Radware® (NASDAQ: RDWR), a leading provider of cyber security and application delivery solutions, today announced that in response to the ever-increasing volume of attacks and strong business demand, it upgraded its Cloud DDoS Protection Service capacity to absorb DDoS attacks of up to 8Tbps. The company also announced the opening of an additional new cloud scrubbing centre in Amsterdam today, expanding the number of scrubbing centres to 14 deployed globally.  

“The recent ransom DDoS campaign that raged globally from September to December 2020 involved massive IoT botnet DDoS attacks, as well as other sophisticated, targeted attacks on organisations’ DNS infrastructure,” said Haim Zelikovsky, Vice President of Cloud Services at Radware. “Radware’s leading DDoS algorithms and mitigation technology, in conjunction with our ability to offer one of the largest mitigation capacities in the world, enables us to consistently stay ahead of threats, even the largest and most sophisticated DDoS attacks, while ensuring service availability.”  

Recently, Forrester ranked Radware as a leader for DDoS protection with the highest score in the current offering category.

The new scrubbing facility in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, complements Radware’s existing scrubbing centres worldwide. Radware’s 14 scrubbing centres are globally connected in full mesh mode using Anycast-based routing to allow mitigating DDoS attacks closest to their points of origin, and helping companies keep data within their borders.

Radware recently completed a major upgrade to all its existing scrubbing centres with the deployment of clusters of its market-leading DefensePro attack mitigation devices, equipped with Radware’s latest security algorithms with unique attack mitigation capabilities. Radware’s latest DefensePro technology analyzes traffic patterns, such as sudden and massive spikes, to provide automated, behaviour-based protection from fast moving, high volume, encrypted or very short duration DDoS attacks. This includes burst DDoS attacks, attacks on DNS infrastructure, and encrypted DDoS attacks.

Radware backs up these technological advancements with service excellence and dedication, including its Emergency Response Team, which has been successfully mitigating thousands of large-scale DDoS attacks annually.

About Radware

Radware® (NASDAQ: RDWR), is a global leader of cyber security and application delivery solutions for physical, cloud, and software defined data centres. Its award-winning solutions portfolio secures the digital experience by providing infrastructure, application, and corporate IT protection and availability services to enterprises globally. Radware’s solutions empower enterprise and carrier customers worldwide to adapt to market challenges quickly, maintain business continuity and achieve maximum productivity while keeping costs down. For more information, please visit www.radware.com.

Radware encourages you to join our community and follow us on: Facebook,  LinkedIn, Radware Blog, Twitter, YouTube, and Radware Mobile for iOS and Android.

©2021 Radware Ltd. All rights reserved. Any Radware products and solutions mentioned in this press release are protected by trademarks, patents and pending patent applications of Radware in the U.S. and other countries. For more details please see: https://www.radware.com/LegalNotice/. All other trademarks and names are property of their respective owners.

Following the sustained growth of Phoebus Software Limited (PSL), the balances of loans and savings serviced on the Phoebus servicing platform have now increased to over £70 billion.

This growth has been achieved during a significant period of investment in the Phoebus digital and ecosystem strategies.

PSL has made investment in its award-winning originations API which enables lenders to seamlessly on-board mortgages from any originations’ platform. This means PSL clients can choose to make a true ‘best of breed’ choice for both their originations and servicing end-user experience.

Other major investments include the Phoebus’ self-service portal which allows borrowers to digitally self-serve their mortgage accounts, putting them in control and helping to stem the flow of calls and correspondence into client call centres.      

Commenting on this milestone for the PSL business, Richard Pike, Sales and Marketing Director says, “We continue to grow both organically and in new business wins. The Phoebus product suite is renowned both in terms of functionality and stability and through our ecosystem and digital deliveries we can only see more successes in the future. Our continued investment in our products will ensure Phoebus remains at the forefront of market requirements and we look forward to announcing several new initiatives over the coming months.”

To find out more about PSL visit: www.phoebus.co.uk

International markets provide unique diversification opportunities for investors.  Especially in times of economic uncertainty, having viable instruments of portfolio diversification at hand  becomes utterly vital. FinEx ETF, the leader of the booming Russian ETF market, launches an Exchange  Traded Fund aimed precisely at delivering investors this opportunity. The fund, which is the FinEx  Developed Markets ex-USA UCITS ETF, tracks the Solactive GBS Developed Markets ex United States 200  USD Index. The launch builds on the recent successful engagement between FinEx and Solactive – with  nine funds already successfully traded on Moscow Exchange and other venues

The Solactive GBS Developed Markets ex United States 200 USD Index draws constituents from the Solactive Global Benchmark Series Index Universe. Securities within the index are sorted by free-float  market capitalization. With embedded tradability requirements, the index tracks the performance of the large  segment of the Developed Markets, excluding the United States.  

“ETFs gain popularity as we observe a surge in demand from clients around the world, not only limited to the  usual financial hubs in Europe, Asia, and the US,” comments Timo Pfeiffer, Chief Markets Officer at Solactive. “With FinEx, we have a strong relationship in the Russian market, and we are looking forward to future  engagements with them.” 

Oleg Yankelev, CEO of AMC FinEx Plus in Russia, said: “We aim at covering the needs of Russian investors in  terms of major asset classes. In this regard, adding International Equity is a no-brainer. The fund provides  exposure to finance, health, industrials and consumer goods and other sectors. Retail investors will be able to  create effective portfolios by combining the new Developed Markets ex-US fund with US equity, fixed income  and gold."

The FinEx Developed Markets ex-USA UCITS ETF started trading on the Moscow Exchange on April 13th,  2021. 

.

Forter, the leader in e-commerce fraud prevention, has announced a partnership with Flutterwave, Africa’s leading payments technology company. The partnership, the first of its kind in Africa, will enable merchants to accurately identify legitimate buyers from fraudsters, resulting in increased transaction approvals and reduced friction in the purchasing experience, all without the fear of fraud.

Servicing more than 290,000 businesses and processing over 140 million transactions worth over $USD 9 billion worldwide since inception, Flutterwave is Africa’s largest payment service provider. The partnership with Forter provides merchants with the confidence to accept more transactions and online shoppers with the flexibility to use alternative payment methods as well as traditional options like credit cards. The ability to attract, convert and retain new users is key as Forter’s research shows that today’s volume of new online users has increased by more than double since the start of COVID-19. However, new users are five to seven times more likely to be declined due to lack of data on these new users with legacy fraud prevention systems. This jeopardizes repeat business opportunities that are essential for retailers.

“We are excited about this partnership and our entry into the African market. Flutterwave now has access to Forter’s coalition of merchants, payment providers and banks fighting fraud on a global scale, utilizing our AI and ML technology to help foster ecommerce growth in a market with huge potential,” said Michael Reitblat, CEO of Forter. “At the same time, partnering with a market leader like Flutterwave allows us to provide its customers with the optimal user experience and with a trusted environment that enables them to safely grow with confidence.”

Commenting on the announcement, Olugbenga ‘GB’ Agboola, Founder and CEO of Flutterwave, said: “At Flutterwave, we take security seriously. Every transaction made on our platform is secured and even exceeds industry standards. By working with Forter we are able to achieve our vision of creating friction free commerce in Africa.  Our merchant network can focus on key business operational tasks and growth opportunities safe in the knowledge that our customers are protected against fraud. With Forter’s ability to instantly identify legitimate customers, we can further strengthen our commitment to fraud detection and security. This enables our customers to increase the volume of approved transactions, expand their business operations to reach new markets and build brand loyalty by providing an optimal, seamless and trustworthy consumer experience."

Payink, a fast-growing payments and receivables provider to professional services firms, has appointed Branislav Trajkovski as its CEO. Prior to joining Payink, Branislav scaled cross-border payments company Dlocal into a unicorn as the Global Head of Corporate Development and a Board Member.

“I am excited about the new phase of growth for Payink and what it means for our professional services clients. I am thrilled to welcome Branislav who brings unique experience in payments and professional services, being a former Big4 chartered accountant himself.” said Gail Armstrong, co-founder and COO of Payink. “We have successfully launched our integrated payments and accounts receivable management solution for US lawfirms - with Branislav’s help, I have no doubt we will be able to continue scaling our US operations faster, but also expand our footprint in other geographies and verticals, like accountancy firms and immigration / relocation specialists”, added Armstrong.

Branislav brings more than 18 years of experience in payments and professional services. In his latest role as the Global Head of Corporate Development and a Board Member, Branislav has scaled Dlocal from humble start-up to international payments unicorn, executing transactions with General Atlantic, Addition Partners, Alkeon Capital, Tiger Global, Bond and D1 Capital. Prior to that, Branislav served as COO / CFO and Board member of payments unicorn Astropay/Directa24 where he scaled it from a 20 people start-up to $150m+ EBITDA business at present. He started his career with PricewaterhouseCoopers in London where he qualified as a chartered accountant, before moving into investment banking at Jefferies, advising on numerous technology M&A and capital markets transactions, and then into venture capital as Managing Partner at Azar Capital Partners and General Partner at Expand Venture in London.

“I am very excited to lead the next phase of growth of the company together with Gail”, said Trajkovski. “I believe Payink offers a next-generation value proposition for professional services firms, and the company has already achieved tremendous traction with clients. There is so much potential to scale the company internationally and continue to deliver value to professional services clients” added Trajkovski.
 

Global FinTech Paysend has reached a new milestone of 3.5 million customers on its digital money and global money transfer platform.

Having reached 2.5 million customers on November 4th, 2020, the firm’s growth acceleration has continued at pace, and 2 million new users have joined the platform since the start of the pandemic in March of last year.

With daily registrations in excess of the 6,000 mark, Paysend has its sights set on further growth and success in the digital money space in the coming years. Its global transfer platform has expanded to over 110 international corridors, with new destinations being added every month.

“Paysend has developed into one of the world’s fastest-growing FinTechs, and our mission to save time, save money and service millions is going extremely well”, Ronnie Millar, Paysend CEO said. “We connect millions of people every day with our affordable and hassle-free digital money solutions that give people more control over their hard-earned cash and help them to avoid high bank fees."

“Despite our ongoing success, this is still just the beginning of a big journey for us - watch out the space for more big news to come!”

About Paysend

Paysend is a global FinTech company born in 2017, based in UK and regulated by the FCA. Servicing over 3.5 million customers in 50+ countries and multiple currencies, Paysend enables instant cross-border transfers, card processing and merchant acquiring as well as local payments in a way which is simple, smart and secure.

As a global end-to-end payment platform Paysend has its own global network of banks, international and local payment systems, and has partnerships with the major international card networks Visa, Mastercard and China Union Pay as a principal member and certified processor. Paysend recently opened its US operations and secured a partnership with Alipay in order to grow its global footprint.

Paysend is money for the future.

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.”

RTGS.global, the world’s first real-time cross-border liquidity network, today announces the appointment of Dave Sissens as CEO. Dave will drive an accelerated commercial strategy at RTGS.global and operationalisation of the company’s services, as announced by RTGS.global founder Nick Ogden.

The appointment follows a successful first two years of operation and comes as RTGS.global ramps up commercial efforts to serve global demand. In September 2020, the company launched stage one of its operational rollout, the result of a collaboration with Microsoft. The transformative new system enables banks to gain complete visibility of liquidity between their counterparties, for the first time. 

Dave brings decades of experience in building and growing financial market infrastructures. His leadership skills and strengths in strategy, delivery and technology were forged across many leadership roles during his >20-year tenure at CLS – the largest global settlement system, which processes transactions of multi-trillion dollar values a day. More recently, Dave was the Chief Solutions Officer for FNA, a deep technology firm which specialises in the design, analytics and simulation of payment systems.  In this role, Dave was responsible for all revenue and ensuring the strategic alignment of the advanced technology to the market’s requirements.

Throughout his career Dave has retained a deep focus on reducing risk in global markets, specifically settlement risk. Having worked closely with the world’s largest banks and Central Banks, Dave is acutely aware of the risks, challenges and opportunities they face when processing cross-border transactions. 

RTGS.global was founded by fintech entrepreneur and founder of Worldpay and ClearBank, Nick Ogden. The company’s mission is to solve financial friction which is currently estimated to cost the global economy close to $15 trillion dollars per year1. RTGS.global does this by bringing together banks and their liquidity to form the world’s first liquidity network. The network makes liquidity visible, enabling bi-lateral liquidity transfers that settle instantly. For the first time, Liquidity vs Liquidity (LvL) transfers are possible. 

Dave Sissens, CEO, RTGS.global, says: “The systems, processes and solutions supporting cross-border financial transactions have evolved slowly over the past decades. This slow development has in fact increased transactional friction, decelerating the progress of the financial services industry when compared to digital innovation elsewhere. RTGS.global’s unique liquidity platform brings transformational change to an industry in which customers are demanding less friction, more transparency and instant transactional completion. I am extremely excited to join the company at this time in its evolution, as it deploys a solution which transforms liquidity movement across a wide range of financial markets, promising to forever change the way that global payments operate.”

Nick Ogden, Founder, RTGS.global, says: “We are delighted to welcome Dave, to lead the next phase of RTGS.global’s development. RTGS.global was born out of a desire to eliminate financial friction and risk, and we have already made incredible strides towards achieving that vision. As we continue to build out our global platform,  institutions around the world are now engaged with us as we move towards fully service availability this year. We are now ready to execute our commercial growth strategy and bolster our leadership team with the key skills we require to  serve the  demand developing from the industry internationally, including from banks, central banks, financial institutions and others. Dave’s experience and strengths make him an ideal candidate for this key role, and I look forward to working with him to take RTGS.global to the next level of global success.”

FXCM Group, LLC (“FXCM Group’ or ‘FXCM’), the leading international provider of online foreign exchange trading, CFD trading and related services, is today announcing an expansion of its Single Share CFD and proprietary Stock Basket product lines.

Having recently been awarded Best Zero Commission* Broker in the 2021 ADVFN International Finance Awards, FXCM is continuing to expand its offering to include shares from Hong Kong’s primary exchange the HKEX, and an additional 50 NYSE and NASDAQ listed companies to its US Share CFD offering.

Trading shares with FXCM does not include any minimum commission values, allowing clients to start with trade sizes as small as 1/10^th of a share on US, DE, FR and UK listed companies.

Additionally, the firm has expanded its stock basket offering by launching the “Big China Tech (ATMX)” basket. FXCM now offers a portfolio of fourteen stock baskets which combine the shares of multiple companies from one sector into a single tradeable instrument.

The Big China Tech (ATMX) basket consists of four of the most popular Chinese tech stocks listed in Hong Kong, Alibaba, Tencent, Meituan Dianping and Xiaomi. These stocks are rapidly growing and are considered a benchmark index for the performance of the Chinese Tech industry, being comparable to its US counterpart - the FAANG index.

Stock trading is available via FXCM’s proprietary website, mobile and desktop trading platforms in addition to a multitude of third-party platforms via FXCM’s robust REST, FIX, JAVA and FOREXCONNECT APIs.

Brendan Callan, CEO of FXCM commented: “Our Stock Basket and Share CFD products are some of our most popular instruments and we are excited to announce their expansion, providing even more trade opportunities for our clients. With constantly shifting markets and new company shares booming, we will always continue our focus on growing our offering so that clients can make the most of their FXCM account, no matter what is moving in the markets.”

The list of available companies for share trading and the weightings of all FXCM Stock Baskets and is available via FXCM’s website www.fxcm.com

*FXCM can be compensated in several ways, which includes but are not limited to adding a mark-up to the spreads it receives from its liquidity providers, adding a mark-up to rollover, etc. Commission-based pricing is applicable to Active Trader account types.

Leading AI technology solutions provider, Pelican, announced today that Bank of Montreal (BMO) has recently gone live with Pelican Intelligent Financial Hub – STP, Pelican’s payment analytics, intelligent automation and straight-through processing (STP) solution. The bank and its customers will benefit from enhanced infrastructure and operational payment capabilities. 

BMO selected Pelican as a part of its North American payment modernization initiative, which includes payment industry changes to high value payments. As a result of the implementation of Pelican’s solution, customers of the bank will benefit from higher STP rates allowing payments to be processed more quickly and reach beneficiary accounts faster.

“Investing in an intelligent payment infrastructure with automation is the right thing to do – now more than ever,” said Parth Desai, Founder and CEO of Pelican. “With the ever-increasing processing volumes and innovation in payments, banks need the right mix of technology to offer advanced and intelligent payment processing, as well as innovative solutions to improve their unique capabilities. BMO made the right decision for its customers by choosing to invest in its core payment infrastructure. The benefits will be seen for years to come.” 

“Pelican has delivered a comprehensive, intelligent and cost-effective payment enrichment solution that will improve the STP rate, resulting in a reduction of overall manual repairs and a decrease in operational costs,” said Derek Vernon, Head, Enterprise Payments Modernization, BMO Financial Group. "Most importantly, it will further enable our commitment to continuous innovation. Pelican’s solution meets both current and future business and technology requirements and will help us quickly evolve future capabilities.” 

Pelican’s solution continuously improves straight through processing, allowing financial institutions to target a 95%+ rate in their STP capabilities, with the ability to support both current and future SWIFT message formats. The AI and Natural Language Processing (NLP) based technologies will help organizations achieve higher STP processing goals, reduce manual processing and provide the modern payment infrastructure needed to adapt to new messaging standards such as ISO 20022 for both domestic and cross border payments.

About Pelican

Pelican has pioneered the practical application of Artificial Intelligence technology for over twenty years. Pelican provides banks and corporates with solutions that enhance, streamline and secure the payments lifecycle, partnering with customers to deliver innovative and agile solutions and drive growth. To date, Pelican has enabled outstanding efficiency benefits and increased speed to market for customers in over 55 countries, processing more than one billion transactions worth over US$5 trillion. Pelican is a global company with offices in New York, London, Dubai, Mumbai and Hong Kong.

Pelican offers a full range of payment and compliance solutions, covering every operational and regulatory aspect. Pelican uses NLP, ML, and AI to enable high levels of automation and rich intuitive interfaces for management of payments, with self-learning capabilities. Together, the solutions offer an intelligent way to manage processes and meet objectives by leveraging the latest technologies.