Sowmya Mony, 33, from Sheffield, is using her background as a software developer to inspire more young women into STEM as she trades tech for teaching, supported by Transition to Teach.

Transition to Teach is a Department for Education funded initiative which enables eligible career changers, those at risk of redundancy and early retirees to train for new teaching careers. Recruitment for the 2021 programme beginning in September is now underway across the Yorkshire region.

Using the Hogan Personality Assessment, Transition to Teach identify participant strengths and help to support with potential challenges participants may face in teaching. Analysis of data from the Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI) across the two Transition to Teach cohorts (2020 and 2019) has revealed that the main motivation for candidates to move into teaching is the desire for a career where they feel they are helping and supporting others, or adding to the greater good of society.

For Sowmya, it was her tech role and becoming a parent that helped her to see the difference she could make as a teacher:

“I moved to the UK around 10 years ago, attending the University of York to do my Masters degree before moving to Sheffield, a beautiful city that I now call my home. Sheffield is where I built my career, met my husband and we started our family.

“In my old job, I worked for Twinkl as part of the website development team. We made resources for teachers. It was a tight knit team and a very busy environment. I worked at Twinkl for around 5 years and had great relationships with teachers and former teachers. When I’d hear them talk about ‘my children’, referring to their pupils and the drive, determination and ambition they had for their students, it inspired me to think about teaching.

“Becoming a mother myself, and my child growing up and going off to school, also developed my interest in teaching as a career. I could see first-hand the passion that teachers have for their profession and the difference they make to a child’s life.

“In 2020, the time was right for me to move into teaching. My application at Sheffield Hallam was accepted just as the pandemic hit, so there was already a lot of change in my life, moving to home working and both my husband and child at home. Lots of people dropped out of the course due to the uncertainty but I almost used the uncertainty to my advantage. Everything was changing anyway, so changing my career suddenly didn’t seem like such a big jump.

“The transferable skills I will take into teaching include professionalism, collaboration and the ability to come up with creative ideas. But, training as a teacher has also helped me to develop new skills, like resilience and adaptability. As a parent, you often feel guilty about how much time you’re giving your child. Having support and workarounds helps hugely. The one thing I’ve learnt is that you don’t have to be perfect, just efficient.

“Having support from Transition to Teach has really helped too. My guidance and development adviser is the person I go to every time I need help, whether it’s with an interview or a question about an assignment, my GDA always has the answer. I’ll receive support from Transition to Teach right through to the end of my first year as a newly qualified teacher.

“When I qualify, I will be teaching computer science at secondary level and I like the idea of teaching KS4 and KS5 where the subject gets quite complicated. My industry subject knowledge will help me a lot there.”

Data has also been released from Transition to Teach’s 2020 cohort. 105 candidates made up the 2020 group, bringing over 1500 years’ work experience into the teaching profession. The majority of 2020 participants trained to teach maths (37%), followed by modern foreign languages (17%), chemistry (10%), physics (8%) and computer science (6%).

Further insight from the HPI data found that, as well as being motivated to help others, candidates moving into teaching are motivated to work with the latest research, data and technology, enjoying creativity and innovation. This was also key to Sowmya’s move into teaching:

“Some people might have the perception that only boys like gaming and computing, and I hope to use my role as a teacher and my past industry experience to encourage more girls into STEM subjects. In my old career, I used to volunteer for projects to encourage women into tech, helping them to code, so this will be similar in that way.

“When I was younger, I was lucky in that my brother was into computers and did an undergraduate degree in computer science. Computers and coding was quite normal to me but not everyone has that. Teaching is one way that I can give back and share all that I have learned, hopefully inspiring others.”

Programme Manager at Transition to Teach, Rebecca Waring said: “As we recruit for our 2021 cohort of trainee teachers, it’s incredibly positive to see that participants are moving into teaching because they want to make a difference in the lives of young people. They’re ready to be the role models that young people need, challenging perceptions that might exist about certain subjects or professions and inspiring the future generation.

“Our service is there to help people work out if teaching is for them, and if they choose to proceed, then we support with the practical tasks like finding an initial teacher training provider, support through placements and even job applications when the time comes. If you would like to learn more about Transition to Teach, get in touch to see if you are eligible and you could be starting your teaching journey this September.”

https://www.transitiontoteach.co.uk/

UTP Group has partnered with Faster Processing to provide its eCommerce customers with the unique ability to receive fund settlement within hours rather than days. Up until this point merchants have had to wait anywhere up to five working days before receiving the funds from payments they have taken online. 

UTP Group is the only payment solution company in the market that is currently providing Faster Processing to both online and bricks and mortar businesses. Transactions processed using Faster Processing are typically credited to a merchant’s bank account within a few hours or the same day.

Key features:

• Only provider offering same-day funding for in-store and online. 
• Businesses can choose their own end of day. 
• Reports all transactions – attempted, declined and processed.
• Optional text message alerts on transaction data. 

Whilst Faster Processing ensures same-day funding, it also allows businesses to determine their own end of day. This flexible feature can play a vital role in providing merchants with full control of their cash flow. Allowing individual merchants to choose the end of day best suited to their business model, eliminates the challenges faced of receiving more than one separate statement for each trading day. 

By having a more consolidated picture of the daily trading period, businesses can plan more effectively for increased demand and traffic whilst also understanding potential vulnerabilities. The system also permits merchants to witness transactions that are declined, allowing them to implement more effective fraud prevention strategies.

Faster Processing is already available to thousands of businesses across the UK and Gibraltar. Alice Collins from Firefly Events, says of the service: “Using the Faster Processing service through UTP has made such a fundamental difference to our business. As an events company, we have many an occasion when last orders are late at night. Faster Processing allows us to choose when we get paid, and without fail the funds are in our account ten minutes after we close. Not only does this give us greater confidence in our provider, but it streamlines the way we are able to do our accounting with daily reports on transactions. We would never go back to a standard service now we have experienced what Faster Processing offers.”

Michael Ault, CEO at UTP, highlights the benefit that Faster Processing will provide to any online business taking payments: “Implementing Faster Processing for eCommerce was always in our business plan. Covid-19 also means it has become a necessary development to help businesses that have suffered over this past year. Waiting up to 5 days to receive funds is simply not viable for many businesses that are still on the road to recovery.”

As the world continues to shift towards a cashless society, businesses are becoming more reliant on digital payment methods. Not only is efficiency key, but the data that can be gained from these solutions can play such a crucial role for a business. Gaining information on busy periods, customer profiles and spending habits is data that translates into income.

The difference between having Faster Processing, and not having it, could be the difference between a strong successful cash flow, and a broken unstructured one. Faster Processing is designed with merchants in mind and will be a pivotal change that helps businesses to thrive in the new normal. 

For more information visit https://www.utpgroup.co.uk

Payink, a fast-growing payments and receivables provider to professional services firms, has announced the appointed of Alejandra Gimenez as its VP Finance & Growth. This is a second senior leadership appointment by the company in two weeks. Prior to joining Payink, Alejandra was a senior member of the finance team of cross-border payments unicorn Dlocal. 

“Alejandra and I have worked closely together for about five years and I am super-excited to welcome her to Payink’s leadership team where she will be instrumental to the next chapter of growth for our clients. Alejandra brings unique experience in payments and accounting, being a former Big4 public accountant herself.” said Branislav Trajkovski, CEO of Payink. 

“I have known Alejandra for some time and am thrilled that she will join our leadership team”, said Gail Armstrong, COO of Payink. “Not only she knows about payments and accountancy needs, but with Alejandra’s expertise and knowledge of Latin America, I have no doubt we will be able to expand our footprint to serve clients there and bring unique value to professional services firms in the region”, added Armstrong.

Alejandra brings more than 24 years of experience in payments and professional services. In her latest role as a Senior Finance Manager at Dlocal, Alejandra was looking after key functions of the finance team, including statutory audit. Prior to that, Alejandra had a similar role in payments unicorn Astropay/Directa24 and was Financial Controller at Philip Morris International for Latin America. She is Uruguay-qualified Public Accountant, and started her audit career with KPMG in Montevideo. 

“I am very excited to join Payink at this stage of its growth and add value to professional services firms”, said Gimenez. “I have seen the power of Payink’s value proposition and look forward to working with Gail and Branislav as we set out to achieve the next phase of growth” added Gimenez.

The Board of Banking Competition Remedies Ltd (BCR) today publishes progress updates for Pool E recipients, providing a summary of performance against their public commitments to the period 28^th February 2021.

The public commitment updates this reporting period indicate that most of those awarded are now making significant progress in their deliverables. A small number are facing challenges due to the pandemic and in particular the knock-on impact of CBILS/BBLS. BCR is currently holding review meetings with all awardees and a number have submitted updated business cases which is permitted under the CIF Agreement and subject to approval by the BCR Board. Awardees public commitments made can be found here.  

Aidene Walsh, CIF Executive Director, said: “Over the last quarter, we have seen awardees advance their relationships with FinTechs, build market share and deliver a number of new functionalities and firsts in the market that will enable them to provide meaningful competition to UK SMEs. Those awardees that are struggling to deliver on their business cases have been very transparent in their public commitments and BCR is currently working with them to understand what this means in terms of their CIF funding recognising that there needs to be a keen focus on creating options for SMEs in the near term.”

A summary of performance against awardees public commitments can be found in the notes to editors, with links to the full updates provided below:

Pool E second quarter update

•       Virgin Money UK PLC public commitment progress update

•       ClearBank Ltd public commitment progress update

•       Ebury Partners Limited public commitment progress update

•       MarketFinance Limited public commitment progress update

•       Funding Xchange Ltd public commitment progress update

•       Codat Limited public commitment progress update

•       ezbob Ltd public commitment progress update

•       Fractal Labs Ltd public commitment progress update

•       Previse Ltd public commitment progress update

The next progress updates for Pool E awardees will be in July 2021. Pool A, B, C and D awardees will provide their next reporting update in May 2021. As part of BCR’s role in monitoring the way that organisations are using the funds, BCR holds awardees to account on their progress against business plans which includes meeting all the recipients. For more details on how BCR monitors CIF awardees see here.

Pool F: new funding round under the CIF scheme

BCR has £5m CIF funding available (referred to as ‘Pool F’) for distribution under the CIF scheme to support A, B and C eligible bodies in providing competition in financial services to UK SMEs. BCR is required to consult with potential applicants on the size of awards, with the consultation process due to run in August 2021. The BCR website has been updated with further details and timings, which can be found here.

The Derivatives Service Bureau (DSB), founded by the Association of National Numbering Agencies (ANNA) to facilitate the allocation and maintenance of International Securities Identification Numbers (ISINs), Classification of Financial Instrument codes (CFIs) and Financial Instrument Short Names (FISNs), for OTC derivatives, has today announced the 2021 industry consultation on the 2022 OTC ISIN and CFI service provision is now open.

The OTC ISIN and CFI service consultation paper shaping the DSB activity for 2022, is published today on the DSB website. Industry will be able to respond until 5pm UTC on Monday 31st May, with the final results of the consultation delivered on Thursday 1st July. 

A DSB webinar on the OTC ISIN and CFI consultation is also taking place on 13th May, where details of this year’s consultation will be discussed. Any industry participants who would like to register can follow the link to the DSB webinar. 

The OTC ISIN and CFI service related consultation this year will focus on a number of topics, including cloud resilience and whether the DSB should perform a detailed technical review of its cloud infrastructure. It will examine cybersecurity and if the DSB should perform a cost benefit and risk analysis on implementing a Security Operations Centre to boost security protocols. This year’s consultation is also seeking industry's views on DSB support for enhanced supplier risk assessment activities. It will also examine whether the DSB should perform a review of the way in which its technology stack should be enhanced or improved. 

Emma Kalliomaki, Managing Director of ANNA and the DSB, said, “The DSB values the feedback from the consultation process which brings such important industry needs to the fore. This OTC ISIN and CFI consultation process will operate in parallel with the broader, ongoing global consultation focusing on the UPI fee model. We look forward to hearing industry input to shape the OTC ISIN and CFI service provision for the coming year.”

Malavika Solanki, a member of the DSB Management Team, said, “This year’s consultation builds on a number of years of successful collaboration with industry so that new users - whose numbers are growing - as well as existing users, will continue to receive high quality service from the DSB. As with prior years, the purpose of consultation is to ensure that the DSB focuses its attention on the areas users consider most helpful in light of the increased focus on security and resilience, so that the DSB can continue to best serve its users in a rapidly evolving landscape.”

For more information about how to get involved with the consultation process, please contact us via industry_consultation@anna-dsb.com. All other questions can be directed to otc.data@anna-dsb.com.  

Comment from Sudeepto Mukherjee, Senior Vice President, Financial Services at consultancy Publicis Sapient:

Barclays followed a good Q4 2020 with a strong performance for Q1 2021 with an increased profit (before tax) of £2.4bn – a 166% increase for Q1 yoy. This is largely thanks to their robust business model and strong CIB performance.  However, their consumer business still faces the headwinds of the Covid-19 pandemic which will likely continue throughout 2021. Their core retail products in mortgages and cards are fiercely competitive and will require an aggressive strategy to grow market share. The target of achieving a 10+% ROTE overtime from a 2020 baseline at 3.2% will need significant effort in moving to a digital first model to both drive down cost but also serve customers in their preferred channels of interaction. The expansion of the Amazon point of sale partnership shows the increasing trend of banks leveraging technology to create new and innovative “banking as a service” propositions for consumers and businesses.