board.

Maritz first joined the Acronis Board of Directors in May 2021, bringing 40 years of experience in computer science and software to the cyber protection company.

In his previous executive roles, Paul served on the Executive Staff of Microsoft, was the CEO of VMware, and was CEO and Founder of Pivotal Software. Paul currently is an active investor and serves on the Boards of several start-up technology companies.

Paul graduated with a degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from the Universities of Natal and Cape Town. He is active in the non-profit world, served for 10 years on the Board of the Grameen Foundation, which supports financial inclusion and technology in the developing world, and supports conservation efforts in Africa.

Paul Maritz replaces René Bonvanie, whose leadership helped Acronis develop an effective strategy to expand global presence and deliver easy, efficient, and secure cyber protection to customers of any size. Acronis wishes to thank René Bonvanie for his contribution to the company development and growth.