LexisNexis® Risk Solutions has been honored as a winner in two categories in Security Today’s 2020 CyberSecured Awards. Judges named LexisNexis Risk Solutions as the category winner in both Fraud Protection and Threat Intelligence. Both awards recognize the LexisNexis® ThreatMetrix® product, an enterprise solution for digital identity intelligence and digital authentication trusted by more than 5,000 leading global brands to inform risk decisions.

LexisNexis ThreatMetrix connects businesses to proven machine learning threat intelligence to help them fully understand the digital identity of users to better spot suspicious behavior in near real time and enable well-informed trust and identity decisions. The dynamic, end-to-end decision platform keeps valuable transactions in efficient motion while maximizing critical fraud defenses and cybersecurity risk management processes.

“Fraud is dynamic and the threat climate is constantly escalating, therefore efficient digital fraud detection is imperative,” said Kimberly Sutherland, vice president, fraud and identity strategy for LexisNexis Risk Solutions. “The threat intelligence a business is not receiving today may already be damaging critical revenue streams and exposing the business to increased fraud losses. By combining digital identity insights built from billions of transactions with leading analytic technology and embedded machine learning, LexisNexis Risk Solutions fraud prevention tools unify decision analytics across the customer journey.”   

ThreatMetrix® launched in 2005 and LexisNexis Risk Solutions acquired the company in 2018. The company unveiled the LexisNexis ThreatMetrix product in 2019, combining digital identity insights from ThreatMetrix with analytic technology and embedded machine learning from LexisNexis Risk Solutions to create a fraud prevention solution that accelerates conversions and maximizes revenue, improves transaction security and refines personalization, minimizes friction and reduces false positives.

MYHSM, the global provider of Payment Hardware Security Modules (HSM) as a Serviceб today announces the results of its partnership with Global Accelerex, a leading digital payments solutions and services provider for developing economies in the sub-Saharan African region.

Founded in 2008, Global Accelerex delivers innovative and secure technology solutions via its extensive suite of products and services, addressing the e-payments needs of large and small organisations. To date, Global Accelerex supports over 90,000 merchants across 36 states in the country, in addition to 95% of Nigerian banks and has processed over 2 trillion transactions.

Since 2018, MYHSM serves the financial industry with a secure, versatile, and scalable hosted payment solution, by providing global access to a suite of fully managed, PCI PIN compliant Payment HSM services.

After experiencing compatibility issues when connecting to third parties using Hardware Security Modules (HSMs) via its Software Security Module (SSM), Global Accelerex migrated to MYHSM’s Shared Live Service, and achieved a secure switching infrastructure in just two months.

Global Accelerex now benefits from MYHSM’s services, with access to three payShield 10K HSMs located in two physically separate world class data centres, ensuring service availability of 99.999%. Furthermore, the move from software-based security to industry standard hardware-based security also enabled Global Accelerex to become PCI compliant. The security benefits associated with maintaining PCI compliance are vital to the long-term success of all organisations that deal with payment solutions.

The partnership comes at a time when fraud cases are growing in frequency, due to the effects of COVID-19 – Action Fraud reports more than £4.6 million has been lost by victims to COVID-19 related cyber fraud alone. By migrating to MYHSM PCI PIN compliant infrastructure, Global Accelerex can now achieve maximum security with the use of HSMs configured to the payment specific PCI HSM standard located in PCI DSS data centres.

John Cragg, CEO of MYHSM, added: “We’re delighted to share the success story so far with Global Accelerex. Historically, purchasing, managing and maintaining dedicated HSMs on premise requires significant, on-going investment, time and resources. That’s why we’re excited to be leading the charge when it comes to changing the face of payments security, by offering cloud-based infrastructure consumed ‘as a service’ that allows our customers, such as Global Accelerex, to provide enhanced services and security that has a direct positive impact on their end users and satisfaction levels.”

Chief Information & Security Officer for Global Accelerex, Matthew Ani, commented: “We knew MYHSM offered the right solution for us and would help us achieve speedy implementation in addition to the added level of security and compliance we were seeking. MYHSM quickly set us up with a development area for testing which required minimal effort from our side. Once we completed testing, migrating to the live service was seamless and the subscription pricing structure is ideal to support our rapidly growing business volumes. We look forward to the future of our partnership.”

For the full case study highlighting the details of this partnership, please visit https://www.myhsm.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Case-Study-Global-Accelerex-MHSM55026-0121-v5-WEB.pdfю

A global leader in online multi-asset trading services and currency data and analytics, OANDA, has joined forces with Currencycloud, a leading provider of B2B embedded cross-border solutions, to deliver a new international money transfer service to companies in North America. Called OANDA FX Payments, the new solution has been made possible through a joint collaboration with Shift Connect.

OANDA FX Payments enables corporate clients to make cross-border payments in 35 currencies, quickly and easily through a safe and reliable online platform. The solution helps companies reduce the cost of international transactions while hedging their currency risk and protecting their bottom line. Featuring a streamlined user experience, the platform also offers clients a completely personalized customer support service.

The partnership combines OANDA’s deep-seated expertise in foreign exchange with Currencycloud’s best-of-breed payment technology and Shift Connect’s world-class customer support to offer a simple-to-use, reliable international money transfer solution for businesses, large or small.

Lucian Lauerman, Head of OANDA FX Data Services, said: “One of the world’s leading FX authorities, OANDA is dedicated to helping companies optimise cash flow, manage currency risk and build their bottom line. As such, we’re delighted to be partnering with Shift Connect and Currencycloud in order to add OANDA FX Payments to our best-in-class range of corporate currency solutions, which are trusted by audit firms, tax authorities and multinational corporations all over the world.”

“As we have started to expand into new territories across the globe, and our partnership with Currencycloud expands, we were uniquely placed to create new solutions for OANDA’s corporate FX clients who make international payments,” explained Dave Kelcher, CEO at Shift Connect.

Richard Arundel, North American General Manager & Co-founder of Currencycloud, commented: “This is a unique proposition for OANDA and its corporate FX clients. By working closely with our existing partner, Shift Connect, in North America, we have been able to create a one-of-a-kind cross-border payment solution for OANDA.”

OANDA FX Payments is available to corporate clients through OANDA Business Information and Services Inc. The firm also offers a wide range of FX Data Services including the OANDA Exchange Rates API, which provides access to daily averages, spot and forward rates, central bank exchange rates and tick-level data for 38,000+ currency pairs, over 200 currencies, commodities, and precious metals, as well as exchange rates sourced from 25 central banks and historical currency rates that date back to 1990.

PPRO, the global provider of local payments infrastructure, is working with Banking Circle, the ground-breaking financial infrastructure provider, to enhance the PPRO service offering, supporting PSPs working with cross border e-commerce merchants. The partnership underlines the effectiveness of Banking Circle as a next-generation provider of mission-critical infrastructure for online cross border payments.

PPRO has established itself as the most trusted infrastructure provider in the cross border payments space, powering international growth for payment service providers and platforms such as Citi, Elavon, Mastercard Payment Gateway Services, Mollie, PayPal, and Worldpay. PPRO’s local payments platform and expert services help its customers get the industry’s best conversion rates in markets around the world by allowing online shoppers to pay with their preferred payment method.

PPRO is capitalising on the benefits of Banking Circle’s ‘real-time’ payments proposition for PSPs, as Dr. Götz Möller, Chief Financial Officer, PPRO, explained: “Banking Circle goes to the heart of our proposition. Being able to make real-time settlements to many of our PSP-clients means we can provide reliable and fast services which sets us apart from our competition.”

Anders la Cour, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Banking Circle, added: “The financial infrastructure we have built is giving Payment providers like PPRO an important added value, to offer their customers cost-effective payment and settlement solutions with flexibility and security built in. It’s exciting to be working with PPRO at such an important time in its development.”

With a focus on delivering a seamless customer experience, PPRO is working with Banking Circle to enhance its service offering. Through the partnership PPRO benefits from using Banking Circle’s accounts in multiple currencies and gaining access to various local clearing methods in just one solution. This helps PPRO to not only simplify internal processes, but also allows it to receive and make payments faster and cheaper.

As PPRO and Banking Circle both provide services to the Payments and FinTech industry, many of PPRO’s clients will benefit from real-time internal payments between Banking Circle accounts for PPRO and them, thereby streamlining real-time settlements.

Fenergo today announced it has launched Fenergo KYC & Onboarding for Salesforce on Salesforce AppExchange, providing customers with new ways to deliver automated straight through client journeys while satisfying Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) regulatory requirements. The app connects Fenergo’s client lifecycle management (CLM) and regulatory intelligence with Salesforce’s client relationship management (CRM), allowing financial institutions (FIs) to improve customer experience and accelerate onboarding through front-to-back office integration.

Built on the Salesforce Platform, Fenergo CLM for Salesforce is currently available on AppExchange here.

Fenergo KYC & Onboarding for Salesforce

With Fenergo KYC & Onboarding for Salesforce, FIs can achieve a 360-degree client view via configurable workflows between front, middle and back office systems and understand the status of AML and KYC compliance processes in real time. All client lifecycle events including onboarding, maintenance, compliance reviews and offboarding can be completed within the Salesforce user interface (UI). This front to back connectivity empowers customer-facing employees to quickly onboard and verify customers digitally while delivering an enhanced client experience and accelerating time to revenue. The ability for relationship managers to complete CLM tasks in Salesforce also allows financial institutions to continue to safely onboard and verify clients remotely throughout the pandemic.

Sidhartha Dash, a Research Director at leading risk-technology research and advisory firm, Chartis Research, said: “Covid-19 has highlighted the need for technology that drives efficiencies and provides real-time access to banking services. With financial crime on the rise, FIs are also expected to demonstrate to regulators that financial activity is legitimate. In this context, Fenergo’s KYC & Onboarding for Salesforce offering aims to help FIs achieve a cohesive digital onboarding experience by increasing transparency in the organisation, automating compliance activities, and helping to make onboarding processes more efficient for the stakeholders involved.”

“We are excited that Fenergo is continuing to innovate on AppExchange as it powers digital transformation for financial institutions enabling enhanced client onboarding," said Woodson Martin, GM of Salesforce AppExchange. "AppExchange is constantly evolving to meet the needs of our customers, and we love watching our partners evolve alongside us."

Marc Murphy, CEO, Fenergo, said: “Fenergo’s regulatory expertise and commitment to enhancing customer experience creates a natural synergy with Salesforce. In today’s highly challenging business environment, there is no margin for error in delivering exceptional, digital, and joined-up customer experiences. Automation is key so that customers can be onboarded without unnecessary manual intervention in the back-end processes. Salesforce is the launchpad for automated onboarding while Fenergo ensures compliance by design through API-powered multi-channel orchestration.”

Temenos (SIX: TEMN), the banking software company, today announced that Schroders Wealth Management in Switzerland has selected Temenos Wealth Front Office to automate and enhance its advisory business. Schroders Wealth Management will deploy the state-of-the-art portfolio management system on its existing Temenos Transact core banking platform to provide intuitive and powerful capabilities for relationship managers, advisers and portfolio managers. Supported by Temenos, Schroders Wealth Management looks after £65.7 billion of assets for its clients worldwide, from offices in the UK, Channel Islands, Switzerland, Singapore and Hong Kong.

With Temenos Wealth Front Office, Schroders Wealth Management benefits from standardized advisory processes. The solution includes dashboards for relationship managers and portfolio managers, client and investment profiling, investment proposal process, advanced order generation, comprehensive pre- and post-trade compliance checks, flexible benchmarking and performance reporting. It also provides a broad range of portfolio modelling and rebalancing tools, covering a wide range of assets, in a user-friendly and highly intuitive user experience.

Giovanni Leonardo, Head of Investment, Schroders Wealth Management, Switzerland, commented: “We chose Temenos Wealth Front Office following a selection process to support our advisory business in Switzerland. The software handles all the complex processes and stringent regulations involved in advisory portfolio management, allowing our relationship managers to focus on the needs of our clients. It also provides the flexibility and efficiency we need in discretionary portfolio management."

David Macdonald, President of Europe, Temenos, said: “We are proud to extend our long-term relationship with Schroders Wealth Management. As the bank seeks to grow and expand its service offering, Temenos Wealth Front Office will help to deliver an enhanced service, greater efficiency and consistent experience for its high and ultra-high net worth clients, leading to greater customer longevity and new business opportunities.”

Temenos Wealth Front Office was a natural choice for the bank because of its real-time, out-of-the-box integration with Schroders’ existing Temenos Transact core banking system. The combination of Temenos Wealth Front Office and Temenos Transact creates an end-to-end wealth management platform with rich functionality, spanning back-office processing through to front-office portfolio management.

Schroders Wealth Management has been a long-time Temenos client and Temenos Transact for its core banking technology has helped the bank to cut costs by a third, simplify its IT landscape by 63%, build customized services, and improve service quality.

Temenos was recognized as the ‘Most Innovative Banking Technology Partner of the Year’ in the Private Banking & Wealth Management Awards and cited for its capacity to deliver digital client experiences while driving considerable efficiency gains for banks from a single front-to-back platform.

Leading open banking payments platform, Token, today announces $15m in Series B financing, welcoming investment from SBI Investment Co. Ltd. and Sony Innovation Fund by IGV as well as from existing investors Octopus Ventures, EQT Ventures and the venture arm of BNP Paribas, Opera Tech Ventures.

The capital enables Token to continue driving the shift from traditional payment methods to account-to-account payments by providing the fastest and simplest path to adoption for large merchants, PSPs and banking-as-a-service platforms.

Founded in 2016, Token quickly established the lead in UK open banking payments. Token was one of the first UK companies to be authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) as a payment initiation and account information service provider. In 2018, the company made history by becoming the first payment initiation service provider to conduct an end-to-end payment through a PSD2-compliant bank API.

Today, Token continues to build out its stack of open payment and data services, which are already powering a range of corporate and consumer use-cases, lowering the cost of digital payments across Europe and delivering unrivalled breadth of API connectivity. Inaugural open payment use-cases include funding an account, paying-off a credit card, paying a utility bill and other one-off payments.  Complimentary open data use-cases include accounting package integration, credit risk analysis and cash flow management, plus a host of additional use-cases which leverage value-added functionality, are already starting to emerge.

“The market’s appetite for open payments accelerated dramatically last year as more merchants and payment providers have tuned into the cost and efficiency gains that they offer,” comments Todd Clyde, CEO, Token. “Token’s payment volumes have more than doubled every month since March and our platform is now processing live transactions through PSD2 APIs from over 600 banks in 14 countries across Europe. This Series B investment reconfirms Token’s leadership in the open payments space and will ensure our platform development continues at pace.”

Yoshitaka Kitao, Director & Chairman of SBI Investment, comments: “The combination of Token’s unrivalled bank connectivity and depth in payment services clearly marks the company out as a market leader. We believe it has continued to outperform the competition throughout the year and has a clear roadmap for development in 2021. We’re very excited to be part of Token’s mission to equip the key players in the payments market with open payments capabilities.”

Gen Tsuchikawa, CEO and Chief Investment Manager for Sony Innovation Fund (SIF) and Chief Investment Officer for Innovation Growth Ventures (IGV), said: “Through our Innovation Growth Fund we invest in companies that develop innovative and scalable technologies for the world’s new and emerging ecosystems. Token offers a credible alternative to card and wallet payments while helping merchants, PSPs and banks offer streamlined UX’s that deliver better payment experiences for customers. This investment adds to our growing FinTech portfolio that we’ve been steadily building, and we look forward to working with the Token team in 2021 and beyond.”

Token’s customers include BNP Paribas, and HSBC which recently launched its fast and secure alternative to online payments, HSBC Open Payments.  Other recent announcements include the European PSP Contis, the Banking-as-a-Service provider OpenPayd, the popular Italian messaging app UpCo, and personal finance management tool Money Dashboard.

Over the course of the last 12 months, online banking usage among first direct customers has declined 21% compared to mobile banking.

While nearly 98% of all transactions made by first direct customers are digital, nearly five times more transfers and payments now take place using the app (82% of payments) compared to online banking (18%).

And over 87% of balance enquiries are now made using the fd app, as opposed to 13% through online banking.

Chris Pitt, CEO of first direct, said: “In the last year we’ve seen a shift in how people are banking, and we’re now much more mobile. Customers expect a safe and secure digital service backed up amazing people 24/7, and banking on the go is now the default option for many.”

10 years of banking in the palm of your hand

This week marks 10 years since first direct launched the UK’s first mobile app to enable customers to make payments direct to third parties.

Times have changed – as shown in our original advert from the time – and back in 2011 mobile banking was still in its infancy.

Today, the fd banking app is rated 5* in the App Store, and with 12.5 million logons a month, it’s now easily our most used customer channel.

Chris Pitt added: “We think now in weeks and months rather than decades as we introduce innovative – and most importantly – useful features that enable people to do what they need to do and get on with their lives.”

The fd app currently allows customers to:

• View balances and the last 20 transactions
• Make transfers between your first direct accounts
• Make payments to other people and organisations.
• Pay in cheques (daily limits apply)
• Freeze & order replacement cards
• Apply for Loans, Credit Cards & Regular Saver and Cash ISA accounts

Synechron Inc., a leading digital transformation consulting firm for the financial services industry, today announced that Susanne Guntermann has been appointed head of Synechron Netherlands as of 1 January 2021. This makes her the first woman to lead the Dutch business unit of Synechron.

Mihir Shah, Managing Director, Head of Europe & APAC at Synechron, commented: "Susanne brings a wealth of hands-on experience in financial services into her new role. We are thrilled to have her lead our teams of dedicated experts working in our Amsterdam office towards continuing to accelerate the digital transformation initiatives of our clients.”

Before joining Synechron three years ago, Guntermann worked for more than 15 years in customer-oriented roles in areas such as strategy, business development and investment products and services. “We are always pleased to give outstanding and motivated employees opportunities to take up senior roles,” Shah added.

Her career in financial services began in 2000, when she started as a trainee at ABN Amro, progressing to become a financial advisor. She then worked for several years as an investment advisor for subsidiary MeesPierson, before returning to ABN Amro for an extended period of time.

"During my years in financial services, I have gained a lot of experience in managing change as well as managing successful international teams," said Guntermann. "I have held various roles – ranging from being responsible for strategy and business development, setting up a new global investment research and product department, to working in front-office roles in private banking, and managing global regulatory programs."

While at ABN Amro, Guntermann also met Synechron’s team. "I sat on the customer side of the table and hired Synechron consultants after realizing their breadth and depth of experience and obvious passion," she reflected. "Because of their expertise, ability to jump-start new projects and the pleasant working relationships I had with them, I enlisted them for various assignments during those years."

These consultants also played an important role in Guntermann's move to Synechron in early 2018. "They were always very enthusiastic about Synechron as an employer. When I left ABN Amro, I explored my options at Synechron, and the rest is history!" she added.

Since her arrival, Guntermann has been "crucial in the development and professionalization of Synechron Netherlands", Shah added. She started at Synechron as a principal consultant, made the move to client partner last spring, and is now the proud head of the Dutch business unit.

"It's been a fantastic experience to be part of this business unit for the past three years," Guntermann commented. "I look forward to continuing to work with this strong and talented team as head of the Dutch office to help our clients achieve innovation and impactful change in the financial sector."

Almost a third of Brits are curious about investing in cryptocurrency but are too baffled by it to take the plunge, according to a new national survey.

Of the three in ten people (31%) curious about investing in crypto, 62% have held back from buying any because they do not understand the market, while 43% say they do not know of a safe way to buy it.

However, the nationally representative survey of 2,000 Brits, commissioned by money app Ziglu and conducted by OnePoll, also found that they would invest if they had a better understanding of cryptocurrencies (64%) and mainstream financial institutions start offering crypto to retail customers (36%).

Although there is clearly confusion about how cryptocurrency works, the survey also revealed that it is not just the preserve of experienced investors. Of the 14% who had already bought crypto, more than one in ten (13%) had no investment experience whatsoever and almost a quarter (23%) consider themselves novices, while 32% describe their investor experience as “competent”.

Mark Hipperson, Founder and CEO of Ziglu, said: “Our survey highlights the importance of financial inclusion, and that is why we will continue to spread the word not just about how crypto works but also how easy and safe it can be now to buy and sell.”

In a sign that cryptocurrency is gaining legitimacy in the eyes of the public, it is considered a wiser investment than property. Asked how they would invest £100, more people chose cryptocurrency in their top three investments (30%) than real estate (19%) and almost the same number chose gold (31%).

The survey also revealed a gender divide on  the reasons for buying crypto. Men mainly bought crypto to make money on it (53%) while women heard good things about it and thought they would give it a go (45%).

Cryptocurrency is most popular in London, where three in ten people (30%) have already bought some, and is least popular in Wales where just 9% have invested in it.