Having a business loan may seem necessary if you're trying to expand your company. For whatever reasons you're getting a loan, you should be careful where you apply for one. Even if loans and borrowing money from licensed moneylenders have been a thing since decades ago, people still get scammed and cheated on. In Singapore, you can search up the list of legitimate money lending agencies to know which licensed money lender are you going to apply to. 

Although bad credit business loans are available, there are plenty of scammers out there looking to take advantage of distressed business owners. As a consequence, it's important to understand how to determine if a lending firm is legal. Here is a reliable guideline to assist you in determining legitimate money lenders:

Upfront Fees are Questionable

This factor is probably one of the most straightforward approaches to determine whether or not a lending firm is legal. A reputable lending firm would never require you to pay a fee or make a request until you collect your loan, but if they do, you can stop communicating with them. Don't be fooled into thinking that making an initial deposit would guarantee you a loan.

If it's "Too Good to be True", Start Doubting.

When it comes to having a loan, we all want the best offer possible, but we still need to be rational. You should be cautious if a lending firm promises you a fantastic offer that is cheaper than anywhere else. You may have known of the offers, and the company would have had more coverage if a company would genuinely deliver deals as well as they think they can. If a fake money lending agency wants to get an individual's attention, they'll ensure that they will offer the most convenient plans to them. If you start to notice that the loan deal is becoming TOO convenient for you, you should start asking questions. 

Ensure the company has a Physical Office

If the lending firm you're working with has an office, staff, and a customer service phone number, you can be assured that they're a legitimate money lending agency. If the organization has no physical location, no proof of actual staff, and no phone number, it would probably be best that you inquire in another company because there is no way to verify that they are a legitimate money lending company. Although there are several legal online-only lending firms, you must exercise caution in this area because it can be challenging to tell which ones are legitimate and which are not.

Research About the Company

When you're struggling to figure out whether a lending firm is real, the first thing you can do is to research the money lending agency. A decent way to start is by searching for the business name on Google. This will provide a wealth of knowledge, not just about the business itself but also about what people are talking about it. However, simply because they have a website and testimonials or reviews does not guarantee that they are genuine.

These testimonials are quite easy to write up. That's why you should be careful with that. It is best to tread carefully and follow the advice of others whether you see posts worrying, wondering, or telling that they are a scam. If they have a website and you're still not sure if you can trust them, you can look up their name and websites. Besides, the internet has pretty much everything. Better yet, call up a specialist so they can inform you what you're really dealing with.

FAQs About Loan Companies

In some cases, there are loan scam agencies that are still able to get away with their naughty tricks. If you're planning to consult with a specialist, better prepare some questions! Here's what you can ask them:

Is it normal for the loan company to ask for access to my bank account?

In certain situations, a lender will request your bank account details in order to determine where the loan funds should be sent after your application has been accepted. It is, however, unusual for a bank to request your online banking login details in order to validate your account. If this occurs, it's likely that a scammer is attempting to gain access to your account in order to make a withdrawal or conversion to their own. Asking about your bank details immediately a red flag, and you should cut them off at that point.

Do loan companies normally ask for upfront fees?

Like what we've mentioned earlier, legitimate money lenders do not ask their clients to pay an upfront fee before they can obtain their loan. For the processing of your loan, certain lenders charge an origination fee. This fee, on the other hand, is usually deducted from your loan disbursement. Before you can get access to your assets, no legal lender would require you to pay them the fee upfront. If they start to ask you to pay unnecessary fees, then it's best that you look for another money lending company.

WhatsApp users in Brazil can quickly, conveniently, and securely transfer money directly on the app

Starting today, Mastercard cardholders in Brazil can send and receive money to and from friends and family through WhatsApp. Mastercard debit cardholders with cards issued by Banco Inter, Itaú, Nubank and Sicredi will be able to use the innovative P2P WhatsApp service. The payments service on WhatsApp is enabled by Facebook Pay and processed by Facebook Pagamentos and Cielo.

The announcement comes after the Brazil Central Bank officially granted a Payment Initiator license to Facebook Pagamentos do Brasil Ltda and approved Mastercard's new transfer scheme. Additional banking partners are expected to join the program soon.

The service leverages Mastercard Send™ to enable real-time* payments for millions of WhatsApp users in Brazil who can now transfer money to friends and family in a fast, simple and secure manner. Mastercard Send is part of Mastercard’s multi-rail proposition, and enables people and organizations to send and receive money how, where and when they choose, across both card and real-time payments rails, providing increased choice, access and financial control.

Every payment made on WhatsApp is protected by multiple layers of security. Mastercard tokenization solutions leverage the bank authentication to ensure the WhatsApp user is the card owner. Tokenization protects the cardholder's information by replacing the original 16-digit card number with a unique alternative number, or ‘token’, which is associated with the individual debit card number for each WhatsApp user and will not work elsewhere. Consumers create the token, then enter their Facebook Pay security PIN or device biometrics whenever they want to make a transaction.

In a survey on real time payment methods conducted by Mastercard, about 75% of Brazilians would like to be able to make payments in real time, regardless of the financial service provider, while 53% would like to make this type of payment using messaging or social media apps.

“This partnership with Facebook illustrates our ability to offer new and innovative ways to send and receive money in Brazil, with the needs of our customers at the core of our business strategy. By 2030, 55% of Brazilians expect all financial transactions to be made in real time (with funds available immediately). To make this possible, we will continue to work on developing interoperable solutions and standards focused on efficiency and user experience”, said João Pedro Paro Neto, Mastercard President for Brazil and the Southern Cone.

“We are excited about the availability of this service. Facilitating the sending and receiving of money safely could not be more important at this time, as it not only decreases people's exposure to the pandemic, but also helps loved ones stay connected, broadens access to financial services and enables more people to participate in the digital economy,” said Matt Idema, WhatsApp's Chief Operating Officer.

"Inter's goal is to simplify every aspect of daily life, where payments play an important role. We believe in easy and safe ways to provide payments solutions to our clients and using WhatsApp to do this is a great user experience", says Ray Chalub, Inter COO.

"Nubank always believed in reducing complexity in people's lives. Using technology, we shortened the barriers that left millions of Brazilians without access to financial services. With this partnership, our customers will have another option to make payments as easily as they talk to friends and without paying anything extra for it," says Cristina Junqueira, cofounder of Nubank.

“This is another solution that creates convenience for our more than five million members, as WhatsApp is an application that is already very present on people's day and now also adds the transfer feature in a simple and safe way”, comments Gisele Rodrigues, Superintendent of Payment Solutions at Sicredi.

By enabling payments between people on WhatsApp, Brazilians will now be able to send and receive amounts conveniently and securely by registering their debit card in the country's most loved messaging app, minimizing the risks and inefficiencies associated with other payment methods, including cash.

Learn how to use the new service here: www.whatsapp.com/payments/br

The Canadian fintech surpassed the 2 million user mark in its home country, up from around 1.5 million when it last reported the figure in October. Wealthsimple unveiled the user updates alongside a CAD$750 million ($559.2 million) funding round on Monday, which values it at CAD$5 billion ($3.73 billion)—more than triple the CAD$1.5 billion ($1.12 billion) valuation it reached after its previous round in October. The fintech has experienced significant product growth over the past 14 months: Adoption of its free stock trading offering has grown, it rolled out cryptocurrency trading last August, and it introduced its peer-to-peer (P2P) money transfer app earlier this year.

Wealthsimple’s growth comes as it delves into the neobanking space in Canada—while facing powerful entrenched incumbents.

• The fintech’s product suite overlaps with neobanks’. Wealthsimple’s lineup now includes investing, savings, and money transfers, likening it to neobanks operating in Canada. These players have been struggling: UK-based Revolut, for example, pulled the plug on its beta in the country, although it plans a return next year. 
• But Canada’s entrenched incumbent banks make it hard for challengers to win market share. Just five big banks dominate Canada’s banking sector: BMO, TD Bank, RBC, CIBC, and Scotiabank. Digital banking is on the rise—the proportion of adults who use a digital channel at least monthly is projected to reach 72.0% in 2021—but the digital-only space is controlled by two incumbent-backed players: Simplii and Tangerine. 

Despite the headwinds, Wealthsimple’s continued user and product growth are positive signs that it could become a significant challenger. The company’s emerging banking play is similar to measures taken by US-based Venmo, which has evolved beyond P2P mobile payments into products such as cryptocurrency trading, mobile check cashing, and a credit card. Revolut is also straddling the fintech and neobank areas, with a lineup that includes investing, checking and savings accounts, and insurance. Wealthsimple plans to use its latest proceeds to expand both its offerings and user base, suggesting that it will continue its foray into neobanking, which is already off to a promising start.

Leading mortgage technology provider Twenty7Tec today announces that Halifax Intermediaries has been added to its APPLY module, and following a successful trial, is now available to all users of the CloudTwenty7 platform to enable them to submit decision in principle applications to Halifax without the need for re-keying.

The APPLY integration with Halifax supports decision in principle requests for residential applications, as well as broker authentication, decisioning and case tracking. Further, if the decision in principle is accepted, the adviser is able to pick up the case in the Halifax portal and complete the full mortgage application.

James Tucker, CEO of Twenty7Tec commented:  "We are excited to be able to now extend our APPLY integration with Halifax Intermediaries to all users of our CloudTwenty7 platform. Our pilot phase saw well over 1,000 applications submitted to Halifax Intermediaries via APPLY, and we expect that number to grow exponentially over the coming weeks and months."

Tucker added “The feedback that we have received from advisers during this pilot phase, both in terms of time saved and efficiency of process, has been exceptional. I have no doubt that all our users will benefit greatly from our partnership with Halifax Intermediaries.”

Ian Wilson, Head of Halifax Intermediaries, added: “We are delighted that this functionality will now be available to all Apply users.”

About Twenty7Tec:

Twenty7Tec’s CloudTwenty7 platform is designed to make the process of searching, applying for and obtaining a mortgage simpler, faster and more efficient. The platform is used by all participants in the mortgage market, from lenders to mortgage advisers, to comparison sites and even end customers.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released two reports today showing that more work needs to be done to help mortgage borrowers coping with the COVID-19 pandemic and economic downturn. The first report documents that Black and Hispanic mortgage borrowers are much more likely to be delinquent or in a forbearance program than white borrowers. In a second report, the CFPB reports that overall mortgage complaints to the CFPB have risen to their highest level in three years.  

“More borrowers are behind on their mortgage than at any time since the height of the Great Recession,” said CFPB Acting Director Dave Uejio. “Communities of color have been hit hard by the pandemic, and the latest data show that many borrowers are still hurting. The CFPB will continue to seek and actively respond to developments in the market, doing everything in our power to help families stay in their homes.  As we warned mortgage servicers last month, unprepared is unacceptable.”

The CFPB is seeking comments on a proposal intended to help prevent avoidable foreclosures for borrowers affected by the COVID-19 emergency.  That proposal, if finalized, would temporarily require servicers to enhance communications with borrowers who are delinquent or in forbearance, allow servicers to offer certain streamlined loan modification options to borrowers with COVID-19-related hardships, and require servicers to afford all borrowers a special pre-foreclosure review period.  The comment period closes May 10th.

Refinitiv today announced a new strategic agreement with FinTech Studios, an AI-based news, market intelligence and analytics provider, to provide industry, local and regional news, and research to wealth management professionals across Latin America and beyond.

Latin America continues to be a key focus market for Refinitiv, supporting investment professionals, financial advisors, and their clients.  According to the International Monitory Fund (IMF), the region experienced stronger than expected performance in 2020 and is projected to exceed 4 percent GDP growth for 2021. Refinitiv’s agreement with FinTech Studios further demonstrates its commitment to provide content and analytics that drive insights for financial professionals across local and global markets.   

FinTech Studios utilizes artificial intelligence and machine learning to separate the signals from the noise, providing users with insights, news and research about markets and companies globally. The new partnership with Refinitiv will empower financial professionals with news and information that can support securities research and trade ideation, and access to breaking stories and market events. Users will be able to view trending topics across industries and companies, sort by specific companies and key words, and explore knowledge graphs to interpret impact on related companies and individuals. Wealth management and other investment firms will be able to tailor the solution to deliver local language capabilities, desired sources, and preferred analytics and views.

Charles Smith, Head of Digital Solutions, Wealth at Refinitiv, said: “We are excited to leverage FinTech Studios' AI-based market intelligence, analytics and insights to support our growing Latin America business. Latin America continues to be an exciting emerging market for our Refinitiv Wealth Solutions products, and this partnership will strengthen our ability to provide content and services curated for financial professionals throughout the region.”

Jim Tousignant, CEO and Founder of FinTech Studios said: “We are very excited to partner with Refinitiv, one of the world’s leading providers of solutions for the Wealth Management industry. Financial advisors and wealth managers today need more advanced AI-based tools and information to provide their clients with the best advice. Our partnership with Refinitiv will provide Refinitiv clients with access to millions of global sources of relevant news, events and market intelligence in 48 languages.”

To learn more about Refinitiv Wealth Management solutions and advisor tools, visit: https://www.refinitiv.com/en/wealth-management-solutions/automate-advisor-workflow.

Refinitiv has a rich history of servicing the Wealth Management industry from front to back office. Over the last two years, the firm has invested heavily in the business and is committed to bringing the most advanced solutions to market. The ongoing transformation includes building out the firm’s solutions through strategic acquisitions such as Scivantage and the launch of Refinitiv Digital Investor and Refinitiv Workspace for Wealth Advisors. Refinitiv wealth management solutions empower firms with faster time to market for digital properties while offering a flexible framework consisting of web-based components, pre-built pages, APIs, mobile apps, and collaboration tools such as video, co-browsing and secure chat that can be precisely configured for clients. A developer toolkit provides an additional level of control for in-house teams to design new and enhanced digital solutions.

Kubernetes, supported by a vibrant open source community, can drive outstanding innovation. To help in Kubernetes adoption, Red Hat and IBM Research have created Konveyor, an open source project aimed at helping modernize and migrate applications for open hybrid cloud by building tools, identifying patterns and providing advice on how to bring cloud-native transformation across IT. Konveyor also supports a growing number of tools, such as Crane, Forklift, Move2Kube, Tackle, and Pelorus, designed to accelerate Kubernetes adoption. 

Across industries, system administrators and developers are often the point teams driving digital transformation, helping the overall business benefit from modernized IT infrastructure, applications and services.

Frequently, this transformation leans on Kubernetes and Linux containers as a foundation. But taking this containerized leap requires a fundamental change in configuration and architecture. It’s like looking at a before and after renovation photo without directions to show you how to get from one to the next. What happens in between? And how can you pull that off too? 

Kubernetes Operators power Konveyor

We believe in using the power of Kubernetes Operators to embed operational knowledge and functionality into Kubernetes. Konveyor's subprojects are developed as Kubernetes Operators so that we can take advantage of their flexibility and to make deployment and management simple for admins already familiar with Operators.

Rehosting Workloads with Crane and Forklift

There are two primary rehosting needs within the Kubernetes community – migrating virtual machines unaltered to Kubernetes, and migrating already containerized applications between Kubernetes clusters.

KubeVirt allows developers and operations teams to obtain the benefits of Kubernetes orchestration and the surrounding ecosystem without requiring code or configuration changes.

While rehosting doesn’t provide the same benefits as replatforming or refactoring, it’s often useful in cases where development teams may not have the ability to change or modify code, such as with vendor-provided software. Rehosting also helps teams adapt to a new platform with less friction between process and culture.

The Konveyor subproject Forklift focuses on migrating virtual machines to Kubernetes and provides the ability to migrate virtual machines to KubeVirt with minimal downtime.

The second need is addressed by the Crane subproject, which concentrates on migrating applications between Kubernetes clusters. There are many times when developer and operations teams want to migrate between older and newer versions of Kubernetes, evacuate a cluster or migrate to different underlying infrastructure.

In an ideal scenario, this would be a redeployment of the application, but we have found that many users need a solution for migrating persistent data and the objects within Kubernetes namespaces continuously.

Replatforming with Move2Kube

Replatforming involves changing an underlying technology used by an application while minimizing the need for code change. One area in which replatforming is taking place is in the consolidation of container orchestration platforms to Kubernetes.

The Move2Kube subproject was initially launched to help accelerate the replatforming of Swarm and Cloud Foundry-based applications to Kubernetes. The tool translates existing artifacts into Kubernetes-native concepts, increasing an organization’s speed and ability to run applications on Kubernetes.

Refactoring Applications with Tackle

Refactoring is perhaps one of the most challenging yet most beneficial strategies for users looking to move applications to Kubernetes. Refactoring involves making fundamental changes to application architecture and development in order to take advantage of cloud-native capabilities.

The Tackle application aims to provide tools to help assess and analyze applications for refactoring into containers and provide a common inventory. The team behind Tackle uses their experiences with tools such as Pathfinder and Windup to inform their work on the application, bringing existing best processes and strategies into the cloud-native space.

Measuring Improvement

The final subproject within the Konveyor project, Pelorus, enables metrics-driven transformation and measures the keys to software delivery performance, including lead time for change, deployment frequency, mean time to restore, and change failure rate.

The community feels strongly that being able to measure the impact of rehosting, replatforming, refactoring, and changing processes and culture is vital to proving value.

Learn More

Developers and sysadmins need open source tools and practices to help accelerate their applications and infrastructure to Kubernetes.

The Konveyor project’s goal is to deliver the tools and applications within Konveyor via OperatorHub.io for easy consumption and lifecycle management over time to do just that. To receive invitations to Konveyor meetups, propose a talk, or get started contributing to the community you can subscribe to through the Konveyor Project's site.

Today, Curve and Cardlytics announce a new partnership to launch Curve Rewards, a new programme available for customers in-app. The partnership will connect Curve’s 1million+ UK customers with Cardlytics’ growing roster of over 100 recognised high street brands, including Pret a Manger, JustEat, FatFace, Harvey Nichols and Cult Beauty, offering an extensive range of rewards.

Curve’s new Rewards programme will feature exclusive offers of up to 20% cashback on much loved high street and online brands for many customers. Introductory offers include up to 20% cashback at Hussle, 5% cashback at Harvey Nichols and Cult Beauty.

Offers have been carefully selected to add value to Curve customers, by reflecting the predicted spending habits of the nation over the coming weeks as coronavirus restrictions lift. 

New Cardlytics data, based on the purchasing habits of more than 12 million active UK bank card customers, finds consumer demand for eating out and shopping for clothing and homewares rose significantly, following the easing of lockdown restrictions on 12 April.

Spend in pubs and restaurants rose by 215% week-on-week as the public enjoyed new freedoms, many braving the brisk weather to socialise outside with friends and family. With consumers hitting the high street once again, pent-up consumer demand spurred a 97% week-on-week increase in spend on fashion, as shoppers spent a total of £129 million in the first week of retail reopening.

Homewares, interiors, and gardens were also top of the list for consumers returning to the shops; spend rose 24% week-on-week across home, furniture and DIY retailers, as consumers focused on sprucing up their homes and gardens ahead of hosting visitors indoors from May 17^th.

Available through the Curve app, Curve Rewards helps customers earn while they spend. Built on Cardlytics’ real-time purchase intelligence data, the cashback offers available to Curve customers will be tailored around their everyday spending habits. 

Nathalie Oestmann, Chief Operating Officer, Curve: “We’re delighted to be working with Cardlytics to refresh Curve’s Rewards programme and deliver more value to our customers. Whether you are looking forward to hitting the high street again or prefer to  order online, or a mixture of both, Curve Rewards programme will help you earn while you shop, with discounts on a huge range of some of the UK’s best loved online and high street brands.”

Campbell Shaw, Head of Bank Partnerships at Cardlytics, said: “Today’s consumers want a reward scheme that is tailored to how they shop and why they shop. We’re pleased to have built a reward scheme for Curve that does just that, putting customers back in the driving seat while building loyalty and engagement for Curve.

“Partnering with Curve to deliver their new-look rewards programme is fantastic proof of the value Cardlytics’ purchase-led marketing approach brings to banks, their customers and brands.”

Curve is the first digital-native brand to partner with Cardlytics, whose customers include traditional banking brands Lloyds Banking Group and Santander. Cardlytics facilitates card-linked offers to save customers money and drive more meaningful engagement and loyalty for both brands and banks.

Wolters Kluwer’s Finance, Risk & Regulatory Reporting (FRR) business has appointed Donna-Maree Vinci as a strategic advisor for Australia. Wolters Kluwer FRR counts major Australian financial institutions, as well as international banking groups active in the country, among its clients.  The multi award-winning company is now scaling up operations in the country, helping banks to navigate the complexities of regulatory compliance obligations. 

Vinci’s 30-year financial experience includes senior positions at Tier One global and Australian banks. For 12 years she was CIO and Global Head of Technology Risk Management for Citigroup and between 2015 and the end of 2019 was Chief Operations, Digital & Information Officer for The Bank of Queensland. Other senior experience includes being Chief Information and Operations Officer for Westpac Institutional Bank. She holds a number of non-executive director position, including for New South Wales-based Greater Bank.

“This is a key advisory role that will help fuel the next phase of Wolters Kluwer’s growth in the country, as we continue to expand across the Asia Pacific region,” commented Rainer Fuchsluger, Managing Director of Wolters Kluwer FRR APAC. “Donna’s impressive senior experience means she is uniquely positioned to advise our growing client base on how best to avoid operating in siloes, instead taking an integrated approach to finance, risk and regulatory reporting. Her vast industry knowledge also enables her to talk at the most senior levels on how banks should be thinking strategically post COVID-19, building a solid Basel IV strategy.”

Wolters Kluwer FRR, which is part of Wolters Kluwer’s Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC) division, is a global market leader in the provision of integrated regulatory compliance and reporting solutions. It supports regulated financial institutions in meeting their obligations to external regulators and their own board of directors.

“It’s an honor to join Wolters Kluwer FRR, a company famed for its regulatory compliance and technology prowess,” Vinci said. “I look forward to working with the talented experts here to raise knowledge of the importance of taking an integrated approach to managing ever changing and all-important regulatory obligations.”

Earlier this year Wolters Kluwer FRR announced that it had won four prestigious industry awards, “based on evidence of ongoing excellence and innovation in the regulatory reporting and RegTech space.”

The Center for Financial Professionals (CeFPro™) named Wolters Kluwer FRR #1 in Regulatory Reporting, as part of its 2021 FinTech Leaders report, with the results based on its highly regarded end-user based industry survey. Bobsguide named Wolters Kluwer’s OneSumX for FRR its Best Regulatory Reporting System, based on its assessment of the “strength of tech updates and their impact on the client experience.” Finance Monthly magazine, meanwhile, named the company both RegTech Firm of the Year and Regulatory Reporting Firm of the Year in its hotly contested FinTech Awards, 2021, with these awards decided by its expert editorial panel.

All four awards recognize the positive industry impact of OneSumX for FRR, Wolters Kluwer FRR’s best-in-class integrated regulatory compliance and reporting solution suite that establishes a single source of data for finance, risk and regulatory reporting that is enriched with value-added content from in-house experts.

Riverbed today announced the availability of new capabilities that dramatically improve the visibility and performance of SSL/TLS-encrypted applications, enabling organizations to expand Work-from-Anywhere, SaaS and Cloud initiatives with confidence.

LinkedIn: Riverbed delivers breakthrough visibility and performance of secure and encrypted apps for the modern enterprise:  https://rvbd.ly/3nO55fh

The modern IT landscape has grown more distributed, hybrid and complex, which has created visibility and performance challenges and significantly expanded the risk perimeter for cyber-attacks. Additionally, as organizations continue to drive more traffic to the Web, of which 85% is encrypted, the process of managing encryption certificates is far more burdensome for IT. Riverbed’s unified visibility solution, which already plays a crucial role in enabling organizations to identity and mitigate cybersecurity threats, now provides greater visibility and insight into encrypted traffic, and new application performance software will automate the acceleration of encrypted applications to improve business productivity and user experience in a secure manner. Today’s enhancements include:

Visibility to Bolster the Fight Against Security Threats Before, During, After They Arise Riverbed AppResponse – part of Riverbed’s unified visibility solutions portfolio – now provides: Certificate Insights that highlight which SSL/TLS certificates are being used, by whom, or close to expiring; Handshake Insights that show which SSL/TLS versions and ciphers are being used, by whom, and to track session renegotiations or errors; and support for PFS (Perfect Forward Secrecy) to retain deep packet visibility and analysis while preserving a hardened security posture. Deeper inspection of SSL traffic allows IT to properly troubleshoot and respond to security incidents more comprehensively. 

Accelerate Encrypted Apps by Up to 10X or More: Any User, Network, App, Anywhere  

New software updates to Riverbed SteelHead and Riverbed Client Accelerator provide zero-touch acceleration of any SSL/TLS encrypted applications with no manual collection, creation or distribution of the growing number of encryption certificates and keys; and deliver an up to 10X performance boost of SSL/TLS encrypted applications with up to 99% less bandwidth.

Watch Global Launch Webcast: Breakthrough Visibility & Performance for Encrypted Apps & Traffic

“With business initiatives expanding the threat plane – and cyber-attacks like the recent SUNBURST on the rise – our public sector and enterprise customers have a heightened concern regarding security,” said Vincent Berk, CTO and Chief Security Architect at Riverbed. “While encrypted applications protect a company’s data, they previously reduced visibility and blocked inspections, and significantly complicated acceleration. The latest updates to Riverbed’s Unified NPM and Application Acceleration solutions deliver the visibility organizations need into encrypted traffic, and enable them to securely accelerate that traffic with an automated approach instead of unwieldy, manual processes. Only Riverbed offers solutions that can be used collaboratively by both network and security teams to address security, visibility and performance challenges in a hyperconnected and hybrid world. This is essential to building secure and high-performance enterprise networks.”

“In today’s hyper-connected world, the quality of the user experience and the integrity of network exchanges are two critical determinants of digital success. Organizations must be both precise and proactive in managing the performance and security of their networked environment. With product offerings like those introduced by Riverbed, IT gains high-value insights that drive improvements in problem resolution, threat mitigation, and performance management. These insights not only boost service levels, but also the effectiveness and teamwork of network and security operations.” said Mark Leary, Research Director for Network Analytics at IDC. “Complete visibility enables comprehensive analysis, resulting in rapid and accurate identification of root causes, detection of network anomalies, and optimization of traffic movement. As organizations continue to drive more traffic over the Internet and across cloud services, the ability to fully view and accelerate encrypted traffic is crucial, and assures there are no trade-offs between security and performance – for IT or the business.”

Expand Insights Into the Security of the Network

Visibility is a cornerstone of any good security practice, and providing a persistent, unified view of the complete IT network is table stakes for combatting sophisticated cybersecurity threats. Riverbed helps break through modern IT complexity with full-fidelity, unified network performance management (NPM) that collects every packet and every flow from every device (on-premises, remote or in the cloud) 100% of the time, collates this and provides a holistic portal view for deep analysis and insights. Riverbed’s visibility solutions bolster the effectiveness of threat hunting, incident response and forensics to help organizations maintain a hardened security posture.

Expanding upon recent AppResponse updates that give operators the ability to track, report and validate the integrity of SSL/TLS sessions, certificates and cipher suites, Riverbed AppResponse now provides new insights into SSL/TLS certificate expiry status to bolster network security and assure user experience. Riverbed is widening this analysis to include SSL/TLS Certificates Insights and informing IT what kinds of certificates are being used within the network, their expiry status, and where they are used.

Boost Performance of Encrypted Applications and Pave the Way for Productive Hybrid Work

With the new releases of Riverbed SteelHead and Client Accelerator, accelerating encrypted applications is far simpler for IT to manage and more secure. Now, IT can simply enable SSL/TLS acceleration once and select which apps to accelerate to initiate zero-touch acceleration of encrypted apps for their teams and eliminate the burden of manually collecting, creating or distributing encryption certificates. 

Client Accelerator improves productivity and user experience by accelerating the connections of laptops and their applications. As employees increasingly work from anywhere, Client Accelerator helps reduce network data congestion by up to 99% and offers up to 10X faster and more reliable performance for business-critical SaaS apps, on-prem applications and cloud workloads for users anywhere.

This new capability to automate the acceleration of encrypted applications is available at no additional cost to existing and new SteelHead and Client Accelerator customers with active service agreements.

For more information, visit: https://www.riverbed.com/solutions/security.html