Cybercrime is already a multi-billion-dollar industry with a projected cost expected to reach USD 10.5 trillion annually by 2025.

So, how can CISOs working within the ASEAN region become catalysts for change? How can you deliver business value, overcome security systems complexities, mitigate risks and minimize costs?

CISO Online ASEAN, a virtual forum taking place on 2 & 3 November 2021, is designed to help you find these answers. Through a series of keynotes, panels, interviews and our unique interactive discussion format, this is your opportunity to benchmark your current practices against leading executives.

Join your peers and learn how to successfully adopt identity and privileged access management to overcome the challenges of compromised credentials, explore strategies to embrace the cloud with confidence and avoid misconfiguration risks, and discover how to bridge the gap in third-party software vulnerabilities.

2021 Key Themes:
- Emerging Threats, Intelligence and Incident Response: Assessing the newest threats and what CISOs are doing to combat them
- Governance and Risk: Weighing the risk against the rewards - how cyber security leaders make difficult decisions involving risk and IT security
- Driving Change in ASEAN's Cyber Security Space: What InfoSec leaders are doing to orchestrate change in order to strengthen data and IT protection across organisations
- InfoSec-Focussed Game Plans: A detailed look at the actionable strategies and planning CISOs have in place for the next few years to meet new security challenges

Registrations are now open!
- Given current circumstances, cybersecurity leaders are under added pressure to safeguard their companies and keep up with new risks and threats. This online high-level, strategic event is your opportunity to do just that.
- Hear from Asia's best in class cybersecurity practices from your desktop, tablet, or mobile
- Pick and choose the most relevant sessions and speakers
- Gain access to the best solutions available to your business's needs
- And the best part - all of this is free

Salt Edge, a pioneer in open banking, has teamed up with Western Union, a global leader in cross-border, cross-currency money movement and payments, to integrate its solution into the latter’s multi-currency bank account pilot in Europe. Backed up by PSD2 compliance, Salt Edge’s solution will enable Western Union to extend the relationship with its customers, and create a new banking experience.

Becoming compliant with PSD2 means much more than fulfilling legal requirements. By turning to Salt Edge’s PSD2 Compliance Solution, Western Union is leveraging PSD2 possibilities for its customers, making the innovation more secure and allowing regulatory verified TPPs to access the developer portal and the PSD2 APIs in accordance with legal requirements. In the end, the final user enjoys an upgraded customer experience, using the new multi-currency bank account service.

With plans underway to launch a Western Union digital bank pilot in Europe, being PSD2 compliant is critical to our success and enabling our products. It will allow us to offer customers a superior experience as we look to expand our service portfolio. Our collaboration with Salt Edge will allow us to meet these goals, based on the team’s focus on innovation and agility, and great experience in providing market-leading solutions.

Thomas Mazzaferro, Chief Data Officer for Western Union

Western Union today has one of the biggest financial networks in the world, connecting millions of consumers to their families and loved ones, as well as to the world economy, across more than 200 countries and territories and in over 130 currencies. The company’s global account payout capabilities are available in over 125 countries with real-time capabilities in approximately 100 countries. Over 60% of Western Union’s global account payout transaction volume is delivered in real-time.

Ever since PSD2’s adoption, we at Salt Edge have been encouraging and helping companies take a positive and constructive approach to the directive and see it as a big-time opportunity rather than a compliance hardship. Western Union has had this approach from the very beginning of our collaboration, focusing all of its efforts on the end consumer and the way they’ll be enjoying the new services. We are honoured to be contributing to this by integrating our PSD2 Compliance Solution and helping Western Union create all those new opportunities for its consumers.

Dmitrii Barbasura, CEO at Salt Edge

PPRO, the leading local payments infrastructure provider, has today announced a strategic partnership and minority investment in Sentinels, Europe’s leading transaction monitoring startup based out of the Netherlands. The partnership will enhance anti-money laundering (AML) controls for PPRO and its customers by enabling an even faster response time to suspicious transactions.

Using AI and machine learning, Sentinels helps fast growing fintechs, payment service providers, remittance companies, and (challenger) banks manage risk and fulfil their compliance obligations. The Sentinels platform monitors transactions, builds rich behavioural profiles, detects a wide range of suspicious activity, and automatically generates recommended next steps – saving time and effort for compliance teams.

As digital transactions have skyrocketed over the past years, and further accelerated since the pandemic began, fintechs and other financial institutions need to increasingly focus on cracking down on money laundering and other illegal activity attempts on their platforms. A recent article in the Economist speaks of the challenges of doing this in a scalable way and calls the resulting reports to the regulator an epidemic of Suspicious Activity Reports.

The partnership enhances PPRO’s anti-money laundering (AML) controls, enabling their team to react even faster to suspicious transactions and protect the customers they serve from financial crime risks. The full Sentinels platform will also be offered as a value-added service to PPRO’s customers: leading global payment service providers, banks, and enterprises with payment platforms.

Simon Black, CEO of PPRO, said: “the Sentinels’ platform and machine learning-generated insights will give our risk and compliance teams a streamlined workflow. Being able to detect money laundering and other financial crime risks in real time is incredibly valuable to our customers. That’s why we’re delighted to invest in and begin building a strategic relationship with Sentinels, who have proven to be an innovative firm with an extremely powerful product.”

Joost van Houten, Founder and CEO of Sentinels, commented: “Never has there been a more critical time for businesses to bolster their transaction monitoring systems. We predict an increased demand for AI-driven risk management services as digital payments rapidly increase and regulators intensify their focus on preventing financial crime. We are excited to have PPRO’s support and enormously proud to be a valuable part of their unique local payment's ecosystem – helping businesses quickly and safely increase their global footprint. Unique to our partnership with PPRO is that Sentinels will be able to monitor for suspicious activity across PPRO’s customers, enabling cross-institutional monitoring which is the next exciting frontier in compliance.”

The cryptocurrency sector is still growing, attracting more investors aiming to leverage various benefits of the industry. Additionally, the number of new cryptocurrencies joining the market is also accelerating as creators seek to leverage the benefits of blockchain technology.

According to data acquired by cryptocurrency trading simulator Crypto Parrot, between September 2020 and September 2021, 4,908 new cryptocurrencies have launched, bringing the cumulative number of coins to 12,046. Therefore, over the last 12 months, the number of new cryptocurrencies has grown 68.75% from September 2020's figure of 7,138.

The highest growth rate was recorded between September 2019 and September 2020 at 146.98%, from 2,890 to 7,138. During the period, 4,248 cryptocurrencies were added. Elsewhere, the growth rate of new cryptocurrency launches between September 2018 and September 2019 was 46.18%, from 1,977 to 2,890. In 2017, the number of coins was 1,121.

Crypto growth in value drives new coins joining market 

The report highlights some of the factors driving the growth of new cryptocurrencies in the last 12 months. According to the research report:

"The sector has surged in value at one point, hitting a cumulative market capitalization of about $2 trillion. The popularity spiked as digital currencies entered into the mainstream, backed by institutional investors. Notably, the entry of institutions is partly contributing to the sector's maturity, and creators of new coins don't want to miss out on the opportunity for more returns."

In general, worth mentioning is that the emergence of new cryptocurrencies does not necessarily translate to success. Notably, some coins unusually fade out as the public shun them.

However, tokens likely to survive are those with real-world use cases and focused on mainstream adoption.

Read the full story with statistics here: https://cryptoparrot.com/article/almost-5-000-new-cryptocurrencies-launched-in-the-last-12-months

Integrates pre-trade intelligence on corporate and sovereign bonds to aid in best execution 

Bloomberg today announced the launch of a new pre-trade transaction cost analysis (TCA) model that enables market participants to assess trade cost, daily executable volume, and probability of execution, with industry leading precision. 

The new model provides pre-trade analysis for investment grade and high yield corporate and sovereign bonds across the globe and offers a liquidity tree across various order sizes. In addition to assessing trade costs, clients can analyze daily executable volume and probability of execution to better inform their trading and portfolio construction decisions. Clients can also run scenario analysis by customizing their views on the bond spread and rating, which results in different cost, probability, and volume in potential trading outcomes.

The model has been calibrated based on five years of historical trade information, proprietary to Bloomberg taking a variety of factors into account. These include: side and size of the order, the real-time Composite Bloomberg Bond Trader (CBBT) bid-ask spread, the amount outstanding, the rating and currency of the bond, and an additional overlay with the bond’s age, term, and time to maturity. 

PGGM, a Bloomberg Transaction Cost Analysis (BTCA) solution customer, partnered with Bloomberg’s trading quant research team to beta test Bloomberg’s new pre-trade TCA function. 

“Reliable pre-trade data for fixed-income is scarce, which makes price discovery and proving best execution a challenge,” explained Jan-Theo Varkevisser, Global Head of Fixed Income Trading, PGGM. “The product provides us with trusted pre-trade price discovery and an automatic connection to post-trade analysis that ensures a valuable feedback loop for our traders to inform their trading decisions.”

This new model is integrated with BTCA, Bloomberg’s multi-asset transaction cost analysis tool, significantly enhancing the solution to deliver pre- and post-trade intelligence. BTCA is integrated into the core Bloomberg offering to harness the company’s breadth of market data, analytical tools, and trading workflows. Featuring exception-based workflow and customizable reporting, BTCA delivers information users need on demand, along with wide-ranging insight into trading-cost impact and decision support for comprehensive transaction surveillance.

“While trade cost models have become the norm in equities, developing a native model in fixed income markets is an exciting step forward to providing bond traders and portfolio managers with greater pre-trade intelligence.” said Ravi Sawhney, Global Head of Trade Automation & Analytics, Bloomberg. “The inclusion of pre-trade cost and probability estimates as part of the BTCA offering promotes market transparency and helps bond traders to make decisions that comply with their firms’ best execution requirements. We look forward to being able to offer this and more pre-trade analytics into our suite of electronic trading products in the future.”

Bloomberg subscribers can access more information via TCA<GO> on the Bloomberg Terminal.

Vesttoo, the marketplace for Life and P&C insurance-based risk transfer and investments, today announced the appointment of industry veteran Daniel Butzbaugh as Vice President, Catastrophe (CAT) Markets. He joins Vesttoo from Stonybrook Capital where he was Vice President and Head of the Industry Loss Warranty (ILW) Desk. 

Dan will lead Vesttoo's CAT and ILW transactions from the company's New York office. He will help create aggregated books of transactions with predefined underwriting criteria that leverage diversified types of risk, geographical locations and financial structures to create an instrument which is inherently diversified. Vesttoo's accurate, proprietary AI technologies reduce the volatility and risk of such aggregated books of business, creating risk-remote, uncorrelated and diversified investment opportunities for institutional investors in the CAT market as well.

Yaniv Bertele, CEO and Founder, Vesttoo, said: "We are delighted that Dan has agreed to join Vesttoo at a time of tremendous growth for the business.  Dan is yet another market veteran to join Vesttoo and brings strong experience in the insurance-linked securities (ILS) and reinsurance sectors. We are looking forward to building innovative investment structures with Dan in the CAT sector, in expansion to our activities in the Life and P&C domains."

Daniel Butzbaugh, Vice President, CAT Markets, Vesttoo, said: "I am excited to join Vesttoo to help strengthen its growing reputation for excellence and innovation in alternative reinsurance. I look forward to helping Vesttoo develop innovative approaches to insurance investments to help bridge the immense funding gap in the market."

Daniel Butzbaugh has over 20 years' experience in the reinsurance and insurance-linked investment sector.  He previously worked at Stonybrook Capital as Vice President and Head of the Industry Loss Warranty Desk. Prior to that, Dan worked in reinsurance, insurance-linked investment and risk management roles at various firms including New Paradigm Underwriters and at Willis Re where he launched his career on the Capital Risk team as a pioneer in the weather derivatives industry.

This announcement comes three months after the appointment of Robert Schumaker, as Vesttoo's VP of Capital Markets, to lead the company's Insurance-Linked Investment Program (ILP).  The program offers asset managers and pension schemes the opportunity to earn long-term, sustainable alpha by pledging securities to support an aggregated book of short and mid-term Life and P&C alternative risk transfer transactions.

New solution addresses and defends data protection on-prem and in the cloud 

Qumulo, the breakthrough leader in radically simplifying enterprise file data management across hybrid cloud environments, today unveiled Qumulo® Recover Q, a business continuity and disaster recovery solution that bolsters existing strategies to help guard against and react to ransomware threats. The new solution helps customers minimize the attack surface threat actors target and leverages disaster recovery (DR) on-premises or in the cloud to quickly resume operations. A core component of Recover Q is a new low-cost cloud disaster recovery-as-a-service capability. This solution allows customers to replicate data and snapshots offsite, providing an added layer of defense and near-instant failover capability in the event of a disaster. In addition, with Recover Q, customers can eliminate redundant data centers to drive down capital costs.

Today’s enterprises and IT departments face mounting pressure to defend against attacks and withstand a worst-case scenario without missing a beat. With Qumulo, customers are armed with powerful, built-in security controls to minimize the attack surface and replication policies that offer second-site recovery options that are future-proof and cost-effective. 

“Our scientific findings are priceless, and our data is irreplaceable,” said Jason Krisch, Director of IT at Fralin Biomedical VT Carilion. “With Qumulo, I know it’s fully protected.”

According to a recent report from Trend Micro, 84% of US organizations have reported phishing or ransomware security incidents in the last 12 months (1). As ransomware and malware threats accelerate, IT departments are under more pressure than ever to prevent attacks, recover data and resume business operations as quickly as possible. With Qumulo Recover Q, IT leaders gain a solution that prioritizes data integrity while reducing overall costs. In the event of a data breach, the powerful, integrated Qumulo Protect and Qumulo Secure data services of Recover Q provide a combination of native features and capabilities built directly into Qumulo Core.

“Data is among one of the most valuable assets to any organization, creating greater incentives to would-be attackers who are getting more sophisticated with their techniques. To prevent ransomware attacks, a comprehensive strategy to detect and defend against such invasions is paramount,” said Ben Gitenstein, Vice President of Product at Qumulo. “Recover Q provides our customers a radically simple solution to add an additional layer of strategic defense that helps mitigate attacks and provides the ability to seamlessly recover if one occurs.”

To learn more about how to help defend your organization’s data against ransomware attacks, contact us to experience the power of Recover Q in action.   

• Features a panel on global chip supply challenges

• Experts review 8-Digit BIN migration considerations

• Workshop provides insight on mobile driver’s license (mDL) early adoption, pilot programs and business cases
• Hybrid conference allows guests to attend both in-person and virtually

The U.S. Payments Forum All-Member Meeting and the Secure Technology Alliance mDL Workshop will bring together thought leaders from across the payments industry this fall. Experts will assemble both in-person and virtually to discuss the latest trends, challenges and emerging technologies impacting the payments ecosystem.

Non-members are encouraged to attend a selection of open panels and education sessions. Attendees will gain insights on key topics, including global chip supply challenges and the 8-Digit BIN migration project.

Following the All-Member Meeting, an mDL Workshop will be held, sponsored by the Secure Technology Alliance. It will provide worthwhile knowledge on mobile driver’s license early adoption efforts, pilot programs and business cases.

The U.S. Payments Forum All-Member meeting will be held at the JW Marriott by the Galleria in beautiful uptown Houston, Texas. The meeting will take place November 9-10, 2021. It will feature valuable industry-driven roundtables, panels and special interest groups. Virtual attendance options are available for those who cannot attend in person. Registration, the full agenda and additional details can be found on the fall member meeting webpage.

Attendees will gain a greater understanding of the latest technology implementation challenges and developments in secure payments. The agenda includes:  

• A panel on Global Chip supply challenges
• A roundtable on the future of payments and the evolving payments landscape
• The 8-Digit BIN migration project
• A panel on EMV fleet aimed at clarifying language around display prompting and creating guidelines around an approach for contactless fleet payments in the petroleum industry
• A session on implementing EMVCo standards for EMV Level 3 (L3)
• A stakeholder report from global and domestic networks
• A panel on cryptocurrency

Mobile Driver’s License (mDL) Workshop: Moving Identification and Authentication Forward
The Secure Technology Alliance Mobile Driver’s License (mDL) workshop will be held on November 11^th at the JW Marriot by the Galleria in Houston, after the All-Member meeting. It will educate potential relying parties and accelerate mDL adoption through technical discussions and mDL technology demonstrations. Authentication and security experts will host in-depth sessions regarding the ongoing implementation and benefits of mDL, including:

• An mDL technology overview
• Key technical considerations involving fraud, privacy and certification
• mDL early adoption, pilot programs and business cases
• Moving mDL forward

Organizations, associations, government agencies and individuals interested in gaining access to these cross-industry stakeholder-led payments and technology organizations are invited to join the U.S. Payments Forum and the Secure Technology Alliance. U.S. Payments Forum membership details and Secure Technology Alliance member information are available online.