Finastra has extended its long-standing partnership with Be | Shaping the Future (Be), an international group providing consulting, IT and digital engagement services to the financial services industry. The move will see Be providing managed services – through its Germany-based subsidiary Be | Shaping the Future GmbH – for Finastra’s treasury and capital markets software (Fusion Kondor and Fusion Risk) deployed in the cloud across Germany, Austria and Switzerland (DACH).

The partnership is expected to bring growth in market share, and deliver value to both new and existing customers. It also includes the deployment of Finastra solutions in a cloud environment, as well as flexible managed services. Financial institutions could potentially reduce their running costs by up to 75% and adapt to market challenges more quickly by reducing implementation and development lifecycles by an estimated 50%.

Rüdiger Borsutzki, Managing Director at Be | Shaping the Future GmbH said, “Our team brings deep domain knowledge of the investment and commercial banking markets and a can-do attitude with a commitment that supports our clients’ pace and culture. We pride ourselves for our access to a superior network, expertise and experience aimed at driving collaboration and growth for the wider ecosystem. Our work with Finastra is well aligned with this vision and we’re looking forward to delivering on this evolution of our partnership.”

With a local presence – which is spread across the entire DACH region – and a customer centric culture, Be | Shaping the Future GmbH will deliver 24/7 support to ensure financial institutions have support amidst their daily business activities so they can get the most from their Finastra solutions.

Denise Parker, SVP, Partners and Ecosystem at Finastra said, “We are excited to extend our long-standing partnership with Be. We’ve worked together for many years and are confident that their successful track record in supporting our customers will continue. This move will help us to deliver our treasury and capital markets solutions across DACH quickly in the cloud, with 24/7 support on the ground.”

As SMEs prepare for the next easing of lockdown restrictions, business owners across the country are still looking to the government for further support. However new research from Nucleus Commercial Finance today reveals business owners are lacking awareness and understanding of the government support schemes on offer.

The research of SME leaders found nearly one in four (23%) are aware of at least one of the schemes on offer but worryingly know nothing about how these schemes can support their business in the future. A further 18% have no awareness at all of at least one of the schemes available.

Despite the various schemes introduced by the government, nearly six in 10 (58%) believe the government needs to do more to support SMEs, while 57% are calling for more practical and coaching support from the government. 

Three in 10 (28%) business leaders are unaware of the recently introduced Help to Grow Scheme and the Re Start Grant, while one in five (19%) have no awareness of the Recovery Loan Scheme, which replaced the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme on 6th April.

Despite the knowledge gap, nearly a fifth (18%) of SME leaders are considering or planning to apply for the Help to Grow Scheme, 16% for the Recovery Loan Scheme and 15% for the Restart Grant. 

The research revealed significant differences between awareness and understanding based on a business owner's age, with younger business leaders being more clued up about the various government support measures. Half (50%) of those aged 18-34 are aware of the Help to Grow scheme and how it could support their business, compared to 19% for those aged 35-54, and 12% for those aged over 55. Similarly, over a third (34%) of younger business leaders are aware of the Recovery Loan scheme and how it can support them, compared to just 17% of over 55s.

Chirag Shah, CEO, Nucleus Commercial Finance comments: “During challenging times like these, access to financial support is vital. While the government has demonstrated its commitment to helping British businesses throughout the pandemic, it’s evident that more education is needed so SMEs have a clear understanding of how the support schemes can help their business."

“As we enter the next stage of the lockdown exit strategy, SMEs will need more support than ever. They will be facing difficult decisions about the reopening of their businesses, both practical and financial, and need somewhere to turn to. This is where government and industry have a crucial role to play, and must work collaboratively to communicate how these schemes can help businesses not only survive, but thrive following the pandemic. We believe that the alternative finance industry will be paramount in not only providing businesses with access to the flexible finance they need to recover, but deliver the funds quickly too.”

Insig AI, a leading AI and machine learning company serving the asset management industry, formally launched today, following its listing on the AIM London Stock Exchange.

Insig AI is a data science and machine learning solutions company that provides bespoke web-based applications, advanced analytical tools, and modern technology infrastructure to make machine learning accessible to investment professionals.  

The Insig AI product suite is designed to transform an asset manager’s data infrastructure and machine learning capabilities to deliver actionable and measurable results. Insig AI has developed a suite of “out of the box” products that allow investment professionals to interact with, and experience their data in a way they never have before. 

The products are: 

• Insig Portfolio - a multi-asset data-science and machine learning platform designed to enhance investment strategies and enable portfolio interrogation and performance attribution while delivering actionable and explainable results.
• Insig ESG - A revolutionary tool for developing and executing a data-led ESG investing strategy; providing credible, transparent and evidence-based scoring based upon standard or bespoke methodologies.
• Insig Data - A data transformation for cleaning, structuring and categorizing proprietary and third-party data to enable machine learning and other data analytics via Insig or client applications.
• Insig Docs - A microservice application that intelligently extracts, tags and stores document based and unstructured data using cutting edge text extraction and elastic database technology.
• Insig Exceleton - A tool that converts complex Excel spreadsheets into Python code, enabling an accelerated transition to a modern, machine learning and data analytics enabled strategy.

Admission Highlights:

• Successfully raised £6.1 million (before expenses) via a placing of 9,172,375 new ordinary shares at 67 pence per share, a 14 per cent. premium to the closing share price of the Company of 59 pence per share on 2 September 2020, being the last business day before the Company’s ordinary shares were suspended from trading.

Client results demonstrate just how beneficial Insig AI’s products are. One client’s fund outperformed the MSCI World benchmark by 30 percentage points, while another has experienced a 25% reduction in operational costs.

Formerly known as Insight Capital, Insig AI’s cutting-edge technology has been created by a multi-disciplined team of data scientists, consultants, and asset management professionals. The Company is led by Executive Chairman Matthew Farnum-Schneider, and Chief Executive Officer Steven Cracknell.

Insight Capital was co-founded by Steve Cracknell and Chief Technology Officer Warren Pearson. They had previously worked together at Goldman Sachs in the early 2000s and then again in 2013 when they ran a machine learning start-up based in Silicon Valley. On returning to London in 2017, they established Insight to develop solutions for the asset management industry. 

Steve Cracknell, CEO of Insig AI Plc, said: “Insig AI will allow investment professionals to keep up with the benefits of modern technology and turbocharge their data science and machine learning capabilities. A core feature of our products is that they are not “black boxes”. All outputs are both explainable and transparent – allowing portfolio managers to dig down into the results and methodologies at every step. This approach enables clients to confidently transition to a data-centric business model, advance and scale their analytical potential and gain value, speed and strategic leverage. As we grow and launch future AI and machine learning products, we will continue to give asset managers the edge needed to beat markets and competitors.”

The Derivatives Service Bureau (DSB), founded by the Association of National Numbering Agencies (ANNA), to facilitate the allocation and maintenance of ISINs, CFIs and FISNs for OTC derivatives, today announces that the second Unique Product Identifier (UPI) fee model consultation for 2021 is now open, focusing on the UPI timeline and seeking industry views on services and costs. 

The UPI is designed to facilitate effective aggregation of over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives transaction reports on a global basis. 

The DSB urges market participants required to report OTC derivatives to trade repositories anywhere in the world, to review and respond to this consultation as reporting parties will be mandated to incorporate the UPI into their workflows. In this round of consultation, the DSB encourages specific feedback on services and costs as this is the last opportunity this year to shape the UPI model and its functionality for the variety of anticipated UPI users. 

The UPI service is set to go live in July 2022, and the implementation timeline now published and available to view on the DSB Website, sets out detail on when both draft and final documentation is to be made available to support industry implementation. The UPI timeline also shares information on when the final product documentation, templates, and rules of engagement for programmatic users will be published. 

Emma Kalliomaki, Managing Director of ANNA and the DSB, said, “We are running the second UPI consultation in parallel with the Request for Information (RFI) process to identify a reference data provider for provision of underlier identifiers for the UPI. We are working hard to ensure that best practice and good governance principles are enshrined in the UPI service, so that both industry and regulators will have the most efficient UPI from next July, 2022.”

Malavika Solanki, a member of the DSB Management Team, said, “We value the ongoing industry collaboration, and are making our loudest call for responses from all geographies and different sectors of the industry on this second consultation. Responses provided in the first consultation, for example, have altered the proposed service already, such as the timing of free to use files being available, and the estimated number of fee-paying users, so it is crucial industry submit responses to the consultation to help shape the future UPI standard to be one which works best for everyone.”

For more information please do visit our website on UPI. The second UPI Fee Model Industry Consultation starts today and ends July 9^th. With the publication of the Consultation Final Report on September 27^th, 2021. 

GNX has appointed Eda Güven as a Chief Procurement Officer. Güven is an industry veteran with 18 years of experience in procurement whereof 15 years  in enterprise data communications. She has an impressive track record in delivering global business growth.

“I am very happy to join GNX, a young company with tremendous growth potential in the thriving market of global connectivity. Many enterprises now need to build a solid and flexible underlay for their SD-WAN and SASE initiatives, that’s where GNX comes in. It is my mission to help GNX position itself as the most competitive provider, always taking into account the customer requirements regarding Service Level Agreements, price and technology.”

Güven adds: “I am confident that I can add value to GNX’ success. I contributed to growing companies from zero to tens of millions in revenue, experience I bring to the table at GNX. Besides that, it’s fun to work in a dynamic and ambitious environment with an enthusiastic team.”

Rutger Bevaart, CEO and co-founder of GNX: “We are thrilled that Eda as a renowned industry authority joins the leadership team at GNX to help build our position as the leader in next-generation global connectivity. This demonstrates her endorsement of our vision and offerings. Eda’s knowledge and experience will help GNX to further enhance our ability to execute and accelerate our growth.” 

oneZero, a global leader in multi-asset enterprise trading technology solutions, today announced three new post-trade Regulatory Vendors with direct access to oneZero’s Data Source data. 

IHS Markit, TRAction and Tradefora today join other vendors already on the platform, including the previously announced partnerships with EMIREP, SteelEye and Point Nine. The news provides clients with more options for integrating with a vendor that best fits their regulating needs – which can mean using multiple vendors across jurisdictions at the same time. 

Data Source is an agnostic cloud-based business intelligence toolkit, which unlocks clients’ trade, quote and quote derivative data in Data Source DNA, and turns it into meaningful business intelligence and opportunity analytics in Data Source Insights. Partner vendors in oneZero’s EcoSystem may access the same underlying neutral data from Data Source seamlessly, with no additional effort made by brokers.

oneZero CEO Andrew Ralich commented: “oneZero’s mission is to give our customers greater control throughout the entire trading lifecycle. By offering the widest-possible offering of post-trade Regulatory Vendors, we are giving customers the ability to seamlessly integrate with the vendor of their choice – no matter how their business changes or evolves to market conditions.” 

“At IHS Markit, we aim to simplify and ease regulatory reporting using our single platform for multiple jurisdictions. Our clients will continue to enjoy a seamless, albeit enhanced integration between our two platforms. The integration with the oneZero EcoSystem will allow oneZero clients to use our best-of-breed services with no technical integration effort on their side,” said Ronen Kertis, Head of Global Regulatory Reporting at IHS Markit.

"TRAction is committed to the provision of seamless and simple regulatory reporting services, hence our decision to partner with oneZero. This partnership has expanded our access and reach to oneZero's growing customer base, allowing oneZero clients to easily comply with their EMIR, MiFIR, Best Execution, ASIC, MAS and other reporting obligations via TRAction's end-to-end reporting solutions," commented Quinn Perrott, co-CEO, TRAction Fintech.

Pavel Khizhnyak, Co-Founder/CEO, Tradefora commented: “The right regulatory partner can significantly lower the burden of compliance. We are thrilled to be partnering with oneZero today. We build all our products around the concept of best execution, which can’t be done without the ease of access to the underlying data. Integration with oneZero Data Source greatly reduces the integration costs and deployment time of Tradefora’s solutions for oneZero customers.”

Commerzbank and the employee representatives have today agreed on a framework settlement of interests and a framework social plan for AG Germany. The binding agreements form the platform for a maximally socially responsible headcount reduction within the framework of the “Strategy 2024” adopted in February. The Bank intends to implement the headcount reduction primarily through retirement arrangements, such as partial retirement or early retirement. As part of this arrangement, the Bank has extended the offer of early retirement to seven years. Furthermore, termination agreements and support for employees with perspectives inside and outside the Bank have been agreed.
 
The Bank will book provisions for additional restructuring expenses of around 225 million euros for retirement arrangements that were expanded beyond the scope of the original plan. “This money is well invested as it enhances our planning certainty for the implementation of the headcount reduction,” commented Manfred Knof, Chairman of the Board of Managing Directors of Commerzbank. “We engaged in some very intensive negotiations and have achieved a result that will enable the fast implementation of the transformation. I would like to express my thanks to all the participants for the disciplined and constructive cooperation, despite all the differing interests.”
 
Overall, the Bank is now projecting total restructuring expenses amounting to slightly above two billion euros. Out of these expenses, more than 900 million euros were already booked in the last two business years. At the beginning of April, the Bank set aside further provisions in the amount of around 470 million euros for the first quarter of 2021. These are intended for a number of initiatives including a voluntary programme. Employees who make use of this offer will leave the Bank by the end of 2021 at the latest, so that savings will already be effective from the coming year. The remaining expenses for the headcount reduction will be booked in the second quarter.
 
Over the coming months, the details of the headcount reduction in the individual Group divisions are to be discussed based on the framework agreements reached and arranged in partial settlements of interests. The aim is to complete these negotiations by the end of this year.
 
The bank intends to carry out a review on the status of the agreed headcount reduction in 2023. If it emerges that the measures have proved inadequate, the Bank will discuss necessary additional measures with the employee representatives in the first quarter of 2023. These include collective reductions in working hours or compulsory redundancies as a last resort. Both sides have agreed the social plan to compensate for or ameliorate the economic disadvantages for affected employees.
 
“We have found solutions for our employees that are fair, comprehensible and socially responsible. The settlement of interests and social plan form the framework for being able to bring the negotiations to a conclusion by the end of the year,” said Sabine Schmittroth, Member of the Board of Managing Directors responsible for Human Resources.
 
Uwe Tschäge, Chairman of the Central and Group Works Council, stated: “A top priority for us is to take appropriate account of the interests of the employees. These encompass the interests of those employees who remain with the Bank and the interests of colleagues who leave the Bank. A step like this can only happen with a socially responsible structure for the headcount reduction. We have made good progress with the agreements reached and we will expand on these in further negotiations.”
 
As part of its “Strategy 2024”, Commerzbank launched a comprehensive transformation. The aim of the restructuring is to combine the advantages of a fully digitalised bank with personal advisory services, a consistent customer focus and sustainability. Costs are to be substantially reduced and profitability significantly increased by 2024. This will permit Commerzbank to create the enablers to reinforce its leading position as the Bank for the German Mittelstand and a strong partner for around eleven million Private and Small-Business Customers. The realignment makes a significant headcount reduction inevitable. The Bank is planning to reduce the number of full-time positions by around 10,000 in gross terms by 2024. This compares with an increase of around 2,500 full-time equivalents. This will reduce the costs for external service providers alongside other benefits. Overall, it will result in a net reduction of around 7,500 positions.

Lightspeed, a leading provider of cloud-based, omnichannel commerce platforms, today announced the availability of Lightspeed Order Anywhere, a modern, digital ordering tool that helps merchants keep 100% of their profits by enabling guests to place orders on the restaurant's website with just a few clicks – anywhere, any time, using any device. For restaurateurs, Order Anywhere brings all dine-in, takeaway and online orders together in one dashboard, eliminating the need for expensive marketplace solutions that charge a heavy fee to customers for online ordering, and allowing contact-free ordering, dining and payment. 

With COVID-19 driving global adoption of takeout and meal delivery, hospitality businesses are looking for technology solutions to reduce the additional challenges and high commissions associated with takeout and delivery services. Lightspeed Order Anywhere fully integrates with Lightspeed’s hospitality commerce platform. Together they form a powerful digital hub, where restaurateurs can simplify and easily scale their businesses.  

“Restaurant needs and workflows have permanently changed, driving a completely new era of hospitality. Lightspeed is innovating to meet those needs with tools like Order Anywhere,” said Dax Dasilva, founder and CEO of Lightspeed. “Order Anywhere helps hospitality businesses reach new customers and optimize their businesses for creative revenue streams, all from a single platform, offering their guests a completely contactless experience for takeaway or dine-in, with no additional third-party fees.”  

Order Anywhere simplifies modern contactless hospitality service: 

• Seamless integration and real-time updates: Accept online orders directly from the Lightspeed system, managing your online, take out and table service orders all in a single location. Send email updates to guests so that they are informed of the status of their order from start to finish. 
• Effortless and contactless ordering: Offer your guests a wide range of secure and flexible collection and dine-in options, including the ability to order and pay via a QR code at the table, or place an order online for now or later. All this without paying any commission to third parties.  
• Streamlined Online Experience: Lightspeed Order Anywhere gives users the ability to personalize and customize their website information such as opening hours, cooking times, and pick-up options. Offer an accessible and feature-rich Digital Menu, including multi-lingual item descriptions and allergen notifications, with accurately described dishes to captivate your guests and increase check size on each order. 
   
  Engage your guests with a convenient customer experience for them to browse, order and pay directly from their devices, driving increased dining frequency, check size, customer conversion, and loyalty. Whether you're looking to grow, adapt, or become more efficient, Order Anywhere lets you quickly adopt new dining trends and offer a personalized omnichannel experience. 
  
  Ariel Cohen, Owner of Bagels Bar, Hendon says, “Lightspeed Order Anywhere has been a massive time saver. We used to have someone typing up every order, and now for a fraction of that cost it gets done automatically without any errors.” 
  
  Order Anywhere is the latest addition to Lightspeed's innovative product suite for the hospitality industry, giving restaurants the opportunity to strengthen their relationship with their guests online and to be less dependent on indoor dining.