New Service Model Designed Specifically for Institutional Investors in the Middle East and North Africa

First Abu Dhabi Bank PJSC (FAB) and State Street Corporation today announced a new strategic alliance that leverages FAB’s regional securities services expertise, incorporating the largest direct custody network in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and State Street’s global strength and capabilities.

The alliance will create a full-service enterprise offering for institutional investors in the region. It will provide MENA investors with extensive reach into more than 100 markets around the world, an unrivalled product range servicing all major listed and unlisted asset classes, delivered by in-country client service teams in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain and Egypt.

Clients will have access to State Street’s full suite of front, middle and back office capabilities, in addition to its extensive data management and analytics solutions, which   seamlessly integrate with FAB’s regionalised suite of securities services products, local expertise and regional direct custody network.

Hana Al Rostamani, Group Chief Executive Officer of FAB, commented: “The Middle East investment landscape is distinctive with some of world’s largest sovereign wealth funds alongside a diverse range of private investment institutions. These investors require access to sophisticated investment tools and solutions across both their MENA and global investments. The  alliance between FAB and State Street creates a unique platform, delivering leading capabilities across the entire investment value chain that cater for the characteristics of regional and global investments. We are excited to showcase how this will elevate investment servicing in the region.”

Ron O’Hanley, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of State Street, commented, “This partnership between FAB and State Street presents a unique proposition for MENA investors and those who invest in the region. Clients are looking for financially secure and operationally resilient partners who can manage the non-core elements of their business, helping to deliver operational efficiencies, reduce costs, mitigate risks and navigate complex regulation. They also desire to access global best practices and scale and a partner who understands the local challenges and constraints they face, and one who has the flexibility to seamlessly adapt to these changes. By leveraging the best of both global and regional expertise offered by the collaboration of our two organisations, we will provide a truly customised and flexible service model that proactively drives innovative solutions to meet our clients’ needs.”

AXELOS has launched its updated AXELOS Consulting Partner (ACP) programme. The programme recognizes consulting organizations that provide advisory services involving AXELOS products.

All ACP members will have access to a variety of exclusive tools, content, robust maturity models, and lead generation opportunities. In addition, all ACPs receive an AXELOS-endorsed digital badge to highlight their expertise to prospective clients and will get a dedicated corporate listing on AXELOS.com to support the generation of new leads.

Consultants have to be part of the ACP programme to access the industry leading P3M3® Maturity Model, a framework for organizations to assess and benchmark their current performance and effectively develop plans for improvement. Via the programme, they will also be able to access the ITIL® Maturity Model, which will be relaunched in Q3 this year. Both are fully digitized and offer benchmarking and visualization capabilities.

The new ACP programme is made up of a three-level structure. Consulting partners can choose which annual membership best fits their services:

• The Essential level membership package includes the use of AXELOS IP as part of members’ consultancy offering. The AXELOS P3M3 and ITIL Maturity Models are available on a pay-per-use basis as part of the Essential package.
• The Premium level membership package includes the complementary use of the AXELOS P3M3 and ITIL Maturity Models (five uses of each model per membership year). The Premium package also provides access to insight research reports and regular invitations to take part in product development testing.
• The Elite level membership package includes the complimentary use of the AXELOS P3M3 and ITIL Maturity Models (unlimited use of each model per membership year). Elite package members will also be offered first refusal to take part in regular AXELOS product development testing.

Margo Leach, Chief Product Officer at AXELOS, said: “We’re really proud of our new offering. It’s essential for us to add as much value as possible to our network. Everything in the ACP programme is designed to support our consulting partners and help them get noticed in this very competitive industry.”

• Enabling collaborative decision-making from the C-Suite across the business.
• Facilitating high-quality financial steering via intuitive workstreams.
• Personalization for individual roles, to quickly access the right information.
• Refreshed design and navigation for ease of use.

In today’s increasingly fast-paced and competitive business environment, and amid a surge in spend on digital services, organizations must keep IT costs in check – which requires understanding and rationalizing where necessary to accurately plan and invest for the future. In light of this, Serviceware, a leading provider of software solutions for the digitalization and automation of service processes (Enterprise Service Management), is today announcing the launch of Serviceware Financial 6.0, a module of Serviceware's integrated ESM platform. This is a powerful and innovative step forward for the software solution, which already enables the financial management of many organizations’ IT and Shared Services.

Key updates include:

• Guided Collaboration – to ensure that many different users and departments can work together on one financial process in a coordinated manner and receive notifications proactively whenever an action is required.
• Workstreams – to enable highly advanced and intuitive user guidance through processes and financial tasks, facilitating high-quality financial steering for even the most occasional user.
• Personalization – with customised start pages, to enable more stakeholders and roles to get direct access to their information, navigate easily through the system, steer financial profitability, and perform cost optimization through powerful KPIs.
• Refreshed Design and Navigation – to enable users to quickly learn and effectively use the solution, making them more productive in their roles.

“With Serviceware Financial 6.0, our customers will enjoy a dramatically improved and customized, role-based user experience, ultimately pushing the solution from a financial management tool to a financial management environment,” comments Cordula Bauer, Group Director Product & Development, Serviceware.

Responding to the needs of every modern digital organization, most of which are struggling to manage IT costs and processes with manual spreadsheets, Serviceware delivers a single source of truth across the IT value chain, ultimately ensuring digital investments are fully optimized. This will empower CFOs, with the right information at their fingertips, to have informed discussions with business units, who will in turn now have a better understanding of the IT services they consume. It will also enable CIOs to have a clear view of their consumption and cost data in one place to continuously evolve their technology and vendor strategies.  

Financial 6.0 now makes the complex process of IT Financial Management and planning easier and the associated ROI transparent. However, it also as importantly, provides the ability to manipulate the cost data and develop ‘what if’ scenarios for the C-Suite, to provide them with the necessary agility to make the right choices in what continues to be an unpredictable market.

“Serviceware Financial is proven in saving millions of dollars, euros and pounds for our multinational customers already. With this milestone release, we have re-invented the approach to IT Financial Management (ITFM) or what is often referred to as Technology Business Management (TBM). The new philosophy is centered around a user-centric, collaborative planning approach and redefines the financial perspective at the interface between IT, the lines of business and finance. At Serviceware, we pride ourselves on technical and service excellence – we do not stop until our customers are happy – and we truly believe our solution is a game-changer in unlocking better business success,” adds Dirk Martin, CEO of Serviceware SE.

For more information about how Serviceware could be helping your organization optimize spend on IT, please contact us.

- Move to deliver leading end to end mortgage experience to broader customer base

RVU, owners of Uswitch, Confused.com and Money.co.uk, is taking on the UK mortgages sector by agreeing to acquire Mojo Mortgages. 

Mojo, based in Manchester, is a free online mortgage broker, delivering personalised mortgage recommendations through a hybrid of smart tech and human mortgage experts. The growing company of over 60 employees has won numerous industry awards for innovations such as Mortgagescore,  an app designed to help first-time buyers get ‘mortgage ready’.

RVU operates digital brands that empower people to make confident decisions. In the UK these include Uswitch, Confused.com and Money.co.uk, all of which offer consumers the ability to compare and switch across a range of utilities and financial services products including mortgages. 

The agreement to acquire Mojo will enable RVU to go deeper into mortgage intermediation and own the full journey across all customer touch points, from the moment they seek information and advice, to applying and securing a mortgage.

Tariq Syed, CEO of RVU, said: “Millions of mortgage seekers are coming to us through trusted sites like Money.co.uk, Uswitch and Confused.com. Owning every part of the process means we can improve their experience from start to finish. This is a unique fusion of capabilities, combining our growing audiences with the most advanced digital broker in the UK.

“Digitalisation has been sluggish in the mortgage sector but together with Mojo we will have the teams and the tools to supercharge the process and give consumers the experience they deserve.”

Richard Hayes, Co-founder and CEO of Mojo Mortgages, added: “We're delighted at the prospect of joining the RVU team and are looking forward to working with some exceptional people and amazing household brands.

“Three years ago, we started Mojo with a clear vision to make everyone feel more confident about finding a great mortgage deal. This significant next step in our journey makes that vision a reality on a scale we could have only dreamt of back then. We'll look to revitalise the UK mortgage ecosystem while creating remarkable digital experiences for both our colleagues and our customers.

“Alongside RVU, we'll be at the forefront of positive change for the UK mortgage market. We can't wait to get going.”

The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions.

Icon Solutions, the specialist provider of world-class payment solutions and technology consultancy services for banks and other financial services organisations, has won the ‘PayTech for Good’ category at this year’s PayTech Awards in recognition of its outstanding charitable initiatives.

The PayTech Awards recognise the most talented companies and individuals in IT and payments.  The ‘PayTech for Good’ category honours organisations that go above and beyond to deliver universal and lasting positive change. Icon was selected by the judges for actively putting the wider community first and demonstrating values of exceptional connection, collaboration and generosity to its chosen charities.

“At Icon, we are committed to bringing something different to fintech and this means living by our values,” comments Icon Co-Founder and Director, Darren Capehorn. “We are proud to support multiple charities – many of which we have long-standing relationships with and have become extremely close to our hearts. This includes local projects that allow us to give back to our community in Wimbledon, as well as organisations driving long-term sustainable change across the globe like the Guatemala Water Project and WeSeeHope in Southern and Eastern Africa.”

Founded in 2009, Icon delivers solutions to leading global financial institutions including Lloyds Banking Group and HSBC. In October 2020, it announced strategic investment from J.P Morgan to expand its technology and geographic reach, helping new and existing customers realise the potential of payments in a data-driven world where increased competition means suppliers have to find ways to reduce total cost of ownership whilst maintaining the flexibility to innovate. This includes the development of Icon’s cloud-native payments solution, IPF which enables a low-risk approach to payments transformation. for banks.

Icon continues to expand amid strong year-on-year growth, which is enabling the company to increase its charitable contributions each year.

Darren adds: “Even with heavy investment in our product and service offering, we’ve recalibrated how much we set aside for charity so that we can stay true to our values. For us, success is about more than percentages. Our involvement with charities isn’t to tick a CSR box – it’s truly at the heart of who we are.”

To learn more about Icon and IPF, click here.  

● Ebury named as one of the five top forecasters across 12 different currency crosses 

● Continued specialism in Emerging Markets reflected in its #1 ranking for the USD and  CLP (Chilean Peso) 

● Also secures #2 ranking for South African Rand (ZAR) with USD, and the Euro (EUR)  crosses with the Russian Ruble (RUB), Romanian Leu (RON) and Japanese Yen (JPY 

Ebury, a leading global FinTech and FX risk management specialist, has once  again secured positive rankings in the latest Bloomberg FX forecast rankings in one of its best  performances to date. 

Ebury was named as one of the five top forecasters for 12 different currency crosses in Q2 2021 and  continues its strong performance in Emerging Markets. This includes a top-ranking position for the  US Dollar (USD) and Chilean Peso (CLP) cross. 

Figure 1: Bloomberg’s USD/CLP Forecast Rankings [Q2 2021] 

Alongside that, Ebury also ranked as the second most accurate forecaster for the USD and South  African Rand (ZAR), and the Euro (EUR) crosses with the Russian Ruble (RUB), Romanian Leu (RON)  and Japanese Yen (JPY).  

Ebury also maintained its good recent track of forecasting the Mexican Peso (#3 vs USD) and the  Swedish Krona (#3 vs USD, #4 vs EUR), and for the first time ever secured rankings for the Norwegian  Krone and Czech Koruna. 

Bloomberg’s rankings are based on three rigorous criteria: margin of error, timing and directional  accuracy. Full rankings are listed below. 

Matthew Ryan, Senior Market Analyst at Ebury, commented: “We are delighted to have been  recognised by Bloomberg yet again as one of the market’s most accurate FX forecasters.  

“Our deep understanding of FX risk management, and specialist knowledge of emerging markets,  allows Ebury to provide a unique service to our clients in support of their activities across  international trade and international payments and collections.” 

BlueHelix Group (BHEX) has launched HDEX, the world's first decentralized trading platform to support cross-chain deposit/withdrawals of any asset, on July 8, 15:00 (UTC+8). HDEX is the perfect landing for BlueHelix' decentralized financial layout and will empower the BHEX centralized trading platform, BHEX Cloud SaaS and whitelabel solutions, and BHEX Chain, the ecological sectors of BlueHelix Group.

HDEX exchange is based on BHEX Chain technology, the patented Bluehelix decentralized private key generation technology. It overturns CEX and the traditional DEX model, supporting arbitrary linkage and trading among heterogeneous and homogeneous chains, and is fully compatible with various cross-chain technologies and standards, providing a technical foundation for HDEX to change the business logic of digital asset trading platforms.

Through HDEX, users can realize "decentralized and cross-chain safe asset deposit and withdrawal, the swap and circulation of any trading pair on-chain, and the rapid transfer of assets between any public chains, truly realizing a complete cross-chain DEX model."

The innovation and integration of DEX + CEX
In the process of digital currency trading in a centralized exchange, the exchange is responsible for the entire transaction process such as custody of funds, providing liquidity, matching transactions, and delivery and clearing. The platform has the absolute right and controls the user's asset security, users are in a weak position.

With the development of DeFi, DEX has risen rapidly, solving many problems of centralized exchanges: Asset ownership risk: Users do not need to hold assets in CEX, and assets will be under their own control; Regulatory risk: Unable to be supervised by government and not affected by policies; and Trading risk: Users do not need to worry about counterparty and transaction fraud and other issues.

DEX makes up for the deficiency of CEX and meets the actual needs of users. Currently, the market capitalization of some DEX platforms has surpassed CEX, along with the continuously growing trading volume and daily active users.

However, DEX in the market is built on a single public chain and deployed via smart contracts, such as Uniswap on Etherum, MDEX on HECO and Pancake on BSC, or the Layer2 mode on Etherum, such as Loopring and Zkswap, while it: Does not support swap between Native tokens and mainstream assets like BTC; Most are based on the AMM model but not OrderBook model; Low Asset trading efficiency and higher gas fees; Unable to realize the liquidity combination between cross-chain assets nor achieve liquidity sharing between DEXs.

HDEX has been committed to changing the existing problems of DEX and CEX since establishment, while perfectly integrating the advantages of the two. Through HDEX, users can share the liquidity and depth of any trading pair on any chain, enjoying the trading experience of a centralized exchange, with better user privacy and asset security.

HDEX also announces the Global Ambassador Recruitment Program, and we welcome all global partners to join. As a member of the BHEX ecosystem, HDEX is expecting a bright future with the full recourse, technology, and management support of the Bluehelix Group.

Top-tier digital financial services firm Nukkleus, Inc. (OTCMKTS: NUKK) is announcing the submission of an application to the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for an Electronic Money Institution (license). The license, if granted, would enable Nukkleus to provide seamless crypto conversions of regulated fiat money transfers within traditional banking infrastructure.

“NUKK’s Strategy Is a Simple One: to Invest in the Future of Digital finance.”

The application is the next step in NUKK’s plan to expand its support for regulated, transparent, and frictionless money movement between global financial institutions. NUKK’s range of financial technology offers financial institutions access to a comprehensive suite of products and services, including liquidity, advanced trading technology, and trusted token advisory services.

“NUKK’s strategy is a simple one: to invest in the future of digital finance,” said NUKK Chief Executive Officer Emil Assentato, speaking on his vision for the project.  “We are proud to continue this strategy with the announcement of our EMI application in the UK. Combining this with digitalRFQ’s crypto exchange services and the first ever regulated crypto products in Europe from the team at Match Financial, we believe will solidify NUKK’s position as the true pioneer of digital finance”.

The application for the license is to be submitted through Match Financial, another of NUKK’s wholly-owned subsidiaries. NUKK acquired Match as part of an effort to expand its operations in May of this year.

A Continued Dedication to Building Crypto-Powered Payments Infrastructure

Since as far back as 2016, NUKK has stated that serving the crypto and digital asset sector with regulated solutions is a top priority.

Indeed, NUKK has consistently demonstrated a serious commitment to expanding crypto-powered financial services on an institutional scale.

The company currently operates crypto exchange services and an Electronic Money Distribution (EMD) agent through digitalRFQ, its wholly-owned UK subsidiary. digitalRFQ also offers market-leading fiat transfer times with institutional-grade KYC, KYB, and AML services. The EMD allows NUKK to handle professional and accredited client funds, as well as conduct crypto-to-fiat conversions.

The acquisition of the EMI license would allow NUKK to offer a host of additional payment services to both institutional and retail clients. For example, with the license, NUKK would have the ability to retain clients’ funds for an extended period of time, as well as offering products associated with stored value.

NUKK strives to empower and protect financial institutions, corporate treasury departments, and professional investors around the globe. For further information on the services NUKK provides, click here.