New research explores the increase in recent payment fraud attacks and provides recommendations for businesses on combatting the threat

The Emerging Payments Association (EPA), which promotes collaboration and innovation across payments, has today released its whitepaper, ‘Financial Crime, Payment Fraud, and the Role of Digital Identity’, in partnership with Refinitiv.

The whitepaper highlights how criminals can profit from financial crime and commit payment fraud, working together to create a financial crime marketplace utilising the latest technologies. In addition to detailing the current landscape and emerging threats, based on proprietary research, the whitepaper provides insights into how fraud controls can be improved.

With the National Crime Agency (NCA) estimating that the total cost of organised crime to the UK economy amounts to £37 billion annually, current defence approaches are broken. Fundamental change is required as society, organisations and individuals are all suffering as a result of financial crime. The problem is likely to get worse, as criminals are innovating at scale and staying at least one step ahead of Financial Services (FS) providers.

Through extensive primary research the whitepaper explores the primary emerging threats, including the rise in botnet attacks, risks relating to increased contactless limits, synthetic identities, and the increasing volume of data that is available to criminals. It found that Digital Identity (DI) services can solve several of today’s problems, if implemented well, but it is recognised that they are not the complete answer. Of those interviewed for the research, many payment professionals felt that the lack of a national DI service is a key obstacle in fighting crime and fraud.

A key area of focus was investigating the potential for digital identity as a secure foundation layer, in order to reduce financial crime and payment fraud. Interviewees included subject matter experts from financial services providers, card issuers, payment processors, digital identity specialists, consultancies, and solution providers.

Tony Craddock, Director General of the Emerging Payments Association, commented: “Occurrences of financial crime are soaring, and we are staring down the barrel of a fraud-shaped gun unless we as an industry start working to get these numbers under control. Along with data sharing and better collaboration, one of the key findings of the research was that digital identity will play a critical role in this going forward, providing a secure foundation layer to prevent crime upfront and on an ongoing basis.”

James Mirfin, Global Head of Digital Identity & Fraud Solutions at Refinitiv, said “The unprecedented growth in the scale, sophistication and creativity of criminals who are able to deploy technology in their pursuit if ill-gotten gains should concern us all. The industry must continue to collaborate on solutions like Digital Identity, which can materially impact the activities of criminals and fraudsters, and we need to demonstrate tangible progress.”

Jane Jee, Chair at Kompli-Global and Project Financial Crime leader at the Emerging Payments Association, said: “Criminals understand how they can profit from financial crime and commit payment fraud as evidenced by the escalating number of attacks and levels of losses incurred. I find it worrying how they are now working closer than ever before, in effect creating a crime marketplace and adopting the latest technologies. Promisingly, as our research highlights, some initiatives are making a real difference and it suggests how are industry must work together more going forward.”

Fintechs increasingly turning to third parties to boost UX, accelerate time to market, and plug gaps in existing capabilities

Moorwand, a payments solution provider, today revealed that issuing tops the list of services that fintechs outsource, with mobile wallets and customer communications coming second and third respectively. With the rise of Open Banking, Banking-as-a-Service and Embedded Finance, nearly half of fintechs (49%) now spend 10-20% of their annual revenues on outsourced services according to the report ‘Specialists vs. generalists: How do fintechs fuel growth?’.

Fintech companies both big and small are increasingly outsourcing capabilities to either specialist partners that provide a specific service, or generalist partners that provide a range of services. The report, based on a survey of 75 senior decision makers at fintech firms across the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Ireland and Lithuania, explores the state of outsourcing in fintech and the use of either specialists or generalists on fintech growth.

Overall, fintechs are relying on specialist partners (55%) over generalists (45%) for their outsourcing needs.

Based on the report findings, there are three key reasons fintechs outsource:

• Scale - Fintech is moving from adolescence to maturity, and firms are looking to partners to help them scale their services. 45% of fintechs are looking for third parties to plug gaps in existing capabilities for example.
• Expansion - Across the industry we are seeing the ‘rebundling’ of financial services. Fintechs have worked hard to acquire customers, and now they have their attention they are looking to offer more services. 43% of firms outsource to accelerate their time to market.
• Regulation - As the sector matures it is becoming increasingly regulated. This has prompted the rise of Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS), as fintechs effectively outsource compliance to a licensed third party. Seven out of the top 10 most outsourced services are regulated. And fintechs prefer to work with specialists for all of them.

“Fintechs are growing fast and increasingly looking to outsource services and capabilities to fuel their expansion,” said Vicki Gladstone, CEO and COO at Moorwand. “The card and wider payment offering usually takes centre stage in most fintechs’ proposition and is a key point of differentiation for the business. So, it’s no surprise to see issuing come out top nor that fintechs are turning to firms with deep specialisms to help them to stand out from the crowd.” 

“Across the board the services that are mission critical, complex and involve compliance are outsourced to specialist providers,” concluded Gladstone.

Official quota under QDLP programme allows institutions and high-net-worth individuals in China to invest in both public and private market products abroad

Digital securities exchange ADDX – formerly known as iSTOX – expects to enlarge its business in China significantly, after concluding a US$200-million agreement tied to a government-granted quota for Chinese offshore investments.

The Qualified Domestic Limited Partnership scheme, or QDLP, allows domestic investors across China to buy into renminbi funds that focus on overseas investment opportunities. Fund quotas are allocated through a few major cities – including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Chongqing.

ADDX has reached an agreement with the Singapore-regulated wealth and fund management company ICHAM, which has received a US$200-million allocation as part of the Chongqing government’s overall US$5-billion QDLP quota. Under the agreement, ADDX will be the primary venue for investments from the ICHAM fund in China authorised to raise capital from Chinese institutions and individuals. ADDX will offer Chinese investors access to private market products issued in the form of digital securities covering a broad range of asset types, including pre-IPO equity, hedge funds, VC funds, real estate funds, wholesale bonds and structured products. The ADDX-ICHAM partnership was among the first batch of two QDLP quota recipients announced by the Chongqing government last month[1]. ICHAM is also the first Singapore company to secure a QDLP allocation in any Chinese city. ADDX and ICHAM were both founded by ADDX Chief Executive Officer Danny Toe.

Coming less than a year after ADDX signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Chongqing government to set up a future digital securities exchange for the Chinese market[2], the new tie-up is an important fillip to ADDX’s international growth plans, the company said. Regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), ADDX currently serves accredited investors from 27 countries, spanning Asia Pacific, Europe and the Americas (excluding the United States).

Oi Yee Choo, Chief Commercial Officer of ADDX, said: “The opening up of official channels like QDLP to allow Chinese investors to diversify their portfolios globally has been taking place gradually and steadily since the 2000s. Amid rising asset prices within China, this move by the Chinese authorities is a prudent one that empowers Chinese institutions and high-net-worth individuals to participate in high-quality opportunities wherever they are, before bringing their returns back into the Chinese economy to the benefit of local businesses and households. For international companies that manage or facilitate these investments, including ADDX, China represents a massive opportunity. We are only in the early days of this burgeoning flow of capital between China and the rest of the world.”

Ms Choo added: “At ADDX, our international expansion strategy is grounded on our strong, varied set of blue-chip offerings. We are building the world’s leading private market exchange with blockchain and smart contract technology. World-renowned issuers have been drawn to the speed, cost efficiency and access to capital that digital securities provide, in a revolution that will eventually consign traditional, paper-based securities to history. ADDX is also regulated in Singapore, which has established its standing as the top wealth management hub for Asian family offices and high-net-worth individuals, thanks in no small part to MAS’ strategic long-term plan to build a conducive environment for global investors and asset managers. As Chinese wealth goes in search of opportunities abroad, the financial ecosystem in Singapore that ADDX is a part of has a competitive edge because of its deep pool of talent, robust and progressive regulations and openness to the world.”

Launched in 2012, QDLP is one of a few official programmes for Chinese offshore investments, which include QDII[1] and Wealth Management Connect[2]. The QDLP is notable because it allows offshore investments in a greater variety of assets – not just public market products, but also private market ones with a potentially higher risk-reward profile. Chinese individual investors in QDLP funds have to meet sophisticated investor requirements[3].

ADDX was founded in 2017 as an integrated issuance, custody and exchange platform for digital securities. The financial technology company is backed by Singapore Exchange, Temasek-owned Heliconia Capital and Japanese investors JIC Venture Growth Investments (JIC-VGI) and the Development Bank of Japan (DBJ)[4].

• Josh Glover named President & Chief Revenue Officer
• Greg Orenstein named Chief Corporate Development & Strategy Officer
• Trisha Price named Chief Innovation Officer
• Josh Marcy named Executive Vice President, Product Management
• Dory Weiss named Executive Vice President, Engineering
• April Rieger named Executive Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary

nCino, Inc. (NASDAQ: NCNO), a pioneer in cloud banking and digital transformation solutions for the global financial services industry, announced today several strategic promotions across its executive leadership team to further support the Company’s continued growth and scale.

“As a company, we have made consistent progress over the years executing on our strategic growth initiatives, including expanding our global presence and increasing innovation across our platform,” said Pierre Naudé, nCino’s Chief Executive Officer. “This progress would not have been possible without our people. These talented leaders have all played invaluable roles in scaling our business, delivering on our growth goals, and accelerating the transition of financial institutions globally to the cloud. It gives me great pleasure to announce these changes today, which reflect our maturation as a company and position us for continued growth and long-term success. I’m incredibly excited about the strength and depth of our team and the tremendous opportunity that lies ahead of us.”

The following changes across nCino’s executive leadership team are effective immediately:

Josh Glover has been named President in addition to Chief Revenue Officer of nCino, taking on additional responsibilities in driving nCino’s business and operations. A year-one nCino employee, Glover has been vital to the Company’s growth, overseeing the global sales, pre-sales, and channels and alliances teams, managing customers’ transformation journeys, and driving nCino’s expansion across North America, EMEA and APAC. As Chief Revenue Officer, Glover drove over $204 million in revenues during the 2021 fiscal year, increasing the Company’s revenues by 48 percent from the previous year. Glover is a decorated combat veteran who led Marines through four combat deployments during a decade of service as a Marine Corps Special Operations and Infantry Officer. His awards include the Silver Star Medal, the Bronze Star Medal for valor and three Purple Heart Medals. In his expanded role, Glover will take on additional responsibilities overseeing global marketing and will leverage the deep expertise he has developed in his time at nCino to further guide business execution and lead company operations into its next phase of growth.

Greg Orenstein has been named nCino’s Chief Corporate Development & Strategy Officer. Orenstein joined nCino in 2015 and most recently served as Chief Corporate Development & Legal Officer and Secretary. Orenstein has played a critical role in driving the Company's corporate strategy, acquisition, investment and legal activities, including leading nCino’s acquisitions of Visible Equity and FinSuite in 2019 and nCino’s initial public offering and secondary offering in 2020. Orenstein is a seasoned leader with more than 20 years of experience driving corporate strategy and executing M&A and corporate finance transactions in the financial technology sector. In this new role, Orenstein will broaden and intensify his focus on the overall strategic development of the Company, including identifying and executing on growth initiatives, M&A and investment opportunities, to further nCino’s position as a leading digital transformation partner for financial institutions globally.

Trisha Price has been named nCino’s Chief Innovation Officer. In this new role, Price will lead efforts to drive new product strategy and innovation and help to ensure the alignment of nCino’s technology vision with its business strategy. Price joined nCino in 2016 and most recently served as its Chief Product Officer, playing a pivotal role in the growth, development, strategic direction and ongoing innovation of the nCino Bank Operating System^®. Under her leadership, the nCino solution has expanded across numerous business lines and geographies, scaling from a U.S.-based commercial loan origination system to a global banking platform. Price will leverage her extensive knowledge of nCino’s business and solutions and her 20 years of financial services and technology experience to infuse innovative thinking throughout the organization and its operations, further accelerating nCino’s innovation capabilities across solutions and geographies, and fueling continued growth.

Josh Marcy has been named nCino’s Executive Vice President, Product Management. Marcy joined nCino in 2018 and has been instrumental in the continued growth and development of the company’s flagship Commercial Banking solution as well as the continued launch of new solutions, including Automated Spreading and Commercial Pricing and Profitability, both part of nCino IQ (nIQ) – the Company’s AI, machine learning and analytics suite. Marcy also leads all technology partnerships for the Company. Marcy has spent more than 20 years in the fintech industry, holding various senior leadership roles at Custom Credit Systems, Misys and Finastra, and previously worked in banking with a focus on small business lending. In his expanded role, Marcy will oversee nCino’s development roadmap across all solutions.

Dory Weiss has been named nCino’s Executive Vice President, Engineering. Weiss, who joined nCino in 2013 as a senior software developer, has led the company’s engineering department and agile methodology practice since 2016, growing it from a small team into a global organization of more than 350 software engineers, QA engineers, devOps engineers, architects and managers. Previously, Weiss spent six years as a senior software developer at the University of Texas where she managed a team of developers and served as the primary technical lead for many of the University's eCommunications, business and administrative applications.

April Rieger has been named nCino’s Executive Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary. Since joining nCino in 2018, Rieger has played a key role in scaling the Company’s global legal department, including overseeing various contractual, governance, regulatory and intellectual property matters. Prior to joining nCino, Rieger spent more than a decade as an attorney at Williams & Connolly LLP in Washington, D.C. where she worked on a wide range of complex corporate and litigation matters.

Financial services leader with approximately $1.9 trillion in assets will implement the nCino Bank Operating System® to digitally streamline operations

 nCino, Inc. (NASDAQ: NCNO), a pioneer in cloud banking and digital transformation solutions for the global financial services industry, today announced that Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) has selected the nCino Bank Operating System as a foundational technology platform to accelerate its digital transformation within its commercial banking and corporate & investment banking businesses, and to transform its commercial lending operations.

Wells Fargo is a leading financial services company proudly serving one in three U.S. households and more than 10 percent of all middle market companies and small businesses in the U.S. Through its Commercial Banking business, Wells Fargo serves the complex and evolving needs of small, mid-sized, and large commercial and corporate companies with annual sales generally in excess of $5 million. By adopting the nCino Bank Operating System, Wells Fargo gains a flexible and agile, digital solution that manages all aspects of the commercial banking lending process. nCino’s single platform spans business lines, connects employees, clients, and third parties, and eliminates silos within financial institutions to provide a more holistic view of clients, enhance collaboration, generate more loans, and reduce costs.

“Wells Fargo is investing in digital capabilities to improve our clients’ experience and enable our teams to more quickly and effectively serve clients,” said Kyle Hranicky, EVP and Head of Middle Market Banking at Wells Fargo. “nCino offers a best-in-class platform that will help us to continue to meet the evolving needs of our clients.”

The last year has rapidly accelerated many digitization initiatives within financial institutions. nCino’s Commercial Banking Solution provides financial institutions with a seamless end-to-end experience, replacing disparate systems with one digital solution to drive automation and streamline credit processes.

“We are very excited to welcome Wells Fargo, one of the nation’s leading providers of financial services, to the nCino platform,” added Pierre Naudé, CEO at nCino. “Now, more than ever, financial institutions of all sizes require a digital-first, client-centric approach. We look forward to partnering with Wells Fargo on their digital transformation journey and helping drive greater automation, speed and efficiency across their commercial banking operations.”

The appointment reinforces Provenir’s commitment to support financial institutions in simplifying their risk decisioning and driving innovative products to market faster

Provenir, a global leader in data analytics software and risk decisioning, has appointed José Luis Vargas-Favero as its new executive vice president and general manager for Latin America. In his new role, Vargas-Favero will be responsible for leading Provenir's ambitious expansion plans to triple its footprint in the region by the end of 2021.

Vargas-Favero brings more than 25 years of financial services experience in management, sales, business development, consulting, data analytics, decision management technology, digital transformation and risk management to Provenir. Prior to joining Provenir, he held several global senior leadership roles at FICO.

“José’s deep industry knowledge and global experience will be invaluable as we seek to become the leading trusted risk decisioning partner across Latin America,” said Larry Smith, founder and CEO of Provenir. “We see tremendous opportunity to help financial institutions in the region provide a superior and more inclusive customer experience by providing them with access to alternative types of data to assess risk and make smarter decisions.”

Latin America is producing a large and rapidly growing number of innovative and disruptive fintechs, which are raising record amounts of investment as they seize the opportunity to provide a superior and more responsive customer experience to a region with a population of more than 650 million and a combined economy of over 5 trillion USD. According to estimates, more than 70% of adults in the region have a smartphone yet only 30% have a banking relationship. Under Vargas-Favero’s leadership, Provenir will enhance its ability to support financial and non-financial institutions in providing better credit options to this unbanked population through alternative data powered technology.

“I am honored to join a company that shares my passion for using data, analytics and decisioning technology to improve the financial services landscape for all, and to contribute to eliminating financial exclusion for the vast population of underserved and unbanked individuals in the region,” said Vargas-Favero. “Provenir has distinguished itself as a global leader in risk decisioning processes with its amazing cloud-native technology, and I am excited to join at this pivotal time to help accelerate the company’s existing growth trajectory.”

The company is actively recruiting talent to expand the team in the region and is establishing alliances with local data partners to continue developing the Provenir Marketplace and better service the region.

The team at coinpass are delighted to announce our approval as a registered cryptoassets firm with the UK Financial Conduct Authority.

The coinpass management team have always believed in adhering to regulating parts of the cryptocurrency eco-system that interface with the traditional world of finance. Transacting between banking and crypto on a single digital layer has been coinpass's vision since inception. Our registration with the UK Financial Conduct Authority is now in place and our vision is another step closer to reality.

Jeff Hancock, CEO of coinpass, commented: "We're exceptionally pleased to be among one of the first UK based cryptocurrency Trading Exchanges for retail investors and businesses to be fully registered with the Financial Conduct Authority as a crypto-asset firm. We understand and fully support that to evolve the cryptocurrency market to be more inclusive and attractive to a larger number of users, we would require regulatory guidelines for exchanges and gateways. The UK is a financial hub for investment and fintech and it has the potential, under the FCA's guidance, to be a world leader in cryptocurrency regulation. With this registration, I am exceptionally bullish on the future for crypto in the United Kingdom and proud of our achievement."

Previously, UK investors and traders in the cryptocurrency market were exposed to potential money laundering, loss of funds and poor customer service by using offshore unregistered exchanges to invest in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. Many UK banks have opposed cryptocurrency transactions from client accounts due to the jurisdiction of certain exchanges or the source of funds when trying to liquidate cryptoassets holdings. The introduction of the mandatory registration by UK cryptoasset firms in adhering to Anti-Money Laundering guidelines, regulation and policies for offering cryptoasset will ensure strength and improvement in the cryptocurrency eco-system for UK investors. 

• Profit in 1H 2021 increased by 87% year-on-year to a solid RUB 24 billion. Vostochny Bank, acquired in 2Q 2021, contributed RUB 1.4 billion to Sovcombank Group’s profit.
• Net profit for the first half of the year increased by 2.7x year-on-year.
• The Bank’s assets in the first half of the year grew by 25% to RUB 1.9 trillion, both due to organic growth associated with the economic recovery following the pandemic and in connection with the purchase of Vostochny Bank.
• The Bank’s equity capital grew by 10% in 1H 2021 to RUB 207 billion.
• Return on equity (ROE) from regular business rose to 28% (up from 20% in 1H 2020).
• The retail net loan portfolio increased by 44% in 1H 2021 to RUB 429 billion, due to growth in the Halva portfolio, secured lending as well as the purchase of Vostochny Bank, whose retail portfolio amounted to RUB 75 billion as 30 June 21.
• The net portfolio in terms of corporate lending increased by 54% to RUB 533 billion.
• The bond portfolio as a share of assets decreased from 39% as of 31 December 2020 to 30% as of 30 June 2021.
• Retail customers’ current accounts and term deposits increased by 29% in 1H 2021 to RUB 609 billion, due partly to a RUB 116 billion contribution from Vostochny Bank.
• Funding from corporate customers grew by 27% from the beginning of the year to RUB 644 billion, mainly due to an inflow of corporate deposits (up 36% from 31 December 2020).
• The share of Stage 3 loans and purchased and originated credit-impaired financial assets in the gross loan portfolio before provisions decreased by 0.5 p.p. to 2.3%.
• Net interest income amounted to RUB 52 billion, up 39% year-on-year.
• Net fee and commission income grew by 33% to RUB 15 billion.
• The cost-to-income (CTI) ratio increased by 2 p.p. from the beginning of the year to 43%, mainly due to an increase in marketing and advertising expenses related to the Halva card rebranding and the incorporation of Vostochny Bank.

Information by segments:

Retail business. Over the last six months, all key retail business lines showed solid organic growth in assets and profits. The Bank’s net mortgage portfolio grew by 29% to RUB 102 billion, the net car loan portfolio grew by 13% to RUB 118 billion, and the net Halva card portfolio grew by 21% to RUB 66 billion. Once all Vostochny Bank credit cards have been converted to Halva cards, the latter’s portfolio will increase to RUB 120 billion. The share of secured loans in the gross retail loan portfolio is 55% and remains one of the highest figures among comparable top-20 banks in terms of assets. The percentage of Stage 3 loans in the retail portfolio remains low, at 4% as of 30 June 2021, with an NPL coverage ratio of 139%.

Interest income from the retail business increased by 46% year-on-year to RUB 42 billion. Retail fee and commission income grew by 14% to RUB 11 billion.

Sergey Khotimskiy, Sovcombank’s Co-owner and First Deputy Chairman of the Management Board, said: “All of our main retail business lines showed steady growth in assets and income in the first half of the year: the mortgage portfolio grew by 30%, and the Bank was one of the top three banks in the country in terms of total car loans issued in the first half of the year. Rebranding the Halva card this summer and carrying out aggressive advertising in the media will enable us to issue instalment cards at a faster rate in the second half of the year. Following the integration of Vostochny Bank’s retail business, we expect a considerable increase in the Bank’s share of the market for bank cards with limits and in the consumer lending segment.”

Corporate business. Corporate lending was once again one of the drivers of growth in the Bank’s profits and assets. The net portfolio of loans to large companies (blue chips) and to state borrowers increased by 59% in 1H 2021 to RUB 422 billion, while the volume of net loans to SMEs increased by 34% to RUB 111 billion. Interest income from the corporate business rose 25% to RUB 17 billion. Fee and commission income from the corporate business also increased by 25% in the reporting period to RUB 6 billion.

Dmitry Gusev, Chairman of Sovcombank’s Management Board, said: “The Bank remains one of the most efficient in Russia in terms of return on investment despite the growing capital base. Business diversification and the creation of a full-fledged financial group have enabled the Bank to increase its profit, which grew by a solid 87% year-on-year in 2021 despite the challenging external conditions. We see tremendous opportunities for further growth, as our market share remains below 2%.”

Highlights during the reporting period:

Purchase of Vostochny Bank. In 2Q 2021, Sovcombank completed a deal to purchase Vostochny Bank. The integration of the bank is proceeding on schedule: the transfer of Vostochny’s branch network to Sovcombank was completed by 31 August 2021. Customers reacted positively to the merger, as they gained access to all Sovcombank products and services as well as special bonuses and other opportunities.

Purchase of the National Factoring Company. On 21 July, Sovcombank completed a deal for the purchase of the National Factoring Company, one of the leaders in Russia’s factoring market and the only private player among the top 10 factoring companies. Joining the Sovcombank financial group will enable the National Factoring Company to expand its opportunities to provide high-quality factoring services for Sovcombank Group’s existing and future customers.

In May, the electronic platform RTS-Tender, a member of Sovcombank Group, completed the purchase of a 100% stake in the charter capital of JSC Economic Development Centre, the operator of the electronic platform B2B-Center, which specialises in the acquisition of commercial companies. Following the merger, RTS-Tender became the largest electronic trading platform in terms of trading volume.

Group financial results

The IFRS net profit of Sovcombank Leasing (part of Sovcombank Group) in 1H 2021 amounted to RUB 432 million, an increase of 4x year-on-year.

In 1H 2021, the insurance company Sovcombank Insurance had a net profit (according to IAS) of RUB 567 million, an increase of RUB 552 million year-on-year. Sovcombank Insurance’s assets grew by 59% to RUB 12 billion. Written premiums amounted to RUB 6 billion, an increase of 2.8x year-on-year.

The insurance company Sovcombank Life had a net profit of RUB 509 million, its assets grew to RUB 24 billion, and its insurance premiums amounted to RUB 3 billion.

Banks select Jack Henry’s Core Director with innovative, full-service digital capabilities and functionality as deciding factors

Jack Henry & Associates, Inc. is a leading provider of technology solutions and payment processing services primarily for the financial services industry. Its Jack Henry Banking^® division announced today that five community banks recently selected the Core Director^® core system in the first half of CY21 and are deploying it in Jack Henry’s private cloud environment. The decisions were made based on Jack Henry’s open architecture, comprehensive functionality, and added efficiencies; modern digital tools were also drivers, enabling automation and personal service at the moment of need.

The First National Bank of Peterstown, based in Peterstown, W.Va., has been serving its local community for more than 100 years. The bank’s previous core was disjointed and didn’t communicate well with other systems, creating inefficiencies and a cumbersome back-office experience. With Jack Henry’s core, the bank is gaining a tightly integrated platform that reduces the need for duplicate data entry, saving time while improving accuracy. The First National Bank of Peterstown will also launch the Banno Digital Platform™ to provide customers with a more intuitive, personal digital experience. The platform is built on open architecture, allowing the bank to more easily innovate and partner with providers of choice to meet rapidly changing market demands with increased efficiency and speed.

Jeremy Brown, president of The First National Bank of Peterstown, explained, “The past year and a half has demonstrated that investing in digital is an investment in the future, which is a key reason we chose Jack Henry. We are gaining a technology partner that offers increased efficiencies and allows us to deliver faster, fully comprehensive services to our customers, wherever and whenever they choose to bank. The Jack Henry team has given us great confidence in this partnership by going above and beyond to make our conversion successful.”

La.-based First National Bank of Jeanerette was faced with similar technology challenges; it was operating with siloed systems that didn’t effectively work with one another. The bank is implementing Jack Henry technology across the enterprise, including the core platform with digital banking and loan solutions, to streamline processes and maximize automation. The bank expects to create new efficiencies that allow them to focus on community and customer needs while reducing turnaround time for customer service and requests.

Damon Migues, president and CEO of First Nationalbank of Jeanerette, said, “We are going all-in with Jack Henry to increase efficiencies and enhance experiences enterprise-wide. We look forward to replacing tedious manual processes and systems in favor of more sophisticated technology that will allow us to save time and provide members with faster, more seamless service.”

Stacey Zengel, senior vice president of Jack Henry & Associates and president of Jack Henry Banking, said, “The community bank advantage has never been in greater demand; consumers and businesses are looking to their local, trusted institutions to help them plan their financial futures as the world stabilizes. By investing in open architecture and enterprise-wide automation that helps optimize processes, these five institutions are positioning themselves competitively against the largest banks in the country while still providing the local, personal service and support their customers need. We are proud to partner with these five institutions as they perpetuate the community bank difference.”

·         Riverbed’s latest industry-leading NPM solution release enables NetOps and SecOps to gain improved visibility into cloud traffic flows through capture and analysis of Azure NSG flow logs and AWS VPC flow logs 

·         New capabilities enable organizations to improve business productivity by providing visibility and addressing unpredictable performance of cloud workloads  

·         As organizations continue to move workloads to multi-cloud and hybrid networks with the shift to work-from-anywhere models, this new release provides needed visibility to assist with application migration to Azure or AWS  

Riverbed® today announced it added more critical cloud visibility and reporting capabilities to its industry-leading end-to-end visibility solutions – including support of Azure NSG and AWS VPC flow logs. Key updates to the Riverbed Network Performance Management (NPM) portfolio—the leading and only unified network visibility solution that collects every packet, all flows and all infrastructure metrics, 100% of the time–-delivers greater cloud visibility that is crucial to monitoring productivity and performance, as organizations continue to shift toward hybrid and multi-cloud network environments. 

LinkedIn: Riverbed Unified Network Performance Management enhances network cloud visibility: https://rvbd.ly/3B6BT8S 

As part of Riverbed’s Unified NPM solution, Riverbed NetProfiler enables organizations to achieve full-fidelity network flow monitoring to proactively identify and quickly troubleshoot performance and security issues. The new features introduced today improve cloud visibility by supporting native Azure NSG flow logs and augment support for AWS VPC flow logs. Riverbed automates reporting capabilities for AWS VPC flow logs to enrich information sharing. Riverbed is also introducing a modernized user interface (UI) with a new home screen and simplified search functionality, making NetProfiler easier to use and helps NetOps and SecOps users to more quickly resolve network issues. 

“Today’s release of Riverbed NetProfiler is critical to NetOps and SecOps and is focused on gaining more in-depth traffic insights from Azure and AWS flow logs to proactively identify and quickly remediate performance and security issues while gaining cost and latency efficiencies. It also relieves the loss of visibility in migrating applications to Azure or AWS Cloud,” said David Winikoff, Vice President, Product Management at Riverbed. “Additionally, the new home page and search features make it easier for helpdesk and support users to solve problems, while still serving Riverbed’s traditional power users. Riverbed is delivering end-to-end visibility—across users, networks and applications—enabling organizations to modernize and secure their networks, accelerate cloud and SaaS migrations, improve business productivity and advance hybrid and work-from-anywhere environments.” 

Read Blog: Riverbed NPM Enhances Cloud Visibility with Support for Azure NSG Flow Logs 

Support for Azure NSG Flow Logs  

The new Riverbed NetProfiler supports the ingestion of Azure NSG flow logs, the native mechanism of flow generation offered by the Azure platform. Using this Azure flow data, Riverbed NetProfiler provides two specific Azure cloud reports: Azure NSG Flow Information and Azure Billable Data Transfer.   

The Azure NSG Flow Information report shows applications, hosts, and conversations by VNETs, Regions, and Availability Zones. Most importantly, it can map application relationships across the network for any service, addressing that top concern. NetProfiler’s extensive traffic reporting can also be used to study and provide reports on Azure NSG flow log AWS VPC flow logs data. The Azure Billing Data Transfer report helps organizations understand where cloud costs are occurring to make better plans and decisions to help minimize them. This report provides visibility into traffic volumes by Azure pricing policies to help organizations gain pricing and latency efficiencies.   

AWS VPC Flow Log support updates  

The previous release of Riverbed NPM supported AWS VPC Flow Log support, but it required organizations to manually configure and maintain AWS hostgroups to run the AWS visibility reports. With recent improvements made by AWS to AWS VPC Flow Logs, Riverbed NetProfiler now utilizes those improvements and automates hostgroups for a simpler and less error-prone process. Riverbed NetProfiler polls the AWS Management Console for the metadata and populates the corresponding AWS hostgroup definitions.

Updated Home Page UI and Search 

Riverbed NetProfiler introduced new features that modernizes the UI with a new home page that provides greater insight and simplified search functionality. The new home screen helps new or infrequent users quickly understand how the network and applications are performing, what issues need attention, and how issues are trending. Organizations can easily search or contextually drill deeper into the data. The at-a-glance performance summaries can be customized on a per-user basis. The updated version allows organizations to toggle between last hour, last day or last week timeframes, and this insight loads quickly ensuring fast responsiveness to performance queries.   

Improved security  

Riverbed NetProfiler now supports the Transport Layer Security (TLS) Protocol 1.3 for its services, including syslogs. Out of the box, new systems are now installed with a minimum of TLS 1.2 and 2048-bit cipher certificates. TLS allows client/server applications to communicate over the Internet in a way that is designed to prevent eavesdropping, tampering and message forgery. 

To try a free 30-day trial of Riverbed NetProfiler, please visit: https://www.riverbed.com/forms/trial-downloads/netprofiler-30-day-trial.html