Alicorn Global Ventures (“Alicorn”), which invests in late-stage technology companies, announces that its strategic investment, Glassbox Ltd (“Glassbox”), today started trading on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE: GLBX).  Alicorn is the global venture arm or Arowana International, the established B Corporation accredited investment group.

Glassbox is a UK-headquartered global technology company that has developed an analytics platform that provides a complete view of all customer interactions across internet and mobile channels. The technology encompasses Traditional Web Analytics and Application Performance Management (APM), providing real-time analysis to identify issues and improve digital customer experience.

Today’s listing values Glassbox at pre-money valuation of US$350m, delivering another successful exit for Alicorn which has invested US$9m in the company since May 2020. Alicorn’s investment approach is to identify secondary and unique primary opportunities in top tier, fast-growing technology companies. Alicorn leverages proprietary access to unlock value in harder-to-access, under-the-radar companies. 

Alexander Assim, Principal, Alicorn says;  

“Glassbox is an attractive investment with proven, proprietary technology and a strong leadership team; today’s successful listing reflects the company’s prospects and Tel Aviv’s increasing influence as a hub for technology investments.” 

“At Alicorn, we focus on hard-to-access, tech-enabled companies at late growth stages, which offer significant potential for investment performance.”

Node4, one of the UK’s leading cloud, data centre and communications solutions providers, has announced the implementation of a major privately owned hosting infrastructure solution for Decision First, a UK-based Conveyancing Solutions Provider that delivers services to major high street lenders and their vast panels of conveyancers across the UK. As a fast-growth joint venture business, Decision First required its own independent hosting infrastructure and selected Node4 to build a colocation environment for all its business systems, enabling it to manage growth and scale for future requirements.

Node4 leveraged its expertise in building highly available hosting infrastructure services, to provide Decision First with an independent, privately-owned hosting environment that follows Node4’s design principles. This allowed Decision First to meet its regulatory requirements around technology ownership, but still benefit from the specialist tooling, IP and capability of Node4’s N4Cloud technology services and management.

Decision First provides the market-leading Lender Exchange platform, a secure portal that enables law firms to exchange information with lenders in conjunction with the management of their conveyancing panels. The service supports more than 5,000 law firms and 17 of the major UK lenders. Node4 was selected following a competitive RFP process to deliver a solution wholly owned by Decision First and hosted in Node4’s secure data centre.

The solution will ensure Decision First benefits from a dedicated technology strategy with no single point of failure, alongside security and resilience enhancements for improved Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO) performance. Node4 is also providing expert guidance and support across all key areas of the deployment, including network, telephony and security. This will enable Decision First to meet their aim of delivering world-class software at enterprise-grade level, to enterprise-grade customers.

“Node4 has quickly become a valued partner for Decision First because they worked hard to understand our requirements and recommended a solution that would meet our current and future needs,” commented Lee Eastwood, Head of IT at Decision First. “We’re building powerful, secure and agile infrastructure that will balance the needs of the business as it grows with our regulatory and compliance obligations.”

“Decision First has exacting requirements, high standards and a strong vision for its technology strategy,” said Paul Bryce, Chief Commercial Officer at Node4. “Building this solution has been a team effort and puts them in a strong position to move forward with confidence that their dedicated infrastructure will fully support existing and future customers, for whom performance and security are vital.”

Analysis from global consultancy partnership Kearney has found that retail banks will need to reduce costs by €35-€45 billion (£25-£32 billion) within the next 3 to 5 years to regain profitability. To do so will require the transformation of operating models to improve the cost-to-income ratio (CIR).

Now in its 12^th year, Kearney’s European Retail Banking Radar is an annual analysis of the pan-European banking market, tracking 92 retail banks in 22 European markets, comprised of 50 banks in Western Europe and 42 banks in Eastern Europe. This year’s instalment looks at how retail banks have fared against the disruptions caused by COVID-19 and looks forward to how the sector’s recovery may be shaped.

The report emphasises that, despite making leaps in productivity through reducing the number of staff and store fronts to generate more business, banks have not made significant improvements in CIR in the last 12 years. Findings have revealed that over the last decade, headcounts have reduced by more than 12%, the number of branches by nearly a third, and the average income per employee has increased by a fifth to €257,000. Despite this, cost-to-income ratios have only risen by 1% to 63% since 2008.

There are, however, regional variations across Europe, with retail banks in Scandinavia having the lowest CIR thanks to robust revenue growth and muted cost rises. In Western and Southern Europe, focuses on cost reductions have been less successful, with revenue generation becoming increasingly difficult in countries such as the UK.

Another barrier to profitability has been the rising technology and salary costs across the European banking sector. Kearney’s analysis found that wages and salaries in the financial services sector have risen by 16% since 2015, and an 80% increase in IT costs since 2015 as banks’ retail divisions continue to invest in technology led solutions.

Simon Kent, Partner and Global Head of Financial Services at Kearney, comments:

“To achieve profitability targets, retail banks must be radical and bold in their thinking; applying yesterday’s logic to today’s problems will hold them back. The main challenge from cost optimisation efforts to date is that any financial gain from a declining headcount has been offset by a changing employee mix and wage inflation.

To improve profitability and retain a competitive edge, banks must transition to become even more digital and data-led, with technology at the forefront of all operations. This means scrutinising their cost base to identify what needs to be done, compared to the nice to haves and taking decisive action.

Banking leaders must also be unflinching in their efforts to reshape their businesses if profits and CIRs are to improve. In doing so, underperforming businesses must be exited in favour of areas that add genuine value. It’s undeniable that such transformation is challenging, but so is today’s business environment.”

Today TS Imagine, a leading EMS provider for Fixed Income execution management, announced that Principal Global Investors, Des Moines, Iowa has chosen its trading infrastructure to support its Fixed Income business.

TS Imagine provides centralized connectivity for clients looking to efficiently access the credit markets. By aggregating & normalizing data, TS Imagine allows for the most effective interaction with data and liquidity sources. Growing adoption by leading institutions such as Principal speaks to their commitment to provide the most inclusive & bespoke applications.

Paul Reynolds Fixed Income at TS Imagine says: “Principal Global Investors was looking to enhance their Fixed Income trading infrastructure and found TS through discussions with their peer group asset managers and Dealers. After a robust RFP and POC process TS was chosen for its advanced data and trading workflows as well as its client-focused development program. At TS Imagine we really believe FI trading infrastructure has a long way to go catch up with other asset classes and our work with Principal Global Investors and other users will ensure we close that gap very quickly.”

Worldline, the European leader in the payments and transactional services industry and number 4 worldwide, today announced it has partnered with Microsoft to integrate Dynamics 365 Fraud Protection into Worldline’s digital commerce payments suite.

Online fraud increased significantly during the recent pandemic and economic downturn, with losses of an estimated $12 billion worldwide. It is not only widespread, but increasingly sophisticated, as the recent cyber-attack on Colonial Pipeline has shown. Fortunately, criminals often leave traceable ‘fingerprints’ on fraudulent transactions. Screening every transaction to determine whether there were any signs of fraudulent activity present would be impossible without technology such as the adaptive artificial intelligence (AI) that powers Microsoft Dynamics 365 Fraud Protection.

Dynamics 365 is a large portfolio of enterprise-level products covering sales, marketing, finance, commerce, supply chain, HR and more, including Fraud Protection. The integration will also enable a mixture of pre-set fraud controls and adaptive AI that can learn to better identify fraud both on a client’s own site and as part of a globe-spanning fraud protection network. Worldline’s clients will be able to see Dynamics 365 Fraud Protection working in real time thanks to an intuitive user interface (UI), and users can easily balance fraud prevention with customer friction through a comprehensive dashboard that analyses false positives, optimizes rules to increase acceptance, and uses a virtual fraud analyst interface to calculate risk appetite to balance customer friction and fraud catch rate.

Panteha Pedram, Director of Fraud and Risk Products at Worldline, said of the integration: “Microsoft are world leaders across dozens of digital industries, and after extensive reviews of the available anti-fraud solutions we have found that they are the ideal partner to bring fraud prevention technology to all of our customers. We take fraud extremely seriously, and because of the size of our client-base and the power of Microsoft’s solution we are confident that we will make a sizable dent in online fraud and futureproof online businesses.”

Robin Brenner, Sr. Director of Dynamics 365 Fraud Protection at Microsoft, said of the integration: “Worldline is a global leader in payments and transactional services, and Microsoft looks forward to partnering with them to bring our modern, cloud-native fraud protection solution to their global customer base.  Dynamics 365 Fraud Protection builds upon the technology that protects Microsoft’s businesses, from Azure to Xbox, and combines advanced adaptive AI with a global fraud protection network spanning millions of users, to help businesses combat both criminal and friendly fraud, while maximizing profits. The specialized integration between Worldline and Microsoft will evolve the landscape for payments and transactional services and bring the best of both worlds to our customers.”

Worldline and Microsoft have made significant investments to create a truly specialized solution, integrating Dynamics 365 into Worldline’s global Merchant Services platform. This will allow any of Worldline’s customers to start using it without the need to spend time on deployment or onboarding, meaning a seamless integration and no impact to the customer experience.

Riverbed^® has announced the appointment of Dan Smoot to President and CEO to drive the Company’s next phase of growth, and continue its momentum in delivering industry-leading visibility and performance solutions for networks and applications, anywhere users reside. Smoot, who has more than 30 years of experience holding top leadership roles including at Salesforce, Cisco and VMware, joined Riverbed in June 2018. At Riverbed, he has held several executive leadership roles, including most recently COO and leading the company’s Worldwide Sales, Channels and Alliances, Sales Operations and Customer Experience teams.

LinkedIn: Riverbed appoints Dan Smoot as President and CEO to drive next phase of growth: https://rvbd.ly/3wew9Ig 

“Dan has been a stand-out leader at Riverbed and brings tremendous industry experience having held senior leadership roles at some of world’s leading technology companies,” said Robert ‘Tre’ Sayle, Riverbed Board Member and Thoma Bravo Partner (Riverbed is a portfolio company of Thoma Bravo). “Dan has an unwavering commitment to Riverbed’s customers and partners, an exceptional track record driving operational excellence and business results, and is a strong leader of people and culture. Dan is the right leader to take Riverbed to the next level and drive profitable growth for our business, and continued innovation to support customers and partners. I also want to thank our previous CEO, Rich McBee, who helped lead Riverbed during a critical time, including setting a strong foundation for the future and navigating the Company through a global pandemic.” 

“I’m greatly honored and excited to be Riverbed’s new CEO, and serve thousands of amazing customers worldwide,” said Dan Smoot, President and CEO. “Riverbed is focused on fueling our next phase of growth by delivering innovative and relevant technologies that help propel our customers’ businesses and enable them to fully capitalize on their digital and IT investments. With leading end-to-end visibility and performance solutions, Riverbed is in a unique position to help business and government organizations as they modernize and secure their networks, accelerate cloud and SaaS migrations, and advance hybrid work environments as employees increasingly work-from-anywhere.” 

Smoot was previously Executive Vice President of Global Partner Sales at Salesforce, managing the Worldwide Partner Sales organization. He was also Executive Vice President of Market Readiness at Salesforce, where he created a global organization to deliver critical go-to-market operations. Prior to Salesforce, Smoot worked at VMware as Senior Vice President of Global Customer Operations, overseeing advanced technology sales, global services, renewals, global channels and alliances, OEM/ISV sales and go-to-mark strategy. Before VMware, he spent more than 12 years in a variety of senior leadership roles at Cisco. 

Smoot holds a B.A. in Environmental Science from the University of California, Irvine. 

Insurance company AIG and banking services app Amaiz, are set to sponsor a Guinness World Record attempt to travel from Lechlade to Teddington Lock in a pedalo non-stop to raise money for Motor Neurone Disease.  

The Challenging MND team on the pedalo will be led by Alex Gibson, who works at AIG as a Senior Capital Modeler and was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease four years ago, aged 39. Starting on the 16^th June, the team aim to travel the 128-mile distance of the Thames non-stop.   Last August, Alex and the Challenging MND team made history by smashing the previous Guinness World Record and travelling from Lechlade to Teddington Lock in 2 days, 15 hours and 2 minutes – almost 2 days quicker than the previous record! 

On this latest attempt, the team hope to beat not just the record, but the amount of money raised, which was over £20,000 in 2020. The team joining Alex will once again be ex-England Rugby Union player Andy Long; Alun Thomas, AIG’s EMEA Head of Strategic Finance; and long-term friend Joe Reed. Challenging MND is a charity founded by Alex, which aims to help those living with Motor Neurone Disease complete challenges and fulfil dreams to create lasting memories.     

Andrew Cappaert, CEO of Challenging MND said: “We are incredibly grateful to Amaiz and AIG for their support and sponsorship. Having such fantastic companies back Challenging MND will not only help us to facilitate this record-breaking event, but provide an enormous boost to reaching our £30,000 fund-raising target. We also hope it enables us to raise even more awareness of Motor Neurone Disease as well as what we can offer people living with the condition – the chance to create lifelong memories with loved ones.  

“This is once again going to be a massive challenge, and even more amazingly, Alex and the team will be going non-stop for two days through the night.  We can’t wait to smash the Guinness World Record again and raise valuable funds to help us help the MND community.” 

Alex, now aged 43, founded Challenging MND following his own diagnosis. Throughout his life Alex has had a huge interest in sport and fitness, representing Great Britain in the decathlon and playing rugby for Barking; Brentwood; and Loughborough University.  So far Alex has raised over £220,000 for charity.   

To donate towards Alex and Challenging MND’s latest challenge, please go to https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/AlexGibson16   

If you would like to find out more about getting involved with Challenging MND, please call Andrew Cappaert, Chief Executive, Challenging MND on 01258 813950, email: Andrew.cappaert@challengingmnd.org; visit: www.challengingmnd.org or join the CMND community on social media (Facebook; Instagram; Twitter; and Linked In). 

wajve -- the Berlin-based financial app for Gen Z – has raised a €5 million seed round, led by EQT Ventures with participation from 468 Capital. The funding will be used to accelerate the roll-out of the platform, which has just launched, for the first customers in Germany before expanding into other European markets.

A frictionless experience, wajve enables excellent financial decisions in seconds for the younger generation, combining banking, financial education, and advice in one app -- with a special focus on Gen Z. Now the largest generation, constituting 32% of the global population, these digital natives have unique spending habits and growing expectations of a digital-first economy. 

Having experienced huge financial upheavals -- including the COVID-19 crisis (young workers were more than twice as likely to lose their jobs than older workers) and rising student loan costs -- Gen Z are becoming increasingly mindful in planning for their financial futures. Wajve is a trusted advisor to this new generation, helping them become active participants in the new digital-first global economy. 

To be launched in full later this year by 24-year-old Bastian Krautwald (CEO and co-founder), alongside David Meyer (co-founder), wajve was created following the success of their first fintech, deineStudienfinanzierung -- an app that enables students to find the best loans and scholarships to finance their studies. Students can apply online and get a reply within 18 minutes, minimising the financial stresses of going to university.

In November 2020, deineStudienfinanzierung was approved as the first digital platform to offer the German government-backed study loan from KFW. The student financing app now has over 100,000 registered students and earns a 6-digit monthly EBITDA. It will operate a ‘lock-in’ model to make money, leveraging initial customer acquisition to increase sales of financial products. The company now employs 20 people, with 20 more positions to fill, and has been profitable since late 2020.

Along with EQT Ventures and 468 Capital, the new fintech wajve has attracted support from Finleap -- Europe's largest fintech ecosystem -- and top tier business angels including Lucas von Cranach (CEO of OneFootball), Roland Grenke (co-founder of Dubsmash and Acapela Group), and Christian Gaiser (CEO of COSI).

Bastian Krautwald, CEO and Co-Founder commented: “EQT Ventures expertise in fintech and scaling companies internationally made them stand out as an investor. It’s our ambition to become a trusted financial advisor to Gen Z across Europe, supporting the next generation to achieve financial stability and independence. It was clear that the EQT Ventures team joined by the 468 team understood the importance of this, so working together was a natural fit."  

Lars Jörnow, Founding Partner of EQT Ventures: "Swiftly after initial discussions, we saw the team’s unparalleled understanding of the needs of Gen Z. As a trusted financial advisory app, wajve has the opportunity to become a key fintech player in the European market, going where no company has before. Bastian’s long-term vision and the company’s strong go-to market strategy made wajve an irresistible opportunity for EQT Ventures to team up with.”

Alexander Kudlich, General Partner of 468 Capital, adds: "We currently see a very large potential for reimagined banking solutions that also really solve needs for Bastian's generation. With wajve, we will aim to fill this gap in Europe and provide the new generation with guidance in the sometimes overwhelming financial ocean." 

Planixs, the leading provider of real-time cash, collateral and liquidity management solutions to financial services firms, is proud to announce that it has successfully completed the Financial Supplier Qualification System (FSQS) certification process, a benchmark used by major banks and financial institutions to assess and vet potential vendors as part of their supplier procurement process.

Managed by Hellios, FSQS is an accreditation system for the financial sector that recognises the highest standards in security, quality and innovation. The FSQS Standard was created by financial institutions including banks, building societies, insurance companies and investment services, collaborating to agree a single standard for collecting the increasing amount and complexity of third-party information needed to demonstrate compliance to the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority.

This accreditation requires suppliers to financial services firms to be stringently audited against FSQS requirements across all key risk control areas including information/cyber security, data privacy, business continuity, financial crime, conduct risk, financial, legal and corporate responsibility.

Renewing its FSQS-qualified supplier status validates Planixs as a trusted supplier of software solutions for large enterprise banks and leading financial institutions.

Neville Roberts, Planixs’ CEO, comments: “We are delighted to renew the FSQS certificate as it demonstrates the quality of our internal processes and procedures to the very high standards required by the financial services sector. Registration reassures our customers and partners that we have gone through a rigorous process and embedded the necessary systems and controls required by all major financial institutions.”

Founded in 2011, Planixs works with some of the world’s most prestigious global financial institutions such as Santander, Allied Irish Bank, Scotiabank, SIX Group, Banque Internationale à Luxembourg (BIL), Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW), Lloyds Banking Group and Zenith Bank, helping them manage their cash and liquidity and address regulatory challenges through its real-time treasury software, Realiti®.

Realiti provides firms with instant, real-time visibility and insight, allowing them to optimise their cash and liquidity and comply with regulatory requirements. With Realiti, organisations can ensure they meet global regulations including the FED, European Banking Authority and UK PRA regulations. The solution also incorporates stress testing capabilities, allowing banking firms to apply a range of stress scenarios in order to understand, monitor and prepare to mitigate any intraday liquidity stresses and to help size liquidity buffers.

TransUnion, global insights and information company and one of the UK’s leading credit reference agencies, has enhanced its data breach support service for businesses in the UK. 

Encompassing a broad range of TransUnion products, including its leading TrueIdentity platform, the data breach support service allows an organisation’s customers to access their credit information and also offers specific features to help safeguard their identity.

The tools will help businesses protect consumers whose information has been fraudulently exposed and are at an increased risk of identity fraud, in turn helping to ensure any financial or reputational damages to the organisation are minimised. 

Kelli Fielding, managing director of consumer interactive for TransUnion in the UK, says: “From research published throughout the last 12 months, and the fact we have seen the proliferation of cyber security threats accelerated by the impact of the pandemic, it’s increasingly clear just how costly data breaches can be for businesses and consumers alike. That’s why we’re enhancing our TrueIdentity data breach support service in the UK, following its success in other markets, to help organisations protect both their bottom line and their reputation, whilst also helping to minimise the risk of financial suffering for impacted consumers.”

In the event of a breach, the timing of any corporate response is absolutely critical. In 2020, the average cost of a data breach to a UK business stood at £2.93 million, with 41% of customers claiming they would never return to a business post-breach. Leveraging TransUnion’s data breach support service means organisations can equip consumers with a strategy that helps them combat identity theft. This minimises the risk of any financial suffering on behalf of both the customer and the business and protects an organisation’s reputational integrity. 

TransUnion does this by providing access to its TrueIdentity platform, which allows consumers to access their credit report – a primary tool leveraged for determining credit-related identity theft or fraud. TrueIdentity also provides consumers with credit monitoring alerts via email notifications, flagging any unexpected changes on a consumer’s credit file and facilitating quick action against potentially fraudulent activity.  

Mark Read, senior account director of data breach support services at TransUnion, says: “At TransUnion, we believe there are three key stages to a successful data breach response. Firstly, an organisation’s readiness. Does it have a strategy in place which allows it to take swift and meaningful action? Secondly, the response itself. All businesses need to have the right resources at their disposal in order to effectively handle a security incident. And thirdly, remediation. It’s crucial that leaders implement an advanced remediation strategy to protect both their brand and their customers from any suffering. The availability of our data breach support service in the UK will help businesses large and small prepare for each one of these key stages.”

Alongside its credit reporting advantages, TrueIdentity also provides businesses with ‘dark web’ monitoring. This service scours surface, social, deep, and dark websites for potentially exposed personal, identity and financial information. 

In addition to the TrueIdentity platform, businesses investing in the breach remediation suite can also be provided with a dedicated emergency contact centre to deal with queries from customers impacted by a cyber-attack, and an array of educational resources focused on credit management, fraud victim assistance and identity theft prevention. A bulk notification service is also available which can be used to advise impacted customers of a breach and confirm remediation action taken.  

Find out more about TransUnion’s data breach support service here.