Baton Systems (“Baton”), a provider of post-trade solutions for capital markets, has named as Senior Advisor the Honorable J. Christopher (“Chris”) Giancarlo former Chairman of the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Giancarlo’s distinguished background will play a key role in supporting Baton’s mission to transform the post-trade payments and settlements ecosystem. 

Giancarlo served as 13th Chairman of the CFTC. He was first nominated as a CFTC Commissioner by President Barack Obama and unanimously confirmed in June 2014. He was subsequently nominated as CFTC Chairman by President Donald Trump and again unanimously confirmed in August 2017. He departed the CFTC in July 2019 following the expiration of his five-year term. 

Acronis, a global leader in cyber protection, today introduced a new partner portal that delivers greater support and enhanced marketing and sales capabilities to the service providers, distributors, and resellers in the #CyberFit Partner Program. The new portal was developed to enhance partner enablement, providing easy access to the content, tools, and training that will help them build a successful cyber protection business.

Given the dramatic growth of the Acronis cloud ecosystem – which has doubled since 2018, including a 30% increase in partners last year – the company wanted to revitalise its partner portal with a familiar, easy-to-use interface while providing new capabilities that help partners maximise the potential and profitability of their cyber protection portfolio.

“Acronis knows that our success is tied directly to the success of our partners, which is why we do all we can to accelerate their business growth. We recently introduced our flagship Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud with a no-charge licencing model to allow for incremental margins, as well as enhanced incentives for our newly announced #CyberFit Partner Program,” said Jan-Jaap “JJ” Jager, Chief Revenue Officer, Acronis. “With our new partner portal, we’re making it even easier to leverage those initiatives, putting the knowledge, tools, and support needed to deliver comprehensive cyber protection at our partners’ fingertips.”

Available in six languages and accessible through the existing partner portal URL, the new portal puts even more power in the hands of Acronis’ service provider, reseller, and distribution partners. Among the featured enhancements are:

• Easier navigation with a central dashboard that provides a partner an account overview at a glance with customisable widgets that show support cases, MDF, deal registration, renewal opportunities, and more. Partner programme benefits and requirements are immediately accessible, as are special promotional offers. With an interface that mirrors the existing Acronis Management Console, access can be set based on roles and responsibilities. 
• Enhanced marketing and sales support, including built-in marketing automation tools that streamline the ability to promote and sell, share email blasts, and offer renewals pipeline management for resellers. Partners also gain access to Acronis’ NFR Program as well.
• Ready-made and DIY marketing content that can be executed directly from the portal, including campaigns-in-a-box, email nurture flows, social media content, email blasts, customisable web banners and landing pages, and more provide partners with flexible, self-service marketing opportunities. 
• Increased support visibility for both technical and sales tickets with a new Support section that streamlines case submission and provides easily tracked support tickets. Managing sales and renewals opportunities is also made easier.
• Specialized training from the Acronis #CyberFit Academy – including product training, technical certifications, etc. – can also be accessed directly through the new partner portal.

Partners who have participated in testing the new portal agree that the new capabilities will benefit their go-to-market efforts and help them streamline their sales and marketing initiatives.

“Acronis has created a seamless and exceptional user interface with its new Partner Portal. From product management to technical support, we feel more connected than ever to Acronis’ team of advisors and continue to learn how to improve our own sales experience on the new platform,” said Evangelos Tselios, Cloud Product Manager at interworks.cloud. “This outstanding development is well-organized and filled with useful content and information, truly honoring one of Acronis’ true core values of transparency. This new portal is a great example of how Acronis values its partners.”

All Acronis partners immediately gain benefits through the new portal. More advanced capabilities are also available to higher-level partners through the portal. 

Anyone interested in seeing a demo of the new Acronis Partner Portal is encouraged to attend the launch webinar that will be taking place on Wednesday 28^th April. To register and for additional details, visit here.

To learn more about the Acronis #CyberFit Partner Program, visit https://www.acronis.com/en-us/partners/. 

Thematic investing is a way to focalize asset allocation upon specific business  sectors or themes. Its goal is to benefit from economic trends and advancements in technological innovation. Horizons ETFs now release an ETF pooling the largest companies of four of the most thriving  industrial sectors – the battery, biotech, internet, and gaming industry – into one fund, the Horizons Global  BBIG Technology ETF. The ETF tracks the Solactive Global BBIG Index. 

Technology innovation helps to solve society’s biggest concerns, and the global pandemic is one of the latest  examples where new issues turn the spotlight towards particular industrial sectors, potentially catalyzing  their long-term success. Studies say that, from 2021 to 2028, the biotech sector is expected to expand at a  CAGR of 15.83%, culminating in market size of USD 2.44 trillion.1 The battery sector benefits equally from a  problem-centered demand as cars ought to be less pollutive – hence relying on battery operation – or from the  mobilization of electronic devices. Solactive’s Global BBIG Index takes a four-tier approach selecting one quarter of its components from each of the abovementioned industry categories. 

The Solactive Global BBIG Index 

The Solactive Global BBIG Index is comprised of all financial instruments listed in Developed Markets as  defined by the Solactive Country Classification Framework. Innovative health care companies, active in, e.g.,  gene editing and genomics, bioinformatics, and developing and producing biopharmaceuticals, are subsumed  in the Biotech segment of the index. Companies developing software, cybersecurity, and cloud products and  those offering services related to these products, as well as social network providers and e-commerce  platforms, are classified as Internet companies at the index composition. The Gaming Subindustry contains companies that develop or publish video games, operate or own competitive esports leagues or teams, and  companies that produce hardware used in video games or esports, including augmented and virtual reality. 

Companies in the secondary battery industry, such as industrial and consumer battery manufacturers, battery  component manufacturers, and battery cell part producers, are pooled in the Battery segment of the index. 

ARTIS® 

The selection of the Solactive Innovative Global Equity Index’s constituents is based on Solactive’s proprietary  Natural Language Processing Engine ARTIS®. ARTIS® utilizes advanced algorithms to parse high volumes of  public documents evaluating companies’ exposure to various themes or topics. The sophisticated procedure  not only detects potential index constituents considering a firm’s exposure to a theme but also ranks its  importance to the very subject or industry. 

“Thematic Investing is in great demand among investors, both retail and institutional alike,” comments Timo  Pfeiffer, Chief Markets Officer at Solactive. “As an expert in thematic ETFs, Horizons ETFs now pooled four of  the most promising industries with potentially high long-term demand into one easily accessible ETF. We are  very happy to contribute as the index provider to this auspicious ETF launch.” 

“Our continued partnership with Solactive AG has enabled us to continue to bring future-forward index  strategies to Canadian investors, including today’s launch of BBIG, an ETF that offers exposure to four key  industries leading the technological revolution: secondary batteries, biotechnology, internet and gaming,” said  Steve Hawkins, President and CEO of Horizons ETFs. “In addition, BBIG’s innovative index uses Solactive’s  proprietary ARTIS® algorithm, a prime example of the cutting-edge index technology now offered by Solactive.  We are excited to work together again to offer exposure to the global digital revolution that is underway.” 

Propetly, a new marketplace for buying and selling investment properties, partners with Sumsub, an identity verification solution that provides an all-in-one technical and legal toolkit for KYC/KYB/AML needs. In an otherwise stagnant industry in which efficiency has only increased by 4% over the past 30 years, Propetly and Sumsub are motivated to provide an easy, accessible, and secure way to invest into properties. 

Propetly is a platform that automates investment property transactions in the UK. It helps buyers analyse market offers and invest smarter by providing AI-generated summary reports on land for development, property refurbishments, and buy-to-let properties. For estate agents, the platform is a single hub for managing properties, as well as creating and sharing presentations with potential buyers. 

Because Propetly sought to automate a very rigid market that hasn't changed for 30 years straight, they needed an onboarding solution that would make verification quick and easy for all users. Sumsub enables Propetly with quick, 2-3 minute user verification.

Before allowing investors and agents to invest in property in the UK, they are asked by Propetly to submit identity documents and pass a video liveness check. These sophisticated, protective steps allow for careful verification of users and detection of money laundering activity. Sumsub ensures that this process is people-friendly and in-line with UK regulations. In addition, Sumsub has provided Propetly with a KYB solution, ensuring that onboarded real estate companies are trustworthy and don’t pose any risks.

“Our aim is to make buying and selling properties quicker than traditional, long-established methods. We want our investment platform to be safe, efficient, and accessible for anybody. Sumsub helped us achieve this by complementing our solution with effortless user verification that reduced onboarding to just a few minutes. That's why Sumsub was the only choice to support us through our mission and further growth.”—Brian Cartwright, Managing Director at Propetly.

“Property remains one of the best investments. However, with property investment becoming more accessible online, it’s important to keep the process safe from fraud and abuse. We are happy to see how Propetly automates the otherwise complicated process of property investment. So, on our part, we want to ensure proper verification of agents and users on Propetly’s platform. This will secure their workflow, so they can focus on global expansion.”—Jacob Sever, Founder of Sumsub.

Ecommerce data specialist Conjura has launched a new data due diligence service, Snapshot. This allows businesses preparing for a funding round to assess the customer data they hold. This can be used to demonstrate current performance and also identify potential growth opportunities. Conversely, Snapshot can be used by investors to audit and analyse granular transaction level business data to help them decide whether to invest or not.

Conjura Snapshot plugs in direct to the APIs of the majority of cloud-based tools and systems used by ecommerce businesses to provide an overview of online/offline sales, customer marketing, product development and stock management.

It anonymises customer data and automates the analysis of unit economics on a granular transactional and product level. This enables users to review factors like revenue, gross margin, sessions, conversion rate, customer acquisition cost, repurchase rate, customer lifetime value and so-on on a forensic level. The metrics can then be broken down by territory, channel, device, product category and more.

Fran Quilty, CEO of Conjura, says: “Due diligence ahead of an investment or acquisition has traditionally been conducted around four pillars – legal, operational, commercial and technical. Any data analysed within this process was completed manually and was not ‘live’ – typically it would be at least two to three months old – as we know, a lot can change in three months."

“Snapshot changes the game, for the first time investors can pull objective insights direct to benchmark the target’s performance against its peers. Equally, any ecommerce business looking for funding needs to demonstrate it has a clear handle on data processes. Snapshot gives them the means to get their data house in order and make a clear case for investment before they initiate conversations with investors.”

Having the opportunity to review business metrics at a customer, cohort, product or industry level provides valuable insights into current performance. Snapshot offers revenue contextualisation by looking at metrics that businesses may previously have neglected, it can be used to expose risk, validate KPIs and uncover fresh opportunities for growth.

Fran Quilty continues: “The ecommerce space is consolidating fast so there are a lot of businesses looking for growth funding to stay ahead of the game. This means investors are spoilt for choice but they need to be sure they’ll see a return on their investment. Revenue figures in isolation don’t tell the full story though, Snapshot gives them an easier way to spot the red flags for why they shouldn’t invest."

“Ecommerce businesses and investors alike need to be able to disprove qualitative assumptions about customers, acquisition channels and so on. Snapshot is a single source of truth, it joins the dots between marketing and operations to answer questions you didn’t even know you had and reveals where growth will actually come from.”

Conjura is able to provide Snapshot due diligence reports within seven working days, for more information please visit https://conjura.com/what-we-do/

Provenir, a global leader in risk decisioning and data analytics software, today announced that TransUnion (NYSE: TRU) has joined the Provenir Marketplace. 

The Provenir Marketplace platform provides organizations with a one-stop data hub for easy access to data covering open banking, KYC/KYB, fraud prevention, credit risk, verifications, social media, collections, affordability and more. 

To meet consumer and business demands for instant approvals, organizations need immediate access to a wide range of data sources to make informed, accurate risk decisions. TransUnion, a global information and insights company, will provide Provenir Marketplace users with access to industry leading data, analytics and solutions for real-time credit decisioning and consumer or device authentication, ensuring consumers and organizations can transact with confidence. 

“This unique Marketplace brings together the leading stewards of data from around the globe to accelerate risk decisioning,” said Kathy Stares, Executive Vice President, Provenir Americas. “The wealth of data TransUnion brings will be extremely valuable to organizations seeking to make more informed decisions across the customer lifecycle.”  

The Marketplace provides users with access to a wide variety of traditional and alternative global data, enabling them to make smarter risk decisions faster. By leveraging distinctive identifiers, information and insights available from TransUnion alternative and trended data innovations, organizations can gain a deeper and more diversified view of consumers and stay ahead of evolving risk strategies.

“The access to data provided by the Provenir Marketplace aligns with our company’s intent to provide information that can help people around the world access the opportunities that lead to a higher quality of life,” said Aaron Smith, Vice President - Global Technology Alliances, Transunion. “We are excited to provide access to our incredibly valuable data through this innovative data sharing community.”

 Financial Dots Limited has chosen Envestnet | Yodlee (NYSE: ENV), a leading data aggregation and data analytics platform for financial services, to provide open banking and non-open banking data services for its customers with an initial client focus in the United Kingdom.

The partnership will enable Financial Dots’ customers to view all of their cross-border financial accounts and investments in one place for people working and living abroad. Financial Dots launched the interface to focus on customers that are dealing with cross-border challenges, helping them navigate the complex environment of their own financial and personal circumstances. Financial Dots’ hybrid model incorporates their technology solutions while delivering consultation from advisors and financial service professionals.

Envestnet | Yodlee is the market leader in financial data aggregation, enabling innovation and insights for financial service providers. It has partnered with more than 1,400 financial institutions and FinTech innovators, which enables firms to build innovative financial solutions with access to an industry-leading application programming interface (API). Envestnet | Yodlee’s API will provide Financial Dots with its scale of consumer-permissioned financial data across multiple countries, enabling Financial Dots to provide their customers with a more holistic view of their finances.

Jason O'Shaughnessy, Head of International Business at Envestnet | Yodlee, said: “Financial Dots will be able to offer a seamless and secure service to its customer base through our API. Having instant access to all of your financial information in one place makes managing your personal accounts and investments that much easier, giving you more control of your personal finances overall – highlighting the importance of Open Finance.”

John Bartter, CEO & Founder of Financial Dots, said: “Working and living abroad is on the rise as multinational companies fight to maintain global competitiveness and people look to enhance life experiences. These highly sophisticated global citizens establish complicated profiles that require tailor-made services. We aim to bring simplicity, structure, and prosperity to their lives.” 

About Envestnet  

Envestnet, Inc. (NYSE: ENV) is transforming the way financial advice and wellness are delivered. Our mission is to empower advisors and financial service providers with innovative technology, solutions, and intelligence to make financial wellness a reality for everyone. Over 106,000 advisors and more than 5,100 companies including: 17 of the 20 largest U.S. banks, 47 of the 50 largest wealth management and brokerage firms, over 500 of the largest RIAs and hundreds of FinTech companies, leverage Envestnet technology and services that help drive better outcomes for enterprises, advisors and their clients.      

Bottomline, a leading provider of financial technology that makes business payments simple, smart and secure, today announced that LHV and The Access Bank UK Ltd have signed up to the business’ cloud-based Confirmation of Payee (CoP) service to help combat APP fraud.

Introduced in July 2020, Confirmation of Payee is a fraud prevention system led by Pay.UK and operated with Open Banking, which confirms the recipient’s name matches the details held by the bank. This process is designed to address both payment errors and rising incidents of Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud, where a consumer or business gets tricked into approving a payment to a fraudster’s account.

As early adopters of CoP, LHV and The Access Bank UK Ltd will now have access to Bottomline’s full CoP service for inbound and outbound payments. The new measure provides the banks’ customers with an extra layer of defence against APP fraud and greater assurance that their payments are going to the right recipient. The service uses Bottomline’s API to validate the beneficiary’s name and account details against the information held on file whether sending or receiving payments, protecting the banks’ reputation as the trusted custodian of customer funds.

Marten Vill, Open Banking and API Product Manager at LHV, commented: “Using the latest SaaS technology to protect our customers' money is an important differentiator for us. We wanted to make sure we joined Phase 1 of CoP to immediately eliminate the rising losses in APP fraud in the industry, which rose to £479 million in 2020. CoP will also be a valuable building block in our constantly improving set of API services that we offer to our FinTech customers.”

Bob Attwood, Head of IT and Operations at The Access Bank UK Ltd, said: “As a relationship bank, we want to make sure our customers are fully protected against the growing instances of APP fraud, whilst making it as simple as possible for our customers to send funds to us. Bottomline provides this out of the box with their CoP solution.”

Ed Adshead-Grant, General Manager, Payments at Bottomline, added: “The latest figures reported by UK Finance show that APP fraud remains stubbornly high, with a 22% increase in cases. Beyond the risk of financial losses, CoP will help banks improve their customer journey and support ongoing trust in their brand. With 95% of UK banks still introducing CoP, we believe more needs doing to encourage universal adoption to lock out the organised criminal activity and ensure deposits flow efficiently and correctly.”

About Bottomline: 
Bottomline (NASDAQ: EPAY) makes complex business payments simple, smart, and secure. Corporations and banks rely on Bottomline for domestic and international payments, efficient cash management, automated workflows for payment processing and bill review, and state of the art fraud detection, behavioral analytics and regulatory compliance solutions. Thousands of corporations around the world benefit from Bottomline solutions. Headquartered in Portsmouth, NH, Bottomline delights customers through offices across the U.S., Europe, and Asia-Pacific. For more information visit www.bottomline.com.