Tellco AG, a specialist in pension provision and wealth management services, has selectedbs Hybrid Wealth Manager solution to assist their move to offer comprehensive wealth management solutions.

The partnership with additiv, a leading SaaS and embedded finance provider to the wealth management industry, enables Tellco to give its clients, investment advisors and portfolio managers access to additiv’s orchestration platform and extensive ecosystem. By utilizing additiv’s Hybrid Wealth Manager, Tellco will offer a ‘hybrid’ selection of full investment services via a SaaS model, enabling clients to be advisor assisted, use self-service solutions, or a combination of the two. 

Manfred Villiger, Chief Executive Officer at Tellco, said “Consumers are becoming increasingly focused on having adequate provision for their future.  This goes beyond pension and asset management products.  additiv’s intelligent wealthtech engine brings together all that is needed to create a seamless and engaging customer journey to meet this requirement.  Together with their range of front-end tools and functions, additiv is ideally suited to provide our new and existing clients with the reassurance that they need as they reach retirement."

Michael Stemmle, Chief Executive Officer and founder at additiv, said “The 20 largest OECD countries alone have a US$78 trillion shortfall in funding pay-as-you-go and defined benefit public pension obligations. As a result of this growing pension gap, clients are increasingly expecting the provision of mitigating financial services to be available alongside their traditional pension and life insurance services.“

Michael continues “We are delighted that Tellco has chosen additiv’s Hybrid Wealth Manager for their wealth management services.  By embedding investment products, via our platform, alongside pension, asset management and real estate services, their clients can access regulated investment services conveniently, at their time of need.  This creates a greater reach through a wider range of services available; ultimately establishing a deeper client relationship. “

Managing client assets of around CHF 7.4 billion, Tellco has grown from a provider of SME pension fund solutions to a comprehensive financial services provider within the pension, investment, and real estate sectors with its own banking license. The move supports the growing trend for embedded financial products within the wealth management sector - offering wealth management solutions as part of context-relevant user journeys, utilizing an Open API structure to connect to partners and clients within an extensive financial ecosystem.

Fusion Risk Management, Inc. (“Fusion”), a leading provider of operational resilience, business continuity, and risk management software and services, today announced the launch of Fusion Analytics, a new platform capability that provides organizations with enhanced data insights to bolster their resilience posture. Launched during Fusion’s annual client conference Solutions21, Fusion Analytics extends the Fusion Framework System and empowers organizations to easily identify risk and predict outcomes to make faster, more informed decisions using data visualization.

Fusion Analytics processes large volumes of data and presents findings with advanced and comprehensive visualizations, charts and dashboards, empowering businesses to utilize the system’s data insights, create continuity plans and avoid risks and disruptions. The new platform capability will improve organizations’ operational resilience programs with intuitive and predictive data analytics customized for every level of the business. With enhanced, tailored decision experiences, Fusion Analytics creates role-based insights for any team in the business ensuring they make faster, smarter decisions that protect business operations.

The new platform capability enables a simplified and integrated approach to operational resilience. Users are empowered to break down operational silos by compiling all relevant and required data in Fusion Analytics, including from external sources, onto a single platform, eliminating the need for multiple systems and logins. Its collaborative features ensure users can work together in Fusion, update records and share analytics and visualizations with their team and the wider business. The solution also includes mobile capability, providing users with diagnostic, predictive, and prescriptive insights on the go, ensuring they can continue to work with their team from anywhere. 

“In today’s highly competitive market, businesses must demonstrate they have a robust operational resilience program and can make important, difficult decisions fast, at the speed of business. This especially holds true during times of market turbulence and volatility,” said Brian Molk, Chief Product Officer, Fusion Risk Management.

“Fusion has always been committed to listening to our clients to meet their evolving business requirements, and Fusion Analytics was created as a response to client and market need for an intuitive and predictive analytics capability that will empower today’s agile workforce,” said Cory Cowgill, Chief Technology Officer, Fusion Risk Management. “We are thrilled to offer our clients a market leading solution with Fusion’s collaborative and innovative approach to operational resilience at its core.”

The new platform capability enhances the Fusion Framework System, Fusion’s flagship offering which enables an organization’s ability to maintain resilience through one singular platform, eliminating  separate and disconnected modules across the many areas of risk and resilience, bringing them together under the comprehensive single platform to monitor and maintain operational resilience.

Scality announced today that it has been named Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s (HPE) Storage Momentum Partner of the Year for 2021 during the Partner of the Year Awards at the annual HPE Discover customer event. The 2021 HPE Partner of the Year Award recognises partners from across the ecosystem for their incredible commitment to customer excellence, continued strong performance, innovative solutions and ability to drive transformative business outcomes for shared customers.

Scality is the leader in software-defined file and object storage and seamless data management in enterprise and service provider data centres. The company provides solutions for on-premises, hybrid cloud storage and data management that can span from edge to cloud. Scality focuses on ​software solutions for cloud data orchestration and distributed storage for the world’s largest data challenges. Its Amazon S3, Google and Azure cloud-ready solutions are scalable, offering the best possible data durability, freedom of choice, and the ability to dramatically lower customers’ total cost of ownership.

George Hope, worldwide head of partner sales, HPE, said: “In the last year, I’ve seen HPE partners go above and beyond the call of duty. I’m incredibly proud to honour them with accolades. As a channel-led company, HPE is committed to supporting our partners with best-in-industry innovations, initiatives and expertise to drive differentiation and deliver better outcomes to our shared customers. We are grateful for the continued strong partnership, which allows us to collaborate and grow together while setting a new standard for our joint success.”

Jerome Lecat, CEO, Scality, said: “Cloud-native applications are fundamentally transforming IT culture and how IT resources are deployed and consumed, specifically as it relates to the underlying data infrastructure. We’re proud to be working with HPE to deliver the object storage solution that meets the needs of this cloud-native era, both in traditional deployments as well as part of HPE GreenLake cloud services offerings. This acknowledgement from HPE is an honour.”

• 23.06.2021 -- 06:56 am

Qumulo, the breakthrough leader in radically simplifying enterprise file data management across hybrid cloud environments, today announced that it has achieved the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Storage Competency. This designation recognizes that the Qumulo® File Data Management Platform provides proven technology to help customers drive successful outcomes on AWS leveraging the Qumulo primary storage solution.

“Qumulo is natively built for the cloud. Enabling our customers to successfully manage their unstructured data as part of their digital transformation has never been more important. Attaining the AWS Storage Competency designation underscores our ability to consistently achieve that customer success in the cloud,” said Keith Nargi, Field Chief Technology Officer, Qumulo. “No two companies have the same cloud migration journey. Qumulo is dedicated to helping customers develop a customized cloud strategy that will meet their business needs, deliver results and provide a competitive edge by leveraging the power of AWS.”

AWS enables scalable, flexible, and cost-effective solutions from startups to global enterprises. To support the seamless integration and deployment of these solutions, AWS established the AWS Competency Program to help customers identify AWS Partners with deep industry experience and expertise.

Qumulo enables customers across multiple verticals to securely store data on AWS and can offer the scale, performance, and enterprise features required to support some of the most demanding applications and workflows customers wish to run on AWS. Qumulo on AWS customers include some of the biggest names in Media & Entertainment, Healthcare and Life Sciences, Energy, and Financial Services. Qumulo’s cloud-native file data platform can unlock applications and workflows for migration to AWS that are otherwise stuck on-premises.

RegTech company, Napier, provider of advanced anti-financial crime compliance solutions, has announced its AI-led technology has been chosen by emerging Norwegian FinTech, ZTL Payment Solution.

Napier will supply the B2B payment provider with Transaction Screening, Transaction Monitoring and Client Screening. These tools will enhance ZTL’s ability to identify suspicious activity related to money laundering through transaction monitoring, while also identifying potential risk of breaching sanctions with screening solutions.

Founded in 2018, ZTL’s platform integrates with accounting system providers via API building blocks, providing a customized solution to facilitate for payments directly from the accounting system. ZTL will use Napier’s screening and monitoring solutions to meet regulatory compliance obligations, spot suspicious activities, and mitigate money laundering and sanctions risks.

Andreas Bjerke, CEO at ZTL, said: “We are one of the first Norwegian licensed payment providers and we are already seeing rapid growth for our unique service. One of our main priorities is AML compliance and we needed a more flexible AML compliance tool that will be agile and robust enough to grow with us as we scale to enter more global markets and add more products. We aim to stay at the very cutting-edge of online B2B payments and Napier’s modern solution will enable us to deliver excellent service while meeting regulatory requirements."

With a presence in the UK, North America, Australia, Singapore and Dubai, Napier also has a growing global footprint. Its increasing roster of international customers now includes recent additions such as ClearBank and Trustly. Led by its sophisticated platform technology, the company’s further growth strategy also benefits from the addition of former HSBC COO Andy Maguire to its Advisory Board.

Julian Dixon, CEO of Napier, said: “With our AI-enhanced technology we are helping financial organizations of any size to scale up their compliance systems with ease, helping them to manage risk and regulatory obligations whilst reducing false positives. ZTL now has a robust trio of tools for AML and screening to enhance its financial crime compliance effectiveness but also, crucially, these future-proof solutions will grow with them.”

Profile Software, an international financial software provider, announced today the launch of its new Digital Banking mobile-first platform, Finuevo. The digital banking platform offers a modern banking experience to end-users across channels addressing the needs of Banks, FinTech firms, Financial Organisations and EMIs. Finuevo is also a modern tool that supports interaction between Governmental organisations of financial background and citizens. The platform can easily be deployed in the cloud, on-premise or as SaaS aiming at delivering the functionality and flexibility to meet the evolving market requirements.

Finuevo has been developed to address the need for true digital transformation for all types of banking organisations and their customers that want to be up and running having a modern digital banking experience. Among its characteristics the platform supports fast time to market, multi-layer security, fully automated CI/CD, easy-to-use API connections, self-service onboarding and personalisation of services.

The cloud-based functionality offers secure and continuous access, with easy authentication via any device for payments, transfers and more. Rich information is available on one screen and organisations can drive sales through any channel without experiencing scalability issues.

Finuevo offers ease of use and transparency across transactions in an intuitive interface for unique end customer experience. It offers complete flexibility to organisations and end-users to select widgets that match his/her style and deliver a personalised approach. For the organisation the use of themes creates a powerful branding concept. The system offers readily available connections to major banking platforms so as to deliver seamless integration and interoperability across departments. Finuevo offers Digital Banking in-a-box ensuring that businesses focus their resources on what is important to them, delivering competitive services and a unique customer journey.

Profile Technologies, the Group’s development hub, is utilising modern technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Robotics Process Automation (RPA), Blockchain, technologies and Augmented Reality. Finuevo is the first of the new developments that the group is aiming to deliver in the coming years having invested in the technology hub that fosters talent and new technologies.

Being true to its vision, the Profile Group is continuing to innovate and develop platforms that successfully and uniquely cover market needs delivering real value to its clients.

Spectra Logic, a global leader in data storage and data management solutions, today announced several enhancements to its award-winning StorCycle^® Storage Lifecycle Management software. StorCycle software helps global organisations solve the challenges of exponential data growth by providing a better understanding of their data, migrating data to free up primary storage, protecting against ransomware attacks, and enabling disaster recovery copies of data. The new features in StorCycle 3.5 allow tiering and protection of cloud data, provide increased protection against ransomware attacks, and boost metadata searchability and accessibility, among other benefits.

The company also announced a free 60-day trial of StorCycle software for IT professionals who want to gain insight into their organisational data to determine storage capacity and cost savings. Download free StorCycle 60-day trial here.

“With new cloud mandates and mounting ransomware attacks, it’s more critical than ever for organisations to get visibility into their data and manage that data for its lifetime,” said Jeff Braunstein, director of product management for Spectra logic. “Organisations need to know how much data they have, where it is located, how to find it when needed, and where to protect it long-term. StorCycle is built to meet those requirements.”

StorCycle’s new features enhance the solution’s inherent benefits which deliver unmatched IT and operational efficiencies through the software’s intelligent identification, migration, access and preservation of data throughout its lifecycle. StorCycle scans primary onsite or cloud storage and migrates or copies files that meet policy-based criteria to a lower cost tier of storage, which includes any combination of cloud storage, object storage disk, network-attached storage (NAS) and object storage tape, while leaving data accessible and useable.

Latest StorCycle features include: 

1. S3 Source Storage -- In addition to StorCycle’s support for cloud storage targets, the software now allows users to migrate or copy S3 cloud data to a BlackPearl^® object storage device.
2. Data Encryption – Data encryption is now available for data migrated by StorCycle. Previously, data encryption was provided in StorCycle via the encryption capabilities of the storage targets themselves. Now, StorCycle can also encrypt the data as it is moved or copied to a storage target. This integrated feature provides users with an easy method to protect all migrated data. 
3. Single HTML Links for Jobs – This feature allows for a single HTML file link to be left for an entire job/project, rather than for each migrated file, making it easier to access and restore data. With this feature, the structure remains clean and organised on the source.
4. Job Queue Priority Control – This feature allows users to prioritise jobs in the queue, giving users greater control over job execution order.
5. Linked Instances – For organisations with multiple StorCycle installations on the same network, the software can now link to other instances and provide a single search window. This feature makes the search for migrate/store projects much easier.
6. Restore User: Daily Capacity Limitations – Administrators can set daily restore limits for users to regulate the amount of data returned to primary storage. This ensures that the data returned to primary storage stays beneath a pre-determined threshold to maintain system and performance advantages.
7. Custom Age Filter – Instead of pre-set age ranges for data migration, StorCycle now enables users to customise the age range that triggers a migration. For example, a user might set the policy to migrate all data that is 97 days old and older. 
8. High Availability on VMs – StorCycle leverages the failover capabilities of hyperconverged Virtual Machine (VM) systems to provide high availability. If a VM instance of StorCycle fails, a VM instance of StorCycle will be auto-restarted on a new node.

“As an enterprise technology partner with a focus on data center modernisation, we see organisations struggling to manage growing data sets every day,” said Mat Brown, president at One Technology. “With Spectra’s StorCycle we have an elegant solution for clients to solve data issues across their entire infrastructure. Our customers like StorCycle because it is easy to deploy, streamlines their workflows and automates the management of their data. The byproduct ends up being improved infrastructure performance and lower costs.”   

The Bilt Mastercard can be used at any apartment or rental unit with no transaction fees and earn up to 2x points on rent for redemption on travel, rent credits, or even a future down payment on a home
Bilt Rewards, the new renter loyalty program launched by an alliance of the country’s top real estate owners, and Mastercard today announced a multifaceted partnership to launch the Bilt Mastercard. The co-brand credit card offers renters across the United States a way to pay rent via credit card with no fees, earn points on their largest expense, raise their credit history with every on-time rent payment, and build a path towards homeownership.

“Housing is the single largest expense for most Americans, and rent is one of the only expenses that you couldn’t earn points on without fees,” says Bilt Rewards CEO and Founder Ankur Jain. “Together with Mastercard, we have created a product that turns renting into a path forward for this generation, enabling them to earn points, build their credit and even chart a path towards homeownership. Not to mention it’s 2021, and renters shouldn’t have to pay rent with a check.”

The Bilt Mastercard includes several features that meet the needs of today’s consumers:

• No transaction fees: The Bilt Mastercard is the first card to waive transaction fees for both the cardholder and the property owner, in addition to offering cardholders rewards points at no cost. The card also has no annual fee, allowing cardholders to experience the full value of their rewards.
• Digitally-driven rental payment experience: The Bilt Mastercard enables rent payments at buildings that don’t currently accept credit cards. For buildings that are not yet part of the Bilt Rewards network, cardholders can still pay rent through the Bilt Rewards App and a check will be sent directly to the landlord on their behalf. Cardholders can also manage their Bilt Mastercard digitally – upon approval, cardholders can instantly access the Bilt Mastercard and begin making purchases online, in-app and at the point of sale by directly adding it to their mobile wallet from the Bilt Rewards App.
• Unparalleled rewards benefits: As the co-brand credit card of Bilt Rewards, cardholders can earn 2x points within Bilt Rewards’ high-value, unparalleled loyalty program. Bilt Rewards points can be redeemed for travel via 1:1 transfer partnerships with over 100 airlines and hotels; fitness classes at the country’s top boutique studios including SoulCycle, Rumble and Y7; limited-edition and exclusive collections of art and home decor through the Bilt Collection, and can even be used for rent credits or towards a future down payment on a home.
• Credit-building opportunities: Cardholders can build their credit scores through the Bilt Mastercard with every on-time rent payment. While rent payments are not typically reported to credit bureaus today, Bilt Mastercard cardholders can watch their borrowing rates improve and their mortgage qualification grow in just 12 months through automatic credit reporting.
• Protected payments: To ensure renters aren’t using up their credit line or risking debt to finance rent, Mastercard and Bilt Rewards collaborated to create BiltProtect by tapping bill payment processing and open banking through Transactis and Finicity, both Mastercard companies. When enabled, the Bilt Mastercard preserves a cardholder’s credit line and directly pulls funds from their linked bank account with each rent charge, effectively keeping credit lines open for other purchases.
• World Elite Mastercard® Benefits: Cardholders can access exclusive offers with select merchants, in addition to advanced security features and protections including Mastercard ID Theft Protection™, Zero Liability and Price Protection. Cardholders will also have access to Priceless® Experiences, offering activities both digitally and in the cities where they are.

In addition to the Bilt Mastercard, Bilt Rewards and Mastercard will continue to collaborate to offer cardholders innovative new products, benefits and experiences.

“Bilt Rewards and Mastercard share a similar ethos in putting the consumer at the center and offering innovative, relevant experiences and benefits that meet and exceed their growing needs and expectations,” said Sherri Haymond, executive vice president, Digital Partnerships at Mastercard. “We look forward to working with Bilt Rewards to innovate the renter’s market and deliver next-generation financial products and solutions.”

Tenants renting within the Bilt Rewards Alliance network, a group of the top real estate owners across the country, will be the first to receive invitations for the Bilt Mastercard as Bilt Rewards roll out across 2 million-plus units starting today.

For more information on the Bilt Mastercard, visit BiltRewards.com.

Recently, the Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan offered a speech at the Central Bank of Tanzania that the time had come for her country to embrace blockchain and cryptocurrencies. In particular, a Swahili Times article noted that the president had directed the central bank to “prepare for the use of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.”
“It isn’t just El Salvador that seeks to embrace blockchain and digital assets. Ghana is beginning to make moves, and, now, we see Tanzania preparing to take advantage of the new technologies, as well,” said Richard Gardner, CEO of Modulus, a US-based developer of ultra-high-performance trading and surveillance technology that powers global equities, derivatives, and digital asset exchanges.

The president was quoted as saying, through translation, that “We have witnessed the emergence of a new journey through the internet. I know that in [...] Tanzania, […] we have not accepted or started using [this technology]. However, my message to the Central Bank is that you should start working on this development. The Central Bank should be ready for change and not be caught unprepared.”

In a different translation, her statement was quoted as: “We have witnessed the emergence of new journeys through the internet... My call to the central bank, is to start working on that development.”

“What’s notable about this, however, is the general tone and tenor of the president’s words. There are different reasons to embrace a CBDC. One of them is to centralize the financial system, making the infrastructure of banking less expensive to maintain and, thus, offering greater options to the masses who are currently unbanked. An entirely different reason is that CBDCs represent the future of finance, and those early adopters --- the countries that move with haste to embrace blockchain technologies --- those countries could open up their economy to an enhanced fintech sector. For a country like Tanzania or Ghana, the importance of that aspect can’t be understated,” opined Gardner.

Modulus is known throughout the financial technology segment as a leader in the development of ultra-high frequency trading systems and blockchain technologies. Over the past twenty years, the company has built technology for the world’s most notable exchanges, with a client list which includes NASA, NASDAQ, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Barclays, Siemens, Shell, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Cornell University, and the University of Chicago.

“There are two different movements happening concurrently. First, there is a movement to regulate cryptocurrencies. That’s necessary for the industry to evolve. Second, there is a race to adopt central bank digital currencies. Obviously, China is leading that race among the major powers, but among small countries with regional influence, there is great value that will come from being the first to act. We are already working with government groups, banks, and multinational corporations to help prepare their infrastructure for technology requirements a CBDC-based world would require. The time to prepare for the future is today," Gardner said.