UK based fintech and issuer payment processor Paymentology, achieves Visa Ready status.

Paymentology, which provides issuer side card processing across four continents and is at the forefront of the card processing space, has been granted Visa Ready certification globally and joins an ecosystem of award-winning technology innovators committed to building tomorrow’s banking technologies. Visa Ready certification allows Paymentology which is a cloud-based payments processor to empower banks to offer tailored products through access to real time data.

Visa Ready certification assures banks and financial institutions globally that third party payment solutions meet Visa’s high security and functional standards.

“The Visa Ready certification further boosts customer confidence in our capabilities. It also enables us to deploy Visa card programs faster for banks around the world. We are of particular appeal to digitising banks who are looking to move away from legacy processors to more economic, more agile and more flexible solutions,” says Shane O’Hara, CEO at Paymentology.

“Visa is delighted to grant Paymentology with Visa Ready certification. Paymentology’s cloud native processing solution, with open API interfacing and live ‘at point of spend’ feed to the banks, makes it easier for digitising banks to migrate away from legacy systems,” said Jonathan Griswold, Head of Partnerships, in Europe at Visa. “We are looking forward to building out the capabilities that we can offer to fintechs and together drive the expansion of a digitally connected payments ecosystem.”

Paymentology is positioned as a cloud-based processor capable of offering dedicated and co-hosted processing across the full retail banking and challenger banking space. Paymentology is the issuer processor of choice by customer-first digital banks, along with other Visa Ready processors leads the drive to provide scalable secure processing for the larger field of digitising retail banks around the world.

Auriga, a global provider of technology solutions for the omnichannel banking and payments industries, today announced a new strategic partnership with Dilaco, IT specialist Consulting and Outsourcing provider in Belgium.

Through this partnership, Dilaco will enlarge its consulting and service offerings with Auriga’s cutting edge cybersecurity solution Lookwise Device Manager (LDM) for securing all digital self-service banking assets, web channels and remote workstations that are used by bank employees.

Dilaco will utilise LDM to further enhance their cybersecurity services for the financial sector by providing best in class tools and technology to monitor and manage device security, prevent threats and respond to incidents even more rapidly and effectively.

Auriga technology complements the specialist IT support services that Dilaco provides financial institutions in Benelux. Its offering consists mainly of help desk services, proactive monitoring services on self-service devices, hardware maintenance coordination and cash in transit services coordination. Dilaco’s objective is to boost efficiency, increase productivity, continuous access to cash and continuity of services for banks in Belgium.

Vincenzo Fiore, CEO, Auriga, comments: “We’re proud to partner with Dilaco and provide the Lookwise Device Manager to help secure critical banking services and infrastructure in the Benelux region. Our joint clients will benefit from full protection, comprehensive security monitoring and control of their networked devices that are so essential to how they serve their customers, especially in these unprecedented times."

Jeff de Kleijn, CEO, Dilaco, says: “We are delighted to be able to bring this powerful cybersecurity solution to financial institutions across the region. This technology, alongside our specialist services and support, will enable our customers to guarantee optimal availability and accessibility of banking services while preventing or minimizing the impact of cyber-attacks and ensuring effective control of the network.”

Forward Advances, a UK revenue-based financing solution for e-commerce and SaaS businesses, has partnered with Salt Edge, a leader in offering open banking solutions, to get instant access to aggregated bank data that allows them to make better lending decisions.

The COVID-19 pandemic rapidly changed consumer behavior to digital channels and the shifts are likely to stick post-pandemic. While many companies are challenged to survive in the short-term, the pandemic presented an opportunity to businesses transacting online. Such conditions boosted the demand for flexible and digital alternatives to traditional funding arrangements. And the solution came quickly. Forward Advances offers revenue-based financing (RBF) solutions – a simple non-dilutive funding approach for eCommerce and SaaS businesses. Paired with Salt Edge’s data aggregation and business transaction categorisation tools, RBF accelerates the whole lending process, enhancing security and affordability.

Forward Advances, launched by the venture capital firm Forward Partners, supports a wider set of fast-growing e-commerce and SaaS businesses, providing revenue-generating short-term cash injections to fund growth activities. Salt Edge Partner Program helps Forward Advances to understand their customers’ businesses quickly, offering immediate access to the required data aggregated from major UK banks, without having their own AISP licence. Now the applicant’s business performance can be verified immediately, streamlining the process of making a lending decision from several days to just a few hours.

To get a 360-degree view of a businesses’ financial situation and behaviour, and to make calculated funding decisions, Forward Advances will use data enrichment tools for business transaction categorisation and financial insights.

Hasam Silva, Managing Director at Forward Advances, said: "Salt Edge data-driven open banking toolkit helps Forward Advances provide our customers with a better experience and deploy much needed capital to small businesses so they can concentrate on growing. Salt Edge’s solution stood out with the business categorisation offering that is not supported by most open banking providers."

Vladimir Pintea, Head of Open Banking Gateway at Salt Edge, comments: "Partnering with Forward Advances we feel a special responsibility and honor to support and even accelerate businesses’ development by bypassing complex eligibility checks and removing exhausting bureaucratic procedures in the process of acquiring additional funding. Using Salt Edge’s open banking technology, Forward Advances obtains deep and real-time insights that allow them to understand their customers’ businesses quickly."

As part of its continuing strategy to serve client needs across the entire investment lifecycle, Northern Trust has entered into an alliance with IHS Markit, provider of the thinkFolio multi-asset class investment management platform, achieving a further significant milestone in its drive to streamline investment operations for asset managers and asset owners. 

The certified integration between thinkFolio and Northern Trust’s middle office outsourcing platform will provide opportunities for both firms to offer mutual institutional clients innovative solutions and services leveraging one another’s strengths across the investment value chain.

Bringing together thinkFolio with Northern Trust’s middle office technology, services and expertise will provide a fully-integrated, end-to-end process that streamlines workflows and mitigates clients’ operational costs.  The collaboration continues to build on advanced technology solutions and interoperable architecture that the respective companies have implemented for asset manager and asset owner clients.   Clients will benefit from an innovative service model with experts from both Northern Trust and IHS Markit supporting their tactical and strategic operational and technology needs.

As part of the managed service delivery of thinkFolio, IHS Markit manages upgrades and real-time feeds and executes overnight data loads and start-of-day processes.  Through this ongoing collaboration with Northern Trust, thinkFolio clients leveraging the IHS Markit managed service hosted on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud will benefit from a seamless technology and service experience, which is focused on multi-asset class transaction capture, enhanced position data synchronization and reconciliation.

“We have a long-standing relationship with thinkFolio and are excited to be working with them as we continue our drive to offer clients flexibility, scalability and best-in-class solution optionality across our Whole Office ecosystem,” said Pete Cherecwich, president of Corporate & Institutional Services at Northern Trust. “Our collaboration and technology integration with a number of leading front office platforms is key to driving operational efficiencies for our clients, minimizing implementation costs, reducing operational costs, increasing speed to market – and ultimately positively impacts their bottom line, helping them to optimize performance.”

“The theme of front-to-back solutions continues to be prominent as institutional investors are asking their middle and back office counterparties for increased control, transparency and workflow efficiency across the post-trade segments of the securities transaction lifecycle,” said Brett Schechterman, managing director and global head of thinkFolio at IHS Markit. “We are advocates for Northern Trust’s Whole Office open architecture and interoperable ethos and look forward to matching thinkFolio’s cross-asset class strength, flexibility and managed service with the strength of Northern Trust’s middle office solutions to deliver further operational alpha for our clients.”

Northern Trust Whole Office™ is an advanced open architecture, multi-asset class solution serving diverse market participants including asset managers, asset owners, investors and third party administrators. By integrating proprietary architecture with innovative partners, Northern Trust Whole Office facilitates client access to new technologies and capabilities across the spectrum of Strategy and Trading, Operational, Data and Digital and Analytics solutions.

Signicat, the trusted digital identity company and Mambu, the market-leading SaaS banking platform, announced today a partnership to help banks, fintechs and emerging financial service providers increase customer acquisition, improve customer experience and reduce time to market.

The partnership makes an expansive range of identity verification methods available to customers as Signicat’s identity platform easily integrates with Mambu via a single API. This gives financial service providers across Europe the ability to onboard customers digitally, conduct web-based identity authentication, and use legally-binding electronic signatures.

Lack of access to digital onboarding options causes abandonment, with research revealing that 63% of European consumers quit at least one financial application in the last year. The partnership gives financial service providers some valuable tools to reduce this dropout rate and increase customer acquisition.

Fixura, a P2P lending company based in the Nordics, has used the integration to strengthen its lending product portfolio and digitise its customers’ identity lifecycle. Hannu Puolitaival, COO at Fixura, said: “At its core, P2P lending relies on secure digital platforms, where transactions can occur safely and seamlessly. By partnering with Mambu, we were able to deploy solutions to customers across Europe within a matter of months. The integration of Signicat’s digital identity platform means we can be confident that these transactions are between verified and trusted users.”

The partnership follows Mambu’s recent €110m funding round. The company aims to expand further across Europe and capitalise on the growing banking software market, valued by Gartner at $100 billion.

“Global lockdowns have turned a desire for digital services into an urgent need. Our research into consumer attitudes towards onboarding show that financial service providers are struggling to keep up with consumers’ digital demands — and it is costing them customers,” said Asger Hattel, CEO, Signicat. “Partnering with Mambu, a fast-growing and strategic partner set to become one of the world’s largest marketplace players, means we can help more providers unlock the benefits of digital identity.” 

“Identity fraud continues to be a major threat to businesses across the globe and damages trust. And with everyone working from home - the COVID-19 pandemic has only accelerated this. Therefore financial service providers are relying on customer trust and loyalty more than ever,” said Eelco-Jan Boonstra, Managing Director for EMEA at Mambu. “Signicat’s digital identity platform means that you know who you are dealing with and helps you to deliver trusted digital customer experiences.”

NYMBUS®, a leading provider of banking technology solutions, today announced a significant expansion of its leadership team with the appointment of two digital banking innovators.

The company welcomes Larry McClanahan as Chief Product Officer and Sarah Howell as Chief Alliance Officer. The strategic hires come in the midst of tremendous momentum and growth for Nymbus and its clients. Each executive will be instrumental in helping to strengthen and scale the Nymbus solution and services portfolio, which empowers banks and credit unions to quickly create new digital revenue streams.

“As a trusted advisor to banks and credit unions seeking to accelerate their digital transformation, Nymbus continues to push boundaries for helping institutions succeed,” said Jeffery Kendall, CEO of Nymbus. “Together with Larry and Sarah’s heightened leadership, the industry can expect from us an accelerated line up of cutting-edge fintech developments to come.”

A recognized leader in the financial services industry, Larry McClanahan is well-known for conceiving visionary digital initiatives for banks and building cultures and organizations that can execute on them. He understands the digital journey of financial institutions because he led the way from the inside for more than a decade. McClanahan’s experience at digital early adopters MidFirst Bank and Fifth Third Bank brings a deeply personal voice of the customer to Nymbus leadership. As Chief Product Officer, he is responsible for the organizations that design and build strategic digital banking solutions for new and existing clients.

Sarah Howell is an expert in aligning multi-party bank, fintech and payment partner ecosystems to drive new commercial opportunities and product innovation. Having initially gained experience in partnerships at Global Payments where she played an instrumental role in the launch of Apple Pay, Howell then moved to a broader partner ecosystem at the payment network level through her role as Director of Partnerships at Visa. There, she worked with banks, merchants, fintechs and processors to advance their initiatives through partnerships. As Chief Alliance Officer, Howell will translate her experience to help advance Nymbus’ network of partnerships in order to generate further differentiated solution offerings and value on behalf of the company’s partners, financial institution clients and their banking customers.

For more information, please visit nymbus.com.

Sovryn, the Bitcoin-based decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol, announces the success of its Genesis community-only reserve sale which allowed participants to reserve their right to purchase SOV token, which will go on sale in early February 2021. The event generated the equivalent of $2.5 million in only 18 minutes.

The reservation presale was oversubscribed by a factor of x2, with 800 community members reserving between 0.03 and 2 BTC-worth of SOV. To take part, participants had to have been active users of Sovryn before 8 January, when the Genesis reservation event was announced, and the allocation for members depended on the duration and depth of their engagement with the Sovryn protocol. This was to ensure fewer speculators and a prioritisation of those who wish to support the Sovryn project over the long term. Unlike in other token sales or ICOs, users who participated in the Sovryn reservation sale committed to 10 months of token lock up, as part of their long-term commitment to the project. 

In 2020, the combined locked-in value of DeFi markets grew by 982%, but crypto’s major asset, Bitcoin, has been largely left out of these first generation DeFi protocols, forcing them to use a centralised, wrapped token. There has hitherto been no way for Bitcoin investors to access financial services, without handing over their Bitcoin assets to centralized intermediaries.

Sovryn solves this challenge by creating a Bitcoin-native financial operating system that allows people to utilize their Bitcoin in decentralised applications, without having to give up their assets, trade via a centralized entity, or forfeit their financial privacy and sovereignty. The Sovryn protocol provides an infrastructure using layer-2 technologies, where Bitcoin is the reserve asset and Bitcoin-backed stablecoins and sidechain technologies provide low fees and secure scalability. Sovryn provides the financial operating system that bridges blockchains, expands the level of decentralisation, and keeps Bitcoin as the sovereign currency, with users controlling their keys, even when used in financial applications.

Sovryn Co-Founder Edan Yago commented: “The success of the Genesis presale reservation event has been extremely encouraging, as has the feedback we have received from the community members, and it bodes well for the upcoming Origin presale. The vision of Sovryn is to create a protocol and a trading community which is truly decentralized; the success of this reservation sale event is a significant milestone on our journey to achieving that.”

LiquidityBook, a leading Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)-based provider of buy- and sell-side trading solutions, today announced its business soared to new heights in 2020, exceeding internal goals on revenue growth, client wins and staffing amid daunting circumstances. This strong performance was fueled by a continued rise for its industry-leading POEMS (portfolio, order and execution management system) platform, which provides significant cost, management and functionality benefits over legacy platforms.

While investment managers have long been drawn to LiquidityBook due to these efficiencies, conditions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic infused many with a new sense of urgency. This dynamic is reflected in the numbers, as LiquidityBook surpassed its sales goals for the year, which were set before the pandemic, early in Q4.

Five of the key highlights from the year were as follows:

• LiquidityBook’s total revenues for 2020 were up 34% year-over-year, fueled by steady client wins for each of the firm’s products: LBX Buy-Side, LBX Sell-Side and LBX Outsourced Trader. Among the new clients is global investment holding company Duet Group, a collaboration that resulted in a number of new and enhanced offerings within the LBX suite. These include a cohesive security master able to map disparate security descriptions and back-end changes to allow for more seamless file delivery to counterparties and settlement systems. Both functionalities are now available to the firm’s wider client base. The firm’s overall client base grew by just over 20%.
   
• LiquidityBook expanded its proprietary managed global FIX network, adding 30 new broker-dealer partners now certified for equities, options, futures, FX and derivatives. This brings the total number to 180 unique managed FIX connections worldwide, a 38% increase from 2019. Other enhancements expanded into the credit space, with collaborations with IHS Markit, MarketAxess, Tradeweb and VCON for both listed and OTC credit instruments and trading. LiquidityBook’s open-source security master seamlessly integrated these destinations with the OMS for proper tracking, trade memorialization and settlement, with connectivity to over 130 third-party admins, custodians, PMS systems, prime brokers and data warehouse providers.
• LiquidityBook added to its global development and client service organization, increasing employee headcount by 37%. This highly successful staffing push was a response to strong growth and surging client demand. Notably, the firm hired Chris Junge as Vice President of Customer Success and Cash Lafferty as Head of Business Development – West Coast.
• LiquidityBook continued to expand its global footprint, signing its first locally domiciled clients in Hong Kong and Sydney. The firm continues to scale its business development and staffing efforts in the Asia-Pacific region in response to regional demand for robust, flexible trading technology solutions along with local service and support.
   
• LiquidityBook launched a standalone CAT reporting solution, available to existing clients as well as new clients whose current or previous system could no longer support the new reporting requirements.

Commenting on the conclusion of another successful year, Chief Revenue Officer Sean Sullivan said: “March and April were very challenging months, and there was a period in which the industry was holding its collective breath as it waited to see what the future would look like. That said, as our prospective clients settled into the new world of remote work, many found that their legacy systems were inadequate and needed to quickly pivot to a new solution without missing a beat. We were proud to be able to step in and serve so many managers at a time of stress and high-stakes transactions. 2020 was a turbulent year and there will be more turmoil to come, but one positive result is the increased understanding of how SaaS-based technologies are a true game changer in terms of cost, functionality and service. As the industry recalibrates its approach to technology and ponders the future of work, we stand ready to provide tools designed to maximize efficiency regardless of market conditions or physical location.”

The LiquidityBook platform delivers significant benefits in the following areas:

• Cost: LBX is a fully SaaS-based product, delivered 100% via the cloud leveraging AWS’s global footprint and architecture, which is the most reliable and secure in the industry. That means there is far less need to pay third-parties for hosting, connectivity, trading and position data back-up or business continuity planning services. The platform provides full redundancy and accessibility anywhere in the world; users simply need a browser and connectivity to trade.
• Stability and Service: LBX is an OMS/PMS/FIX order routing platform built on a single code base. Every client runs the same version, and updates are rolled out weekly. The platform is not an amalgamation of different stitched-together products; it was developed only a few years ago, making it far more reliable than competitive offerings.
• Functionality: The fact that the product is one integrated platform has significant usability benefits. For instance, the GUI is incredibly flexible, allowing users to create custom columns and calculations on the fly.
• Business Model: Since LiquidityBook provides its products on a SaaS basis, the firm can offer them at a very competitive price point while still being able to fully fund development, growth and product enhancements. The firm is not and has never been dependent on transactional fees to drive revenue growth. Not only do those cut into broker commission wallet commitments that many buy side are struggling to reach, this model is also potentially considered an inducement under MiFID II unless the vendor also provides connectivity.

Antler is delighted to welcome Karl-Christian Agerup as a Partner, focusing on the company’s investment operations and strategy globally. 

In 1997, Agerup co-founded the leading European venture capital firm Northzone Ventures. 

Among their seed investments during his tenure are Spotify – the global music service to consumers, Stepstone - the leading European job-portal, lastminute.com - a leading European travel site, Mas Movil – a leading Spanish Mobile Telecom player, and more than 50 other tech and software companies.

Agerup is a serial entrepreneur having started numerous companies in the early years of the internet. Since leaving his McKinsey in 1994, Agerup’s career has been focused on entrepreneurship and value creation. That same year he became the co-founder and CEO of Hugin ASA, a leader in offering software as a service, distributing real time financial reports from listed companies in Europe to the market. The company was sold to Euronext S.A in 2003 and later acquired by Thomson-Reuters. 

More recently, Agerup held the position of CEO at Oslo Science Park where he spent the last 10 years building the Oslo startup community, including .StartupLab, Aleap, ShareLab and the seed fund Founders Fund. 

As a Global Partner and Chief of Investment Operations and Strategy, Agerup will further develop and oversee Antler’s investment strategy and operations as well as develop Antler’s strategy and offering to its corporate partners on both local and global levels. 

Karl-Christian Agerup comments: “The vision and ambition of Antler is breathtaking and motivating. I am looking forward to applying all that I have experienced and learned to help Antler attract and grow the next generation entrepreneurs and companies on a global scale and to work with the Antler team around the world with this ambition in mind.”

Antler is a global early-stage venture capital firm that invests in the defining technology companies of tomorrow. The firm is present across five continents including most major entrepreneurial hubs. 

Founded in Singapore in 2017, Antler is on a mission to fundamentally improve the world by enabling and investing in the world's most exceptional people building the defining companies of tomorrow. Antler has already invested in and helped build over 250 companies since launch. Of these companies, over 40% have at least one female co-founder, and the founders represent more than 70 nationalities.

Antler enables exceptional people to build impactful technology startups by building complementary co-founder teams, supporting the teams with deep business model validation and providing a global platform for scaling their startups. 

Cirrus, a provider of cloud-based document management software, announced that Berkshire Bank has selected the company’s enhanced secure document collection portal to help the bank manage an influx of SBA loan requests, including 942 PPP loans on the first day of the program.

With the help of Cirrus, Berkshire Bank is positioned to eliminate the inefficiencies and delays that often hinder overall accuracy, workload and response times. Cirrus’ cloud-based system supports collaboration throughout the entire loan process by streamlining document management, ensuring Berkshire Bank and its customers have real-time status updates into the progress of each loan. From an operational standpoint, automating the collection and collaboration of loan documents allows Berkshire to better manage extensive loan requests and provide quicker access to capital for small businesses impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic.

“With the introduction of the Paycheck Protection Program, SBA shops essentially experienced 200 times the typical volume of loan requests versus what they are used to,” said David Brooks, founder and CEO, Cirrus. “Cirrus’ portal plays a key role in expediting the process of managing SBA loans, enabling Berkshire Bank to collaborate remotely, execute rapidly and scale quickly to efficiently address the influx in loan requests and alleviate the document chaos associated with SBA lending.”