Kinesis, the monetary system based on 1:1 allocated physical gold and silver, today announces the soft launch of PT Pos Indonesia’s physical gold-based digital Sharia product, PosGO Syariah.

PosGo Syariah is the first Islamic mobile ecosystem business in Indonesia, as supported by the Sharia Supervisory Board formed by the National Sharia Council. With full backing from the Government, the Sharia-compliant platform enables Indonesia’s predominantly Islamic population to manage their wealth, trade, save and transact in the debt and interest-free gold bullion via mobile device.

The nationwide reach of the government-run postal service, PT Pos, opens up the shariah-compliant, economic stability of physical gold to the entire population of Indonesia, including unbanked and underbanked communities. As the largest non-bank institution in Indonesia, PT Pos is positioned to offer the Indonesian population financial access through 24,000 physical service locations across the country.  

Through integrating the Kinesis technology and monetary system, the PosGO Syariah app provides Indonesian citizens with ‘PosGold”, a digitalised physical gold trading platform and ‘Switch’ for real-time peer-to-peer transfers of both gold and fiat balances. The platform also offers ‘Pos Pay’ a payment gateway and E-Wallet service and ‘Gold To Mecca’ a gold-based community savings program for Hajj and Umrah pilgrimage trips. 

This partnership between PT Pos, Kinesis, ABX and PT Bullion Ecosystem International is one of the largest public-private partnerships in economic history.

The platform is live and being rolled out firstly to PT POS’s 45,000 employees. In subsequent months, the platform will be rolled out nationwide across Indonesia.

Key representatives, including the President Director of PT POS and top government officials, will present the mobile application along with the vision for Indonesian financial services at a press conference on May 21st 2021. 

PT POS Corporate Spokesman said: "PosGo Syariah is a large ecosystem that integrates many parties to be able to actively conduct trade, business, service, utility, financial transactions as well as an ecosystem that integrates the supervisory work processes of all regulatory agencies in Indonesia with the aim of improving the quality of protection for the community as consumers and forming a systematic solution ecosystem for a better community life."

Thomas Coughlin, Chief Executive Officer of Kinesis, said: “This a pivotal moment in the Kinesis journey. We are proud to be working with the Indonesian national government and all the partners involved in this momentous project. People are increasingly moving away from traditional currencies and I am humbled to present Kinesis as a robust and scalable solution for digitalised and mobilised gold as a currency. 

“Crucially, this project shows just how the Kinesis technology can be applied in the real world at a national level. Through public private partnerships, which are a core part of our DNA and driver for innovation, we will continue to work with nations across the world to deliver viable solutions for the transformation of an outdated monetary system.”

Venture capital investment manager Deepbridge Capital today announces that it has seen a record year of Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) fundraising, with £29.4 million deployed across 37 growth companies. This represents an increase from 2019/20 and 2018/19 in which £21 million and £28 million were deployed respectively.  Deepbridge manages the Deepbridge Technology Growth EIS and the Deepbridge Life Sciences EIS.

Deepbridge believes that its success this year - which is understood to contrast with the wider Enterprise Investment Scheme fundraising market - is down to the firm’s relationship with the advisory market and long-term sector focus on growth companies in the technology and life sciences sectors. For example, in the UK, the development of Covid treatments and vaccines has propelled the UK ahead as a leader in innovation across the life sciences spectrum and boosted investor interest in companies operating within it. 

By using its specialist knowledge, expertise and understanding of where, how and why investee companies operate, Deepbridge is able to better support, mentor and manage those businesses from seed stage, through commercialisation and growth funding.

This year also saw Deepbridge work alongside other institutions to support investee companies. Last month it supported VoxSmart, the global leader in communications surveillance, in successfully completing an £18 million growth equity financing round alongside multi asset fund management firm, Toscafund Asset Management LLP.   

Some of the 37 innovative technology and life sciences companies that have benefited from Deepbridge’s EIS funding during 2020/21 include: blockchain specialists Chainvine, drug-discovery company Elasmogen, cross-border ecommerce software company Hurricane Modular Commerce, vital signs monitoring specialists Metix, finger-print sensor technology pioneers Touch Biometrix, dysphagia management technology developer Viscgo, regtech experts VoxSmart and cancer diagnostic innovators Zilico.

The EIS is a decades-old Government initiative, which follows pensions and ISAs in being a tax incentivised scheme to encourage investor behaviour. Designed to help smaller higher-risk trading companies raise finance, EIS offers a range of tax relief to investors who purchase new shares in those companies. Investors can benefit from potentially significant income tax and capital gains reliefs when making an investment into an EIS eligible start-up or business. EIS also provides 100% exemption from inheritance tax, as well as CGT deferral relief.

Ian Warwick, Managing Partner at Deepbridge Capital, said: “Twelve months ago the world was an uncertain place and we didn’t know what to expect from the 2020/21 tax year.  We are, therefore, particularly delighted to report a record year of EIS fundraising, with almost £30m of equity funding having been provided to 37 highly innovative technology and life sciences companies.  

“The Enterprise Investment Scheme offers UK investors world-leading tax incentives in return for supporting growth-focused early-stage companies, which is currently relevant as such companies are likely to be at the heart of economic recovery over the coming months and years.  Our record level of EIS fundraising is down to the ongoing backing of our amazing community of financial advisers and private investors, as well as remarkable work by the Deepbridge team.  We thank everyone for their continued support.”

Caroline Barelle, CEO at Elasmogen, commented: “It is extremely important for Elasmogen that we work with the right funding partner. Deepbridge’s Life Sciences team understands our company and our sector, with their support therefore being invaluable and much appreciated.”

Martyn Noble, Chairman and CEO at Hurricane Modular Commerce added: “When looking for external finance, it was important to our team that we worked with an organisation that not only could provide us with the capital we needed at each stage of the company’s growth but which would also proactively work with us at a strategic and tactical level to drive the business forward globally – we have been delighted with Deepbridge’s commitment and delivery to both aspects but also the manner and style in which they work. The UK’s Enterprise Investment Scheme provides growth-focused tech companies, such as Hurricane, a real competitive advantage in sourcing early-stage capital.”

Alan Sheehan, Director at MICAP, commented: “While it is great to hear that Deepbridge’s fundraising is going so well, MICAP's market data suggests that EIS fundraising in the 2020/21 tax year is lagging significantly behind 2019/20. That said, we are hopeful that as the world returns to normality, we will start to see a return to the level of inflows seen prior to the pandemic. The investment (and tax) case for these investments remains very strong.”

Mastercard (NYSE: MA) today announced the appointment of Tim Murphy, the company’s general counsel, to the newly created position of chief administrative officer. In this role, he will have oversight of the company’s Law, Franchise and Integrity activities, as well as the added management of its People and Capabilities function.

Michael Fraccaro will continue as chief people officer and a member of the company’s management committee, reporting to Murphy. Together, they will further shape and drive Mastercard’s world-class culture with decency at its core.

A 21-year veteran of the company, Murphy has helped to shape Mastercard throughout his tenure, beginning with his role as one of the lead lawyers for the company’s initial public offering. Since then, he has blended business and legal insights and evolution, serving at different times as president of the company’s U.S. region and chief product officer.

“In the decade I’ve worked with Tim, I’ve seen firsthand his ability to drive transformational change while sustaining fidelity to the core values that make Mastercard a special place to work,” said Michael Miebach, chief executive officer. “We have a unique opportunity in bringing together the teams that care about our people, law, policy, security, franchise, compliance and inclusion. Tim is the right person to use this moment to advance the strategy Mastercard needs to thrive in an increasingly complex world.”

Richard Verma, executive vice president for Global Public Policy and Regulatory Affairs, has been promoted to general counsel and head of Global Public Policy. He will now lead the company’s core legal and regulatory functions, as well as its global and regional public policy teams. Verma will also join the Mastercard’s Management Committee. 

He joined Mastercard in late 2020, bringing more than 25 years of international experience across senior levels of business, law, diplomacy and the military.

“In just a few short months, Rich has had a true impact on our engagement with policymakers and others across the globe. We’ll look to continue to tap into his extensive experience in public policy, geopolitics, trade and international law, and strong relationships to support the global move to a digital economy,” said Murphy.

The company also announced two other executive changes.

Ron Green, Mastercard’s chief security officer, has been appointed to the company’s management committee. Randall Tucker, the company’s chief inclusion officer, has been promoted to executive vice president and will continue to lead a refreshed Diversity, Equity & Inclusion team.

Wolters Kluwer’s Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC) division has appointed Raja Sengupta as Executive Vice President and General Manager of its ELM Solutions business, effective May 3, 2021. He replaces Jonah Paransky who is stepping down from the position after four years to pursue outside career interests. Sengupta previously led Wolters Kluwer GRC’s multi award-winning Lien Solutions business.

Sengupta was named Executive Vice President and General Manager of Lien Solutions in late 2016. As the chief executive of the business, he has successfully led a growing organization focused on providing lien search and filing services, which reported a record year for independent industry recognition in 2020.  Before joining Lien Solutions, Raja was Executive Vice President and General Manager of CT Small Business, a Wolters Kluwer GRC legal solutions business providing compliance solutions to small and mid-sized businesses for business formations, business license, digital brand protection and other governance, risk and compliance issues.

Prior to Wolters Kluwer Sengupta served as General Manager of American Express Merchant Financing. He started his career as a management consultant in Mitchell Madison Group’s New York office. Subsequently, as global head of Banking & Financial Services Practices at Inductis LLC (now part of EXL Service), he played a critical role in the firm’s growth, positioning it as a reputable player in big data analytics.

Wolters Kluwer ELM Solutions describes itself as  the “market-leading global provider of enterprise legal spend and matter management, contract lifecycle management and legal analytics solutions. The company provides a comprehensive suite of tools that address the growing needs of corporate legal operations departments to increase operational efficiency and reduce costs.” Corporate legal and insurance claims departments trust its innovative technology and end-to-end customer experience to drive world-class business outcomes.

“Corporate legal professionals are increasingly leveraging technology solutions and analytics to manage risk and drive operational efficiencies,” said Richard Flynn, CEO of Wolters Kluwer GRC. “Raja is a customer-focused leader who has combined data driven insights and advanced technology to create market-leading solutions for customers ranging from the largest global banks to start-up businesses.  I am excited that he will now bring this approach and expertise to serve our corporate legal and insurance customers and their law firms”.

Wolters Kluwer ELM Solutions was named a leader in both the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Enterprise Legal Spend Management 2020 Vendor Assessment and IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Enterprise Matter Management 2020 Vendor Assessment. The company’s award-winning products include Passport®, the highest rated ELM solution in the latest Hyperion MarketView^™ Legal Market Intelligence Report and TyMetrix® 360°, the industry’s leading SaaS-based e-billing and matter management solution. CLM Matrix, meanwhile, was named a “strong performer” in The Forrester Wave™: Contract Lifecycle Management For All Contracts, Q1 2021 report. ELM Solutions’ LegalVIEW® portfolio of legal analytics solutions is based upon the industry’s largest and most comprehensive legal spend database, with more than $140 billion in invoices.

“Wolters Kluwer ELM Solutions has a strong track record in delivering effective and innovative legal operations technology, including market leading legal analytics solutions. Our award-winning software materially supports customers and their efforts to achieve operational efficiencies and I am honored to be asked to lead a business with such a distinguished reputation,” Sengup​ta said.  “I look forward to working with the talented team to ensure our customers continue to benefit from new technology advances as the legal services market evolves.”

Sengupta’s team was named Financial Technology Senior Leadership Team of the Year in Corporate Vision’s Technology Innovator Awards, 2020. 

Filogix, a Finastra company, announced that Filogix Expert Pro now offers enhanced NOA functionality through an exclusive partnership with MrTaxes.ca Inc.The new functionality provides an unparalleled level of service to the Expert Pro user, all accomplished within the Expert Pro platform, with a turnaround time of as little as 30 minutes (within business hours), once customer consent is received.

Filogix Expert Pro has streamlined the process of retrieving necessary NOA documentation, including two years of Notices of Assessment and taxpayer’s statements, with all processes completed within the Filogix Expert Pro platform. The broker no longer needs to establish its own business relationship or process documents outside the platform to fulfill NOA requests for its borrower. And because the borrower completes the request for NOA documentation directly, without broker intermediation, the borrower’s data is protected as standard.

“Filogix is committed to leading the digital enablement of the Canadian mortgage industry,” said Siobhan Byron, Senior Vice President and Head of Finastra’s Technology Enabled Managed Services. “By partnering with MrTaxes.ca to enhance NOA capabilities within the Filogix Expert Pro platform, we are providing the industry with the most modern, fastest, seamless solution for assisting borrowers in obtaining important Canada Revenue Agency documents required by the lender.”

"MrTaxes.ca’s partnership with Filogix removes a significant hurdle for both brokers and clients,” added Robert Stone, Founder, President and CEO, MrTaxes.ca Inc. “Working together, we can better serve the mortgage community through the most comprehensive tax documentation service for mortgage brokers throughout Canada.”

Filogix Expert Pro’s enhanced NOA functionality follows the launch of Filogix Expert Pro and Filogix Expert Plus – solutions that digitize the full end-to-end mortgage process. Both Filogix Expert Pro and Filogix Expert Plus are built on the cloud-based point-of-sale mortgage capabilities obtained through the acquisition of Doorr to give Canadian mortgage professionals a dynamic platform to run their businesses, their way – anytime, anywhere.

Phrasee, the leader in brand language optimization, today announced Phrasee X, the first technology that allows marketers to automatically optimize language in real-time. 

The introduction of Phrasee X enters Phrasee into the $8.5b customer experience (CX) market as the only technology that enables brands to respond to customers more nimbly and personally by continually testing and updating their marketing language at each step of the customer journey.

Phrasee X uses advanced machine learning techniques to optimize brand language in real-time, at the click of a single button. It builds on Phrasee's natural language generation and deep learning capabilities to enhance its AI-powered SaaS platform. It is a ‘game-changer’ and allows brands to generate, optimize, automate and analyze language in their own brand voice.

Global brands including Domino’s, eBay, Groupon, FARFETCH and Walgreens trust Phrasee’s platform to generate on-brand language. With the development of Phrasee X, they will be able to test multiple messages at once to identify top-performing language, improving copy with each send to deliver the right content in digital environments – every time – to increase engagement and conversion rates.

The technology was built to seamlessly integrate with the largest CX marketing technology players, including Adobe and Salesforce. Phrasee X will power Phrasee’s existing products and future roadmap, which allow businesses to attract, engage, react to, and convert customers with optimized language.

“Our relationship with Phrasee goes from strength to strength,” said Marissa Contreras, Director, Retention Marketing & Marketing Operations, Sephora. “The technology and double digit results have been a revelation to us since we started working together in 2020. For Sephora, the AI natural language Phrasee generates with a click of a button is always on brand and streamlines the work of many. We kicked off using Phrasee across our email campaigns but quickly realized we should explore how we optimize our marketing language across the full customer journey." 

“Customer experience is king, and today’s marketers understand that their brand voice serves as a marketing megaphone, and the critical role language plays in allowing them to stay competitive,” said Parry Malm, CEO, Phrasee. “Phrasee X adds rocket fuel to our AI-Powered SaaS platform with the ability to test multiple messages at once for ongoing optimization.”

The launch coincides with Phrasee hiring Matt Simmonds as Chief Product Technology Officer (CPTO) to lead its technology development and product roadmap. Matt joins from Partnerize where he was also CPTO. Prior to that he held the position of VP, product management at Oracle Marketing Cloud.

“The pandemic has changed how brands connect with their customers. It’s created a huge new captive digital audience and driven a surge in demand for world-class content. Above all, it’s placed language at the heart of any customer experience strategy,” said Matt Simmonds. “I have been blown away by the Phrasee platform – it combines proprietary NLG, deep learning and optimization with human-specified guardrails that ensure all language is on brand and tuned to the needs of each marketing campaign. We solve a real problem for marketers and have proven ROI. This is a game-changer - AI just entered the marketing mainstream.”

Malm concludes: “For at least a decade, marketers have had it hammered into their skulls: right person, right message, right time. There are all kinds of ways to target the right person. There are plenty of tools for send-time optimization and dynamic, real-time content. But everyone totally skipped over that middle part about the right message. There is now no reason to ever get that wrong again.”

Signifyd, the leading provider of digital commerce protection, today announced a $205 million Series E growth equity financing led by Owl Rock Capital, with participation by financial services provider FIS and investment management organizations Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) and Neuberger Berman Investment Advisers. Their investment values the company at $1.34 billion and adds significant resources to expanding Signifyd’s Commerce Protection Platform and identity graph globally, across digital shopping and payments. The range of expertise in the investment syndicate speaks to Signifyd’s impact to date and the scale of the market opportunity ahead.

Indeed, the Series E will fuel acceleration of Signifyd’s 2020 momentum. In the past year, the company:

• Saw broad adoption by enterprise retailers such as Samsung, Lenovo, multiple divisions across Walmart, Lacoste, Rite Aid, Quiksilver, Build with Ferguson, Mango and many others.
• Was named one of the largest providers of Enterprise Fraud Management for Ecommerce by leading analyst firm, Forrester.   
• Exceeded 98% coverage of ecommerce shoppers in major markets, even for the largest retailers, resulting in conversion rate increases of up to 20% for Signifyd clients.
• Widened its global footprint, tripling the team in Europe and launching in LATAM.
• Doubled revenue year over year — Signifyd expects to hit a $200M revenue run rate in the next year.
• Achieved wide recognition as the market leader in commerce protection, including by analyst firms such as the Aite Group and Frost & Sullivan.

“Signifyd is mission-critical infrastructure for a growing number of retail’s biggest and best-known brands,” Owl Rock Managing Director Kurt Tenenbaum said. “They are poised to expand their position as the market leader in commerce protection just as rapidly shifting consumer preferences are driving an ecommerce inflection point we didn’t think we’d see for several years. We are excited about what the future holds for the company and are pleased to lead this investment and support the Signifyd team as they enter this next stage of strong growth.”

Signifyd will continue its legacy of unlocking better customer experience through identity-centric commerce protection and optimization. Signifyd created a market for guaranteed fraud protection against all chargebacks, including those resulting from consumer abuse.

Signifyd’s role as the innovation pioneer in payment optimization comes in the midst of ecommerce’s historic transformation. The pandemic and lockdowns pushed ecommerce sales to an historic high and launched an era requiring direct-to-consumer growth, expanded omnichannel fulfillment options and cross-border expansion.

"Last year we saw ecommerce sales and influence propelled into 2025. And yet the online checkout experience is stuck in 2015,” Signifyd CEO Raj Ramanand said. “With this latest investment, Signifyd has the roadmap, the resources and technical talent to enable merchants to push the customer experience to that future state — and to keep pushing it forward for years to come.”

Intelligent payment optimization is the next logical step for a new era of ecommerce. Brands and retailers are living in a world distinguished by:

• A requirement for more and richer data.
• The need for a tremendous expansion in fulfillment channels such as buy-online-pick-up-in-store and curbside pickup.
• Changing payments regulation, such as PSD2 and strong customer authentication (SCA).

“As the global ecommerce market continues to grow and payments and checkout needs become more complex, merchants require more sophisticated solutions to optimize transaction acceptance while protecting commerce,” said Jim Johnson, head of Merchant Solutions at FIS. "We are impressed with Signifyd’s innovative approach to this market need and are excited to partner with them.”

Signifyd designed its powerful Commerce Protection Platform to provide comprehensive fraud protection, abuse prevention and payment optimization. The platform provides merchants with an average 5% to 7% revenue lift and higher in many cases.

“I’m not surprised that Signifyd is building a new way of understanding shopper identity around the world and across the shopping journey,” said Santosh Marrivagu, head of UK & Ireland for Emma, Europe’s most-awarded mattress brand. “In one of our strategically key markets we partnered with Signifyd in the midst of a once-in-a-century pandemic. Within months, Signifyd was providing us with between 6% and 7% uplift. And we were serving customers better by making sure legitimate buyers were not being turned away.”

Signifyd’s latest investors point to strong pre-IPO credibility and momentum, with strong participation by crossover investor Neuberger Berman and long-term investors in public equity, such as CPP Investments. It also includes one of the world’s leading financial technology companies — FIS. The FIS investment deepens Signifyd’s connectivity in the payments and financial services ecosystem, adding to the expertise of prior investors such as American Express Ventures and Bain Capital.

The combination of the investment and accompanying expertise will help Signifyd accelerate its expansion in Latin America and continue its growth in EMEA. The global footprint will include ongoing additions to Signifyd’s product, customer success, risk intelligence and data science teams while expanding its development and engineering teams.