Tata Consultancy Services’ SaaS Offering to Help the Leading South African Insurer Process Claims Faster, Offer Personalized Customer Experiences, and Drive Product Innovation

Tata Consultancy Services, a leading global IT services, consulting and business solutions organization, announced that Standard Bank’s short-term insurance business in South Africa has selected TCS BaNCS™ Cloud for Insurance to power its digital claims transformation and reaffirm its leadership in the region.

TCS BaNCS Cloud for Insurance will be offered on a SaaS model on AWS Cloud and will help the insurer harmonize more than 60 products spread across four claims administration platforms, enabling faster and accurate claims processing. The solution will also integrate with 16 different downstream applications including the enterprise GL system, payment gateway, CRM, business intelligence solutions, as well as all other peripheral systems identified in Standard Bank Insurance’s technology roadmap.

Combined with a cloud-first approach, a faster claims processing engine and high configurability, the solution will help Standard Bank Insurance improve operational efficiency and streamline claims management. TCS BaNCS APIs will help Standard Bank Insurance connect to ancillary systems easily and offer personalized experiences to their customers. Additionally, TCS’ analytics and data-driven insights tool will help in decreasing customer churn and speed up decision-making related to claims settlements.

Dr Nolwandle Mqoqi, Head of Insurance, Standard Bank South Africa, said, “Customer satisfaction and loyalty are of utmost importance to us and with TCS BaNCS Cloud for Insurance’s SaaS-based solution, we expect to vastly improve policy holder claims experiences, deliver superior performance in a secure environment and benefit from the scale that a highly configurable solution offers. We have been a leading cloud adopter in the region and selecting TCS BaNCS Cloud as one of the partners is the next step in this journey. Availing TCS’ analytics tool for intelligent insights, we will approach product innovation differently, take advantage of new opportunities and deliver differentiated customer experiences.”

R Vivekanand, Co-Head, TCS Financial Solutions, said, “TCS cherishes the over 20-year relationship with the Standard Bank Group and our long-standing commitment to the South African financial services industry. We are pleased to be selected as the strategic partner to the company for this engagement. TCS BaNCS Cloud for Insurance will help Standard Bank’s short-term insurance enhance customer experience, reduce operational risk, improve claims efficiencies, and take advantage of emerging opportunities by seamlessly collaborating with an extended innovation ecosystem of insurtechs. This claims transformation sets up Standard Bank well for its next leg of thought leadership and client-centered delivery in the South African market.”

TCS BaNCS Cloud for Insurance is an end-to-end rules-driven core insurance platform spanning capabilities in underwriting, customer policy servicing, claim processing, co-insurance, finance, reporting and branch operations across P&C, Health and Life insurance businesses.

This SaaS offering has been adopted by banks and financial institutions of varying sizes across the globe for its future-ready digital architecture, functionality, business agility and operational efficiency. Its proven application architecture ensures anytime, anywhere digital access, scalability, resilience, high performance, and compliance. Cloud agnostic, it ensures that customers gain from a standardized and consistent platform. With a predictable and committed roadmap, systematic regulatory updates, and a complete operational model it provides customers with the reassurance to concentrate on their core competencies rather than on building and maintaining costly IT infrastructure. TCS BaNCS Cloud handles over 100 million transactions per month for more than 220 customers across the world.

Recruitment is once again high on the agenda at Apex Litigation Finance as the company continues to fuel its growth strategy.

The company is continuing its flexible approach to its recruitment activity. Rather than advertise specific job roles, it is keen to hear from anyone who is excited about the company’s growth and direction, whether they have experience in litigation funding, artificial intelligence (AI), business development or fund management, or have a broader litigation background.

Apex CEO Maurice Power says: “We are recruiting across the company, including to develop further our AI and predictive analysis capabilities. It’s our use of these disciplines that enables us to predict case outcomes, settlements, and timelines, but we aren’t standing still. We’ll continue to lead the way in developing and using innovative tools to bring even more sophistication to prediction and analysis.

“The company is still less than two years old, but we have already achieved significant growth in case numbers. There’s a high demand for the funding of small/mid-size claims, which provides access to justice for many who are unable to pursue this through their own means. This demand, along with our use of AI to inform risk assessment, has seen us become one of the highest volume providers of non-recourse litigation funding in the UK.”

Apex also continues to invite additional investors to support its growing pipeline of applications for litigation funding. It recently began marketing a £50m investor fund, providing opportunities as an attractive alternative to equity or fixed income investments.

Interested parties are encouraged to email Apex via enquiries@apexlitigationfinance.com to express an interest in recruitment or investment opportunities.

Colt launches unique proposition that provides comprehensive market data coverage for exchanges in Mainland China via Hong Kong

Colt Technology Services today announced the expansion of its portfolio of Market Data services to incorporate Mainland China. This new and unique proposition, available in Europe, North America and Asia, make Colt the only comprehensive provider of market data coverage for stock, futures and commodity exchanges across the country.

From today, customers can access Market Data services, available directly from within Hong Kong Stock Exchange’s (HKEX) colocation facility, for the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE), Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE), China Financial Futures Exchange (CFFEX) and Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange (ZCE). Market Data services for the Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE), Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE) and Shanghai International Energy Exchange (INE) will be added in Q3 2021.

As a licensed market data provider, Colt offers raw and normalised feeds at consistently low latencies, even during periods of volatility. Different methods of delivery are also available: customers collocated at the market venues themselves can consume data feeds directly;  away consumption is also available through Colt’s extensive global network and Colt PrizmNet financial extranet with deterministic latency and resilience built-in. Both guarantee efficient and reliable market data delivery.

Moreover, Colt offers a software-normalised format using a standard API that eliminates potential speed loss that arises when normalising and distributing at the source. Customers can also monitor the bandwidth utilisation (at 1s, 10ms and 1ms granularity), message rates, dropped packets, and A/B Feed latency deltas (microseconds) of its raw and normalised market data feeds through Colt’s proprietary web portal.

“Colt’s stable, reliable and low latency connectivity has been trusted and certified by its financial customers for over 20 years.” says Masato Hoshino, Head of Asia and Representative Director & President at Colt. “The ability to subscribe to these exchange data feeds in a secure, fast and reliable manner is critical to their trading needs. We will continue to expand our Market Data coverage and low latency network, and invest in our software development, to provide more agile, flexible and secure services to our customers.”

 Seed Group, a company of the Private Office of Sheikh Saeed bin Ahmed Al Maktoum, has entered into a strategic partnership with Signzy, a Bangalore-based banking workflow automation company, for financial services, to give further push to digital transformation of businesses across the UAE. With the support of Seed Group, Signzy aims to triple its growth in the region by the end of fiscal 2022.

The partnership comes at a time when the UAE is expediting tech transformation across government services and industries, as per the goals of the UAE Digital Government Strategy 2025.

Under the partnership, Seed Group will help Signzy expand its operations in the Emirates and the wider Middle East, reach the right audience, access top decision-makers in government as well as private sectors, and market their products effectively in the region. The AI startup, on the other hand, will bring the best products and technologies to the region and help companies automate their back office operations, create security and data protection infrastructure and speed up digitisation of their processes.

Hisham Al Gurg, CEO of Seed Group and The Private Office of Sheikh Saeed bin Ahmed Al Maktoum, said, “The UAE is taking giant strides to meet the objectives of the UAE Digital Government Strategy 2025 and double the size of the digital economy in the next 10 years. Businesses are going through a phenomenal digital transformation and are on a lookout to adopt affordable smart technologies.”

“Having Signzy as our strategic partner will give the country’s digitisation agenda the much-needed push. Signzy has been successfully providing to various institutions cutting-edge digital solutions. We see a huge potential for their services in the UAE and the Middle East,” he added.

Signzy Co-founder and CEO Ankit Ratan said, “Seed Group brings a wealth of experience and regional access to the MENA region which will power us to rapidly grow market share. Businesses, especially banks, financial institutions, and fintechs across UAE and Middle East are doubling efforts to digitize and automate services to build a robust digital financial infrastructure that improves access, transparency, and speed of delivery. We are pleased to partner with Seed Group to fulfil UAE’s vision of digital transformation.”

Signzy, a company that works with over 100 financial institutions, including the four largest banks in India and the top three banks in the US, and various other businesses, seeks to help financial institutions automate their back-office operations, create security and data protection infrastructure, and speed up digitisation for faster customer onboarding and real-time verification and fraud detection. With over 240 fintech API pre-integrated on the platform, Signzy assists banks become digital ready from day one and expedite customers’ digital journey.

Seed Group is a notable force in the technology, healthcare, hospitality, and telecommunications landscape in the Middle East. Over the past 16 years, it has formed successful strategic alliances with leading global companies representing diverse regions to accelerate their sustainable market entry and presence within the Gulf Cooperation Council countries.

The Forex broker OctaFX presents the test launch of its Apple iOS trading app in the Malaysian App Store. A complete app inauguration for all service regions will follow towards the end of 2021.

 International IT and fintech company Digital Wallet Group (DWG) has expanded into Singapore by acquiring licensed remittance and foreign exchange company RediMoney Express Pte Ltd (REPL). REPL is a subsidiary of Asia United Bank (AUB), a Philippine-based and publicly listed universal commercial bank. DWG's subsidiary, Digital Wallet Corporation (DWC), is the creator of Japan's first and most popular mobile remittance application, Smiles Mobile Remittance (Smiles). This acquisition will allow DWG to expand Smiles in the Asia Pacific, serve more customers and boost its market presence in the region. The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has approved DWG's acquisition.

AUB was appointed as DWG's bank distribution partner in the Philippines in 2019, and the acquisition of REPL further cements their vital alliance. With this acquisition, DWG will bring its expertise in artificial intelligence and fintech to complement REPL's counter remittance service. Additionally, DWG will give customers an enhanced user experience with its competitive exchange rate, convenience, affordability, speed, and 24/7 customer support.  

Eiji Miyakawa, founder and Chief Executive Officer of DWG, said, "Our entry into Singapore through the acquisition of RediMoney Express Pte Ltd is the fruition of a strong partnership with Asia United Bank. Furthermore, having a presence in Singapore is strategic to our global expansion plans in building traction with a sizeable migrant worker community. To serve these customers, we aim to build our Singapore operations and hire roles in customer service, sales and marketing within the next two years and from there, fast-track our expansion into North America and Europe."

"With Digital Wallet Group behind the wheel of RediMoney Express Pte Ltd, we are confident that customers can continue to enjoy exceptional service as we expect DWG to stay true to its promise of bringing smiles across the miles," said Manuel A. Gomez, President of AUB.

Since its launch in Japan in 2017, Smiles has built a loyal customer base among migrant Filipinos working in the country to become the number one mobile remittance service there. It expanded to the Philippines in 2019 with the acquisition of Speed Money Transfer Philippines, Inc (SMTP) and renamed its corporate name to DW Philippines Corporation.

Singapore was the second-largest source of remittances to the Philippines in 2020, after the United States. It contributed 7.2 percent, higher than Japan's 5.3 percent and the United Arab Emirates' 4.3 percent. Moreover, the amount of cash remittances by overseas Filipino workers based in Singapore has increased over the years, from US$1.4 billion in 2014 to US$2.15 billion in 2020.

Besides addressing access and convenience, the high cost of money transfers erodes the purchasing power of the receiving families. The UN Sustainable Development Goal Goal 10.c.1 aims to reduce remittance costs to less than 3 percent and eliminate remittance corridors with costs higher than 5 percent by 2030. Over the past two years, Singapore was among the lowest-cost corridors averaging 3 percent for remittance transfers to the Philippines, apart from Kuwait, United Arab Emirates and Spain. On the other hand, the highest cost corridors for remittances to East Asia and the Pacific Region averaged 13 percent.

Lowering remittance costs can become a reality with fintech players like DWG, which uses technology to offer security and convenience at lower rates.

Mr Miyakawa added, "With the global pandemic restricting movements and travel, mobile remittances have been a lifeline for migrant workers around the world to support their families at home. In addition, the digitalisation of remittance services through mobile has also helped unbanked individuals to have greater financial access. This motivation drives the purpose of our business to create a more sustainable and financially inclusive society to benefit our customers, their families and home countries.

Premier payments industry event returns to Salt Lake City in February in collaboration with the U.S. Payments Forum

The Secure Technology Alliance today announced the 2022 Payments Summit, the only payments event providing practical, actionable guidance that can be used to develop strategies for implementing trending or new payments technologies.

The 14th Annual Payments Summit will be held February 28 – March 3, 2022, at the Little America Hotel in the heart of Salt Lake City, Utah. Registration discounts are available until January 7, 2022. For more details and to register, visit https://www.stapayments.com/.  

The U.S. Payments Forum All-Member Meeting will once again be co-located at the Payments Summit. The Forum meeting brings together hundreds of payments industry leaders from global and domestic networks, financial institutions, merchants and processors, allowing attendees to explore cross-industry business opportunities. 

Attend the Premier Payments Event of the Year 
The four-day event will explore emerging technologies and leading topics impacting the payments market. It will include immersive educational sessions, valuable networking opportunities and practical industry council and working committee discussions.

“For over a decade industry thought leaders from the Secure Technology Alliance and U.S. Payments Forum have converged on the Payments Summit to gain insight, unlock new business prospects and propel the payments industry into the future,” said Jason Bohrer, executive director of the Secure Technology Alliance. “This year we will take an in-depth look at key themes across the payments landscape including authentication, fraud prevention and new advancements in FinTech.” 

Attendees will have access to engaging panels from over 100 industry-leading speakers and walk away with a greater understanding of what shapes the payments space today, as well as strategies for moving the industry forward. This year’s Payment Summit will touch on several major topics, including:

• An assessment of the current payments landscape from issuers and merchants
• Payments and the Internet of Things (IoT)
• The latest authentication and fraud trends
• Emerging payment technologies

Payments professionals such as financial institution payment leaders, retailers, FinTech disruptors, payment solution providers, mobile payment providers, payment networks, fraud experts and transit payment professionals are encouraged to attend. 

For continuing updates on the Payments Summit and related topics, follow @SecureTechOrg on Twitter and use #PaymentsSummit to participate in the conversation. 

Deployment to enable enhanced credit decisions, incorporating richer data and analytics

 Leading global AI-powered credit decision platform provider, Scienaptic AI, announced that Avail Finance has chosen to implement the company's credit decisioning platform to enhance their credit decisioning for India’s blue-collared workforce.

Avail finance provides the blue-collared workforce with a neo banking platform that aims to include every credit-worthy individual under the financial umbrella. Using a hassle-free, quick and simplistic loan application structure, Avail Finance aims to identify credit-worthy individuals in the Indian population that are currently underserved by formalized lending institutions such as banks and NBFCs and provide them with credit line and instant cash products using an online app that enables access to credit in just a few moments.

“The blue-collared workforce segment has no credit card penetration, no credit history, and sparse banking records, which leads formalized lending institutions to never consider providing them with loans,” said Tushar Mehndiratta, Co-Founder at Avail Finance. “Using Scienaptic’s credit decisioning engine, we will empower the underserved with faster access to credit. The flexibility of the platform will help us evaluate customers’ total financial picture dynamically and further support our mission to improve their lives.”

"We are very pleased to work with Avail Finance in supporting the credit financing needs of the underserved through our AI-powered credit decisioning platform. Our platform will enable Avail Finance to approve more borrowers while reducing losses, analyze portfolio performance at a granular level and react quickly to external changes,” said Joydip Gupta, Head of APAC Business.

Funding will be used to expand product offering and international reach as FV Bank redefines banking for fintech, blockchain and cryptocurrency firms.

FV Bank, the rapidly growing dual licensed challenger bank and digital asset custodian, has announced the successful closing of its Series A funding round worth $8 million. The fundraise, led by BnkToTheFuture, Decentralized Ventures, NFG Fund, CCIX Global, Zenrain Technology, and Satvat, raises FV Bank’s post money valuation to $48.9 million.

Founded in 2018 by payments entrepreneurs Miles Paschini and Nitin Agarwal, FV Bank offers an online-only banking platform that meets the need for more open access to banking for FinTech, blockchain, and cryptocurrency companies. The first bank in Puerto Rico with an Office of the Commissioner of Financial Institutions (OCIF) digital asset custody license, FV Bank is also the first bank to offer companies a hybrid solution — marrying integrated traditional banking services including payments with the upcoming ability to hold fiat and digital assets in the same account and the facility to seamlessly convert digital assets to fiat currency. 

The newly injected capital will enable FV Bank to launch its digital asset custody division, develop its debit card offering, and accelerate its international expansion.

"We are focused on expanding our core suite of vertically integrated banking services to meet the demonstrated needs of institutional clients who are not catered to by the traditional banking sector,” said Miles Paschini, FV Bank’s CEO. “The demand for banking services in the FinTech and digital asset industries currently far outweighs the supply. With this new round of funding, we are in an excellent position to continue innovating and expanding our offerings to our growing client base."

 FV Bank aims to include expansion of its product suite to include interest-bearing products and B2B lending services in 2022, while aiming to achieve $750 million to $1 billion AUM within the next year.

“Banking for FinTech companies is still a major challenge for many of the companies we’ve invested in, and it requires a fit for purpose challenger bank,” said Simon Dixon, CEO BnkToTheFuture.com. “As soon as we saw FV Bank’s expansion plans we wanted to not only bank with them, but also support their funding so they can serve FinTech companies building the future of finance.”

FV Bank also recently announced an agreement with data software firm Fireblocks to provide custody infrastructure. The integration between Fireblocks’ enterprise level MPC-based wallet and network infrastructure and FV Bank’s proprietary FVNet will support FV Bank’s regulated digital asset custody services and streamline liquidity settlement for corporate clients.

Seed Group, a company of the Private Office of Sheikh Saeed bin Ahmed Al Maktoum, has entered into a strategic partnership with Signzy, a Bangalore-based banking workflow automation company, for financial services, to give further push to digital transformation of businesses across the UAE. With the support of Seed Group, Signzy aims to triple its growth in the region by the end of fiscal 2022.

The partnership comes at a time when the UAE is expediting tech transformation across government services and industries, as per the goals of the UAE Digital Government Strategy 2025.

Under the partnership, Seed Group will help Signzy expand its operations in the Emirates and the wider Middle East, reach the right audience, access top decision-makers in government as well as private sectors, and market their products effectively in the region. The AI startup, on the other hand, will bring the best products and technologies to the region and help companies automate their back office operations, create security and data protection infrastructure and speed up digitisation of their processes.

Hisham Al Gurg, CEO of Seed Group and The Private Office of Sheikh Saeed bin Ahmed Al Maktoum, said, “The UAE is taking giant strides to meet the objectives of the UAE Digital Government Strategy 2025 and double the size of the digital economy in the next 10 years. Businesses are going through a phenomenal digital transformation and are on a lookout to adopt affordable smart technologies.”

“Having Signzy as our strategic partner will give the country’s digitisation agenda the much-needed push. Signzy has been successfully providing to various institutions cutting-edge digital solutions. We see a huge potential for their services in the UAE and the Middle East,” he added.

Signzy Co-founder and CEO Ankit Ratan said, “Seed Group brings a wealth of experience and regional access to the MENA region which will power us to rapidly grow market share. Businesses, especially banks, financial institutions, and fintechs across UAE and Middle East are doubling efforts to digitize and automate services to build a robust digital financial infrastructure that improves access, transparency, and speed of delivery. We are pleased to partner with Seed Group to fulfil UAE’s vision of digital transformation.”

Signzy, a company that works with over 100 financial institutions, including the four largest banks in India and the top three banks in the US, and various other businesses, seeks to help financial institutions automate their back-office operations, create security and data protection infrastructure, and speed up digitisation for faster customer onboarding and real-time verification and fraud detection. With over 240 fintech API pre-integrated on the platform, Signzy assists banks become digital ready from day one and expedite customers’ digital journey.

Seed Group is a notable force in the technology, healthcare, hospitality, and telecommunications landscape in the Middle East. Over the past 16 years, it has formed successful strategic alliances with leading global companies representing diverse regions to accelerate their sustainable market entry and presence within the Gulf Cooperation Council countries.