Luminor Bank, the leading local bank in the Baltics, has selected a cloud-based balance sheet management solution from financial technology leader FIS^®(NYSE: FIS) to help the bank optimize liquidity and better manage risk as it continues its rapid expansion in the region.

Luminor Bank AS, which has nearly 900,000 clients, is the third largest provider of financial services in the Baltic banking market, and operates in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

The bank has selected the FIS Ambit Focus, an integrated, best practice balance sheet management solution. Based in the FIS private cloud, the solution provides versatile simulation and stress scenario capabilities to manage risk and regulatory requirements across profitability, liquidity and solvency.

The solution will provide the bank with advanced tools for assessing the market risk of its financial instruments and enhancing stress testing capabilities, while helping Luminor Bank comply with regulatory requirements, including Interest Rate Risk in the Banking Book (IRRBB).

“With its advanced functionality, this innovative cloud-based solution vastly improves our ability to manage risk and maximize our liquidity. It also supports continuously evolving regulatory requirements,” said Olof Sundblad, Head of Treasury and ALM at Luminor Bank AS. “We are excited to work with FIS as we continue to grow our business across the Baltics.”

“The way banks measure and report on market and liquidity risk is changing quickly, with a growing percentage of capital markets firms now placing an increased reliance on cloud and managed services,” said Nasser Khodri, Head of Capital Markets Sell Side at FIS. “FIS is committed to helping our clients stay ahead of the rapidly changing market. This solution will provide Luminor Bank with the functionality, flexibility and visibility it needs in order to support its business well into the future.”

Virgin Money has added to its growing list of FinTech partners as the Bank continues to develop its new business banking offer for customers.

Fluidly helps businesses look after every aspect of cash flow in one place, with a range of forecasting, invoice chasing and funding tools. The company will focus on developing Virgin Money’s working capital health proposition using its cash flow analysis and management and scenario planning tools, which will feed into the Bank’s SME wellness tracker, to help customers get an overall view of the performance of their business. Fluidly’s technology will also help accelerate the Bank’s commitments to enhancing working capital solutions for business customers and data-driven insights for their relationship managers.

Fluidly is the latest FinTech to partner with Virgin Money over the last six months, with collaboration an important aspect of bringing the new business current account to the market.

Gavin Opperman, Group Business Director at Virgin Money, said: “As we move towards the launch of our working capital health proposition in the autumn, which will transform our business current account offer, the positive impact and contribution of our FinTech partners has been clear. Adding Fluidly to our team is another important step in that journey. Enabling our customers to understand the financial health of their business is a key part of the new proposition and I’m excited to see how Fluidly’s tools and approach embed into what we are creating for our customers at Virgin Money.”

Caroline Plumb, CEO and Founder at Fluidly, said: “Our mission at Fluidly is to help small businesses sleep better at night, so working with Virgin Money on its SME wellness tracker couldn’t be a more perfect fit. Having the money to fund day-to-day operations is absolutely vital for business owners, especially right now. We can’t wait to help make Virgin Money’s working capital health proposition a reality, with the help of our bank-grade data analytics and cashflow forecasting capabilities.” 

Fluidly joins other FinTechs, including Strands, Redspire, Waracle, Codat and Life Moments, who have partnered with the Bank over the last six months. The Bank’s innovative approach to business banking also forms part of its commitment to the £35m award from the Banking Competition Remedies (BCR) Capability and Innovation Fund in 2020.

Andrew Falconer, Programme Sponsor at Virgin Money said: “It’s been a busy few months bringing expertise and knowledge together to help build what is going to be a compelling customer proposition. We want customers to benefit from clever, intuitive software, providing a new level of insight to their business that they haven’t had access to before. Our FinTech partners are really helping us bring that goal to life and it demonstrates how valuable collaboration is when bringing new products to market.” 

Clydesdale Bank and Yorkshire Bank rebranded to Virgin Money on 17^th March 2021 for business customers.

NeoXam, a leading financial software company, has today announced that CNP Assurances Group has selected its DataHub solution to house all its pricing and reference data on one platform.

The decision comes after a selection process which involved CNP Assurances Group looking to Centralize data management functions for all their solutions in one single platform. CNP Assurances wanted a centralised platform in order to shorten the time taken to process data management processes, which were previously operated manually.

Thanks to the increased automation from DataHub, CNP Assurances Group can rationalise and optimise the architecture and distribution of market data within its IT. By providing increased visibility into data underpinning all investible assets, DataHub supports the Group UChange program which aims to develop data optimisation, security and innovation across the CNP Assurances Group.

Commenting on the selection of the DataHub platform, Mourad Dridi, Head of IT at the CNP Assurances Client Wealth and Wealth Engineering business unit said: “NeoXam DataHub has been designed to meet our specific needs. The solution provides significant coverage in terms of connectivity to market data providers and strong flexibility in the creation of new interfaces.  As the master repository of market data for the CNP Assurances IT system, DataHub helps us meet our objectives of ensuring data quality, completeness, and accessibility.”

Didier Roubinet. Chief Strategy Officer, at NeoXam, added: “Financial institutions are always looking for a simple way to access all of their data in one place, rather than having to pull data from multiple parts of the business. By selecting DataHub, CNP Assurances Group will avoid any manual data management headaches, while also having a scalable solution which can grow in line with investor demands.”

Social impact fund Valloop, created to help employees and management buy the companies they work for, delivered compound annual growth of 16.1%* over a five-year period between September 2015 and September 2020. 

Valloop’s model has dramatically lowered the cost of entry for investing in private markets funds with a minimum investment of £100,000 - against an industry average of £2.6m. This has opened up access to institutional investment for high net worth individuals and family offices that might previously have been excluded.

With the societal impact of investment under the microscope, Valloop’s social purpose buy-out model to support SMEs in adopting employee ownership, is proving that doing good does not have to be at the expense of delivering investor returns.

An evergreen fund, Valloop emerged from stealth in December last year, having spent five years testing the model. Designed to provide investors with the opportunity to be part of one of the most underrated asset classes in the world, it uniquely blends six different private market products - working capital, senior debt, asset finance, commercial mortgages, private equity and insurance - in one place.

Acting much like a ‘mini-Berkshire Hathaway’ - the long-term investment fund - Valloop has been set up to ensure investors receive long hold returns indefinitely via a fixed annual yield, capital appreciation and ongoing dividends. Valloop’s creative debt and equity funding structures offer investors a blended risk profile that sits between traditional private equity and private debt, without sacrificing the equity-like returns offered by traditional private equity. 

Through its intelligent buy-out (IBO) framework, Valloop is the only private institution that democratises ownership with the consent of all parties - investors, owners and employees. When employees have a stake in the company, the business remains rooted in the community, safeguarding jobs and maintaining relationships.

Stephen Greenwood, Co-founder and CEO, said: "We’re delighted with the performance of the fund to-date, which while not a guarantee of future performance, demonstrates that our unique model has enormous potential. This is how you can generate high level returns without having to exit the business. We haven't sold a business - that would destroy the sustainable return. Furthermore, all other employee shareholders have had the same growth. In actual fact their return is higher because they didn't have to pay for it. Everyone is experiencing the same value. In private equity you would have to exit the business to achieve these returns."

Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted, OBE, Member of Valloop Advisory Council, said: “Everything is pointing to the value of this model - be it investor interest in ESG, opportunity in employment, increased relevance of community and localism resulting from Covid-19 or the levelling up agenda. The fantastic thing is being able to serve these needs and at the same time investors doing as well or better.”

Fimatix has announced the appointment of Cristóbal Conde as Non-Executive Chairman effective from 23 March 2021. Formerly Chairman of Calastone, the major global funds network recently sold to The Carlyle Group (NASDAQ: CG), Conde brings a wealth of business, fintech and investment experience. He will work closely with the senior management team as Fimatix continues its growth and M&A drive, identifying opportunities to acquire other fintech and govtech firms.

Conde has a strong track record of accelerating the growth of fintech companies. In 1983 Conde co-founded a financial technology software business, Devon Systems, serving the derivatives markets globally. After SunGard acquired Devon Systems in 1987, Conde ran his business as a division of the parent company, growing it into one of the largest businesses at SunGard. Conde was subsequently promoted to run the entire SunGard business, which he took private in 2005 in a record-breaking $11.3bn LBO transaction. Conde stepped down from SunGard in May 2011, by which time the technology giant had revenues of $5.6bn, employed over 25,000 globally, was ranked 380th on the Fortune 500 list and was the largest privately held business software and IT services company in the world.

Conde’s appointment follows the recent appointment of Tim Howarth as Chief Executive of Fimatix. Together they will work closely with senior colleagues including Stephen O'Sullivan, with a focus on strategy and M&A; Paul James, COO; Jeremy Renwick, - Innovation; and Hugh Ivory, Business Operations and Corporate Governance who is driving the growth of the business in Ireland.

Cris Conde said, on his appointment: “I am delighted to take on the role of Chairman. Fimatix has such strong expertise in delivering innovative products and services, digital transformation, agile coaching and solving problems with innovative tech. This is an exciting time for the business and I am proud to be working with the management team as they execute the roadmap to further growth, through building strong solutions and targeted acquisitions.”

Tim Howarth, CEO of Fimatix, said: "We are honoured that Cris will be taking the role of Chairman. His insight and experience of building successful businesses will be a great asset to Fimatix as we continue to target organic growth and acquisitions. As a company we want to provide technological innovation, and solutions that are relevant to client demands, for the good of society, the economy and people around the world. Chris shares our values and ambition for Fimatix and we are pleased to welcome him to the board.”

Conde joins the company a year since the merger of Fimatix and Agilesphere. With a team of over 150 staff, partners and associates, and offices in London and Newcastle, the combined company has a good foundation from which it offers services at scale. Since the merger, Fimatix has launched ‘Shield’, an independent COVID-19 track and trace system used in schools and workplaces, ‘Talent as a Service’, supporting HR teams and specialist advice services on IR35 and recruitment, Privacy4cars in the UK and continues to provide long term transformation support to the UK Government as a top 20 Digital Outcomes and Specialist supplier.

Fimatix's purpose is to enhance the productivity of business and governments to the benefit of economies, communities and people around the world. The business has a track record of supporting major banks and e-money fintech challengers within the financial services sector and businesses in the leisure industry. The team enables digital transformation in UK Government including the Department of Health and Social Care, the Ministry of Justice, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

Worldline, the European leader in the payments and transactional services industry, is proud to announce it has been awarded another first-class score of 88/100 in this year’s evaluation by the extra-financial rating agency Gaïa Rating. Over the past three years, Worldline has improved its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) performance by 6 points, according to Gaïa Rating’s ESG evaluation. Through these consistent improvements, the rating agency now puts Worldline among the top five businesses in France, recognised for its responsible and sustainable practices.

Thanks to this excellent performance, Worldline’s score is 37 points above the average of 51/100 for the 390 businesses assessed this year. This recognises the continuous enhancements made year after year to the Group’s environmental, social and governance policy and the commitment shown by its external stakeholders, supported by Worldline’s Trust 2020 CSR program.

In the Social category, Worldline scored 85/100, up 5 points on the previous year. This improvement underlines the transparency and exhaustiveness of its “social characteristics and practices” disclosures, in particular concerning competency development, social dialogue and working conditions/quality of life in the workplace. Worldline also ranks among the top performers in the Health and Safety category in its sector of activity.

In the Environmental category, Worldline again scored a remarkable 98/100 for the transparency of its climate strategy and for implementing a policy and objectives aimed at purchasing renewable energies and mitigating its greenhouse gas emissions.

In the Stakeholder Relations category, Worldline was awarded a score of 84/100, up 7 points on the previous year. This score reflects Worldline’s commitment to promoting its own responsible practices to all its stakeholders, especially under its sustainable policy vis-à-vis its suppliers.

In the Governance category, Worldline’s initiatives to raise awareness and train its employees in ethical conduct and responsible business practices, including its new code of ethics and introduction of a whistleblowing system, came to fruition. As a result of all these efforts, Worldline’s score was 2 points higher than in 2019 in all governance-related aspects.

Sébastien Mandron, Worldline’s Corporate Social Responsibility Officer, commented: “This recognition from Gaïa Rating is a tangible endorsement of the measures we have implemented under Worldline’s CSR strategy, one of our Group’s top priorities. Our high score again this year reflects the commitment shown by all our teams, a level of commitment that was invaluable because of the pandemic-related and economic environment that caused significant disruption and continues to shroud 2021 in considerable uncertainty. Despite this backdrop, we remain actively engaged in this long-term endeavour, which requires all our employees to play their part in building a Group that cares about making its model sustainable over the long term, within a more responsible economy."

"Worldline has an ambitious vision of its social and environmental responsibility, which came clearly into focus in June 2020 when we officially announced our core purpose of uniting the Worldline community with our long-term, coherent and shared vision.”

UK headquartered leading Fintech platform, Winvesta, which enables investments in over 3500 US Stocks and ETFs, today launched its 'Winvesta Investor Pulse Report.' The report finds that Tesla, Nio, and Riot Blockchain are the top three most-bought US stocks by Indians. 

'Winvesta Investor Pulse Report' is a nationwide study that encapsulates the investment behavior among Indians collected from investors on the Winvesta platform between the period 27th March 2020 and 20th March 2021. The investors are 18-70 years old, living in Tier 1 and 2 cities. 

According to the study, 'Technology' stocks continue to be preferred by most Indians, followed by 'Electric Vehicles' and 'Blockchain' sectors. This clearly indicates how the latter two sectors have gained popularity among Indians in the last year.

Interestingly, passive investments are gaining interest among Indian investors, with about 25% investing in ETFs on the Winvesta platform. The majority of investors have invested in QQQ (Nasdaq 100) ETF, followed by VTI (Vanguard Total Stock Market Index), ARKG (ARK Genomic Revolution), SPY (S&P500), and ARKK (ARK Innovation). Geographical ETFs and ADRs make about 10% of the investments on Winvesta's platform.

Swastik Nigam, Founder & CEO, Winvesta, said: "While launching Winvesta, we observed a strong home bias among Indian investors, which disallows participation in global growth stories. Our objective behind starting Winvesta was to make Indian investors realize the importance of geographical diversification and facilitate seamless overseas investments. In a way, the pandemic was an eye-opener for many because when Indian markets were not performing well, investors realized the value of investing in overseas markets. We have received tremendous interest from Indian investors to invest in US stocks and ETFs. Today, an average account size of an investor on Winvesta's platform is about $5000, with an average transaction of about $800. Investors are aware of the benefits of a well-diversified portfolio, and going ahead, we are confident of gaining more traction from Indian investors."

Although for many Indian investors, US investing is synonymous with the popular FAANG stocks, today FAANGs make up only 17% of the total stock investments on Winvesta's platform. This ratio has been trending downwards since the beginning of last year as other high growth stocks like TSLA, NIO, and RIOT took the lead from the tech giants. Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft continue to be among the top 10 popular stocks on the platform. 

"We have also seen a growing interest from the younger investors who are prolific consumers of many overseas brands and are beginning their investment journey with modest investment sizes. A large proportion of our clients are repeatedly remitting as well for systematic and opportunistic investments. With the recent strength in INR and also the financial year ending, we have also noticed increased remittance sizes as investors make use of this financial year's Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS) quota," said Prateek Jain, Co-founder Winvesta and further added: "Lately, we are seeing Indian investors getting bullish with passive investing and looking at investing in US ETFs which could give them exposure to innovative themes and markets beyond the USA."

Winvesta, which started its operations just two days after the national lockdown, currently has an investor base across India, with more than 60% of them being millennial (25-40years). The majority of the investors are male (94%). Delhi (NCR), Bengaluru, and Mumbai make up almost 25% of its client base, followed by Pune, Chennai, and Hyderabad. Nearly 45% of Winvesta's client base is from metropolitan cities.

Refinitiv today announced the launch of its new digital collaboration capability ‘Refinitiv Wealth Connect’, designed to help wealth management firms and their advisors advance with the growing pace of digital transformation within the wealth management industry.  

The new capability will allow users of Refinitiv Digital Investor to collaborate dynamically with their advisors, other front office personnel or the home office of a wealth firm. Refinitiv Wealth Connect will be embedded seamlessly into Refinitiv Digital Investor to allow for collaboration through the following channels:

• Chat / Chatbot: Users can communicate through a secure channel for quick pointed conversations or wealth firms can integrate a rules-based or AI-based engine to provide automated support
• CoBrowsing: Advisors or support personnel can perform live observation of users accessing portals and other information, and they can browse with the investor to provide support
• Messaging: Advisors and clients can use traditional SMS or embedded mobile device notifications to connect through a proven and well accepted method
• Video: Advisors and clients can engage in real-time video calls through the platforms – either inbound or outbound—on demand at the click of a button
• Voice: Advisors or investors and initiate or receive voice calls, and advisors can connect calls data to CRM platforms

Charles Smith, Head of Digital Solutions, Wealth at Refinitiv, said: “In a recent Refinitiv survey of over 1,000 investors, only 37% give their providers top scores for their digital experience. With Refinitiv Wealth Connect, we are addressing the need for collaboration tools to help wealth firms enhance their digital experience and drive client engagement, ultimately building loyal client relationships as expectations continue to accelerate in the digital age.”

April Rudin, CEO and Founder of The Rudin Group, said: "Digital adoption is an imperative for financial advisors today, and there is no turning back. In order to engage with clients through the collaboration channels they expect and demand, financial advisors must accelerate their embrace of these new tools. Refinitiv Wealth Connect recognizes this reality and helps advisors seize the opportunity inherent in this moment.”   

Ashley Longabaugh, Senior Analyst, Wealth Management Practice at Celent, said: “Advisor–client collaboration is a “must-have” prerequisite for wealth managers in today’s increasingly complex, digital, and remote environment. Digital collaboration functionality, such as secure messaging, video, document sharing, hybrid advisory, and remote workstations is a critical component in aiding a deeper advisor-client relationship. Wealth managers and advisors are faced with the task of innovating their wealth management platforms and propositions as investors become accustomed to hyper-personalized services and products in adjacent industries.”  

Refinitiv has a rich history of servicing the Wealth Management industry from front to back office. Over the last two years, the firm has invested heavily in the business and is committed to bringing the most advanced solutions to market. The ongoing transformation includes building out the firm’s solutions through strategic acquisitions such as Scivantage and the launch of Refinitiv Digital Investor.  Refinitiv wealth management solutions empower firms with faster time to market for digital properties while offering a flexible framework consisting of web-based components, pre-built pages, APIs, mobile apps, and collaboration tools such as video, co-browsing and secure chat that can be precisely configured for clients. A developer toolkit provides an additional level of control for in-house teams to design new and enhanced digital solutions.

YEO (Your Eyes Only) Messaging, an ultra-secure private messaging platform, has launched after completing a successful pilot phase. Users can now download the beta iOS App from the App Store and an Android version is also available. To coincide with the App launch, YEO Messaging opened their crowdfunding round to the public today. 

YEO was founded by a team of technology, security and design specialists, led by Alan Jones, a successful Silicon Valley entrepreneur, who has multiple business exits including sales to NASDAQ, and Sarah Norford-Jones, who has held senior account management roles at leading creative agencies. 

Disturbed by the lack of trust in existing messaging platforms, the team built YEO on the premise that people and regulated industries - from Cyber Crisis Management to Healthcare to Financial Services - need a compliant, trustworthy alternative to consumer messenger options. One that addresses user authentication and confidentiality and meets privacy law requirements to provide a trusted business to consumer channel. 

YEO is the only messaging application that guarantees delivery to the person rather than just the device. Privacy and security are guaranteed with continuous facial recognition so that only the designated recipient can see the message and view the content. The sender has complete control as content cannot be screenshot, copied, saved or forwarded unless allowed.

Through its crowdfunding campaign, YEO Messaging is looking to raise £500,000. The new funding will be invested to accelerate development of YEO’s desktop and business solutions, adding critical engineering talent to develop new features, as well as sales and marketing to establish YEO as the next-generation communication platform that provides security, confidentiality and privacy. There has been significant interest from investors during the pre-registration phase and private launch; YEO Messaging already has a commitment of more than £400,000.

This is the first time that YEO has been widely available to the public, beyond its successful pilot phase with an insurance company and healthcare group. Proof of concept plans are in place with several regulated businesses and government bodies that will lead to revenue through engineering and future license fees. The App launch and crowdfunding gives the public the opportunity to join the YEO Messaging community and invest in the next generation of private messaging.

Alan Jones, Co-Founder and CEO of YEO Messaging said:  “There is a strong interest from professional investors, but we also want to give everyone the opportunity to join the YEO Messaging community and come on this journey with us. With the minimum investment from as little as £10, we want to be sure that this investment opportunity is accessible. Open to all, but for Your Eyes Only.”

Luke Bolton at Seedrs said: “YEO Messaging is an exciting messaging platform that is changing the way we communicate - something we’ve not really seen before. The difference with YEO Messaging is its ultra-secure private messaging that connects businesses with people and provides users with total control. The passion, ambition and technology expertise of Alan and the YEO Messaging team is fuelling the company’s growth, as a key communication tool. We are thrilled to see how engaged Seedrs investors have been with YEO Messaging’s campaign during the registration phase.”

YEO has been designed to allow businesses to meet today’s complex data retention laws including GDPR. It  gives users privacy, confidentiality and control, building and establishing unique bridges between businesses and their customers.