Published
- 06:00 am
Profile Software, an international financial solutions provider, announced today that it has been named a category leader in Chartis’ Fintech Quadrant report for Wealth Portfolio Management Suites: Advisor Desktop solutions.
In pursuit of 'holistic financial wellness', the report evaluates the tools and workflow from the advisor’s perspective, as well as those for the customer journey, while it reviews a number of vendors’ solutions that aim to improve advisors’ front-office tools to enable better integration of data and 'command center'-type views of advisor and client activity, and to provide more intelligent support for portfolio managers. The suites are core for wealth advisors and the first a client looks for when reviewing new business requirements.
The advisor's desktop is the command center for prospect/client engagement, financial planning, investment decisioning and practice management.
Taking into consideration the performance of Axia’s Advisor Desktop and workflow as well as the system’s capabilities for Portfolio Managers and their customers globally, offering “holistic financial wellness” and enhanced front-office experience, Chartis Research recognised Profile’s contribution to the Wealth Management Industry by including the company as a Category Leader in its prestigious FinTech Quadrant report.
“We are pleased to have won this distinction by a well-known analyst firm such as Chartis that evaluates product completeness, implementations, client references and product performance over time. At Profile, we have invested in Axia, our leading investment management platform to deliver the functionality and reliability needed to clients to meet the current and future market trends with innovative features.” says Evangelos Angelides, CEO at Profile Group.
Axia is the pioneering platform that meets and exceeds the needs of Portfolio Managers. The platform delivers flexibility, innovative features, robo advisory characteristics, automated custody and onboarding functionality with a powerful portal to allow for unique User Experience thus adding a competitive feature to our clients’ portfolio.
“Profile’s Axia demonstrates a continuous growth over time in the functionality and product delivery. The focus on client characteristics, client journey and automated onboarding and investment strategy decisioning were key features. Profile is a long-standing firm with a growing number of clients that demonstrate loyalty and reliability in its offering” says Denise Valentine, Research Director, at Chartis.
This distinction adds to our growing list of awards and industry recognitions, whilst always stands as a step forward to meeting the growing market needs for quality, reliability and innovation in a fintech-driven environment.
- 02:00 am
Comment from David Jones, Chief Market Strategist at European investment trading platform Capital.com.
"But the bombshell for markets came on Thursday from the US central bank, the Federal Reserve. It said that it expects to raise the US base rate earlier than expected - but still not till 2023.
"Now, many people will think investors these days are short-term focussed and would not be too concerned about the possibility of rates rising two years down the line. But this signal from the Fed resulted in more market volatility than has been seen for many months.
"Those who had bought gold as a hedge against the spectre of inflation saw the price plunge by around $100, or 5%, over the next 24 hours as the US dollar surged. The price of oil, which has soared this year by 50% as traders bet on a strong economic recovery, also suffered from a stronger dollar.
"Markets can often over-react to central bank statements. Although stocks initially fell, US markets regained their composure again on Thursday and the tech-biased NASDAQ index actually moved out to fresh all-time highs. However, other markets were still reeling from the threat of this sooner than expected rate cut.
"It will be the US dollar that will be the focus for traders for the rest of the month as they wait to see if this really is a resurgence for the world's reserve currency - and the knock-on effect it will have for many other asset classes."
- 09:00 am
The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) today announced the availability of data on 2020 mortgage lending transactions at 4,475 U.S. financial institutions reported under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA). Covered institutions include banks, savings associations, credit unions, and mortgage companies.
The HMDA data are the most comprehensive publicly available information on mortgage market activity. They are used by industry, consumer groups, regulators, and others to assess potential fair lending risks and for other purposes.
The FFIEC releases today several data products to serve a variety of data users. The HMDA Dynamic National Loan-Level Dataset is updated, on a weekly basis, to reflect late submissions and resubmissions. The Snapshot National Loan-Level Dataset contains the national HMDA datasets as of a fixed date, in the case of 2020 data, May 1, 2021. Aggregate and Disclosure Reports provide summary information on individual financial institutions and geographies. The HMDA Data Browser allows users to create custom tables and download datasets that can be further analyzed. In addition, beginning in late March 2021, the FFIEC made available Loan/Application Registers for each HMDA filer of 2020 data, modified to protect borrower privacy.
Understanding the Data
The data include a total of 48 data points providing information about the applicants, the property securing the loan or proposed to secure the loan in the case of non-originated applications, the transaction, and identifiers. A complete list of HMDA data points and the associated data fields is found in the FFIEC’s Filing Instructions Guide for HMDA Data Collected in 2020 . Certain smaller-volume financial institutions are not required to report all of these data, pursuant to the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act (EGRRCPA).1
The 2020 HMDA data use the census tract delineations, population, and housing characteristic data from the 2011–2015 American Community Survey (ACS). In addition, the data reflect metropolitan statistical area (MSA) definitions released by the Office of Management and Budget in 2018 that became effective for HMDA purposes in 2019.
HMDA data comparisons across multiple years are limited by changes in HMDA definitions, values, and thresholds. Also, comparisons for certain geographic areas are limited due to the changes in MSA and census tract boundaries and updates to the population and housing characteristics of census tracts, especially those that follow the decennial census and five-year updates based on the ACS data.
Among other uses, the data help the public assess how financial institutions are serving the housing needs of their local communities and facilitate federal financial regulators’ fair lending, consumer compliance, and Community Reinvestment Act examinations. For example, when these regulators evaluate an institution’s fair lending risk, they analyze HMDA data in conjunction with other information and risk factors, in accordance with the Interagency Fair Lending Examination Procedures .
HMDA data are generally not used alone to determine whether a lender is complying with fair lending laws. The data do not include some legitimate credit risk considerations for loan approval and loan pricing decisions. Therefore, when regulators conduct fair lending examinations, they analyze additional information before reaching a determination about an institution’s compliance with fair lending laws.
Observations from the 2020 Data2
For 2020, the number of reporting institutions declined by about 18.8 percent from the previous year to 4,475. One reason for the change is that, in 2020, the Bureau issued a final rule amending Regulation C to increase the threshold for collecting and reporting data about closed-end mortgage loans from 25 to 100 loans, effective July 1, 2020.3
The 2020 data include information on 22.7 million home loan applications. Among them, 20.4 million were closed-end, 1.7 million were open-end, and, for another 563,000 records, pursuant to the EGRRCPA’s partial exemptions, financial institutions did not indicate whether the records were closed-end or open-end. The number of closed-end loan applications increased by 63.2 percent, and the number of open-end line of credit applications decreased by 19.0 percent. A total of 14.5 million applications resulted in loan originations. Among them, 13.2 million were closed-end mortgage originations, 906,000 were open-end line of credit originations, and, pursuant to the EGRRCPA’s partial exemptions, 432,000 were originations for which financial institutions did not indicate whether they were closed-end or open-end. The 2020 data include 2.8 million purchased loans, for a total of 25.6 million records. The total also includes information on approximately 129,000 preapproval requests that were denied or approved but not accepted.
The total number of originated closed-end loans increased by about 5.3 million between 2019 and 2020, or 67.1 percent.4 Refinance originations for 1-4 family properties increased by 150.0 percent from 3.4 million, and home purchase lending increased by 6.7 percent from 4.5 million.5
A total of 1,637 reporters made use of the EGRRCPA’s partial exemptions for at least one of the 26 data points eligible for the exemptions. In all, they account for about 589,000 records and 439,000 originations.
From 2019 to 2020, the share of home purchase loans for first lien, 1-4 family, site-built, owner-occupied properties made to low- or moderate-income borrowers (those with income of less than 80 percent of area median income) increased slightly from 28.6 percent to 30.4 percent, and the share of refinance loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers for first lien, 1-4 family, site-built, owner-occupied properties decreased from 23.8 percent to 19.3 percent.6
In terms of borrower race and ethnicity, the share of home purchase loans for first lien, 1-4 family, site-built, owner-occupied properties made to Black borrowers rose from 7.0 percent in 2019 to 7.3 percent in 2020, the share made to Hispanic-White borrowers decreased slightly from 9.2 percent to 9.1 percent, and those made to Asian borrowers decreased from 5.7 percent to 5.5 percent. From 2019 to 2020, the share of refinance loans for first lien, 1-4 family, site-built, owner-occupied properties made to Black borrowers decreased from 5.3 percent to 4.3 percent, the share made to Hispanic-White borrowers decreased from 6.2 percent to 5.3 percent, and the share made to Asian borrowers increased from 5.4 percent to 6.7 percent.
In 2020, Black and Hispanic-White applicants experienced denial rates for first lien, 1-4 family, site-built, owner-occupied conventional home purchase loans of 17.2 percent and 11.2 percent respectively, while the denial rates for Asian and non-Hispanic-White applicants were 9.1 and 6.1 respectively. These relationships are similar to those found in earlier years and, due to the limitations of the HMDA data mentioned above, cannot take into account all legitimate credit risk considerations for loan approval and loan pricing.
The Federal Housing Administration (FHA)-insured share of first-lien home purchase loans for 1-4 family, site-built, owner-occupied properties decreased slightly from 20.2 percent in 2019 to 19.5 percent in 2020. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)-guaranteed share of such loans decreased slightly to 10.4 percent in 2020. The overall government-backed share of such home purchase loans, including FHA, VA, Rural Housing Service, and Farm Service Agency loans, was 32.9 percent in 2020, down from 33.4 percent in 2019.
The FHA-insured share of refinance mortgages for first lien, 1-4 family, site-built, owner-occupied properties decreased to 6.6 percent in 2020 from 12.0 percent in 2019, while the VA-guaranteed share of such refinance loans decreased from 13.5 percent in 2019 to 11.9 percent in 2020.
The share of mortgages originated by non-depository, independent mortgage companies has increased in recent years. In 2020, this group of lenders accounted for 60.7 percent of first lien, 1-4 family, site-built, owner-occupied home-purchase loans, up from 56.4 percent in 2019. Independent mortgage companies also originated 63.3 percent of first lien, 1-4 family, site-built, owner-occupied refinance loans, an increase from 58.1 percent in 2019.
The HMDA data also identify loans that are covered by the Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act (HOEPA). Under HOEPA, certain types of mortgage loans that have interest rates or total points and fees above specified levels are subject to certain requirements, such as additional disclosures to consumers, and also are subject to various restrictions on loan terms. For 2020, 6,682 loan originations covered by HOEPA were reported: 2,915 home purchase loans for 1-4 family properties; 369 home improvement loans for 1-4 family properties; and 3,398 refinance loans for 1-4 family properties.
- 01:00 am
Beamery, the leading talent operating system that helps companies attract, engage and retain top talent, has announced US$138m in Series C funding led by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board (Ontario Teachers’), through its Teachers’ Innovation Platform (TIP). TIP focuses on late-stage venture and growth equity investments in companies that use technology to disrupt incumbents and create new sectors. Accenture Ventures also participated alongside existing investors EQT Ventures, Index Ventures, M12 and Workday Ventures. The round follows a record year for the company, which finished with 337% annual revenue growth in Q4, and surpassed one million roles filled on its platform during 2020.
Organisations around the world are now hiring at pace in an increasingly competitive talent market. In Q1, Beamery saw a 462% increase in jobs posted across its customer base, compared with the same period in 2020, while the number of candidates pipelined only rose by 46%, indicating that demand is already significantly outstripping supply.
Faced with skills shortages and increasing competition, global enterprises are looking to solutions like Beamery that provide a single platform to manage the entire talent lifecycle. Leveraging an industry first AI-powered Talent Graph, Beamery’s Talent Operating System aggregates and enriches enterprises’ existing talent data with billions of relevant data points to help organizations quickly identify and prioritize potential candidates that are likely to thrive at their organization; measure and reach diversity targets; provide better learning opportunities and career pathways for existing employees; and understand the skills and capabilities they need to build their workforce of the future.
During the past 12 months Beamery has added to its roster of enterprise clients with global brands like Autodesk and Nasdaq amongst others. The company’s leading technology has enabled customers to hire at an unprecedented pace, and supported organisations leading the charge on vaccine development - including AstraZeneca - to transform their international workforce to meet rapidly changing global requirements.
This new investment will fuel extensive product development, accelerate commercial growth in existing and new geographies, double its rapidly growing employee base, and solidify Beamery’s leadership position in the talent space.
Abakar Saidov, Co-Founder and CEO at Beamery added: “Changes to the way we work, shifting expectations of candidates, and the sheer pace of recruiting demands, have led organizations to rethink how they approach recruitment and retention. Enterprise talent teams are driving significant global transformation as they build towards this new future of work, and this investment will enable us to scale globally with growing demand and build the new category in enterprise technology.”
Olivia Steedman, Senior Managing Director, Teachers’ Innovation Platform (TIP) said: “Beamery’s best-in-class approach is already transforming how leading global companies recruit and retain talent. As companies accelerate their focus on developing their people and building more agile workforces, Beamery’s cutting-edge solutions and clear vision for transforming talent can provide a competitive edge. We’re excited to partner with them on this journey.”
Christie Smith, Global lead for Talent & Organization / Human Potential at Accenture said: "As a result of our successful working relationship with Beamery, as well as the company’s continued growth, we are excited to evolve our relationship further. Beamery is an innovator in this market and we believe they can help our clients transform talent recruitment, hiring and retention.”
- 03:00 am
Qumulo, the breakthrough leader in radically simplifying enterprise file data management across hybrid cloud environments, today announced an integration with HPE GreenLake Cloud Services to offer customers the Qumulo® File Data Platform delivered as-a-service. This collaboration provides a modern cloud experience with on-premises control to meet the needs of today’s unstructured data demands across industries. This news comes on the heels of Qumulo’s expansion of its global operations to Asia-Pacific and its strategic partnership with HPE to deliver data solutions to that region.
“At Qumulo, we believe in radical simplicity and flexibility for our customers. That’s why we designed our file system to be agnostic so that customers can take full advantage of their data no matter how demanding the workload, and across their choice of cloud or on-premise data centers,” said Ben Gitenstein, Vice President of Product at Qumulo. “By working together with HPE GreenLake, we’re able to offer even more flexibility to customers through variable monthly payments based on metered usage.”
The amount of unstructured data being generated today has grown exponentially over the past decade, and legacy architectures can no longer keep up with the growing demands. Companies across healthcare, financial services, media and entertainment, and other industries are producing massive amounts of unstructured file data that needs to be stored, managed, protected and analyzed. Through this collaboration, Qumulo and HPE deliver all the power, scale, and cost-efficiency that comes with the public cloud but deliver it within a private data center.
“It’s getting more difficult for businesses to manage the flood of data and predict storage requirements, making it crucial to adopt cloud-based operations for their hybrid environments,” said Maurice Martin, VP of Partner Ecosystem for HPE GreenLake Cloud Services. “With Qumulo’s scalable file data system delivered on HPE GreenLake Cloud Services, we can help our joint customers simplify IT operations and deliver cloud-scale economics on-premises, at the edge, or in colocation facilities. By bringing the cloud operational model to where our customers’ data lives, they can accelerate their digital transformation and importantly streamline data management.”
Qumulo’s modern file data platform running on purpose built HPE Apollo 4200 Gen10 hybrid flash and HPE ProLiant DL325 Gen10 Plus servers delivers unprecedented security and data visibility to enterprise organizations. The powerful collaboration provides customers with up to 30 percent savings on capital expenditures due to an eliminated need for overprovisioning their data, 75 percent less time to deploy global IT projects and 40 percent increased IT team productivity by reducing their support load1.
More details on this collaboration will be available during the HPE Discover Conference taking place June 22-24, 2021. You can register for Qumulo’s Office Hours during HPE Discover here.
Henry Morse
Associate Director at Robert Half UK
- 02:00 am
MPowered Mortgages’ product offering comes alongside the innovative MPowered system, which Tenet’s advisers will also have access to. Advisers will benefit from a simple and intuitive system that enables cases to be submitted with ease. The simple document upload and full application process for brokers takes just 10 minutes, efficiently leapfrogging the DIP (Decisions In Principle) stage.
MPowered Mortgages aim to deliver lending with certainty and control. The application process has been built alongside advisers to give them the tools they need to better serve their clients.
Additional benefits for Tenet’s advisers include:
- Range of fee-free re-mortgages up to £1m
- Fee-free remortgages for limited companies
- 2 and 5 Year fixed periods up to 80%
- CCJ – 1 satisfied up to £250 in last 3 years
- Defaults over 2 years ignored
- Local Authority flats up to 70%
Emma Hollingworth, distribution director at MPowered Mortgages, added: “We’re proud to be launching with Tenet Network Services today and look forward to helping them deliver the best possible service for their clients.
“Tenet share our ambition to make the mortgage application process even smoother for everyone, through the use of both a competitive product range and innovative tech.”
Ben Wright, director of strategic development at Tenet, commented:
“Using technology to make life easier is core to our strategy and we were impressed with MPowered Mortgages innovative approach to the application process. When combined with some great rates and broad criteria, we believe that the addition of MPowered Mortgages to our panel will provide our advisers with a competitive advantage.”
- 02:00 am
Scienaptic, leading AI-powered credit decisioning disruptor today announced that it has joined the Symitar® Vendor Integration Program (VIP). Participation in the program will provide Scienaptic with access to Symitar’s technical resources to enable its AI-powered credit decisioning platform to integrate with Episys®. The Vendor Integration Program is designed to help ensure that Symitar’s customers can easily deploy third-party products.
Scienaptic platform integrates via SymXchange™, a services-based programming interface that enables third-party vendors and credit unions to access the platform’s core data and business rules. The integrity of data is maintained throughout any data exchange, because access to business rules and data is managed through a service layer which governs these interactions.
Scienaptic is on a mission to increase credit availability by transforming technology used in credit decisioning. Over 150 years of credit experience is embedded in Scienaptic's AI native credit decision platform. Scienaptic clients across credit unions, fintech, banks and other lenders use the platform to constantly improve the quality of underwriting decisions. This enables them to say ‘yes’ to borrowers more often and faster.
“Integration of our AI credit decisioning platform will radically enhance credit underwriting," said Pankaj Jain, President of Scienaptic. "Through our inclusion in the VIP, lenders will be able to support more borrowers, increase approval rates and build deeper relationships with members.”
Symitar’s VIP takes the customer out of the middle, providing vendors with direct access to Symitar’s technical resources and test systems. VIP inclusion is not an endorsement of the vendor’s product.
- 06:00 am
More than half of millennials are happy to switch to or already have a digital-only bank, reveals a new poll from one of the world’s largest independent financial advisory and fintech organizations.
The results from a deVere Group global poll of 550+ clients born between 1980 and 1996 show that 59% of those surveyed already only ever use digital banking services or are planning to make the switch to do so this year.
The respondents are clients who currently reside in North America, the UK, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, East Asia, Australasia and Latin America.
Of the poll’s findings, Nigel Green, deVere Group CEO and founder, says: “This is more bad news for traditional banks, which seem to have been in a perpetual game of ‘catch-up’ in recent years amid evolving customer expectations, regulatory requirements and tech advances."
“The poll’s findings are a big deal for old-school banks."
“Why? Two reasons: first, millennials because they’re the fastest-growing cohort of clients; and second, because they are becoming the beneficiaries of the Greatest Transfer of Wealth in history.”
According to some estimates, $68 trillion in wealth is to be passed down from the baby boomers – the wealthiest generation ever – to their children and other heirs (millennials) over the next few decades.
Mr Green continues: “Millennials have grown up on technology. They are ‘digital natives."
“They’ve been influenced by the enormous surge in tech as they came into adulthood - which came around the same time of the global financial crash that hit in 2008.
“Against this backdrop, they seemingly became comfortable using fintech [financial technology] to help them access, manage and use their money rather than using a traditional bank.”
Indeed, according to a Facebook white paper entitled “Millennials + money: The unfiltered journey,” 92% of millennials distrust banks and many view them as an unreliable source of information.
“Mobile-first millennials expect easy, immediate access and control of their finances in the palm of their hand. They demand to be able to transfer money and pay bills in one tap or swipe. They want to be able to review their spending habits, be offered guidance, and have real-time access,” says Nigel Green.
“In most cases, ‘too big to fail’ traditional banks are struggling to keep pace with the tech innovations that are now driving shifting customer expectations. Legacy technologies and clunky business models are presenting considerable transformation challenges.”
As well as the on-the-go convenience, control and flexibility that digital-only banks offer, clients are also attracted by their green credentials.
Last year, the deVere CEO noted: “Individuals and companies are increasingly embracing and expecting green, paperless banking."
“This is partly fuelled by the pressing need for us all to drastically reduce waste and better protect the environment - something the pandemic and issues such as raging wildfires has collectively focused minds on - but also because a paperless system is, typically, a more convenient and efficient one.
“Traditional banks have a long way to go to catch-up with tech-driven challenger banks and fintech firms, which are intrinsically much greener and are leading the charge to a paperless future.”
Mr Green concludes: “Mobile-first millennials’ world view, in many regards, has been shaped by tech.
“It’s natural that they turn to fintech instead of a banking system that they perceive as outdated and/or untrustworthy.”
- 07:00 am
IHS Markit (NYSE: INFO), a world leader in critical information, analytics and solutions, today announced that in response to evolving fixed income market structure themes and associated navigation challenges, the firm is focused on continually enhancing its front-office suite of capabilities to provide richer pre-trade insights and price discovery toolkits for users. In a significant step forward, IHS Markit has established connectivity with Lucera and Neptune Networks ("Neptune") to deliver to mutual clients of the thinkFolio investment management platform, Lucera and Neptune, access to high-quality pre-trade data and liquidity signals.
Lucera's LumeALFA Analytics is a new lighter version of its LumeALFA service, a leading fixed income data aggregation and market surveillance tool that provides its clients with a consolidated view of client -selected pre-trade liquidity data from major electronic venues and dealer inventory feeds, as well as connectivity to client-selected execution venues, including single dealer executions. LumeALFA Analytics is designed to provide a real-time view of the entire bond market, including government bonds, investment-grade and high-yield corporates, emerging markets, municipal debt and structured credit.
Lucera's connectivity to IHS Markit's thinkFolio will enable mutual clients of Lucera and IHS Markit to interact with and utilize pre-trade liquidity data and message parsing provided by IHS Markit to help them streamline trading decisions and facilitate best execution analyses. Portfolio managers and traders using thinkFolio can now leverage LumeALFA Analytics to target, search for and sync specific liquidity profiles that support portfolio construction, relative value analyses and rebalancing while also providing dynamic watch lists that alert users to particular market activity.
As part of its enhanced liquidity data delivery model, thinkFolio clients can now also access Neptune's aggregated, real-time axes and inventory directly in the context of other market data. Neptune employs an innovative approach to standardizing large volumes of unstructured data and aggregating liquidity across a vast community of sell-side dealers reducing the "noise" and enabling better informed trading decisions. Neptune now carries $450bn+ in daily gross notional across 70,000 axes and inventory items from well over +38,500 individual bonds. They cover 28 denominations across credit (IG/HY), emerging markets, rates and newer additions in ABS/MBS and municipals.
"As we evolve the thinkFolio platform and deliver the next-generation version of the application, openness and flexibility are foundational principals to support seamless integration with third-party and IHS Markit content and services," said Brett Schechterman, Global Head of thinkFolio at IHS Markit. "Optimal desktop real-estate utility and direct access to actionable liquidity will remain paramount for our portfolio manager and trader personas. Our exciting collaboration with both Lucera and Neptune delivers high-quality pre-trade data and liquidity signals allowing our clients to drive alpha generation and workflow efficiency."
"For the buyside community, the interoperable toolset of thinkFolio and LumeALFA Analytics can increase the likelihood of a successful trade and has the potential to continuously deliver improvements to price discovery and best execution analysis," said Paul Mutter, Head of Global Fenics Sales at BGC Partners. "We're thrilled to expand our relationship with IHS Markit and to connect to thinkFolio to deliver a streamlined experience for mutual clients. The efficiency and scale achieved from thinkFolio capabilities and LumeALFA Analytics' comprehensive and time-stamped pre-trade information will be conducive to cost savings and greater alpha generation."
"Neptune has seen tremendous support from dealers and buy-side clients who have collaborated closely with us and each other, to create an open, standard and technology-based utility," said Byron Cooper-Fogarty, Interim CEO at Neptune Networks Ltd. "thinkFolio clients will now have the ability to consume an aggregated feed of the highest quality bond axes, which in turn allows them to be more targeted in their enquiries for large size bond execution."
