Bahrain-based Islamic FinTech provider, IFIN (Islamic Finance Initiation Network – www.ifin-services.com), has launched the first of its kind, real economy, automated Islamic financing platform. The secure, innovative technology connects retailers and Islamic finance providers, enabling them to offer consumers instant access to Islamic financing for purchases, at the point of sale. 

IFIN’s cloud-based platform reduces the traditional Islamic financing process from several days to just a few minutes and is set to revolutionise the in-store shopping experience. IFIN’s platform eliminates the need for customers to visit their bank branch in order to secure a finance, allowing them to do so as soon as they have made their purchasing decision in the store.

IFIN platform provides retailers with the opportunity to boost their sales and increase customer loyalty by enhancing the payment options for their customers. The platform serves a wide range of goods and service providers, including car dealerships, furniture showrooms, electronics stores, travel agents, healthcare providers, private schools and academic institutions.

Similarly, IFIN’s cutting-edge, secure and fully automated platform enables Islamic financial institutions to substantially expand their distribution network to hundreds or even thousands of retailers and extend their operations beyond the traditional branch model and usual banking working hours and days, thus allowing them to continue booking new financing even on weekends and banking holidays, with utmost simplicity and without any major investment.

Research undertaken in the Sultanate of Oman and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, by independent research company, Nielsen on behalf of IFIN, reveals a substantial market opportunity for both financial institutions and retailers. According to the research findings, almost 90% of consumers in both countries are either ‘interested’ or ‘very interested’ in the IFIN offering.

IFIN is a joint venture between two Islamic finance pioneers - Path Solutions (www.path-solutions.com), the world’s leading provider of Islamic finance technology, and IFAAS (Islamic Finance Advisory & Assurance Services), a leading international advisory firm dedicated to Islamic finance.

The founder and CEO of IFIN, Dr. Shaher Abbas said: “We are very proud to bring the first of its kind FinTech solution to the Islamic financial services industry. The end-to-end digitalisation of the financing process allows Islamic financial institutions to significantly reduce their costs, enhance their profitability and expand their outreach to be where their customers are, without laying another brick. On the other hand, with the whole financing process taking only 10 minutes to be completed, retailers can boost their sales, expand their product offering and provide their customers with the unique shopping and financing experience that IFIN brings. IFIN plans to expand in 20 countries over the next 5 years to capture a market potentially worth over $600 billion”.

Mohammed Kateeb, Chairman and CEO of Path Solutions added: “We are delighted that, by using our cumulative knowledge in Islamic finance technology and through our collaboration with IFAAS, we have developed an industry-leading solution that will deliver real impact to Islamic financial institutions, retailers and customers. We have known and understood the industry challenges very thoroughly and developed a practical solution not only to meet those challenges but also to help take the industry to the next level”.

Farrukh Raza, IFAAS Group CEO, also commented on the launch saying: “Our experience and insight of the industry has enabled us to develop a much-needed FinTech with Path Solutions to lay down the foundation of a digital Islamic finance industry that serves the real economy and supports the development of communities”.

Vault Platform, the pioneering workplace ethics & compliance platform, has closed an $8.2 million Series A funding round to service demand from its fast-growing client base, drive Artificial Intelligence technology for misconduct reporting and expand its team.

The investment was led by Gradient Ventures, Google’s AI-focused VC fund, and joined by London-based Illuminate Financial, as well as existing investors including Kindred Capital and Angular Ventures. 

London-based Vault Platform is spearheading “TrustTech”, as the market’s preferred newcomer into the ethics, compliance and employee reporting category. It features an innovative employee app and a Resolution Hub for compliance, HR, risk and legal teams.

As employers seek to operate in more ethical, genuinely diverse and inclusive ways, Vault Platform offers them an end-to-end solution to facilitate secure communication, collaboration between teams and quicker resolution of cases. In doing so, Vault Platform aims to transform the world of ethics and compliance, protecting businesses and their people from hidden risk.

Vault Platform was founded in 2018 by co-founders Neta Meidav (CEO) and Rotem Hayoun-Meidav (CTO). Tori Reichman, a member of the founding team, serves as Chief Customer Officer. Customers include Lemonade, Airbnb, Kavak, G2, OVO Energy and others.

“Since announcing our platform to the market, the response has been remarkable,” says co-founder and CEO Neta Meidav. “Major breaches and ethical failures that go unreported can cost companies a fortune and turn into crises. Until now, enterprises could only rely on passive reporting mechanisms. Vault Platform is transformational, by empowering employees to surface the problems they experience, connecting the dots on repeated patterns and offering our customers an unparalleled risk detection capability."

“We’re just beginning to scratch the surface of AI’s potential in misconduct reporting through our unique GoTogether(™) technology and we have so much more to come.”

The need to prevent and detect risk early, build strong company culture and drive efficiencies through ethical operations has become more urgent following pressures from the SEC, who in the first seven months of fiscal year 2021 awarded $250m to whistleblowers; and the incoming EU Whistleblowing Directive, which requires companies of more than 250 employees to have a reporting solution in place by the end of December 2021. It has also accelerated with the shift to remote working during the Covid-19 pandemic that has become the defacto norm for many employers.

“Vault Platform tackles an important space with an innovative and timely solution” says Gradient Ventures Founder and Managing Partner Anna Patterson. “Vault Platform’s application provides organizations with a data-driven approach to tackling challenges like occupational fraud, bribery or corruption incidents, safety failures and misconduct. Given their impressive team, technology, and customer traction, they are poised to improve the modern workplace.”

To learn more about Vault Platform, visit www.vaultplatform.com

European fintech startup Quppy has closed its B-round at a very ambitious valuation of 25 mln euro

The Quppy digital financial solution was designed back in 2017 by a group of reputed tech enthusiasts, financial, and banking specialists. Quppy is operating on the European market since 2018 while expanding the range of services provided and a number of regions served including Latin America, Africa and Asia. During these years of development and growth, Quppy has turned towards the BaaS implementation and adoption together with a scrupulous work on fruitful synergies between digital currencies and traditional banking and financial services.   

“One of our key goals is to provide our customers a brand-new personal banking experience on an everyday basis while contributing to norms of Open Banking mechanisms all around the world.” – shares Dmitry Nikiforov, the Quppy CEO and co-founder.

Despite the pandemic situation, Quppy has shown promising metrics as the project launched a number of important contactless payment and financial solutions to help its customers in this turbulent period. As a result, Quppy has successfully closed its B-round in the beginning of June 2021 at a valuation of 25 million euros.

“We are proud to close this round despite general decrease in financial activity on both EU and US markets. Our metrics, including the constantly growing number of customers, of partners, a widening range of services we offer our clients and our expansion to Latin America show that we are responsive to market tendencies and clients’ needs.” – he states.

Quppy is a European fintech startup with over three years of impeccable financial expertise. The Quppy all-in-one contactless digital payment solution offers all kinds of financial services with traditional and digital funds. You can open a digital multicurrency bank account in Euro and British pounds in several minutes using your mobile device only. Quppy is currently working on debit and credit cards launch as far as bank account and card consolidation, investment and saving solutions.

Leading global AI-powered credit decision platform provider, Scienaptic AI announced Heritage Financial Credit Union has chosen to implement the company’s AI-powered platform to enhance its credit decisioning and strengthen financial options for its members.

Founded in 1940, Heritage Financial Credit Union is a member-owned, not-for-profit financial institution serving in and around the Hudson Valley communities for over 80 years. As an organization, Heritage Financial is focused on the financial well-being of its members, offering best-in-class financial products and services as well as an online banking platform that allows their membership to bank from the comfort of their preferred digital device.

"Empowering and supporting the financial growth of our members, both current and prospective, is something we hold in high regard and anything we can do to help enhance their experience is vital," said Michael Ciriello, President and CEO at Heritage Financial Credit Union. "With Scienaptic, we can increase loan approval rates, reduce decision times and offer credit to more potential members, helping them to better achieve their financial goals."

“We are excited to partner with Heritage Financial, helping to empower the credit union’s credit decisioning and availability for its members,” Pankaj Jain, President of Scienaptic. “Scienaptic's unique, adaptive AI will help enhance the institution’s credit strategies, increasing approvals and deepening member experience.”

As a direct response to increased cyber-attacks against UK CNI targets, a new cyber staffing organization, Huts & Blocks has launched to provide access to a largely untapped and growing cohort of security-cleared cyber contractors.

Through Huts & Blocks, cybersecurity contractors have the opportunity to explore a variety of roles within CNI across its multiple sectors. The specialist firm enables cyber contractors to experience different technologies and platforms and enhance their valuable skills and experience into new competencies and wider opportunities.

Headquartered at Sci-Tech Daresbury, Cheshire, Huts & Blocks will be located within the new North West Spacehub and in close proximity to the government’s national cyber force, to be based in the neighboring city of Manchester.

Launched by two well-respected industry professionals, Simon Cullum and Ian Patterson, Huts & Blocks is one of very few dedicated cyber CNI focused contracting firms in the UK. The leadership team has significant expertise in infrastructure, cyber and digital underpinned by deep experience and understanding in contingent staffing and resourcing.

Simon Cullum, Operations Director, said: "Many mature organizations recognize the contracting model as a very valuable addition to their way of sourcing people, and cyber should be no different.

"Despite a growing demand for highly-skilled cyber professionals across CNI, there is a widening disconnect between the right candidate and the role in question. Many clients remain unable to find the best-fit people with the right skills in the right place at the right time.
"This creates recruitment challenges for many of Huts & Block’s customers but also enhances the value of staffing services - using contingent talent where permanent recruitment isn’t appropriate.”

The Huts & Blocks model is geared to provide cost-effective flex into the nation's cyber workforce, and a much-needed way of fulfilling medium and longer-term projects. Deploying cyber contractors is thought to be a natural step to bridge shortages of highly skilled and specialist staff within CNI.

Fresh from co-founding the CAPSLOCK Cyber Academy in 2020, Ian Patterson, Huts & Blocks Development Director said: “My time leading the digital transformation division at a major cyber contractor taught me how project-based cybersecurity really is.

“The terms ‘cyber skills shortage’ and ‘cyber talent gap’ are so overused today, it’s easy to become numb to the ongoing shortage of cyber professionals. It’s worrying. With CAPSLOCK I worked with a phenomenal team to support new entrants into the cyber marketplace, but Huts & Blocks is geared to cater to mature cyber contractors, who want variety, flexibility, and greater control of their cyber career in their later years.”

Ian, continued: “We made the decision early on to focus on cyber specialists involved in operations and delivery, over sales, marketing or project management. We want to build a cyber workforce who can handle the grit and gruesome, rather than the glitz and glamour”.

Through Huts & Blocks, cybersecurity contractors have the opportunity to explore a variety of roles within CNI across its multiple sectors. The specialist firm enables cyber contractors to experience different technologies and platforms to enhance their valuable skills and experience. It is hoped that this model will allow for greater movement of skills and cross-pollination of experience within the UK’s cyber talent pool.

For more information visit the Huts & Blocks HQ and you can also follow them on Twitter: @HutsAndBlocks or LinkedIn: @Huts & Blocks for updates.
 

Workday Inc. (NASDAQ: WDAY), a leader in enterprise cloud applications for finance and human resources, today announced it continues to meet growing customer demand for its enterprise cloud solutions, having successfully scaled to complete a record year of customer deployments while achieving an industry-leading 97% customer satisfaction score. The most recent customer satisfaction survey was completed with named customer contacts — those who are closest to engaging with the Workday experience on a daily basis — and reflects the ongoing partnership Workday offers to customers as they automate enterprise finance, planning, human resources (HR), and spend management processes in a changing world.

In its fiscal year 2021 (Feb. 1, 2020-Jan. 31, 2021), Workday and its global partners completed more than 1,800 customer deployments* — with the vast majority managed virtually — for customers around the world including Alight Solutions, Flinders University, GE, Hong Kong Broadband Network, John Lewis Partnership, Nebraska Medicine, and Prisma Health.

Workday also reported a 40% year-over-year increase in Workday Financial Management deployments for both new and existing customers, as accelerated demand for Workday cloud-based solutions for the office of the chief financial officer (CFO) continues. The company’s broad portfolio of finance offerings brings new levels of visibility and control that go beyond the boundaries of traditional ERP systems. Together Workday Financial Management, Workday Adaptive Planning, Workday Accounting Center, Workday Prism Analytics, and Workday Strategic Sourcing deliver a deep and comprehensive solution for enterprise planning and analysis across finance processes including record to report, report to forecast, contract to cash, and source to pay.

Prioritizing Business Continuity for Customers 
In March 2020, Workday transitioned to nearly all virtual deployments and training globally to meet local, state, and country mandates for quarantines as a result of the pandemic. As a native cloud platform, Workday was able to transition to virtual deployment processes in days, minimizing disruption to go-live plans and helping organizations across the globe. Customer deployments spanned a variety of industries and regions, enabling medium enterprise customers with 500 employees to large global organizations with well over 500,000 employees to maintain business continuity and accelerate digital transformation initiatives.

Comments on the News
“Workday enabled us to deliver critical business processes in a way that would have been unthinkable with our legacy ecosystem and this, in turn, enabled a seamless transition to our virtual go-live. Without missing a beat, we were able to complete our performance and salary planning cycle and launch a new performance management approach — all in Workday,” said Paul Davies, head of people operations, GE.

“We knew cumbersome technology is what has caused top talent to leave organizations, and without top talent we can’t provide the highest quality of care,” said Brian Lancaster, vice president of information technology, Nebraska Medicine. “And that’s why Workday has been so vital in our transformation journey, including the seamless virtual deployment of this technology. In healthcare IT, technology needs to support and work for employees to enable our miracle workers to focus on what they are trained to do: save lives.”

“At the onset of the pandemic, we committed to maintaining our deployment schedules because we knew how valuable Workday could be to helping customers manage through and out of this crisis,” said Emily McEvilly, chief customer officer, Workday. “Our services organization’s and global partners’ incredible ability to pivot and complete a record number of go-lives in a very challenging year underscores our collective dedication to customer success. I’m personally inspired by our customers who were incredible partners on this journey and demonstrated agility and resilience along the way. We feel fortunate that they recognized the efforts from all of our teams at Workday supporting customers to achieve a 97% customer satisfaction score.”

Additional Information 
For additional perspective:

• Read the blog, “New Approach, Same Goal: Staying Dedicated to Workday Customer Satisfaction”

FXCM, the leading international provider of
online foreign exchange trading, CFD trading and related services, announced that FXCM Pro, the
institutional arm of the business, is partnering with Fortex, a leading multi-asset trading technology
platform.
The partnership between FXCM Pro and Fortex integrates FXCM Pro’s liquidity with Fortex’s
XForce 2.0 platform. XForce 2.0 is a multi-asset trading platform that packs liquidity aggregation,
order and risk management, MT4/5 Bridges, FIX API, hosting, and multiple trading GUI into one
valued cloud native SaaS offering in NY4/LD4/HK1.
FXCM Pro will combine its world leading multi-asset trading technology solution with Fortex’s
market leading service, providing institutions and professional traders with a first-class trading
experience and access to key industry platforms.
Daniel Chen, CEO and Co-founder at Fortex, commented: “Fortex specializes in helping
enterprise clients innovate and re-orient their trading business to fuel continuous growth. From
exchange products to FX/CFD to crypto derivatives, we discover deep values for our clients by
leading changes and overcoming pain points, armed with superior computing power and data insights.
Our team holds a client first, liquidity neutral and broker agnostic principle. FXCM Pro’s transparent
and pure agency model resonates with our core value. We are very excited to partner with FXCM
Pro.”
Mario Sanchez, Managing Director and Global Head of FXCM Pro Sales, commented: “FXCM
Pro’s liquidity management team continues to work hard to develop partnerships that will enhance
execution and trading efficiency. Our latest partnership with Fortex provides us with an additional
channel, and we are both aligned in our strategy of easing connection and offering customized trading
solutions. Through this partnership, we are ensuring that FXCM Pro's liquidity is easily accessible to
a wide pool of brokers, hedge funds and professional traders.”