●     Fineco announces highly competitive rates across its stocks and shares ISA with annual charges of up to a maximum of 0.25%

●     According to research, 74% of people had an ISA account and two-thirds of those who did were planning to change their ISA provider this year, showing the dynamism of the market

●     Zero fees if you open a Stock and Shares ISA or transfer your ISA to Fineco

From today, Fineco’s new ISA will be available to savers who are looking to make the most of their money and tax free savings.

Both new and existing UK customers will be able to benefit from Fineco’s new stocks and shares ISA with competitive fees, based on the exact value saved, up to a maximum of 0.25%.

There is no cost to set up the ISA and no minimum starting amount. Customers can also access savings from your ISA at anytime, with no penalties for withdrawing.

The launch of Fineco’s new ISA follows research which found that 60% of respondents have modified how they save in the last 12 months, with 53% planning to save more compared to last year. The same number of those surveyed – 53% – said they were planning to maximize their ISA contribution.

Paolo Di Grazia, deputy general manager and head of global business of Fineco: “In the last 12 months many savers have changed their approach to savings. Among our customers, we have seen a clear trend to save more and more and to look for the best investing options. We want to support customers to achieve their savings goals and we believe that regular monthly savings are a great way to begin investing. We are proud to offer our UK customers efficient and flexible ISA options at competitive rates.”

Fineco has recently launched a new offer – when opening a Fineco Stocks and Shares ISA or transferring an ISA between 3 March and 30 June, access Fineco’s ISA investment platform with zero fees until the end of the 2021/2022 tax year (5 April 2022). 

For more information about Fineco’s ISA visit: https://finecobank.co.uk/public/investing/isa/

additiv, a leading SaaS provider to the wealth management industry and Bricknode, a progressive Swedish B2B company providing highly scalable cloud banking software for back office services, today announce their partnership.

The collaboration enables financial institutions to select an established end-to-end solution for all their client’s wealth management needs. It adds Bricknode’s Brokerage-as-a-Service, providing fully scalable back-office and record-keeping functionality to additiv’s already broad product range which includes extensive orchestration and client engagement capabilities. Together, the partnership offers a complete and ready package, from a trusted source, to leverage the digital age.

Stefan Willebrand, CEO from Bricknode said “Our partnership with additiv was the natural choice. Bricknode are quickly being recognized as offering cutting edge B2B cloud-based, composable infrastructure software in Sweden and beyond, but with additiv we are taking the breadth of service within wealth management to the next level. Together we can ensure that the wealth management industry can seamlessly access an entire ‘plug-and-play’ digital wealth management platform.“

Eric Andersson, General Manager Europe at additiv said “At additiv we recognize the growing need for banks and other financial institutions to offer Wealth Management-as-a-Service. Clients expect to access the services they want through the distribution channel that makes most sense; typically, the channel that is most convenient or has the highest level of engagement. Combining Bricknode’s and additiv’s capabilities, the partnership enables a complete solution for our customers for them to leverage the Wealth Management-as-a-Service opportunity.”

Eric Andersson added: “Wealth Management-as-a-Service represents an expansion opportunity for financial institutions to open up parts of the market that remain underserved and difficult to access. And, as clients are already customers of the distribution partner, it can also lower client acquisition costs. Our partnership with Bricknode is essential to enable this new approach to wealth management for our customers.“

It is predicted that there will be 7,5 billion Internet users by 2030 and that more than 111 billion lines of new software code is produced each year. While the growth is exciting, these statistics also outline the number of vulnerabilities open to exploitation. Together with an estimated  96 zettabytes of digital content currently produced, this sheer volume will lead to increased cyber-attacks and security events, all of which will be virtually impossible for humans to contain.

Ryan Mer, Managing Director, eftsure Africa, a Know Your Payee™ (KYP) platform provider, says that cyber security is almost always a people problem first: “While the amount of business transactions taking place online is constantly growing and working from home is now commonplace, business controls have not kept pace with digital transformation. This has led to increasing demand for cybersecurity solutions.”

Mer says that this is where the eftsure SaaS platform is making a big difference in businesses of all sizes. The fintech company provides verification of payee and payment data software to businesses to protect against payment fraud in the B2B sector: “We provide a platform to digitise and automate the verification of payees and eft payment data, on a continuous basis through our KYP technology. eftsure protects companies against fraud and error made through incorrect, fraudulently changed or maliciously altered payee information.”

Cybercrime targeted at businesses is fuelled by email usage, social engineering and gaps in payment systems. Mer offers the following tips to stay ahead of cyber scams:

1. Understand The Risks

The tactics used by cybercriminals are constantly evolving and include the likes of business email compromise, social engineering, malicious software, phishing, ransomware, and even recruiting insiders to help. Most organisations also rely on manual processes, which in turn, have numerous gaps and rely heavily on human input and decision making. Researching and understanding the many ways you could be attacked is your first line of defence. It’s also crucial to understand the risks specific to your own organisation and to identify its weak spots. This means testing your current processes and systems to identify vulnerabilities, perhaps with the help of more experienced external experts.

2. Beef Up Your Basic Security

Consider restricting user access to certain systems and applications and ensure those who leave the company no longer have any access. Look at whether you can strengthen the company’s passwords — for example, by requiring them to have more characters and a combination of letters, numbers and symbols. In addition, passwords should be changed on a regular basis and if possible, two factor authentication should be used. Review whether there are any vulnerabilities in how your company provides remote access.

3. Tighten Your Payments Security

Once you understand the threats out there, take a hard look at your payments processes and identify potential weaknesses. Ways to plug these could include ensuring there is clear separation of duties between staff and adding more verification steps. Promote a culture where it’s safe for staff to question any requests that don’t look right. Also, encourage them not to rely on email and to actively verify money transfer requests and changes in supplier payment details. While checking with senior executives or verifying by phone are options, they are time consuming, inefficient and hold their own risks. Independent third-party platforms, such as eftsure, can help manage supplier data and automate payment checking and supplier verification, saving time on manual processes and reducing human error.

4. Train Your Staff

Since employees are usually the target of cybercrime, especially those in finance and accounts payable, equip them with the skills and tools to spot threats and respond effectively. Introduce cyber safety awareness programs, workshops and simulations that teach staff how to recognise spam and phishing messages and make them aware of the wide variety of threats out there. Also instruct them on how to identify and report suspicious online activity.

5. Make Cyber Security Part of Your DNA

Constantly reminding staff at all levels about the risks of cybercrime will, over time, help build a strong security-conscious culture for your entire business. Ensure the right tone is set from the top down and that management sets a good example. And remember this is just the start! Constantly review this threat and keep getting better at fighting it because, as the statics and headlines keep confirming, cybercriminals just keep getting better at what they do.

Metapraxis, the financial analytics technology business, today announces that Jacqueline de Rojas, CBE, previously an advisor to Metapraxis, has been appointed as Chair of the Board of Directors.

Jacqueline is President of techUK and Co-Chair of the Institute of Coding. She serves as Non-Executive Director on the boards of Rightmove, Costain Group and FDM Group plc. She is active in government circles to create conditions for the technology industry to thrive. Jacqueline previously held senior executive roles at Citrix, CA Technologies, McAfee, Cartesis and Business Objects.

Jacqueline de Rojas comments:

“I am looking forward to working with the Metapraxis team to support and drive business expansion in Europe, the USA and Asia. The Metapraxis purpose “to empower good businesses with data-driven insight” is particularly relevant in managing risk and opportunity. The pandemic has highlighted the need for finance teams to adopt automation and analytics in order to support more effective planning and decision making. In this regard Metapraxis Empower technology is a game changer.”

Simon Bittlestone, CEO of Metapraxis, comments:

“I am delighted that we have been able to persuade Jacqueline to join and lead our Board at this pivotal and exciting time for our business, following our recent investment round. Jacqueline’s deep experience in the technology sector, strategic mind and engaging leadership style will be enormous assets to us as we continue to expand. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank our outgoing Chair, Nicole Anderson, for her excellent guidance over the last three years.”

LexisNexis® Risk Solutions announced that it won three categories in the 2021 Cybersecurity Excellence Awards. LexisNexis® ThreatMetrix® is the Gold winner for two categories: Cybersecurity Industry Solution - Financial Services and Cybersecurity Product - Fraud Prevention. Kimberly Sutherland, vice president of fraud and identity strategy at LexisNexis Risk Solutions, was named Cybersecurity Woman of the Year.

The 2021 Cybersecurity Excellence Awards recognize companies, products and professionals that demonstrate excellence, innovation and leadership in information security. More than 400,000 cybersecurity professionals within the Information Security community voted to determine winners.

Cybersecurity Woman of the Year

Kimberly Sutherland has helped drive the development of innovative identity management solutions for businesses, government agencies and financial institutions since joining LexisNexis Risk Solutions in 2006.

Grayson Clarke, senior vice president of LexisNexis Risk Solutions said, “Kimberly’s contribution to the fraud and identity space has been impactful, from serving on the board of Women in Identity to playing a crucial role in LexisNexis Risk Solutions market for consumer fraud analytics and authentication strategies. Her Cybersecurity Woman of the Year title is well earned and deserved.”

About LexisNexis Risk Solutions

LexisNexis Risk Solutions harnesses the power of data and advanced analytics to provide insights that help businesses and governmental entities reduce risk and improve decisions to benefit people around the globe. We provide data and technology solutions for a wide range of industries including insurance, financial services, healthcare and government. Headquartered in metro Atlanta, Georgia, we have offices throughout the world and are part of RELX (LSE: REL/NYSE: RELX), a global provider of information and analytics for professional and business customers. For more information, please visit www.risk.lexisnexis.com and www.relx.com.

 Finastra today announced its collaboration with HUBX to bring increased efficiency to corporate lenders during the loan syndication process through the reduction of manual processes. The integration of the HUBX digital front-office platform, HUBX Arranger, with Finastra’s market leading back-office loan software, Fusion Loan IQ, creates an enhanced end-to-end offering which boosts efficiency and harnesses data insights and automation to ultimately improve customer experience. The integration is carried out via Finastra’s open development platform, FusionFabric.cloud.

With the increased pressure on capital allocation, as a result of regulations such as Basel III and IFRS 9, and a squeeze on profit margins, banks and financial institutions have steered towards new business models such as ’originate to distribute’ which favor fee income over interest income, whilst ensuring optimization of the balance sheet. As financial institutions increasingly look to collaborate with each other, and digitize their operations for transactions of all sizes – both primary and secondary – the ability to collect and interpret data dynamically, and to share information efficiently amongst all parties, are critical to their success.

Axel Coustere, Co-Founder of HUBX said, “We’re excited to team up with Finastra to help banks and financial institutions tackle this challenge and drive efficiencies into the lending process. HUBX Arranger  leverages data and insights to boost customer experience and increase the pace at which corporate banks can execute transactions. Integrated with Finastra’s proven and trusted lending software which automates the back office, we can make a real difference in this space around speed, liquidity and the corporate customer experience.”

As a front-office syndication tool, HUBX Arranger offers a completely digitized bookrunning process, set apart from other tools in this space by its modular and API-first approach. It brings lenders and investors together to support all stages of the syndication book-build process in a single solution, allowing banks and financial institutions to retain full control of their proprietary data and branding. Fusion Loan IQ provides straight-through processing capabilities, enabling automated deal, facility and lender position onboarding. The combined offering speeds time to cash for corporate customers and empowers operational efficiency for loan fulfilment.

Robert Downs, Global Head of Corporate & Syndicated Lending at Finastra said, “The introduction of the HUBX Arranger solution as part of our lending suite brings a digital front-to-back solution to market, built on modern technology. Banks can safely kick start their digital transformation journey with Fusion Loan IQ and HUBX Arranger to make efficiency gains and put the corporate customer at the heart of lending. The use of open APIs and Finastra’s FusionFabric.cloud, championed by both our companies, delivers an open and collaborative approach to innovation.”

For further information, visit the FusionStore here.

About HUBX

Launched in 2015, HUBX works with leading institutions to help them simplify the arduous process of private capital raising and to share opportunities safely with other organizations for more effective collaboration. From growth stage equity to debt baskets, front-to-back syndicated loan execution to founder solutions, HUBX is backed by institutional investors including Barclays, ELITE and Basinghall Partners and relied upon to by large institutions to deliver mission-critical front office digitization projects globally. Learn more at hubx.capital

About Finastra

Finastra is building an open platform that accelerates collaboration and innovation in financial services, creating better experiences for people, businesses and communities. Supported by the broadest and deepest portfolio of financial services software, Finastra delivers this vitally important technology to financial institutions of all sizes across the globe, including 90 of the world’s top100 banks. Our open architecture approach brings together a number of partners and innovators. Together we are leading the way in which applications are written, deployed and consumed in financial services to evolve with the changing needs of customers. Learn more at finastra.com

Tether Operations Limited (Tether), the blockchain-enabled platform that powers the largest stablecoin by market capitalization, has today announced that Tether tokens (USDt) have more than doubled this year to a market capitalization of US$45 billion. 

As the most stable, liquid and innovative stablecoin, USDt is cementing its pivotal role within the digital token ecosystem. The ‘Tetherization’ of trading continues at a pace with many digital token spot exchanges denominating pairs in USDt rather than bitcoin (BTC). Meanwhile, USDt is increasingly being used in remittances and innovative projects in the digital token ecosystem, including those in the nascent space of decentralised finance (DeFi). 

USDt has recently been hitting about 100x USD Coin (USDC) in daily trading volume, according to data from CoinGecko, a crypto data service.

“This is setting out to be a landmark year in the history of Tether,” said Paolo Ardoino, CTO at Tether. “While we owe everything to crypto’s king, bitcoin, Tether’s rise heralds a new paradigm in the history of money and payments. The elegant utility of Tether will power an array of apps across different devices throughout this decade. Tether is truly a trailblazer in technological innovation. The market has once again spoken on the most liquid, stable and trusted stablecoin.”

Institutional and corporate usage form the lion share of demand for USDt, with US$24 billion added since January 1, 2021, a gain that is greater than the combined market capitalization of all rival stablecoins combined.

USDt’s presence in the e-commerce and payments space is growing. USDt represents a superior medium of exchange in many use cases, and can offer lower transaction fees than wire transfers of fiat currency. USDt is supported by numerous e-commerce platforms and payment gateways, and already provides faster payment as compared to credit cards and traditional payment systems.

USDt works across a diversity of different blockchains, including Algorand, Bitcoin Cash’s Simple Ledger Protocol (SLP), Ethereum, EOS, Liquid Network, Omni, Tron and Solana. Tether is driven to support and empower growing ventures and innovation in the blockchain space.

Quorsus, providers of consultancy services to financial institutions, has today announced its appointment of Jon Pittal as Director of Business Development. In this role, Jon will assume multiple chief client office responsibilities, from enhancing the structure and organisation of the function, to strengthening existing client relationships.

Jon is the latest addition to the fast-growing Quorsus team. Founded at the start of 2020, the consultancy has grown its staff count to over 40 people and is working on an array of projects across a range of tier one clients.

Simon Rees-Goddard, Chief Friend Maker and Managing Partner, Quorsus said: “Jon has extensive experience of working at a senior level with financial institutions, both in-house and as a consultant. Jon’s focus on client outcomes coupled with his project management history in the post-trade services space that Quorsus operates in, makes him the ideal candidate. Jon understands the importance of cultivating relationships and brings a fresh perspective on how we can get to know clients better and the value that brings”.

Jon joins Quorsus with over 15 years’ experience within financial markets working as a project manager and lead business analyst across both investment and corporate banking initiatives. He has worked at a global level, from building transformation strategies for post-trade, to enabling large investment banks to plan and implement new legal structures in Continental Europe in response to Brexit.

Jon Pittal, Director of Business Development, Quorsus said: “Throughout my career, I have thrived within roles where I can use my skills and experience to build and nurture more productive and lasting relationships with clients. Quorsus are at the beginning of an exciting journey that needs such strategies to be embedded while meeting the new challenges of the post-Covid business landscape. I’ll also be working with the experienced team at Quorsus to develop thought leadership and bring market insights that will benefit our clients. I look forward to working within such a multi-talented team, as Quorsus and our clients grow together.”

Sovryn, the Bitcoin-based decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol, has agreed a $9M investment from a consortium of partners, vetted for their strategic contribution and led by Anthony Pompliano’s Pomp Investments, after its proposal was formally accepted by the Sovryn community. Today will see the first day of Sovryn (SOV) trading, exclusively on the Sovryn platform, before it becomes available on other exchanges.

Of the groups that applied to invest, those which were vetted and accepted include representation by leading exchanges such as Cadenza (a BitMEX affiliated venture fund) and AscendEX (BitMax) and Gate.io as well as blockchain miner Blockware Solutions. These market players will bring their reputations and deep balance sheets to bear on the corporate aspects of the Sovryn project and will in time look to build software to adopt and integrate with the Sovryn protocol. Secretive DeFi whale investor 0x_b1i is part of the consortium, as is institutional markets maker Consolidated Trading, which will help pass the benefits of DeFi to the world of traditional finance, among others.

Pomp Investments sees decentralisation and security as the most significant factors in the Bitcoin trading environment and that ultimately that's what gives sovereignty to the individual users and holders. Their consortium’s investment perspective is that this trend will continue and the market will continue to place a premium on sovereignty and decentralisation, and reward those who can build infrastructure to kind of support and accelerate that ethos. The progress Sovryn has made in developing a solution for decentralized finance for Bitcoin impressed the investment consortium, prompting it to make an unsolicited investment proposal.

Bitcoin is not only the most secure blockchain, it is also the most scalable, because it is focused on fundamentals and is extremely simple, designed to do only one thing - to secure Bitcoin transactions. Sovryn extends the functionality of Bitcoin; it uses the same proof of work, is mined and secured by Bitcoin and the transactions that occur on the sovereign system are paid in Bitcoin fees to Bitcoin miners so it extends that security. The way that the Bitcoin world scales is by adding additional layers of technology on to Bitcoin’s simple, basic blockchain. This contrasts with the Ethereum network where modifications are made to its base layer, which increase its complexity and with it cost.

Anthony Pompliano said:“I’ve been impressed by the Sovryn project and the progress they've made in bringing DeFi to Bitcoin and ensuring the continued sovereignty of Bitcoin. We're seeing increasing numbers of active, decentralised communities, like Sovryn making decisions about some investments rather than the traditional, centralised decision process. I’m delighted our proposal has been accepted and to be joining the Sovryn community.”

Sovryn Co-Founder Edan Yago commented: “The Sovryn community takes decentralization seriously, as the only defence against financial censorship. This is not a project invoking kabuki theatre decentralization, while having a single company behind the project. Sovryn is a public good, controlled by no one entity and managed by a growing, global community of contributors. It’s great to have Pomp and so many others join our mission to bring transparent, incorruptible financial tools to the world.”

ACA Group (ACA), the leading governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) advisor in financial services, today announced the releaseofComplianceAlpha^®2021Q2.ComplianceAlphais ACA’s award-winning regulatory technology (RegTech) platform. Available now, ComplianceAlpha 2021 Q2 introduces a suite of new features and enhancements designed to help firms globally build more comprehensive and scalable GRC programs in line with the expectations of regulators, boards, management, clients, and investors. 

The imperative to digitize compliance programs has never been more urgent than now thanks to the rapidly evolving risk and change set off by the COVID-19 pandemic – a phenomenon ACA calls RiskMutation™. According to industry analyst Greenwich Associates,58% of firms invested in third-party surveillance technology in 2020, almost double from the same period in 2019. This is echoed by the findings inThomson Reuters' Fintech, RegTech and the Role of Compliance Report 2021: of the 400 compliance and risk practitioners surveyed,70% said the pandemic has increased their reliance on technology. 

Added to these challenges is the need for firms to keep pace with the continually evolving regulatory environment, which most recently and significantly includes preparing to meet the requirements of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) new Marketing Rule. 

But while firms are making progress towards digitization, there is still work to be done: aRisk Alertfrom the SEC’s Division of Enforcement (formerly OCIE) in late 2020 noted technology gaps as an area of deficiency in investment adviser compliance programs. 

Patrick Conroy, Partner ACA Group, said: “Increasing compliance oversight is a focus for our clients’ clients - they view compliance as critical to doing business. As a result, senior management are recognizing that compliance can be a competitive advantage that helps them win and retain business. However, building a progressive compliance function that satisfies these demands requires access to tools and expertise that compliance teams may not have.” 

As a result, compliance officers are turning to technology and managed services to achieve increased efficiencies and economies of scale. To help clients toward this end, ACA has added a range of new features across the ComplianceAlpha platform. Key features include: 

• Automated functionality leveraging natural language processing (NLP) for managing compliance activities for legal documents (side letters and NDAs) and reviews of marketing materials/financial promotions. 
• Extensive enhancements to the platform’s Marketing Review capabilities to help firms automate and more efficiently manage the end-to-end review and approval workflow for marketing materials and financial promotions. 
• New eLearning Solution to centralize employee training requirements. 

Visit our website for the complete list ofnew features[EC1] . 

Raj Bakhru, Chief Innovation Officer, ACA Group, said, “The rapid pace of change and RiskMutation today has compliance officers turning to technology and managed services to optimize their compliance programs. ComplianceAlpha helps firms bring together their compliance data, activities, and reporting in one scalable, flexible platform that provides harmonization, transparency, and standardization while reducing costs across the firm. With these new features and more coming throughout the year, we continue to evolve the platform to help our clients meet their most pressing business needs.”