B-cube.ai, a platform offering AI-driven bots for crypto trading, announces its partnership with Sumsub, an identity verification platform that covers KYC/KYB/AML needs. With this collaboration, B-cube.ai aims to secure investment with bank-grade KYC and accurate crypto monitoring technology.

B-cube.ai provides customers with innovative crypto trading bots. Built with the help of technical analysis, sentiment analysis, and complex mathematical models, these bots can monitor the market and trade on auto-pilot. 

B-cube.ai’s bots were created to make trading easy—even for those with little experience—helping new users set up accounts within 5 minutes. Although a relatively new project, B-cube.ai has already received multiple awards such as the EU’s Block.IS 2020 as well as the Graines de Boss 2020, supported by the Ministry of Economy & Finance of France. B-cube.ai is seeking to raise $3,075 million with their ICO to further enhance their service.

To make contributions to their ICO quick and easy, B-cube.ai uses Sumsub’s KYC solution. Sumsub has been able to tailor the user experience for B-cube.ai’s global investors, thanks to accurate verification that gets the job done in 4-5 minutes. Sumsub has also supplied B-cube.ai with crypto monitoring technology that ensures investments come from reliable sources and prevents any money-laundering attempts. With these fresh tools, B-cube.ai is now able to consolidate and automate their regulatory compliance and reduce the manual workload for legal research and reporting.

“Sumsub’s quick and easy solution for identity verification was just what we needed. We managed to provide our investors with enjoyable, lightning-fast onboarding, while fully automating our compliance routine. We can now easily generate reports for international regulators and spend close to no time on compliance. It has been a great experience so far.”—Guruprasad Venkatesha, CEO at B-cube.ai.

“Global companies are often suffocated by intricate regulatory demands and security concerns—all while trying to deliver the best user experience for their customers. We hope that our solution helps B-cube.ai keep regulatory concerns to a minimum while automating their verification and compliance routines, so they can focus all of their efforts into growth.”—Jacob Sever, Founder of Sumsub.

OpenFin, the operating system (OS) for enterprise productivity, today announced the launch of OpenFin Workspace, a revolutionary product that accelerates the vision of a truly open ecosystem within the financial industry. OpenFin is now being used by 90% of global financial institutions and deploys more than 3,500 apps across 300,000 desktops.

Built on the company’s flagship operating system and designed in collaboration with customers, OpenFin Workspace allows business users to consolidate and automate their work across applications and tasks using a single, elegantly-designed interface that increases user productivity. 

“Everyone who uses enterprise technology knows the workflow has become incredibly painful -- too much manual intervention, constant interruption from too many channels, the inability for technology to help us focus on what’s important -- and it’s time to turn things around,” said Adrian Crockett, OpenFin’s Chief Product and Strategy Officer. “OpenFin Workspace was developed to solve all these issues, but more importantly, it gives customers the ability to tap into a rich ecosystem of resources, powered by a thriving community of partners, without having to do all the technical heavy lifting themselves.”

Key components of the Workspace include a keyboard-driven digital assistant for app discovery and search; a browser built for work; a rich, actionable notification center; and a customizable app store.

“Our largest and most tech-savvy bank and buy-side customers are moving to use OpenFin Workspace and this represents a fundamental break from how these firms have operated for decades,” said Mazy Dar, OpenFin's CEO. “It is a privilege to have earned their trust and it is a unique moment for the financial industry to finally turn the dream of openness into reality.”

The new offering provides a turnkey solution that simultaneously eliminates the need for costly development as it standardizes workspaces across the industry, which is significant given that large banks and asset managers have traditionally built their own workspace offerings at enormous cost in order to unify applications and automate workflow. 

Small and mid-sized financial firms, on the other hand, usually don’t have dedicated in-house teams to develop a workspace solution, resulting in a poor and fragmented experience. With OpenFin Workspace, firms of all sizes will have access to a best-in-class solution that not only creates a unified experience, but also enables third-party applications to easily integrate into their customers’ internal environments.

OpenFin Workspace has been in a Private Beta with several major banks and asset managers for the past three months and is now available to all industry participants. The product is instantly deployable at more than 2,400 banks, asset managers and hedge funds where OpenFin OS is used today.

Global FinTech Paysend today announced a collaboration with Plaid, a leading open finance platform and financial data network, to provide customers with a more streamlined experience in connecting and transacting from their bank accounts to Paysend’s money transfer app.

Paysend’s global money transfer service allows users to pay and send using bank or card details, and with 90% of transfers arriving in 15 seconds or less, maintaining fast and seamless interaction between the user’s bank account and Paysend account is essential. Paysend has been fast growing to 3.5 Million customers thanks to its secure, instant and convenient service.

The introduction of Plaid’s Open Banking capabilities into Paysend’s platform paves the way for new products and services that will increase the speed of the payment process even further and reduce customer friction points which could otherwise result in abandoned transactions.

The collaboration between Paysend and Plaid cements a new milestone in Paysend’s mission to develop the next generation of integrated global payment ecosystem to save time, save money and serve millions of customers all around the globe. Plaid will provide instant authentication when customers are redirected to third-party banking providers to speed up Paysend’s transactions. This will eliminate the need for Paysend customers to enter their online banking login details or conduct manual bank transfers, reducing the time it takes to connect accounts and make transfers by 80%.

“Speed is at the heart of everything we do here at Paysend, and the partnership with Plaid will play a big role in how we make our transfers even faster in the future,” Ronnie Millar, Paysend CEO said. “The Open Banking solution provided by Plaid will reduce friction in the payment process, providing our 3.5 million customers with an even smoother Paysend experience. Moving forward, the collaboration with Plaid’s Open Banking service will help us to gain more insights into what our customers want by enabling them to safely and securely share their transaction data. In the future we will be better-positioned to provide personalised recommendations to customers based on real-time, data-based insights.”

“In the face of economic challenges Covid-19 has brought on, fintech companies like Paysend provide an easier, more convenient, and lower cost alternative for people to send money to friends and family abroad,” said Keith Grose, Head of International at Plaid. “With Plaid’s Open Banking payments, Paysend can offer a solution that keeps costs low and improves the user experience. Ultimately, that means their customers can send money with less hassle and get to keep more of it in their wallets.”

Iliad Solutions, a global leader in payments testing, is pleased to announce that Len Meyers has joined its team as Senior Business Development Manager – Americas. Meyers has 24 years’ experience building B2B relationships in the Commercial and Governmental markets, the last three years with FIS. 

Commenting on his appointment, Meyers said: “I am delighted to join Iliad to increase the adoption of our payment testing products throughout the Americas. We can help banks, processors and schemes to develop new payment technology through reduced time to market for new payment initiatives.”

With faster payment systems growing in the region, Iliad is primed to penetrate these markets further through the introduction of the leading payments testing solutions on its t3 platform. The t3 platform helps financial institutions that are bringing new products and wallets to market and migrating legacy systems to ISO 20022 standards. In addition, the platform can be used to manage certification and pre-certification. This reduces the effort required by financial institutions and enables schemes to offer a self-service portal for its members prior to launching new propositions.  

Iliad Solutions CEO Anthony Walton added: “We want financial institutions located in the Americas to know that there is a more advanced payments testing alternative to what they may be using at present. We’re delighted to have Len on board to bring our testing solutions to the wider market. By working with established banks, as well as start-ups and processors, we are looking to equip more financial institutions with the tools to innovate faster and with more confidence through effective testing.” 

Research conducted by the Consulting Services team at BSI has revealed that some organizations are struggling with the current data protection landscape, with many data transfers impacted by the UK’s exit from Europe and the invalidation of the EU-US Privacy Shield framework last year. With information resilience and cybersecurity being a top priority for many organizations in 2021 as remote working continues, staying alert to the evolving data compliance landscape is essential.

UK - EU data transfers post-Brexit

The UK’s transition period from the European Union that ended on the 31 December 2020 has impacted many aspects of business including how data transfers are carried out. According to research by BSI’s cybersecurity and information resilience team, one in four organizations’ data transfers have been impacted as a result of Brexit, while 39 per cent said they were still unsure of the level of repercussion.

The impact effects how data is processed in each region, where it is hosted and how it is protected, including jurisdiction representative requirements to ensure compliance in line with UK compliance as well as the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) in Europe. While there is currently an adequacy ruling in place to maintain data protection between jurisdictions, a review decision is expected in June by the European Union.  

EU - US Privacy Shield invalidation ruling

Last year the Court of Justice for the European Union invalidated the adequacy of the EU-US Data Protection Privacy Shield, meaning transfer of data between the US and EU was no longer protected under the framework. BSI’s findings highlighted that this ruling has impacted almost five in ten organizations with many requiring legal support, a review of existing contracts, Transfer Impact Assessments (TIAs) and the revision of mechanisms to ensure the resilience of data transfers in the future.

Affecting very significant volumes of data, the privacy shield framework website¹ currently has 4,413 active organizations and 1,785 inactive organizations as compliance requirements are being reviewed. Currently, compliance actions would include implementing and re-evaluating Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs), seeking explicit consent, revising business processes, and outsourcing services.

Conor Hogan, Global Practice Lead - Privacy - Cyber, Risk and Advisory at BSI said: “Data protection regulations, along with the increase² in cyber-attacks and data breaches - a side effect of the global pandemic, will continue to be a challenge for many organizations this year. The volume and value of data is an essential asset that needs to be protected and our research demonstrates the impact the current landscape is having as a result of two significant changes. How data is transferred, stored, and processed requires reviews and proactive scanning of regulatory updates as well as accessing third party supplier data management on a regular basis.”

“No organization wants to be in a position whereby a data breach has a significant impact on their people, reputation or finances. Information resilience is about empowering organizations to safeguard data throughout its lifecycle and we would strongly urge organizations to take a proactive, pragmatic approach to ensure compliance and security of data,” concludes Conor.

The Consulting Services team at BSI provides an expansive range of solutions to help organizations address challenges in cybersecurity, information management and privacy, security awareness and compliance. For more information visit bsigroup.com/cyber-ie

CloudMargin, creator of the world’s first and only collateral and margin management solution native to the cloud, announced today that Martin Heraghty has joined the firm as Sales Director for the DACH region in Europe, comprising Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and Central Europe. He has over 20 years of relevant experience, including more than 15 years selling trading technology solutions.

Heraghty has extensive relationships throughout Europe and a deep understanding of the collateral management space. He spent several years at Lombard Risk (now VERMEG), responsible for sales in the European territories of the firm’s collateral management and risk solutions. He also served as Business Development Manager at Misys – now Finastra – a global strategic partner of CloudMargin.

Heraghty will operate out of London, reporting to David White, Chief Commercial Officer.

White said: “Martin is a great fit for our growing team, with years of industry experience at competitor and partner firms and a strong grasp of the needs and challenges of the German-speaking market. He has a wide range of authentic relationships which will help us deliver the CloudMargin value proposition to drive forward the modernisation of firms’ collateral management functions.”

Heraghty said: “I very much appreciate the opportunity to join CloudMargin at this important period of evolution in the collateral management world.  CloudMargin continues to lead the way in terms of reducing costs, minimising risk and enabling efficiencies in an increasingly regulated environment.  Being owned by key market stakeholders and with strong technology partnerships, we are uniquely placed to be the collateral management solution of choice for the market, and I look forward to joining the rest of the CloudMargin team in making that a reality.”  

Heraghty comes to CloudMargin after serving as Sales Director for seven years for Corvil, a real-time trading analytics and machine intelligence solution provider, which was acquired in 2019 by Pico (a technology provider for financial markets). He was Sales Director, EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) for Lombard Risk, beginning in 2011.

From 2009 to 2011, Heraghty was Sales Director at SunGard (now FIS). He previously served in several other sales and business development roles at other software and financial consulting businesses throughout his career.

Global payments service provider SumUp (www.sumup.co.uk) is today announcing the appointment of its new CTO, with Visual Meta Co-Founder and former CTO, Johannes Schaback, taking up the role as of May 1st.

Schaback will bring to SumUp extensive experience in software development, e-commerce, consumer-oriented product design, and machine learning, from a career spent building some of the European trailblazers in online commerce services. In addition to his extensive tech and innovation expertise, Schaback brings experience as an angel investor to the table, having invested in a mix of German and European companies over the last ten years.

Schaback joined Rocket Internet in 2007 as a founder in residence and software engineer, contributing to online services such as Zalando, eDarling and Toptarif. In 2009, Schaback co-founded Visual Meta, an online company that runs shopping platforms such as LadenZeile.de and ShopAlike in 13 countries and which was sold to Axel Springer in 2011. Schaback then joined home24 as Chief Technology Officer and member of the management board in April 2018 where he was responsible for the entire technical e-commerce, SAP, data and infrastructure operations and development, in addition to People & Organisation from April 2019 onwards. 

Despite the effects of COVID-19 on SMEs, SumUp has entered 2021 in its strongest position to date, with new acquisitions, international market expansion, and a new €750m injection of funding to fuel growth. Over the past year, SumUp has unveiled a host of new solutions and innovations to help businesses navigate the operating restrictions brought about by repeated lockdowns. This included the introduction of payment links & invoicing options, new online selling functionalities through the ‘SumUp Online Store’, and gift card collaborations with Google, Facebook and Instagram; solutions all designed to help business owners receive payments safely and continue trading in the face of uncertain economic circumstances.

Marc-Alexander Christ, Co-Founder of SumUp comments: “We’re very excited to finally have Johannes on board as our new CTO and as part of the SumUp senior team; his CV really does speak for itself. We’re looking forward to exploring the new levels of innovation which his expertise can help us unlock.”

Johannes Schaback, CTO at SumUp comments: “I am convinced that SumUp is at an inflection point, particularly when you look at how the events of the pandemic have catapulted the world five years ahead in terms of digitisation. "

“We are just seeing the beginning of a change in global payments infrastructure that puts the merchants and customers into focus, and I want to further push the boundaries of technical innovations and explorations for SumUp in the payments space."

“This is the perfect time for me to be joining SumUp, a company I have long admired; while I hope to contribute some of my past experience, I’m also excited to join a team full of winners which I know can help me to grow too.”

Burrow has today announced that it is expanding its API-led Digital Mortgage Platform to include 2 powerful modules developed for mortgage brokers - an intuitive Client Portal and smart Retention Marketing.

Burrow released its popular Onboarding Module in 2019, which is utilised by many leading UK brokers including Blueberry Mortgages, 313 Financial, Rose Capital Partners, EweMove and One77 Mortgages. In addition to the platform’s existing Onboarding Module, the enhanced platform now includes:

A Client Portal

Research conducted by DPR Group showed:

• 55% of brokers say fact find would increase operational efficiency.
• 79% of mortgage applicants would be comfortable using digital signatures.

The new Client Portal module gives brokers the tools to provide a digital application experience from anywhere. The Portal changes the way in which brokers and their customers interact, offering an extended digital fact find, document upload, digital signatures, biometric ID verification and open banking connectivity. The Portal simplifies everyday admin processes by providing live status updates to clients, digitally generated reports, and an appointment management feature to help brokers keep on top of workload.

Retention Marketing

The research also showed:

• 67% of consumers would explore mortgage options with a broker if they were contacted before their deal ended.

The Retention Module comes at an important time with historically low interest rates and with hopes the pandemic enters a more stable zone. It aims to provide brokers with the tools to compete with the rising number of product transfers caused by low repayment rate options and the busy purchase market. Using automated email updates for key customer engagement points, remortgage prospects and cross-selling opportunities, the Retention Module is designed to improve client retention rates and increase brand awareness.

Burrow - Digital Mortgage Platform

The cloud native platform, which is accessible via mobile and web, has been enhanced using real broker feedback to ensure it encapsulates the features brokers really need to succeed.  Combined, the two modules will offer a seamless, full-service digital mortgage experience.

Burrow quickly filled up its quota of 30 broker firms that wanted to be first to test out the solution. Officially launching this summer, interested firms are invited to join the ‘Early Adopter List’ via the Burrow site to ensure priority access to the platform once open to everyone.

Pradeep Raman, Founder of Burrow commented:

“Unprecedented activity levels in the purchase market, paired with high rates of product transfers and a challenging market for cross-selling, has created a difficult environment for brokers over the past twelve months."

We have listened to brokers and what they really want, and we are proud to be launching a product which cuts through the noise and provides the tools for an end-to-end mortgage journey, from initial research stage through application to renewal.

“It is essential to us that the Burrow Digital Mortgage Platform helps brokers hit the ground running, which is why we are offering limited spaces on the launch. Brokers are encouraged to join our ‘Early Adopter List’ to ensure they receive full access in the summer and can start reaping the benefits from the outset.”

Taulia, the leading fintech provider of working capital solutions, has today announced it is expanding its offering to include inventory management. This key development will enable Taulia to provide its global customer base with solutions that cover all three areas of the cash conversion cycle: payables, receivables and inventory. 

In bringing its inventory management solution to market, Taulia will build upon a decade’s worth of experience in helping a global network of more than two million companies to access the value tied up in their payables and receivables. It currently processes in excess of $500 billion each year.

Taulia has appointed Erik Wanberg to lead its inventory management business line. Wanberg was previously a Managing Director in Supply Chain Finance at Wells Fargo and joins with almost 25-years’ experience from roles in inventory solutions at the likes of GE Capital and Silicon Valley Bank. 

Erik Wanberg, Head of Inventory Management at Taulia, said: “There are limited options available to companies who are looking for inventory management support and supply chain disruptions are forcing many organizations to re-examine their suppliers’ ability to deliver goods when needed. This has created a perfect void that urgently needs filling. Taulia, with its established technology infrastructure, experience in providing access to liquidity for global supply chains and deep network of participating businesses, is the natural choice to step into the breach.” 

Cedric Bru, CEO of Taulia, said: “Inventory is often cited as the most difficult working capital component for companies to improve upon. It is a demand that we have heard loud and clear from supply chain and sourcing leaders around the world. Taulia’s customers have told us they face a wide range of challenges, including lengthy lead times, an ever-increasing need for closer safety stocks and alternative solutions to complex vendor-managed inventory programs. 

“Taulia has long been committed to empowering companies to unlock liquidity in their supply chains, and ultimately ensuring that process is as easy and efficient as possible. By expanding our platform into inventory management, we are further delivering upon that commitment. With Erik’s wealth of experience in world-class inventory solutions roles, I am confident that we can make a significant difference for our customers.”

ALT/AVE (www.altave.co.uk), the London-based RegTech startup that uses distributed ledger technology to combat the masses of paper waste in banking, today announces that it has raised a combined total of £535,000 in new growth capital.

The investment comes via an Innovate UK grant, in addition to an injection of pre-seed funding, backed by a group of notable investors combining decades of experience at the top of global finance.  

Innovate UK awarded ALT/AVE £148,000 (70% of which is a grant), in the form of a Smart Grant - which, as well as being welcome financial support, is an invaluable seal of approval from the UK’s innovation agency and will be used to further product development and expand the company’s offering. 

The group of key investors providing £387,000 of pre-seed capital, includes:

• Phil Shelley, recently appointed ALT/AVE Chairman, formerly of UBS, Goldman Sachs and Barclays, as well as founder of Arlington Capital Markets.

• Jens-Peter Stein, formerly of Stone Milliner Asset Management and Morgan Stanley. 

• Philipp Eberle, formerly VP at Barclays Investment Bank, now at Appital and PKE Capital; 

• Brian Guckian, formerly Head of Equities at SEB and now Appital, Astrum Partners (Waporta);

• Jon Gausen, investor and formerly of Deutsche Bank; 

• Preben Ramm, ex-director at UBS and ex-Portfolio Manager at Millennium Capital Management, and is now a Portfolio Manager with Graham Capital Management; 

• Peter Landin, formerly of SEB, now a banker and investor in Singapore.

The pool of investors and their backing recognises the quality and effectiveness of ALT/AVE’s core product, docStribute, which utilises distributed ledger technology to offer banks and other regulated institutions a secure and sustainable digital solution for distributing highly regulated documents to their customers. When implemented, it will result in a 95% reduction in paper usage, a 25g decrease in CO2e per document compared to postal delivery, and cut costs by as much as 70%.

ALT/AVE is on a mission to change the way all regulated financial institutions including banks and insurance companies operate, and how they communicate with their customers. docStribute uses the Hedera Hashgraph network (https://hedera.com) to allow banks and other regulated institutions to communicate information to customers that fall under FCA regulation. The cost of non-compliance is high, yet ALT/AVE’s revolutionary application of distributed ledger technology meets all regulatory frameworks and keeps institutions in line with governance protocol, but also manages to significantly reduce  costs, waste, and emissions for its users.

Chris Ansara, founder and CEO at ALT/AVE comments: “At ALT/AVE, we have all worked in financial services and we saw first-hand how much paper is wasted in banking. How banks communicate with customers is closely regulated - for good reason - however, institutions are so fearful of non-compliance that modern technology is wildly underutilised. Ultimately, this means the sector continues to waste paper, and have a negative impact on our planet.

“This funding will aid further development of the existing product and enable us to continue our push into new territories, extending the deployment of the technology, and research in what direction we may take docStribute next. To receive funding from Innovate UK is a welcome and appreciated nod from the UK’s innovation agency that RegTech, and ALT/AVE specifically, is well-positioned to tackle head on the challenges faced by the financial sector.”

Brian Guckian, formerly Head of Equities at SEB and now Appital, Astrum Partners, and an investor, comments: “The financial sector constantly adapts to challenges and it’s that ability - to overcome - that makes it the bedrock of the global economy. One such challenge is how to reduce the sector’s carbon footprint, something we all have a responsibility to do. The way that ALT/AVE have harnessed the potential of distributed ledger technology to create docStribute, shows there is another way possible in how financial institutions communicate with their customers.”