Railsbank, a leading global Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) and Credit Card-as-a-Service (CCaaS) platform, and Paceline, a retail health and wellness platform, are collaborating on the first-ever health and wellness credit card. This Paceline branded credit card allows users to earn category-based cash back based on both their physical activity as well as what they spend.  

Paceline card members will earn elevated cash back on health and wellness transactions, and earning boosts when they achieve the weekly fitness milestone on the core Paceline app.  

Paceline has already built a community of health enthusiasts that connect its app to their wearables to track fitness goals. Currently, active users have logged over 4.6 million workouts, totaling 128 million minutes, earning rewards to brands like Amazon, Starbucks, Athleta, Sun Basket, Hyperice, and Echelon. These active Paceline customers will be first in line for this credit card offer. 

As Paceline builds its credit card offering, it will be using both the Railsbank CCaaS product launched in Q4 last year and its core finance platform.  

Dov Marmor, Railsbank Chief Operating Officer (North America), said: “Paceline wanted a wholly-embedded experience where a credit card could live in the Paceline app and integrate with all its health-related features. Before CCaaS, that just was not a reality. 

“CCaaS prebuilt the entire infrastructure needed to launch a credit card fast, taking on the heavy lifting such as banking, credit, payments operations, risk management and compliance. It lets Paceline focus on UX, customer experience and differentiating their brand from anything else on the market.” 

Joel Lieginger, Paceline founder and CEO, added: “Physically active customers spend three times more and are five times more profitable to financial services providers. This scenario presents a huge opportunity to lifestyle brands, and drives lower acquisition costs and higher lifetime value for credit cards and insurance, resulting in better societal health overall.  

“With the Railsbank CCaaS product, we can build towards our vision and launch the first health and wellness credit card that rewards and incentivizes physical activity with material financial benefit - all in a fraction of the time it would take to build ourselves.”  

Paceline recently announced a USD5 million seed investment co-led by Propel Venture Partners and Montage Ventures. Last November, Railsbank raised USD37 million growth funding co-led by MiddleGame Ventures and Ventura Capital. 

With use of blockchain now moving beyond Bitcoin into payments and the wider financial services arena, a new service will help users ensure the security and integrity of their systems.

The service from cybersecurity specialist bluedog Security Monitoring covers everything from auditing smart contracts to ensuring compliance with data privacy rules and 24/7 monitoring for servers which host blockchain networks.

bluedog’s service is suitable for a wide range of users including fintech and payments firms, crypto exchanges, trading platforms, secure token offerings (STOs) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as well as SMEs and corporates implementing blockchain for operational functions. It will be led by Omar Khan, a blockchain and fintech specialist with over 20 years’ experience in IT.

Blockchain has the potential to transform banking and automate business operations by enabling different parties to transact online without the need for a middleman. However while the technology is inherently secure, there are known vulnerabilities in blockchain systems – not least the integrity of the smart contracts which dictate whether a transaction can take place.

Omar Khan explains: “Blockchain can replace entire business functions and dramatically reduce transaction times – but a system is only as good as the smart contract which underpins it. In a blockchain network, decisions once made by executives – such as whether a payment is made or a line of credit extended - now depend on a computer program.

“Therefore it is important that the coding accurately reflects the company’s policies and protocols and its unique business model. As blockchain systems are often built by external programmers and based on a standard template, this can be a real challenge.

“However mistakes can not only be costly – but as a company’s policies and protocols are at the heart of its value proposition and the way it differentiates itself in the market, there is also the risk it could lose its competitive edge. An audit by an independent team will help ensure the smart contract contains no oversights and that the business model has been interpreted to optimal effect.”

The bluedog team can also advise on compliance with data privacy rules such as GDPR or GRC, for example by making sure that personal data is protected and not linked to access keys. Meanwhile bluedog will offer its existing services including managed detection and response to safeguard blockchain networks.

Omar adds: “The more partners you bring into a blockchain network, the faster you can execute a trade, but operating in this type of online environment means companies are more exposed to risk. It makes cybersecurity all the more important, including use of a monitoring service which can detect unusual activity and alert partners to any breach of the system.”

bluedog, which is based in London with a security operations centre in the Philippines, was launched in 2019 to make advanced cybersecurity services accessible to companies of all sizes. Paul Lomax, co-founder, said: “Blockchain is no longer limited to cryptocurrency. More and more fintech start-ups are using blockchain and other businesses are starting to see its potential. As one of the first cybersecurity companies to offer this type of service, bluedog aims to help businesses large and small to manage the risks and put their ideas into practice.”

More on the story here: https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7m9jx/credit-card-hacking-forum-gets-hacked-exposing-300000-hackers-accounts

We have an expert comment from Ilia Kolochenko at ImmuniWeb:

“Most of the compromised accounts have fake data and IPs from anonymous VPNs or proxies that are not likely to bring much actionable evidence to law enforcement agencies for investigation. Even the Western law enforcement agencies are currently underequipped to investigate and prosecute cybercrime on a large scale, and will probably not initiate investigatory operations after the leak."

"On the other hand, private messages – if also stolen – can be a treasure trove: many beginners carelessly expose sensitive technical, personal and other details there. Even a simple analysis of the unencrypted messages can paint a broad picture of the underground marketplace and shed light on the true identities of wrongdoers and their clients. Cybercriminals will probably not exploit the stolen information in an aggressive manner except for some rival gangs aiming to stiff competition."

"It would be interesting to learn about the origins of the hack, but mostly it will have stemmed from a 0day in forum web software, compromised admin’s machine or maybe even a password reuse attack. We will probably not get a forensic report and may just observe how the situation develops.”

About Ilia N. Kolochenko, Founder and Chief Architect, ImmuniWeb SA

• Master of Legal Studies (Washington University in St. Louis, School of Law)
• Master of Science in Criminal Justice, Cybercrime Investigation (Boston University)
• Doctoral Student at Capitol Technology University (PhD in Cybersecurity Leadership)
• Forbes Technology Council Member 

Ilia is a Swiss application security expert and entrepreneur. Starting his career as a penetration tester, and after serving in the Swiss artillery, he founded his first pen-testing and cybersecurity consulting company High-Tech Bridge in 2008. The penetration testing boutique was later named a leading service provider in the European market by Frost & Sullivan in 2012. To take traditional penetration testing to the next level, Ilia invented Multilayer Application Security Testing Technology that is now embodied at ImmuniWeb® AI Platform which he leads as Chief Architect. Serving customers from highly regulated industries in over 50 countries today, ImmuniWeb has a growing number of prestigious awards and industry recognition from Gartner, Forrester, IDC and Frost & Sullivan for the practical usage of AI and Machine Learning. ImmuniWeb Community Edition has over 100,000 daily tests.

Bityard, the world's leading cryptocurrency derivative exchange, has launched its forex trading service in more than 150 countries. From now on, the contract for difference (CFD) trading pairs on Bityard cover multiple asset types including cryptocurrency, index, commodity, and forex.

Facing possible coming drop of active crypto traders, Bityard begins to offer forex trading service, providing more options for global investors.

Before the bull market started in 2020, Bityard focused on its crypto CFDs service, which allowed Bityard users to make profits with smaller cryptocurrency market price fluctuation. When Bitcoin prices went up in late 2020, Bityard launched spot trading service to let its users buy and sell Bitcoin as well as other types of popular altcoins. Bityard aims to provide different types of trading services, which helps global users to trade and invest in crypto assets in both bull and bear markets.

The bull market began with the large amount of Bitcoin purchase and hold actions from many institutes including Greyscale, and Bitcoin have surpassed its all-time high record multiple times since then. Due to increasing profit taking actions by some of the institutes, Bitcoin price became more unstable and went down many times. Right now, there is not yet any clear sign showing that the bull market is over, but current asset selling actions from big crypto investors might indicate that Bitcoin is somewhere near its peak in the current bull run.

Fortunately, global investors still can switch to crypto CFDs or trade other type of assets to make profits on Bityard if the crypto bull market really ends early.

Sage (FTSE:SGE), the market leader in cloud business management solutions, today announced the launch of its new, cloud-first Sage Data & Analytics service integration for Sage 300 and Sage 100 in the U.S. and Canada, having also recently launched in other global regions. A powerful business intelligence (BI) toolkit with AI and machine learning capabilities, Sage Data & Analytics (SD&A) provides live sales dashboards, graphical cashflow analysis, detailed, trusted P&L reports and much more – all in the cloud.

Sage Data & Analytics delivers role-based dashboards, reports, metrics, and analytics that extract actionable business intelligence from company data. These drive increased revenue, cost savings, and competitive advantage.  

• No coding knowledge required: Sage Data & Analytics comes with pre-built, fully customizable data models and analytics right out of the box.
• Multi-platform access: Customers can access their data from anywhere, on any device.
• Real-time data: Sage Data & Analytics connects directly to a user’s Sage 300 or Sage 100 database, giving access to the latest data in real-time.
• Scalable: As a customer grows – for example from a single location with a handful of users to a multi-site location with hundreds of users – Sage Data & Analytics scales with it, with Standard, Advanced, and Premium editions, as well as add-ons and consultancy options for additional customization and configuration.
• Reduced IT workload: Sage Data & Analytics is hosted in the Microsoft Azure cloud, and system maintenance and product releases are fully automated.

“To continuously improve our products and services, Sage listens and responds to real customer needs. With this launch, we’re meeting the increasing demand for powerful and insightful reporting at a time when collecting, organizing, and presenting accurate data is more important for businesses than ever,” said Dewey Forrester, Vice President, North America, Business Development, Sage.  

“Simply put, when you have a handle on your data – such as inventory movements, procurement operations and supplier performance – you are set up to thrive in this competitive, challenging market. Saga Data & Analytics will help our customers do more while bringing value to their business with access to their reporting data, from anywhere,” Forrester added. 

Sage Data & Analytics was created in partnership with Sage Independent Software Vendor (ISV) ZAP, a global software company whose products include ZAP Data Hub, a data management & analytics SaaS optimized for various leading ERPs. Provided as a white-label solution, SD&A is available as a subscription service for Sage 100 and Sage 300 and is entirely cloud hosted, whether the customer is using an on-premise or a cloud instance of Sage 100 or Sage 300, making their digital transformation journey easier. 

“The launch of Sage Data & Analytics for Sage 100 and 300 customers is the latest chapter in a close-knit, long-standing partnership between ZAP and Sage,” said Garth D. Laird, CEO of ZAP. “Just as ZAP's data management and BI technology continues to push forward – into AI, machine learning, and always cloud-first – so too does our work with Sage. The partnership enables the roll out of Sage Data & Analytics with expertise in a clear, affordable SaaS product set that delivers ever-increasing, fast return on investment, and a total cost of ownership that is demonstrably reduced thanks to the wide range of add-ons and options that are available.”

With SD&A available to customers via the Sage Marketplace, Sage’s robust and longstanding ISV ecosystem is a core strength of both product lines helping customers customize their ERP’s capabilities with best-in-class industry-specific add-ons. Sage Marketplace continues to drive value to customers through a curated selection of new and innovative solutions tested and verified by Sage.

A new survey from digital payments expert, PayPoint, sees 75% of respondents calling for the Government’s payment holiday deadline to be extended to match or exceed the furlough scheme.  The support scheme allowing consumers to take payment holidays from credit repayments has helped countless families manage the financial impact of COVID-19.  However, the scheme comes to an end on 31st March, withdrawing essential support for families who may face redundancy or unemployment when furlough ends.

“While rates of infection are falling and things are beginning to look more positive for the health of the UK population, we have a very long way to go before the economy recovers,” Danny Vant, Client Services Director at PayPoint commented. “Sadly, the long-term impact of the pandemic means we are likely to see more businesses struggle, and fail, and more people could lose their jobs in the coming months as a result. Ending the payment holiday scheme now will hit struggling families at just the wrong time. The Government must consider extending its vital support to avoid pushing more people into post-COVID poverty.”

PayPoint’s survey of 500 people saw 3 out of 4 people believe the deadline should be extended until 31st October, in line with the furlough scheme. 32% of respondents want to see it extended even further to help people manage their finances once the furlough scheme ends and redundancy and potential unemployment fears allayed.

Two in three respondents believe lenders should change their future approach to collections, offering greater flexibility and moving away from fixed-term and fixed payment date commitments. Almost one in three would like lenders to be given the authority to make their own assessment on extending payment holidays for those in financial difficulty.

PayPoint’s PayByLink solution is already helping businesses collect with care. Available through digital payment solution, MultiPay, PayByLink allows businesses to collect due or arrears payments without damaging the customer relationship, by engaging with them sensitively and responsibly. Businesses can communicate with customers by SMS or email to remind them of upcoming payments due or to offer options that start the customer on a journey to repayment, whilst being flexible and sensitive. PayByLink not only increases the effectiveness of customer communication but also the likelihood of collecting full or part payment.

Danny Vant continued: “One of the key life lessons we have all learnt in the past 12 months is the importance of working together and supporting each other. Now that things are beginning to head towards something resembling ‘normal’, it is vital that we do not forget that lesson. Now is the time for the credit industry to support our consumer and business partners effectively and flexibly. The Government scheme should not end now, when so many consumers still need that vital support, but solutions such as PayByLink can bridge the gap by allowing businesses to provide customers with the payment flexibility they need, responsibly and with care.”

KX has launched KX Insights™, a cloud-first platform for streaming analytics that fully leverages the benefits of cloud architecture natively to deliver fast, scalable real-time data insights without the added burden of infrastructure, complicated upgrades or the need to optimize for different cloud environments.

KX Insights has been certified by KX to run natively on all major hyperscale cloud providers including AWS, Azure and Google Cloud. This enables organisations to rapidly scale up their real-time decision-making capabilities and implement an operating model of continuous actionable business intelligence.

According to Gartner, by 2022 most business systems will feature real-time data capabilities and that public cloud services will be essential for 90% of data and analytics innovation.  Leveraging KX’s market-leading streaming analytics technology, KX Insights offers customers the benefits of cloud-based computing for ultra-high performance analytics including modular usage models, simple subscription pricing and continuous upgrades. Findings from independent research commissioned by KX indicate that businesses plan to increase investment in real-time data management and analytics systems over the next three years.  The growth is also reflected in Markets and Markets forecast for streaming analytics which shows compound annual growth of 28%  from 2019 to 2024 reaching nearly $35 billion.

Gerry Buggy, KX Chief Strategy Officer, noted: “We hear more and more from our customers that they want access to their data and analytics without the associated compute and storage infrastructure costs. KX Insights provides fast, flexible and affordable access to a high-performance analytics platform that can transform operational performance and drive competitive differentiation.”

Built for the cloud

KX Insights runs natively on all leading hyperscale cloud platforms and can leverage thousands of existing cloud native services. With access to the lowest cost storage tiers such as Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), Microsoft Azure Blob and Google Cloud Storage, KX Insights also offers much lower infrastructure and maintenance costs than standard deployments.

Highly integrated using preferred development tools

With support for Kubernetes, KX Insights can run fully on cloud or in hybrid and on-premise environments. It will also support SQL for seamless integration and interoperability with other services and applications including database systems, visualization packages and business intelligence solutions. AWS Kinesis and Google Cloud PubSub integration will offer deeper workflow integration and automated decision making.

Simple to use

Built on kdb+, the world’s fastest time-series database, KX Insights can be configured and running in just a few clicks. With a modular design and simple subscription pricing, users pay only for what they need. And because it’s cloud based, there’s no waiting for upgrades.

Adds Buggy: “KX Insights is a game-changer for organisations seeking to make decisions based on real-time data to increase the performance and efficiency of their operations. It offers the unrivalled capabilities and power of KX in a low-cost, simple to use and highly scalable environment. KX Insights offers immediate access to a platform that answers the streaming analytics demands of industry leaders across financial services, automotive, smart manufacturing and telecommunications.”

KX Insights is available now. More information https://kx.com/kx-insights/

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) (BSE: 532540, NSE: TCS), a leading global IT services, consulting and business solutions organization, announced that Societe Generale Securities Services (SGSS), a recognized global custodian, has successfully deployed TCS BaNCS as its next-generation, multi-entity asset servicing platform in Germany, UK, France, Ireland and Luxembourg.

SGSS was looking for a platform that met its strategic objectives of providing standardized corporate actions processing and cash management services, and consistent customer experiences across their multiple locations in Europe. It selected the Corporate Actions and Account Management components of TCS BaNCS to build an integrated, innovative platform to deliver real-time customer experience across the custody lifecycle.

The new platform is one of Europe’s first real-time and true multi-entity, unified platforms for corporate actions and securities-based cash operations. It has enabled a hub and spoke model, where the core processing is carried out in a highly automated fashion in the central hub, while the spokes are client facing and local. TCS BaNCS for Corporate Actions offers SGSS the ability to handle processing across custody and investment banking on the same platform and enhances cash payment services via exhaustive real-time position keeping and liquidity management. This further improves the quality of its customer experience.

Mathilde Guerin, Head, Transformation & Technology Delivery, Societe Generale Securities Services, said: “Leveraging the TCS solution and industry knowledge, SGSS has set up a technology platform aiming at providing the highest standard of service to its clients, well adapted to their business development requirements. With this successful deployment, sign of a strengthened cooperation, we offer a comprehensive suite of services, providing 24by7 true multi-entity, real-time processing with quick time to market. With the TCS BaNCS solution being at the forefront of the fintech industry, we provide better user experience to our clients while improving our operational efficiency.”

R Vivekanand, Co-Head, TCS Financial Solutions, said: “TCS BaNCS for Corporate Actions at SGSS is one of the first integrated asset servicing platforms to provide access to high quality data in real-time. The solution automates and standardizes processes across systems, enhancing throughput and transparency, while reducing risk. TCS BaNCS is also unique in its ability to handle processing across custody and investment banking on the same platform. We continue to invest in our market leading asset servicing solutions to further enhance the experience of our customers.”

TCS BaNCS for Corporate Actions offers a comprehensive, rules-driven processing engine with high rates of Straight Through Processing, which can seamlessly interface with any external system, via an integration layer or API. It is fully ISO15022, ISO20022 and DTCC20022 compliant, with automated end-to-end processing for all types of events and products, including derivatives, across all global markets. It supports different business lines, including custody, brokerage, investment banking, asset management, retail and private banking, all within the same implementation.

The award-winning solution is used by more than 40 customers worldwide, who help the product continually evolve by proactively contributing to the development of its roadmap, making it a solution designed by, and for, end users.

Paysafe, a leading specialized payments platform, today announced that its Skrill digital wallet has expanded its cryptocurrency offering to the U.S. in partnership with Coinbase, the digital currency platform provider. The deal sees Coinbase provide a new cryptocurrency white label solution to Skrill, continuing the digital wallet’s U.S. expansion by enabling customers across 37 states and territories to easily buy and sell multiple cryptocurrencies.

Skrill’s crypto offering, which was first launched in 2018 and is already available in over 30 countries, can now be used by consumers in Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, D.C., Washington state, and Puerto Rico, among 27 other states1. Through an integration with the Coinbase platform – an existing Skrill liquidity exchange partner in Europe – Skrill customers in these states can use the digital wallet2 to instantly buy and sell cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, and Litecoin.

Aside from the U.S. dollar, Skrill users also have the option of using Bitcoin to buy other cryptocurrencies, enabling quicker and more convenient transactions by allowing customers to avoid having to convert their interests back into fiat currencies. This will result in fewer overall transactions and therefore lower related fees. 

This, the first phase of Skrill’s U.S. crypto expansion – with other states expected to be added imminently – further strengthens the digital wallet’s capabilities for American consumers. 2020 Skrill milestones in the U.S. included unveiling the Skrill Visa® Prepaid Card and launching both its Skrill Money Transfer remittance solution and Skrill Knect loyalty and rewards program. 

Lorenzo Pellegrino, CEO of Skrill, NETELLER, and Income Access at Paysafe, said: “U.S. consumer interest in cryptocurrencies and cryptocurrency trading is stronger than ever, so we’re delighted to better serve our customers’ needs by launching our Skrill crypto offering in the country in partnership with Coinbase. Powered by Coinbase’s sophisticated platform, our crypto offering is just Skrill’s latest U.S. move to provide consumers with a best-in-class digital wallet.”

Brett Tejpaul, Head of Institutional Trading at Coinbase, commented: “As we focus on building the crypto-economy, we look to partner with leaders like Skrill who can white-label our turnkey solution to provide and support digital assets to their clients without having to learn the nuances of building a crypto exchange.”