Nutanix, Inc. (NASDAQ: NTNX), a leader in private cloud, hybrid, and multicloud computing, has announced the completion of a project for Total Exploration & Production UK Limited (TEPUK) to deploy market-leading Nutanix hyperconverged infrastructure both in Aberdeen and to its North Sea oil and gas installations.

Offshore oil and gas platforms are a challenging environment in which to install, manage and support IT of any description. Due, not least, to logistical challenges and strict safety requirements, but also because physical space, Internet connectivity and manpower are at a premium. 

TEPUK chose to replace end-of-life legacy servers and storage networks on its rigs with Nutanix hyperconverged infrastructure.

Requiring less than half the equivalent rack space of alternative solutions, the Nutanix infrastructure isn’t just space efficient. Other benefits include on-demand scalability, self-healing high availability, integrated Prism Central remote management and hypervisor neutral virtualisation capabilities.

Aberdeen-based Nutanix partner NorthPort Technologies was also involved. With its extensive experience in this field, it is able to provide engineers fully trained and certified to meet the critical safety requirements of the offshore industry.

“Our engineers don’t just have to be trained in IT, they need to be physically fit and pretty committed to do this kind of job,” explains Russell Robertson, Consulting IT Specialist at NorthPort Technologies. “Not least because they have to travel to and from the rigs in all weathers and be prepared to undergo the same rigorous training as anyone working offshore.” 

The principal role of the offshore equipment is to host local infrastructure services, such as Windows domain controllers, file and print sharing and all the usual business productivity apps. These are supported using VMs alongside other specialist industrial control and safety workloads.

Despite the many challenges plus additional issues associated with the Covid-19 lockdown, the NorthPort team has now completed installation of the last set of 3-node offshore clusters, bringing the total installs to nine. In addition, the Aberdeen reseller has configured a coordinating 15-node Nutanix cluster on-shore with another at a separate TEPUK site for replication and disaster recovery (DR).

“With this announcement we are delighted to welcome TEPUK to a growing list of oil and gas companies using Nutanix hyperconverged infrastructure to deliver industrial strength IT services in some of the most challenging environments around the globe,” commented Dom Poloniecki, Vice President & General Manager, Sales, Western Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa region, Nutanix. “More than that, it reflects the versatility of the Nutanix platform which is equally at home providing core IT services on an offshore oil rig as it is supporting leading edge hybrid cloud in a corporate datacentre.”

Spectrum Markets, the pan-European trading venue for securitised derivatives, announced that 54.4 million securitised derivatives were traded on its exchange in April, with 36% of trades happening outside of traditional hours (i.e. between 17:30 and 9:00 CET).

82.9% of all securitised derivatives traded was on indices, 11.8% on currency pairs and 5.3% on commodities. The top three traded underlying markets were DAX (23.1%), OMX 30 (23%) and S&P 500 (14%).

In order to better understand not just which underlyings are capturing retail investors’ attention but how they are thinking about these markets, Spectrum Markets is launching the Spectrum European Retail Investor Index (SERIX^TM), which uses the exchange’s pan-European trading data to shed light on investor sentiment towards current development in financial markets.

The index is calculated on a monthly basis by subtracting the proportion of bearish trades from the proportion of bullish trades, to give a single figure (rebased at 100) that indicates the strength and direction of sentiment:

SERIX^TM = (% bullish trades - % bearish trades) + 100

Trades where long instruments are bought and trades where short instruments are sold are both considered bullish trades, while trades where long instruments are sold and trades where short instruments are bought are considered bearish trades. (For a detailed methodology and examples, please visit this link).

Looking at the three most popular underlyings in April, SERIX^TM data reveals improving retail investor sentiment towards the DAX, as it moved into bullish territory with a value of 101, compared to 97 and 93 in February and March respectively.

The OMX 30 remained bearish in April at 94, though sentiment on this market is trending more positive since the start of the year where it has ranged from 90 to 91. Meanwhile sentiment around the S&P 500 was sharply bearish, dipping to 90 last month, which is the lowest reading for this market since August 2020.

Gold remained popular, with a SERIX^TM value of 107, continuing a theme seen since August last year in which bullish sentiment has ranged between 102 and 111.

"Indices by themselves don’t tell the whole story. They just reflect the current market movements. The SERIX^TM offers an additional measuring instrument which also reflects the sentiment. Often we are seeing indices and SERIX^TM moving in different directions. This indicates a mood swing, which could arise on the eve of a turnaround event” explains Michael Hall, Head of Business Development at Spectrum Markets.

Enterprises know Cloud IaaS & PaaS is blowing up, but there is a risk that business demand will circumvent IT control to find the path of least resistance. CIO’s need to manage Cloud not just as technical resources, but as valuable Business Assets to justify the rising costs to the business, which means not just focusing on Cloud adoption strategy, but long-term management.

• Certero have just extended the ideal solution to provide CIO’s with the evidence of a pro-active strategy for Continued Cost Optimization that they need – meaning Total Cloud Visibility, Cloud Governance, Utilization Analysis and Cost Management.

• Worldwide end-user spending on public cloud services is forecast to grow 18.4% in 2021 to total $304.9 billion, up from $257.5 billion in 2020, according to Gartner, Inc.

• Optimizing Cloud Costs whilst maintaining services to the business is not yet a mature IT process for most; Cloud implementation strategy is not management strategy and post-pandemic, demand has accelerated faster than control.

• The major ITAM & SAM Solution vendors’ rhetoric has followed Certero in espousing the BI, cost and agility benefits of using a ‘unified single platform’ solution to manage all IT assets through one ‘single pane of glass’, yet Cloud IaaS/PaaS has not fully matured – until now.

• The New Certero for Cloud solution gives CIOs the capability to manage expanding multi-Cloud assets with the same integrity as on-premise assets, through the same platform which brings the agility that business demands. That means total visibility and CIOs’ having the essential evidence of control and robust, informed processes.

In response to the launch of Certero for Cloud, John Mattinson, Operations Director at Certero said, “Cloud IaaS & PaaS, and by which of course we predominantly mean AWS & Azure, are enabling businesses to scale new capabilities rapidly yet also, enabling business units to potentially do what they need to do without channeling their demands through the, in theory at least, all-seeing eyes of IT. 

He continued, “And you know how everything is urgent now? We are surely at a crunch-point where IT either needs to be agile enough to respond to rapid business transformation demands, or risk losing the confidence of the business. It is potentially personally damaging for CIO’s to become the blocker, or to not be able to demonstrate that they’re actively controlling Cloud costs – particularly as they’re increasing.”

Certero for Cloud delivers the four pillars essential to managing the Cloud resources as business assets:

Total visibility – Discovery & Inventory is at the core of Certero for Cloud. Being able to fundamentally ‘see’ all Cloud resources used by the business, provides the birds-eye view to understand how and why cloud assets are utilized and be able to measure growth and remain fully-informed at a strategic, financial and operational level.

Governance – ensures that everything is properly considered, examined, and managed in-line with business goals. Helping to regulate and control the use of cloud services by defining process, standards and policies that need to be followed in planning, on-boarding, operating and managing cloud services. Eliminating surprises and supporting good Cloud hygiene, Certero for Cloud provides centralized management and accountability for your business’s entire utilization of Cloud resources.

Utilization –Certero for Cloud helps you to select and assign the right resources to a workload or application. The solution analyses usage metrics and allows you to create the optimal cloud environment.

Cost Management – One of the growing challenges for IT and financial operations, Certero for Cloud helps you to understand and report on the costs, growth, consumption, purpose and identified wastage across Cloud assets by individual business units. Supporting cross-charging and reducing the overheads to identify and produce reoccurring reports, the solution helps to create a financial ownership structure to Cloud assets and be able to readily inform the business and actively optimize assets to reduce costs.

John Lunt, CEO of Certero explains: 

“Investments in the Cloud are business IT assets and need managing as such. IT has robust Asset Management processes already, so when other business units come knocking, IT needs to be ready to respond and impress or they risk being cut-out of the process until usually, something goes wrong. Certero for Cloud provides everything needed to address the challenge on an enterprise scale; managing Cloud resources in a way that reflects the real business need behind them and with the financial and operational insight to optimally manage this service, elevating IT’s contribution to the business”.

As Certero for Cloud is part of the Certero Unified Platform, Certero’s customers can simply ‘switch-on‘ this new product within their platform and for non customers, Certero’s ability to deliver solutions as either SaaS-provisioned technology or ITAM/SAM services, makes for very rapidly-rewarding vendor choice. All Certero technology and services are fully IS027001 Certified for Information Management Security and you can reach Certero directly through any one of their regional offices across the UK, North America and Australia.

Chaired by Rosalba Casiraghi, the Board of Directors of illimity Bank S.p.A.  (“illimity” or the “Bank”) yesterday approved the illimity Group’s results at 31 March 2021.  

illimity reported robust results in the quarter ended 31 March 2021, continuing the positive  performance achieved in 2020 and posting a net profit of 12.6 million euro, its best quarterly  result ever and a figure almost three times higher than that achieved in the first quarter of 2020 (4.5  million euro) and about twice the amount reported in the previous quarter (6.8 million euro). 

Assets stood at over 4.3 billion euro at 31 March, a 5% increase over the previous quarter and  41% up on the figure of 3 billion euro posted at 31 March 2020. The total includes net customer loans and investments of 2.2 billion euro at 31 March 2021, a rise of 34% over the balance of  1.7 billion euro at the corresponding date in 2020 and slightly up (by 1%) over the previous quarter,  despite the sale of positions and discounted payoff transactions.  

The rise in volumes in the quarter was driven by the SME Division, whose net customer loans grew  by 6% over the end of December 2020 (+56% compared to 31 March 2020) to reach 869 million  euro at the end of March 2021. The acceleration in the growth of the business, which began in the  second half of 2020, also continued decisively in the first quarter of 2021, with a positive contribution.

arriving from all business sectors – Factoring, Crossover and Acquisition Finance and Turnaround  – and benefiting from the strong demand for the state-backed loans introduced by government  decrees issued as part of the pandemic crisis. The SME Division also posted profits of  approximately 3 million euro in the quarter earned on credit revaluation events deriving from 

Turnaround transactions. In the quarter the Division posted a pre-tax profit of 4.7 million euro. 

The quality of illimity’s asset portfolio remains solid, with no significant impairment occurring  in the SME Division’s net customer loans. Total gross organic non-performing loans at 31 March  2021 accordingly fell to 35.9 million euro (from 37.4 million euro at 31 December 2020), almost  all of which arising from the business portfolio of the former Banca Interprovinciale network, while  the ratio of these to total gross organic customer loans decreased to 3.0% at 31 March 2021  compared to 3.2% at the end of December 2020 and 4.2% at the end of March 2020. At the end of  March 2021, loans with moratorium amounted to 49 million euro, down significantly from the  December 2020 figure of 65 million euro (and compared to a peak amount requested during 2020  of 86 million euro). 

The first quarter of the year is usually characterised by a somewhat sluggish dynamic of  transactions on the distressed loan market. As a result of this seasonality, volumes in the DCIS  Division remained more or less unchanged over the quarter ended 31 March 2021, closing at 1.3  billion euro, also due to the effect of sale of positions and discounted payoff transactions. On the  basis of a solid pipeline of potential transactions which can be estimated in around 260 million euro,  also this year a gradual acceleration is expected to be seen in the division’s investment activity over  the next few months. Operating trends remained very strong with gross cash flows exceeding expectations. The Bank continued its dynamic management strategy on existing portfolios in this  quarter too, posting additional profits from disposals and closed positions of 9.5 million euro. 

In the quarter the division posted a pre-tax profit of 31.4 million euro. 

Total assets managed by neprix, the illimity Group’s platform specialising in servicing distressed  corporate loans, stood at 9.0 billion euro at 31 March 2021 in terms of the gross book value  (“GBV”) of the loans serviced and the real estate assets and capital goods held for sale. 

At the end of March 2021, direct customer funding remained stable at approximately 2.4 billion  euro compared to the December 2020 figure and up by 36% year on year. Within this total,  illimitybank.com’s funding reached 1.2 billion euro as at March 2021, up 7% on the previous  quarter (and +42% y/y). Funding through Raisin, pan-European deposit platform, stood at 492  million euro, a 20% advance quarter on quarter (+27% y/y). Corporate customer funding on a  quarterly basis declined to 719 million euro (-17% q/q, +35% y/y). 

It is recalled that in December 2020 illimity made its debut on the bond market with the issue of its  first senior preferred bond worth 300 million euro, with a maturity of three years and a coupon of  3.375%. Overall, illimity's total sources of funding at 31 March 2021 stood at 3.5 billion euro, up  approximately 3% on the December 2020 figure and 47% year on year. 

Also as the result of the above mentioned bond placement, liquidity consisting of cash, the net  interbank position, high-quality liquid assets and other marketable securities – to be used to service  the business growth planned for 2021 - remained at excellent levels and totalled approximately 1  billion euro at 31 March 2021. 

Alongside its solid economic and capital results, illimity carried out two important strategic initiatives  in the first quarter of 2021. On 1 January 2021 the Bank concluded the acquisition of an investment  of 50% in HYPE, a leading player in the Italian market for mobile-based financial services platforms. 

HYPE recorded a significant growth in customer numbers, up 26% year on year to 1.4 million.  Starting this quarter, therefore, illimity is recognising its joint investment in HYPE in its  consolidated financial statements using the equity method, leading to a carrying amount of 85.6  million euro at 31 March 2021. 

During the quarter illimity SGR completed work on the launch of its inaugural fund “illimity Credit  & Corporate Turnaround”, whose first closing was announced on 1 April 2021 at a gross amount of  more than 200 million euro. It is a contribution fund dedicated to investments in Unlikely To Pay  (“UTP”) loans due from SMEs with turnaround prospects. This launch consolidates illimity’s market  positioning in the UTP sector, a segment where the Bank is already playing a leading role through  its investment in single name and portfolios exposures through its DCIS and SME Divisions. 

The increase in assets, together with the effects arising from the consolidation of the investment in  HYPE, led to a rise in risk-weighted assets (RWAs), which at the end of March 2021 stood at  3,018 million euro, up by 6% over the figure of 2,851 million euro at the end of 2020 and by 29%  over the same period in 2020. 

Lastly, CET1 capital rose to approximately 530 million euro at the end of the first quarter of 2021  compared to 509 million euro at the end of December 2020 (439 million euro at March 2020), mostly  as the result of the net profit for the quarter. 

These factors led the continuation of a robust CET1 ratio, which ended March 2021 at 17.6%. On  the basis of unchanged assets, the Bank’s pro-forma CET1 ratio, meaning that including special  shares of 14.4 million euro, stood at 18.0%.  

Corrado Passera, illimity’s CEO, commented: “We are very satisfied about the start of 2021. The  growth of our lending activity, the quality of our portfolios, the scale effect that is now emerging in  various areas of our business and the resulting economic performance all confirm the choices we  have made so far. In recent months, very promising activities have been launched in Open Banking  (HYPE) and asset management (illimity SGR). A number of strategic developments not initially  foreseen are also emerging and will be presented on 22 June with the update of our Strategic  Plan.”.

Today, Ohpen, the digital banking company, announces it has partnered with global technology services firm, Aspire Systems, to allow its clients to benefit from Aspire’s implementation services. This move gives Ohpen the freedom to innovate with clients, whilst continuing to provide high-quality implementation services. This partnership begins with a focus on the UK market, followed by a gradual global expansion. 

The partnership will mean that building societies, credit unions, banks and mortgage lenders can now benefit from the combined innovation and problem-solving expertise, whilst building a future product roadmap for partners and clients. For Ohpen, this means continuing to deliver on its mission of freeing financial institutions from legacy systems and processes. For Aspire, it will help strengthen their key offerings in core banking, savings, investments, loans, and mortgages in the cloud, especially for building societies and credit unions. Aspire Systems’ presence in the UK and European marketplace, coupled with Ohpen’s stronghold in the Dutch region, will enable innovative go-to-market offerings. 

Robin Peters, MD of Savings and Investments at Ohpen, explains, “Aspire Systems brings to the table 23 years of experience in the global technology space, and, with over 60 go-lives in the banking domain under their belt, instils the trust and reliability needed to implement projects from commencement to closure. This, coupled with the Aspire team’s deep expertise in software development, makes them the perfect, scalable, implementation partner for our customers. This partnership allows us to focus on what we do best – being a partner for innovation and continued product development for our clients, knowing that the implementation could not be in better hands.” 

Prior to this partnership with Ohpen, Aspire and Davinci, which was acquired by Ohpen late last year, shared an eleven-year partnership in the product engineering space. During this partnership, Aspire worked closely with the teams at Davinci to deliver cloud-native lending solutions for banks and credit institutions. These solutions have a state-of-the-art microservices-based architecture and rely on sophisticated test and automation processes to achieve a high product maturity. As a result of this early cooperation, the full product suite benefitted from further standardisation and transformation of interfaces and increased scalability and performance. 

Prem Sundaravadanam, Vice President, Europe and LATAM, Aspire Systems comments, “As the financial services market is rapidly moving towards adopting robust, digital, sophisticated and future-ready solutions to service their customers, Ohpen becomes the partner of choice for Aspire as their cloud-native solution helps in solving this exact challenge for banks. We are delighted to onboard this partnership to help banks to accelerate their digital transformation journey along with our entire banking and financial service offerings.” 

For more information, please contact: communications@ohpen.com. 

ACI Worldwide, a leading global provider of real-time digital payment software and solutions, today announced that it has expanded its partnership with KNET, Kuwait’s national electronic banking company, to launch a number of new and innovative digital payment services to support its customers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

KNET, a long-standing ACI customer, offers end-to-end payment solutions for all financial institutions in Kuwait. With the help of ACI Enterprise Payments Platform, KNET last year launched its hugely popular 3edeti service, which provides users with the ability to send Eidia electronically to any mobile number registered in Kuwait.

Eidia are electronic gift vouchers that can be sent as gifts to family members during the festival of Eid, one of the most important festivals in the Muslim calendar in which large amounts of cash are traditionally exchanged between family members. The service enables sending Eidia electronically and instantly, and will be available 24/7 during the upcoming Eid Al-Fitr holiday. It offers additional benefits such as cash back and exclusive offers from participating merchants.

“Like many financial institutions around the world, the pandemic has forced us to accelerate innovation and offer new digital payment products and services to our customers,” said Khaled Bu Abbas, Application Development Manager, KNET. “Utilizing the ACI Enterprise Payments Platform has helped us to rise to this challenge. It has empowered us to develop new services with a fast time to market and will future-proof our business.”

“The pandemic has cast a spotlight on the need for a robust digital payments infrastructure and financial institutions need to move quickly to succeed in this challenging and dynamic environment, without compromising the security and resilience of their core banking systems,” said Santhosh Rao, vice president, MEASA, ACI Worldwide. “Continuing its long-standing cooperation with ACI, KNET will be strongly placed to meet the changing needs of its customer base and to rapidly respond to shifting trends, regulatory mandates and new competition.”

The ACI Enterprise Payments Platform is a sophisticated enterprise payments solution for acquiring and authorizing transactions across all digital payment channels. It is built on open service-oriented architecture for robust payments orchestration. The solution delivers 24x7 secure payment capabilities and is currently used by 19 of the world’s top 20 banks.

About ACI Worldwide

ACI Worldwide is a global software company that provides mission-critical real-time payment solutions to corporations. Customers use our proven, scalable and secure solutions to process and manage digital payments, enable omni-commerce payments, present and process bill payments, and manage fraud and risk. We combine our global footprint with local presence to drive the real-time digital transformation of payments and commerce. 

Tink and American Express have entered a European open banking partnership to improve the onboarding process for new card members.

Integrating open banking technology into the American Express application and risk analysis process will allow prospective card members to seamlessly connect to their bank accounts and instantly verify their identity, income and account information with American Express. This eliminates the need for customers to manually enter their details or send additional documentation to American Express, saving time and improving the customer experience.

The partnership will see Tink’s open banking services used by American Express in France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, Norway, Finland and Belgium.

Fredrik Sauter, Head of growing markets at American Express, commented: "Our partnership with Tink will help make it easier and faster for future customers to apply for our American Express products digitally. Open banking technology not only speeds up the digital application process, but also helps us make better decisions. When looking for an open banking partner, Tink was a clear choice for us, due to its position as the leading European open banking platform."

Daniel Kjellén, co-founder and CEO of Tink, added: "We are proud to announce this partnership with American Express, one of the world's leading payment companies with more than 100 million cards in operation worldwide. Tink's account verification, income verification and risk analysis technology will streamline the onboarding process for American Express customers, as we work together to create the future of financial services. This sets the standard for how larger brands are using open banking technology to convert analogue processes to digital, enhancing the customer experience."

Temenos (SIX: TEMN), the banking software company, today announced that Curo Fund Services, South Africa’s largest third-party administrator, has gone live with Temenos Multifonds Global Accounting platform, completing the first phase migration of funds from its five legacy systems to a single instance of Temenos’ award-winning funds administration platform. 

The move to Temenos’ platform has transformed Curo’s operating model by simplifying its architecture and enabling more automated exception-based processing to increase efficiencies, reduce costs and open up new opportunities for growth.

Curo provides investment operations and fund accounting services to life companies, asset managers and multi-managers. It employs 300 people and services 3,000 funds with assets under administration of more than $150 billion. Its clients include Sanlam and Old Mutual, South Africa’s largest asset managers.

With Temenos’ platform, Curo is able to deliver a seamless back office service with a higher degree of automation and straight through processing. This reduces risk and cost by reducing human processing and enables Curo to deliver a best-in class service to clients with automated information flows between the administrator and asset managers.

Having successfully completed a first phase migration of funds, Curo expects to transition all 3,000 funds to the Temenos platform during 2021.

Temenos’ platform has proved it can easily scale to meet the needs of Curo’s large multi-client fund base. It has also demonstrated it supports requirements specific to the South African market, including complex life and pension portfolio structures and reporting; market specific requirements for asset classes such as bonds and swaps; and South Africa tax reporting and regulatory reporting.

Curo is now looking ahead at international opportunities. Operating its business on Temenos Multifonds Global Accounting gives Curo the agility to expand geographically and support its local clients that operate in international markets.

Barri Maggott, Chief Executive Officer, Curo Fund Services, commented: “We are delighted to complete the first migration of funds to the Temenos platform. Temenos’ single, scalable platform delivers cost-efficiency benefits and provides the agility and flexibility we need to deliver a best-in-class service to our clients. With Temenos technology, we can more efficiently support our clients’ key asset servicing, position keeping, valuation and accounting functions. We can also support their rapid pace of product evolution to bring timely, creative investment offerings to their markets. In the fast-paced investment industry this gives Curo and our clients a competitive edge.”

Oded Weiss, Managing Director, Temenos, said: “We are delighted the largest fund administrator in South Africa is now live on the Temenos platform. Temenos is trusted by leading fund administrators and asset management firms around the world to administer, service and value assets for their global client base. Curo is building a world-class fund administration service and we are proud to support them as they continue to innovate and expand their offering on our platform.” Temenos was awarded the highest ‘best in class’ status in Aite’s Matrix Evaluation of Investment and Fund Accounting Systems report. Temenos Multifonds Global Accounting also gained the highest status in five portfolio management and accounting solution categories by Adox Research.

PayNearby, India’s leading branchless banking and digital payments network today announced that it has recorded Gross Transaction Value (GTV) worth Rs. 54,000 Crores in FY 20-21, with an exit month GTV 32% higher than the average monthly GTV booked in FY 19-20. The company generated ~Rs. 290 Crores of revenue for its retail partners and about ~Rs. 40 Crores of fee for its banking partners in the same financial year. Amidst the pandemic, the generation of stable income opportunities for its partnering retail community ensured steady livelihood across lakhs of household across the country.

FY 20-21 saw irreparable loss both in lives and livelihoods among many, and agent banking network played a crucial role in ensuring relief disbursements reach the hands of the intended. Aadhaar ATM, which is the backbone for disbursing DBT to citizens, saw a huge surge across PayNearby retail stores, primarily led by increased adoption in rural, semi urban and tier 2 towns. The company reported AePS withdrawals worth Rs. 10,000 Crores in Q4 FY 2021 as against Rs. 7,650 Crores for the same quarter last year.

The overall value of AePS transactions in FY20-21 stood at approximately Rs. 40,000 Crore as against Rs. 31,500 Crore in FY19-20, thereby registering a Y-o-Y growth of 27%. In terms of volume, the company registered 18 crore (180 million) transactions in FY20-21 as against 12.5 crore (125 million) in FY19-20, registering a Y-o-Y growth of 46%. The growth all through FY20-21 included various relief funds disbursed by the Government to support citizens during the pandemic in addition to the normal ATM withdrawals that were assisted by the Agent network.

When the economic crisis intensified during the lockdown phase, the country witnessed a mass movement of the migrant community from metros to their respective hometowns. During this period, Domestic Money Transfer (DMT), or the amount of money sent home by migrant workers, saw a sharp decline of more than 85% in the first two months, and started picking up again by late July. With the advent of the unlock phase, remittance business saw a V shaped recovery and registered a growth of 106% and 100% in value and volume respectively vis-à-vis lockdown. The company reported a Gross Transactional Value of Rs. 12,000 Crores in its money remittance business for FY 20-21 with a gross monthly average of Rs. 1,300+ Crores in the last 6 months, similar to its run rate in the second half of FY 19-20

Overall value of assisted digital transactions at PayNearby retail stores for Q4 FY2021 stood at Rs. 15,200 Crores as against Rs. 11,700 Crores for the same quarter last year, representing a growth of close to 30%. In addition to growth in AePS transactions, newer product categories like flexi savings instrument (Bachat Khata), COVID insurance, increase in digital payments offtake including mPOS, UPI QR, AadharPay and Payment Gateway services led to the growth. The company’s efforts to democratize digital services and make ecommerce, online education and online video streaming available to every citizen in the country also saw good acceptance among its retail partners and is one of the rising categories in its portfolio. EMI collection service for 33 leading FIs, NBFCs and Micro Finance companies came as a savior to many of these partners, whose customers wanted to pay EMIs but the collection teams couldn’t reach them during this pandemic. Cash collection for online delivery partners and EMI collection services witnessed 2x growth in FY 2021

The total numbers of transactions stood at 7+ crore in Q4 FY2021 vis-à-vis 5 crore for the same period last year, thus registering a growth of over 45%. The company further stated that it served financial transactions worth Rs. 280 Crore ($40 million) on multiple days in FY 21, with an average of Rs. 150 Crore on a daily basis.

Speaking on the progress, Anand Kumar Bajaj, Founder, MD & CEO said, “Our assisted digital distribution services ensures low cost delivery of accessible banking services to every section of the society without discrimination. Tech savvy and oblivious segments both access our Agents for ATM withdrawals, digital payments, bike insurance, small value savings and booking travel tickets. The steep rise in volume and values across our platforms are a testimony to a burgeoning revolution within the digital banking ecosystem. The numbers are a clear reflection that real Bharat in tier-II cities and beyond are adopting digital services through their trusted local stores nearby. We need to port this local trust and layer it with the right tools, training and technology to universalize digital payments and digital banking in India."

At 50 Lakh app downloads and an annual transaction processing of ~Rs.54,000 Crores of digital financial services, we are still at the tip of the iceberg. There is a large unexplored, underserviced market which needs to be brought up the curve by simplifying high end technology for the bottom of the pyramid. We will continue to innovate every single day to ensure form factor agnostic digital payments and digital banking services reach the masses. As we yet again enter the second wave of the pandemic, it is critical to cement financial architecture to ensure seamless access to financial services in the hinterlands of the country.”

Anand further added, “We also feel extremely fortunate to be able to provide stable income opportunities for our Digital Pradhans. It has ensured families across the country had the means to sustain this economic turmoil. Our focus on our Digital Pradhan’s growth and sustainable livelihood will always remain a priority objective at PayNearby.”

The company represents the country’s largest retail merchant network today with more than 2 Crore customers serviced monthly.

PayNearby has played a significant role in driving digital financial services within the interiors of the country across 17,500+ PIN codes. It has bolstered easy, low-ticket transactions and created an all-inclusive acceptance framework for a less-cash India.

The company recently celebrated a new milestone with more than 5 million PayNearby app downloads by retailers. Besides enabling financial access and payment digitization at the last mile, the company has been empowering small merchants, SMEs and local businesses to adopt contactless payments and digitize themselves. The company also launched PayNearby app in 10 local languages for seamless communication across semi-urban and rural markets.