API integration with Adflex’s B2B digital payment platform strengthens merchants’ defences against fraud

B2B payments specialist Adflex today announces a partnership with Signifyd, the market leader in commerce protection, to enhance security checks and reduce fraud for its merchant customers via machine learning, AI, and velocity checks.

Adflex processes over seven million supply chain transactions a year for more than 4,000 businesses, including some of the world’s largest enterprises. It uses EMV® 3-D Secure to offer seamless authentication to its ecommerce customers and is now bringing additional fraud protection to its user base by integrating Signifyd’s machine-learning technology into its B2B payment offering via API.

Signifyd’s platform will enable Adflex to make use of machine learning and big data to automate online order flows and separate fraudulent and legitimate orders in real time, giving Adflex’s merchant customers complete trust that their transactions are authentic and secure.

The integration will also automatically perform velocity checks to instantly assess and identify irregular payment patterns that could indicate fraud. These checks are designed to monitor the pace at which buyers submit transactions, helping to identify and intercept fraudsters that seek to quickly max out stolen card details.

On average, users of Signifyd see an eight percent increase in accepted orders. The company uses big data and machine learning to provide a 100 percent financial guarantee against fraud and chargebacks on approved orders, optimising revenue for retailers. Signifyd customers include Samsung, Mango, eBay, and Lacoste to name a few.

“B2B payments are becoming more digitised as buyers and sellers seek to simplify and accelerate their transaction flows, and establish greater control over their payments,” said Pat Bermingham, CEO, Adflex. “By partnering with Signifyd, Adflex is able to provide instant, automated protection to our customers, enhancing our existing anti-fraud offer through cutting-edge machine learning technology. Our modernised suite of digital payment services, each wrapped in a RESTful API, ensures our acquirer and merchant clients can quickly and easily benefit from these value-added services.”

The Adflex Hosted Payment Page enables business clients to seamlessly integrate card payments within their website, improving checkout conversion and boosting ecommerce revenue. Its cloud-based APIs enable fast, web-based integration of a wide variety of payment services, from simple consumer debit and credit to commercial credit and level 3 purchasing cards, supporting SCA, Click to Pay, and multiple shopping cart plugins.

Ed Whitehead, MD EMEA, Signifyd, concluded: “As a leader in the fraud management space we are always looking for ways to enhance our offering to clients so we are pleased to announce our partnership with Adflex. As a specialist in business payments, Adflex understands the complexities and challenges of the digital landscape, sharing Signifyd’s desire to simplify the process for buyers and sellers while keeping them secure online.”

A BlueSnap survey of 100 senior business executives showed that 41% were experiencing international payment authorisation rates of less than 70%

The key study findings:

• 68 percent fail to take advantage of local acquiring – resulting in lower sales due to sub-par authorisation rates and increased costs due to high cross-border fees

• Almost half estimate that they’ve lost up to 10 percent of their revenue by not offering the right payment options

• 31 percent are mired in technical debt trying to manage 4 or more payment providers

BlueSnap, a payment company helping businesses accept payments in over 200 geographies, has released its findings on the key challenges businesses face when it comes to cross-border payments.  

The survey highlights the drastic losses in sales and revenue and hefty expenses companies can incur if they do not optimize how they process payments on goods and services sold internationally.

Conducted in partnership with Pulse, the new study found that 68 percent of companies that sell to international customers are processing payments in the country or region where their business is headquartered rather than where they have a local entity and their customer is located (cross border). This can result in dramatically lower payment authorisations rates. According to the study, 41 percent of companies reported payment authorisation rates of 70 percent or less, meaning businesses could be losing more than 30 percent of their international sales.  

Nikhita Hyett, Managing Director, Europe at BlueSnap said: “Over the last year, we have seen a lot of businesses switch up their business models with a renewed focus on online sales as physical stores shut down due to lockdown. So as their customer base opens up, due to cross-border trade, businesses must ensure they have the right payment solutions in place to maximise sales and reduce costs. At BlueSnap, we are proud to be helping many businesses avoid this 30 percent loss in international sales, through our suite of cross-border products and services.”

Without the right payments partner, processing payments “cross-border” can result in significant cross-border and foreign exchange fees applied to both businesses and potentially their customers for each transaction. Cross-border fees can add more than 1 percent to the payment processing cost for each transaction.

With the Bank of England reporting that cross-border payment volumes will reach $250 trillion by 2027, the importance of updating and optimizing wholesale and retail payments for an increasingly globalized eCommerce market has never been more apparent.  

Less visible is the tremendous technical debt businesses are saddled with – nearly a third of companies are managing four or more payment providers to facilitate international sales. Business leaders report challenges with keeping all the payment integrations up to date, managing multiple vendor relationships, and inconsistency of capabilities across payment integrations. In fact, almost half of businesses estimate that they’ve lost up to 10 percent of revenue by not offering the right payment options.  

FICO research shows Gen Z group is least likely to open an account in-person

Highlights 

• UK consumers today are 31 percent more likely to open an account digitally than a year ago, FICO survey finds
• Just 13 percent of Generation Z respondents would use a bank’s website to open a new account
• Generation Z shows greater preference for in-person account opening, compared with older age groups

A new study in the UK by analytics software firm FICO shows that UK consumers today are 31 percent more likely to open an account digitally than a year ago. However, the surprising outliers in the rush to digital-first account opening are Generation Z (Gen Z). Financial education is key as it appears that digital savviness is not enough to counter the need for in-person help and advice when selecting banking providers.

More information: https://www.fico.com/en/latest-thinking/ebook/united-kingdom-consumer-survey-2021-identity-proofing-and-digital-banking

However, while some members of Generation Z (Gen Z) are eager to use a bank’s app to create an account, most prefer to open accounts offline. When asked about their preferences for opening a current account, just 13 percent of Gen Z said they would use a bank’s website, compared to 43 percent of respondents across all age groups. Gen Z showed a greater appetite than other age cohorts for opening an account in a branch, over the telephone, and through the post.

“While it may come as surprise to many to see Gen Z more interested in face-to-face account opening than older age groups, this is not so unexpected when you consider that they have had little experience in using financial services and help and advice that is personal to them is harder to access in digital channels,” said Cox. “Banks that can find a compelling way to offer highly personalized, financial advice to younger people within digital channels could gain a competitive advantage.”

“There’s a real myth that young people are exclusively banking online, that they all embrace this new wave of digital-only banking, and they know how to make the most of fintech,” said Iona Bain, British founder of the award-winning Young Money Blog and a leading commentator, writer and authority on millennial finances. “It’s only a small minority of young people who are totally clued up about digital finance, and a lot of this is based on whether or not they are talking about money at a young age.”

When younger people do want to use digital means to open accounts, they are more likely to want to use mobile apps rather than websites. 35 percent of this age group selected this option compared to just 20 percent across the other age groups, however this was more than offset by the large number of older people (43 percent) who were keen to use providers’ websites to open accounts.

“Gen Z is more familiar with the internet than the older age groups involved in this study were at the same age. They live their lives online,” Bain added. “This, however, does not automatically mean they are more comfortable with using it for their financial activity. Their knowledge means they are also more likely to be aware of certain scams and the risks facing their personal data. This can make them hesitant to create a new account online.”

This online survey was conducted in January 2021 by an independent research company adhering to research industry standards. 1,000 UK adults were surveyed, along with 13,000 consumers in the USA, Canada, South Africa, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico

 Yugabyte, the leader in open source distributed SQL databases has announced a new EMEA customer win, with global digital money transfer service leader WorldRemit.

The London-based payments firm has agreed to take a software subscription for Yugabyte’s high-performance distributed SQL database, in addition to full global 24x7 support. Yugabyte will now help this fast-growing fintech to improve service resilience via transparent two-way failover, boost internal regulatory compliance procedures and reduce overall operational costs.

Mark Watson, Chief Technology Officer, WorldRemit said: “Technology resilience is fast becoming a regulatory and business obligation in the fast-growth fintech industry, and we see YugabyteDB as a key component in the way we address that challenge."

The context for this business need and the Yugabyte selection is scale. WorldRemit serves 5.7 million customers using 70 different currencies across 130 countries worldwide and offers multiple zero-fee options for sending transfers overseas, including bank deposit, mobile money and cash pickup. Its application has already won more than 125,000 five star reviews and the company operates in more than 5,000 money transfer corridors worldwide and employs 1,200 people globally.

Given this, WorldRemit selected Yugabyte to improve resilience and scalability, and accelerate the firm’s on-going digital transformation strategy from monolithic applications to a multi-cloud microservices architecture, supported by extensive use of the Postgres open source database.

Watson added: “We have to carefully tune standard Postgres databases to get the performance YugabyteDB gives us out of the box. That’s the icing on the cake for us.  It’s simply Postgres for the cloud-native world.”

Martin Gaffney, Vice President, EMEA, Yugabyte, commented: “It’s a huge honour to have been chosen by such an important and ambitious financial services leader as WorldRemit.  We are excited to support the next phase of its digital transformation journey, and appreciate that this decision was confirmed after extensive real-world stress testing of our tech capabilities, to prove only our approach to cloud transaction support can truly deliver.”

This announcement, to support the next stage of the fintech’s expansion, follows the opening of Yugabyte’s business operations in the region, and the appointment of Martin Gaffney as Vice President, EMEA.

Yugabyte officially established its presence in EMEA in May with the opening of its European HQ in Surrey, and the firm is already accelerating its business and team growth across the region.

More than a quarter of finance professionals currently lack expertise in data processes and analysis

Forty-two percent of financial professionals believe having analytical skills will be a key requirement to fulfil their roles in the future, according to findings from the latest FinTech Barometer survey of finance professionals, carried out by Visma | Onguard, the fintech company that focuses on the order-to-cash process. This is followed by programming skills (37%), reflecting the growing role technology is playing within finance roles, and leadership qualities (34%).

This comes in tandem with technology’s growing impact on the role of the finance professional, as almost half of those surveyed (47%) expect artificial intelligence (AI) to have the greatest impact on their sector in the near future, closely followed by big data (44%). Consequently, gaining analytical and programming skills will be critical to help financial professionals get ahead of these emerging trends and future-proof their skill sets.

The research also highlighted that more than half (52%) of financial professionals hope that their organisation will become fully data-driven within the next three years, further evidencing why analytical ability is expected to be so sought-after.

The reasons to become data-driven are plentiful, with becoming more responsive to market trends and developments cited as the main goal of these initiatives by 23% of respondents. Other drivers include improving customer experience (22%), increasing service or product offerings (16%) and reducing costs (14%).

However, there are several barriers currently preventing businesses from becoming data-driven and achieving those goals. The biggest challenge is revealed to be combining and gaining optimum value from data due to having various internal and external data sources, cited by 41% of finance professionals. Further to this, 37% of financial professionals say they lack the right technology to make data optimally available, while more than a quarter (26%) lack expertise in data processes and analysis.

Marieke Saeij, CEO at Visma | Onguard: "The advent of big data and technologies, such as intelligent automation, robotic process automation and AI, means that finance professionals no longer need to be burdened by manual and repetitive tasks. Instead, there is an opportunity for these individuals to shift their focus to more value-adding tasks and gain the skills they need to take on a more analytical function.

“This will enable them to edge closer to becoming a fully data-driven organisation and allow individuals to take a truly proactive approach to key initiatives, whether that’s emerging trends in the market or enhancing the customer experience. This will automatically lead to better business results."

New debt funds are opting for Oxane’s digital-first capabilities to scale with agility

Oxane Partners (“Oxane”), a leading technology-driven solutions provider to private markets, announced it has signed two more clients, AllianceBernstein and Edmond de Rothschild REIM, for its Loan Servicing 2.0 offering. In a strong endorsement of its Loan Servicing 2.0 solution that redefines the responsibilities of loan servicing agents, several lenders across the UK and Europe have signed up in quick succession since it was launched last year. Earlier this year, Oxane won multiple mandates to act as facility agent and security agent on real estate and maritime loans, signing up with three real estate lenders, a global bank and an alternative investment firm.

Real estate lenders are increasingly opting to work with a single provider that can support their technology, servicing, and operations needs instead of signing up multiple counterparties and complicating data and process workflows. With Oxane’s proven real estate technology platform, a team of real estate experts, and its fresh approach to servicing with ‘Loan Servicing 2.0’, Oxane is emerging as the solution provider of choice for lenders.

Oxane’s award-winning technology platform, Oxane CREST, supports diverse real estate assets, complex transaction structures and enables tight controls through the loan lifecycle - from deal origination until exit. With these digital-first capabilities extended to loan servicing, lenders get complete transparency and better control in managing their portfolios.

Clark Coffee, Chief Investment Officer, European Commercial Real Estate Debt at AllianceBernstein, commented, “We prioritised our operational and technology infrastructure selection in conjunction with the launch of our European platform. We selected Oxane after an extensive RFP process, as their investment management technology, loan servicing, and support services measured up to our requirements.”

Ralf Kind, Managing Director and Head of Real Estate Debt at Edmond de Rothschild REIM commented, “We wanted a digitally-enabled loan servicing offering to augment the expansion of our real estate debt platform in Europe. With Oxane’s technology driven servicing solutions, we are well-positioned to work with our borrowers across Europe efficiently and seamlessly.”

Vishal Soni, co-founder at Oxane Partners, added, “We are excited to work with AllianceBernstein and Edmond de Rothschild REIM and support their expansion plans. Our unified solution is aimed to help investment firms hit the ground running faster without spending too much time on operationalising processes, and setting up technology infrastructure. We offer a launchpad to new funds that brings greater efficiency, control, and future-readiness for sustained growth.”

 (JCN Newswire) - JCB International Co., Ltd., the international operations subsidiary of JCB Co., Ltd., and Checkout.com, the global payments processing platform, today announces the next evolution of their partnership with the rollout of J/Secure(TM) 2.0 which is compliant with EMV(R) 3-D Secure (EMV 3DS) to Checkout.com's merchants in the UK.

As Europe's leading payment service provider for enterprises, Checkout.com is the first licensee partner in the UK to go live with J/Secure(TM) 2.0, JCB's authentication programme for card-not-present transactions. J/Secure(TM) 2.0 makes online commerce more secure by adding an important identification step in the online purchasing journey, which enables cardmembers to directly authenticate their card with the issuer.

In 2017, JCB and Checkout.com announced their merchant acquiring partnership across 36 European countries and the UAE. With the recent rise and demand for customers to move to online retail spend, JCB and Checkout.com have extended their collaboration in the UK to include EMV 3DS, in the form of JCB's J/Secure(TM) 2.0 for ecommerce transactions going forward. EMV 3DS is a security protocol designed to provide an additional safety layer for online credit and debit card transactions to prevent fraud. According to the recent research by Checkout.com, the UK is losing more than $2 billion annually due to legitimate transactions being rejected as fraudulent purchases[1].

This platform will provide a safe and convenient gateway for JCB's 140 million global cardmembers to process their online payments. In addition, it will enable retailers to reduce cart abandonment and serve as an opportunity for incremental sales from new target markets and customers. This will also further enable Checkout.com's merchants to facilitate secure international card transactions, whilst boosting sales and reducing disputed transactions.

The ecommerce industries which will benefit from this solution include those in luxury retail, courier services, technology, and online money transfers, to name a few. With this extended partnership and the implementation of J/Secure(TM) 2.0, JCB and Checkout.com unlock the ever-growing ecommerce gateway to Asia for online retailers across Europe. JCB data shows that JCB cardmember spend in Europe from 2016-2019 increased by over 300%[2], with the most prolific spending peaks being in the months of January, July and December in 2019[3].

Vladi Artope, Head of Financial Partnerships at Checkout.com, commented: "We are pleased to be the first payment service provider to launch J/Secure(TM) 2.0 to merchants in the UK. The pandemic has accelerated trends that we have long witnessed in the shift to ecommerce. Our long-standing partnership with JCB ensures that merchants are able to securely welcome business from JCB's 140 million cardmembers, providing a seamless checkout experience for consumers and increasing revenues for our merchants."

Nick Fisher, General Manager, Sales and Marketing UK, JCB International (Europe) Ltd., said: "The expansion of our partnership with Checkout.com across Europe was driven by our established commitment to support ecommerce internationally. Additionally, online shopping is a trend which has seen a dramatic rise in recent months. This integration will allow us to streamline the digital payment journey for our cardmembers and to facilitate secure transactional exchange between our cardmembers and Checkout.com's online retailers, especially as we move into the recovery and growth stages in the aftermath of the pandemic."

Robocash group, a global fintech holding, has published its consolidated financial statement for the six-month period of 2021. The Interim Condensed Consolidated Financial Report was reviewed by a Big 10 auditor FBK Grant Thornton in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards.

Robocash Group aimed to accelerate the growth by doubling its disbursement volume and revenue. By H1 2021, the group had disbursed 326.5 M USD worth of loans, exceeding last year's results for the same period by 134.1%.

The group ended the first half of the year with a net profit of USD 15.4 M, and revenue of over USD 137.1 M generated during the period. Robocash Group has exceeded the results of the same period last year by +43.9% and +144% respectively.

Sergey Sedov, CEO of Robocash Group commented: "The growth at which our business has been developing is staggering, and we have no intentions of stopping. We will continue to strengthen our leading positions in Russia, Kazakhstan and the Philippines. At the same time, we intend to further scale our Buy Now, Pay Later and Salary Loans solutions. Finally, we aim to launch our own neobank in the Philippines, offering a variety of financial lifestyle products to the un- and underbanked."

 Encompass Corporation, the provider of intelligently automated Know Your Customer (KYC) solutions, today announces the appointment of Nicola Pickering as VP Customer Success & Delivery.

Nicola, a senior leader who has worked across client success management, programme delivery and product design, joins the Encompass executive team in this newly-created role. She will be responsible for leading the company’s global Customer Success and Delivery Services functions, ensuring an evolving list of customers continue to get the best from the Encompass product.

Nicola comes to the business having spent more than eight years with industry leader FICO, steering client success and, latterly, business operations. She has also held positions at National Grid and Capital One, among others.

The appointment comes as current Head of Customer Success & Delivery, Dr Henry Balani, transitions into the role of Global Head of Industry and Regulatory Affairs. A noted academic with a strong research background, Dr Balani will be at the forefront of cementing Encompass’ voice and authority through research and market activity.

Wayne Johnson, CEO and co-founder, Encompass Corporation, said: We are delighted to have someone with Nicola’s business leadership experience join the team at such an important time in our growth journey.

Her knowledge and understanding of how to deliver the best possible service for customers will be crucial as we scale globally. I am looking forward to seeing our customer-facing teams continue to flourish under her guidance. I know this, combined with Henry’s new role, which will see him use his vast expertise to help us further our impact across the market as thought leaders, will stand us in good stead moving forward.

Nicola Pickering added: I am delighted to join Encompass on their journey to be the solution of choice for the automation of KYC.  It is clear that our people and our customers are at the heart of Encompass’ values, as is shown by this newly-created Executive-level role, which puts customers at the forefront once again. I am honoured to be part of leading what is an incredible team.

Spearhead of Basel III reforms, William Coen, joins Baton’s Senior Advisory Board, as company scales to meet industry demand for effective risk mitigation

Baton Systems (“Baton”), the market solution transforming asset movements and settlements, has announced that William (Bill) Coen, former Secretary General of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, has joined the firm as a Senior Advisor.

Coen’s appointment comes as Baton scales to support growing demand for secure technology-led solutions to mitigate operational and settlement risk, reduce capital usage and address intraday funding requirements.

Coen’s deep and comprehensive understanding of prudential standards were developed over a 35-year career in financial regulation, which included serving with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and a 20-year tenure at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Basel, Switzerland. While serving as Secretary General and Chairman of the Basel Committee's Policy Development Group, Coen spearheaded the Basel III post-crisis reforms.

The secure Baton network is now being used by a number of large financial institutions (including G-SIBs) to facilitate the movement of billions of dollars of cash and securities on a daily basis. Coen’s experience will support the company’s accelerated growth plans and the delivery of robust, zero-friction processes across additional payment and settlement workflows.

Commenting on his appointment, William Coen said: “I’m really pleased to be on-board. Baton’s innovative application of DLT is proving transformational. As a former regulator, it is pleasing to see this secure technology enable banks to reduce settlement risk, while increasing transparency and auditability. I’ve spent the vast proportion of my career developing prudential standards, it’s great to now be involved with a company that is enabling all firms to safely settle their FX trades.”

Arjun Jayaram, CEO and Founder of Baton Systems added: “I’m delighted to welcome Bill to Baton, his familiarity with the regulatory requirements impacting risk management, capital adequacy and funding regulations is second to none. Being at the helm of a rapidly maturing business that is serving clients challenged by these very requirements, in an environment with increasing FX trading volumes and unrelenting cost constraints, Bill’s counsel has already proved invaluable as we embark on the next stage of our journey.”

Coen’s appointment to the Baton Senior Adviory Board adds to an impressive line-up of industry leaders following the recent appointments of former CFTC chairman, Christopher Giancarlo, and Citi’s former Global Head of Futures, OTC Clearing, and FX Prime Brokerage, Jerome Kemp, in the past ten months.