Path Solutions has been named winner of the ‘Best Islamic Banking Implementation’ category following its successful implementation of iMAL at Al Baraka Banking Group in the IBSI Global FinTech Innovation Awards 2020.

Four subsidiaries of Al Baraka Banking Group implemented the iMAL Islamic core banking platform bringing transparency and accountability to their operations, strong functional improvements, greater operational efficiency and better customer experience.

Disparate legacy systems were hampering the four banks’ growth. The award-winning iMAL provides an integrated platform that gives a single view of the customer relationship and multichannel customer relationship management capability. The four-subsidiary project also included integrating data from different sources, providing a unified view of the customer across transactions and channels thereby giving the four subsidiaries insights into customer preferences and behaviour.

On this occasion, Mohammed Kateeb, Group Chairman & CEO, Path Solutions, said: “The award is an acknowledgement of our constant endeavour to harness new technology capabilities to deliver business value to our clients even under most abnormal conditions. Since the start of the pandemic, we have supported our clients’ efforts in revising their business models, and who in turn had to cope with an almost unmanageable increase in customer requests and online transactions. We are particularly proud of this multi-country implementation, which we had to conclude during the pandemic; our teams worked day and night together with our clients to go live successfully in four different countries. This recognition by IBS Intelligence reinforces our commitment towards providing our clients with best-in-class Islamic software solutions for mission critical banking processes.”

Robin Amlôt, Managing Editor of IBS Intelligence, said: “We have all, corporately and individually, faced a challenging time in 2020. It is highly encouraging for us to be able to recognize and honour those companies that have risen successfully to these challenging times. It is particularly a pleasure to remark on the successes achieved by Path Solutions in implementing core banking solutions at not just one but four subsidiaries of Al Baraka Banking Group, helping to ensure that these banks continue to offer ever better customer experiences within their Islamic banking services.”

Path Solutions was selected after a thorough due diligence process that included global IT vendors. This core banking overhaul has enabled the four banks to have a strong footing on the digital platforms. It also meets Al Baraka Banking Group’s strategic long-term plans in facilitating product diversification, ensuring compliance with Sharia requirements, and streamlining processes that will eventually result in decreasing costs and increasing revenue.

The complete list of winners may be viewed at https://ibsintelligence.com/innovation-awards/.

Copenhagen-based startup Dreamdata has today announced it has closed a $4.4M investment round to help B2B companies drive growth by better connecting their marketing and growth activities with revenue generation.

B2Bs operate in an incredibly complex world. There are numerous stakeholders involved in decision making, while negotiations are spread out over months or even years. This means there is little transparency into which commercial activity impacted the process and which were least efficient.

The round was led by InReach Ventures and Crowberry Capital, with participation from existing investors Seedcamp, Futuristic.vc and Preseed Ventures. 

At a time of financial distress as the pandemic continues it’s more important than ever for businesses to efficiently allocate resources. Currently, up to 69% of B2B ad spend is wasted on campaigns that fail to bring ROI. 

Dreamdata’s solution to this problem is a much-needed revenue attribution platform designed specifically for B2B businesses where commercial operators are currently forced into using tools meant for B2C scenarios. 

The platform empowers companies to amalgamate a diverse range of data from a variety of currently siloed sources across the business and make more informed decisions. Dreamdata then joints the dots, simplifies the data, and builds a data set that makes sense for decision making in a B2B context. A data set that’s actually meaningful in a B2B context provides simple, actionable analysis and answers vital B2B marketing questions including which campaigns and channels to stop or scale, what is the return on ad spend, and how long does it take to acquire new customers.

Dreamdata’s investment follows a period of rapid growth for the startup since its launch in 2018, during which time it has built an impressive and diverse client roster which includes publicly listed B2B companies, such as electronics company Jabra, and rapidly growing SaaS brands.

Dreamdata CEO, Lars Grønnegaard, commented: “B2B companies have a multitude of departments, teams, and data silos, each representing different revenue realities. Dreamdata is here to help unify, clean, and sort all this data to help our customers grow. One of the things we often prove to our customers is that their sales cycles are actually two, three or four times longer than they expected. This matters immensely when planning or trying to hit budgets. 

“With this new funding, we will invest in further developing our platform and continue to open people’s eyes to the undisputed value a revenue attribution platform can bring to B2B companies. The B2B attribution game is so different and much more complex than B2C. In a nutshell Dreamdata helps B2B companies repeat success and stop wasting money.”

Roberto Bonanzinga, co-founder of InReach Ventures, added: “Investing in Dreamdata was an easy choice to make. The B2B Revenue Attribution Platform category is in its infancy, and we believe that Dreamdata has the potential to be the global category leader.”  

Propel, one of the UK’s largest independent finance houses, has launched Propeller, a revolutionary new online asset finance portal developed to power vendors’ sales and redefine the customer finance journey.

Propel has invested over £1m in the latest technology to engineer a best-in-market digital journey, enabling UK based vendors to offer their customers asset finance products effortlessly at point of sale. The new technology allows vendors to guide their customers through a seamless process from quote through to credit approval in a few simple steps, meaning the relevant documents are swiftly generated and payments to vendors can be made within minutes once on delivery or acceptance by the customer of the goods. The technology will enable more SMEs to finance equipment quicker, easier and more conveniently than ever before.

The Propeller portal revolutionises the end-to-end vendor finance process by offering fast-track, automated processing, instant quotes, immediate auto-decisions, document generation e-sign acceptance and real-time management. Designed with vendors’ sales teams in mind, the platform reduces the time spent on finance paperwork, enabling vendors to focus on driving more sales, whilst also providing customers with immediate access to the business-critical equipment they need to power their growth – thus resulting in a simple & effective buying / sale cycle.

“At Propel, we are determined to transform SMEs’ access to much needed funding for capital investment. Propeller is our most advanced, integrated and comprehensive vendor finance system to date and represents a leap forward in respect of the enhanced user experience, connectivity and functionality it brings. Through innovations such as this, together with a brilliant service, we are shaping the future of finance partnerships,” says Mark Catton, Propel CEO.

James Taylor MD of Ice Communications, says: “Propel’s new asset finance portal not only gives you easy online access and heaps of support, it really does help you process faster sales. It’s fantastic to work with a company that continually think of innovative solutions for its vendor partners. Propeller allows us to do business quickly and efficiently so we can focus more on productivity and performance.”

Propel has a strong history of technology innovation within the vendor finance marketplace, helping more than 40,000 businesses across the UK to access asset finance to acquire business-critical equipment quickly and easily. Recently, Barclays Business Banking announced its partnership with Propel to offer equipment and vehicle finance to one million of their small and medium sized (SME) customers via the new online technology platform.

As well as investing to bring forward the next generation technology, Propel has also significantly enhanced its team to support its ambitious growth plans through securing the appointments of Stewart Good as Head of Vendor Finance, Steve Shuttleworth & James Pigrem as Senior Account Managers and Daisy Johnson as Account Manager.

To find out more and to gain access to the new Propeller portal, visit: www.propelfinance.co.uk/technology/about-propeller/

SEON, the fraud fighters, today announces it has partnered with leading UK RegTech platform, TruNarrative, allowing TruNarrative users to leverage SEON’s extensive data to make informed onboarding decisions. It will also provide customers a solution for making safe commerce simple, combining SEON’s data with TruNarrative’s decisioning technology.

TruNarrative orchestrates financial crime detection, customer onboarding, transactional monitoring and compliance processes from a single easy-to-configure, no-code platform. The integration provides TruNarrative customers access to SEON’s email, phone, device intelligence and IP data, enabling them to establish the digital footprint of end users, building a customer risk score to make automated and manual decisions. The TruNarrative platform is trusted by businesses across banking, financial services, e-commerce and gaming operators. SEON’s data is in use for customer verification and fraud prevention across banking, automotive, aviation, gaming and financial services

SEON will join the TruNarrative AppStore, allowing firms to build SEON’s global data and authentication technology into their onboarding and monitoring strategies; delivering robust fraud detection, increasing customer acquisition, facilitating efficient investigations and lowering operational costs.

The partnership means firms can use SEON data alongside TruNarrative’s 40+ app store data partners via a single API. TruNarrative Customers can build customer journeys and processes for; identity verification, fraud, eKYC, eKYB, AML, account and transaction monitoring. Using the TruNarrative interface businesses can adapt rules and strategy with minimal IT resources, keeping total cost of ownership low, and making adoption and integration easy.

About the partnership, TruNarrative’s Head of Data and Third-Party Relationships, Andy Pearson said: “We are delighted to be partnering with SEON, enhancing the fraud prevention solutions available to our customers. The depth and extent of their data means we can offer our customers an even wider range of fraud prevention and verification tools.”

Tamas Kadar, CEO and Founder at SEON, explained: “TruNarrative and SEON have a lot of mutual sectors where we dove-tail. In the past, businesses in these industries have not had access to solutions that fit their business models. Since its inception, SEON has been on a mission to change this and TruNarrative is the perfect company to do it with. We fully expect the partnership to grow rapidly and successfully.”

To learn more about SEON’s services, visit: https://seon.io/

Identitii Limited (Identitii, Company) (ASX:ID8) is pleased to announce that it has been granted patent approval in the United States. The newly granted approval covers Identitii’s global ecosystem for secure sharing of financial transaction information and is a key part of its Intellectual Property (IP) protection strategy. The approval further increases Identitii’s competitive advantage and defensibility, and potentially generates new revenue streams for the Company.

Identitii’s secure financial information sharing ecosystem overcomes key limitations of existing technology systems to simplify financial crime compliance, streamline regulatory reporting operations and enable faster settlement of payments. The technology that underpins the patent is the backbone of the Company’s correspondent banking solution, which enables institutions all around the world to securely share information for Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) compliance.

Commenting on the announcement, John Rayment, CEO, Identitii said: “U.S. patent approval is a huge milestone for Identitii because it helps safeguard our business from competitive threats and protects our strategy of building a connected ecosystem for financial information, without replacing existing systems. There is also the potential to licence the technology to other players, generating additional revenue.

“We initially showcased this technology in 2016 through a proof-of-value with SWIFT and seven global banks, after winning the Innotribe Challenge on Compliance at the Sibos global banking conference. Today the need for this technology has increased, validating our company strategy and vision for the future. We are excited about what this means for our business.” 

The Company has filed for patent protection in a number of jurisdictions, in addition to the United States. To finalise the patent, Identitii must pay a US$600 fee to the United States Patent and Trademark Office by 3 February 2021.

This announcement has been approved and authorised to be given to the ASX by the Board of Identitii Limited.

Cedar Oxygen, a Luxembourg domiciled, impact investment trade finance platform, has announced that it has arranged its first finance facility to Lebanese Roasting Group Sal (‘Castania’), a leading Lebanese player in the nuts and snacks sector. The finance will support the import of needed raw materials and is the first in a series of major deployments which are hoped will breathe long-term life into the Lebanese economy.

Founded by expat Lebanese business leaders, Cedar Oxygen is seeking to address the US$2bn short-term finance shortfall faced by Lebanese manufacturers and industrialists.  A lack of import finance is currently preventing them from procuring raw materials, limited export finance is hampering logistics around exporting products and a deficit in receivable finance is impacting the sale of the finished products.

This deployment is a crucial milestone towards Cedar Oxygen providing short-term financing solutions to Lebanese borrowers, in partnership with the Association of Lebanese Industrialists. It is also digitalizing trade finance and delivering a “real economy” credit offering for Lebanese borrowers and a much-needed roadmap for the next few years of inclusive finance.  It is the first of its kind in Lebanon.

Alexandre J. Harkous, Chairman & Managing Partner of Cedar Oxygen, said: “This deployment is a crucial first step in addressing the world’s most critical impact investment opportunity and in revitalising the Lebanese economy, one company at a time.  Providing trade finance solutions will help manufacturers to trade their way out of the economic crisis and reduce the country’s dependence on short-term aid.

“Currently a shortage of dollars is making it difficult to import any raw materials and allow life in Lebanon to get back to normal. The Lebanese economy is heavily dependent on international trade, and we aim to provide the trade finance facilities that will power its economic regeneration.”

Peter Daniel, Chief Executive Officer of Lebanese Roasting Group, said: “Thanks to the professionalism and perseverance of Cedar Oxygen and the trade financing facilities provided, we are able to pass through the difficult situation in Lebanon , keeping our supply chain flowing, from import to production to export: leading to sustaining the business , safeguarding our workforce and maintaining Castania as Lebanon’s favourite and affordable snack.”

Earlier this year Cedar Oxygen secured a $175 million anchor investment and is now seeking additional investment from DFIs (Development Finance Institutions) and other impact-focused institutions that are focused on boosting their Impact and ESG strategies, as well as securing protected returns.

Lebanon has 4,700 industrial firms generating around 14% of GDP. These firms account for 93% of Lebanese exports, generating around $3.17 billion in finished goods sales per annum.  In addition, the sector accounts for around $1.8 billion in raw material imports into Lebanon.

Mark Smyth, Chief Investment Officer of Cedar Oxygen, said: “Lebanese Roasting Group is typical of the type of company we are looking to support as it has a robust business model and serves an attractive, international market, but faces difficulties due to a lack of trade financing. Similar deployments will enable us to mitigate risks and deliver stable returns to international investors.”

Cedar Oxygen aims to raise additional funds up to $500 million in a dedicated Regulated Alternative Investment Fund (RAIF) structure, which will be used for short term loans to fund the majority of the Lebanese industrial landscape. At the same time, it will provide investors who want to support, an impact platform in Lebanon to deliver risk-adjusted returns to help finance and revitalise the Lebanese economy.

Dr. Fady Gemayel, President of the Association of Lebanese Industrialists, said: “The first transaction of Cedar Oxygen is very good news for the Lebanese industrialists specifically and for Lebanon in General. In these difficult times, Cedar Oxygen will provide a breath of fresh air and will create a social, economic and financial impact in Lebanon. We, as the Association of Lebanese Industrialists, are looking forward to working very closely with Cedar Oxygen so the biggest number of industrialists can benefit from this lifeline.”

Cedar Oxygen’s Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) approach includes the execution of a business model that adds value to society through its product offerings. This Fund will complement Cedar Oxygen’s existing efforts, with the goal of achieving financial returns that will be re-invested to finance Lebanese industrialists while making a positive societal impact. The focus areas above are areas where Cedar Oxygen has experience through its business transactions and its own operations and advocacy.

For more information: www.cedaroxygen.com.

Global Data Centers, a division of NTT Ltd., a world-leading global technology services provider, announces news about the construction of a new Berlin 2 data center campus, as well as the expansion of its Berlin 1 Data Center.

In Marienpark, the new campus Berlin 2 Data Center is being built only 14 km from NTT's existing Berlin 1 Data Center. Once fully operational, it will add a total of 48 MW of IT load to NTT’s data center portfolio. The first building is scheduled to open in Q4 2021 and will offer 4,800 sqm of IT space and 12 MW of IT load. The new state-of-the-art, highly secure, energy-efficient data center campus will follow NTT’s successful business model and offer colocation services for wholesale and retail, as well as hybrid IT solutions and maximum protection for NTT’s clients’ critical and sensitive IT systems.

In addition, the Berlin 1 campus, located in Berlin-Spandau, which has been operational since 2007, will be complimented by a second data center building, thereby providing a further 2,500 sqm of IT space and 5 MW of IT load. The building is scheduled to be ready for service in Q3 2021 in response to the market demand.

"We are looking forward to future growth in Berlin's vibrant and diverse digital industry. Thus, the Berlin 2 campus is designed to serve all types of client needs from the local start-up looking for a pre-installed single rack, all the way up to built-to-suit solutions for major hyperscaler deployments. The project launch also comes at the right time to complement the growth at our existing Berlin 1 site," said Florian Winkler, CEO of NTT Ltd.’s Global Data Centers division in EMEA.

Clients in both Berlin data centers will have access to NTT's Multi Service Interconnection Platform (MSIP), which provides NTT Group's clients and partners access to a powerful digital ecosystem of multiple carriers and cloud providers. The proximity of the locations within Berlin gives clients the opportunity to operate their infrastructure both in Berlin 1 and on the new campus in an "active-active configuration". Berlin 2 Data Center will also feature one of our well-known Technology Experience Labs to help our clients and partners thrive in the age of continuous digitization and disruption.

The expansion in the Berlin area is part of the growth strategy of the Global Data Centers division of NTT, which operates one of the largest data center platforms in the world, comprising over 160 data centers spanning more than 20 countries and region.

Intuit QuickBooks, the UK’s leading financial management platform, announces new features in its recently launched Self Assessment tool, arming small businesses (SMBs) with an efficient and stress-free way of helping to prepare their tax return in advance of the upcoming January deadline.

Other updates in the QuickBooks Winter Product Release include a special offer with ‘GoCardless’, and updated VAT codes ahead of changes to import tax in 2021.

Following a particularly challenging year for SMBs, the updates help to reduce the administrative burden in the busy festive period and leading up to the January Self Assessment rush – giving small business owners more time to focus on running and growing their business.

New Self Assessment features

After an already challenging year, self-employed individuals and sole traders will be looking for ways to take the stress out of their Self Assessment tax returns – particularly as this year the process promises to be more complex, given the inclusion of COVID-19 support grants such as the Self-Employed Income Support Scheme.

New updates to QuickBooks will help those with additional tax needs, providing intuitive features that simplify tax and help SMBs to submit with confidence ahead of the January deadline.

Launched in beta stage in October 2020, the tool already allows self-employed individuals to see their income tax and National Insurance contribution estimate in real-time and – using information already uploaded to QuickBooks Online – provides an estimate so that what is owed is always available to see, right alongside VAT, CIS and potentially payroll figures.

Previously optimised for self-employed individuals with more straightforward Self Assessment needs, QuickBooks can now categorise deductible and non-deductible expenses as well as take into consideration elements such as VAT and Construction Industry Scheme (CIS) returns and payments, so you get the full breakdown of what is owed. 

Self Assessment is being constantly developed and further updates to the tool, such as adding a Fixed Asset Register, are coming soon.

By using Self Assessment in QuickBooks, customers will also be ahead of the game for HMRC’s Making Tax Digital (MTD) initiative (slated to come into play for income tax in April 2023), giving them the edge in keeping up with tax regulation.

‘GoCardless’ special offer

With cash payments fast falling out of favour (particularly in response to COVID-19), GoCardless is integrated into the QuickBooks app to help businesses manage direct debit payments. In a special offer, customers who activate GoCardless between 1 December 2020 to 29 January 2021 will save up to £100 in fees.

‘GoCardless’ and QuickBooks gives small businesses the tools and knowhow to manage direct debits automatically each month – taking the guess work out of direct payments.

Getting Brexit-ready in 2021

With the Brexit transition period coming to an end, HMRC VAT tax codes are set to change in 2021. In readiness for the changes, tax codes will be automatically updated in QuickBooks – with no action from customers required. Customers can therefore be confident they are paying their VAT correctly – even as the tax landscape shifts. QuickBooks is helping small businesses to prepare for Brexit with tailored advice on its website.

Spencer Jensen, Head of Product at Intuit QuickBooks UK, said: “Self Assessment can always be a time-consuming and complex process and, given the challenges small businesses have experienced this year, we wanted to help them get prepared and remove as much stress from the process as possible. Our Self Assessment tool is specifically designed to make completing a tax return easier, using intuitive technology to arm applicants with the information they need to submit their return with confidence. 

“We’re committed to backing small businesses and our product updates are always developed with them in mind. We know that the burden of admin is a drain on small business owners’ time, so we offer all the tools they need to make financial management effortless in one place. That way they can focus on what they do best – running and growing their business.”

For more about QuickBooks, please go to https://quickbooks.intuit.com/uk/. 

Data platform company, RegulAItion has won the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) 2020 Global Fintech Hackcelerator.

Competing against over 270 submissions from across more than 40 countries, the RegulAItion team impressed the judges in the Global Fintech Programme by developing an innovative market-ready solution that is to be rolled out in the Singapore financial market in 2021.

To secure the win, RegulAItion successfully demonstrated how its ground-breaking AIR platform can enable the financial sector to respond to two of its most pressing global challenges today - COVID-19 and climate change.

The AIR platform blends privacy enhancing techniques, blockchain and AI in order to transform the way in which regulated organisations across the globe share data.

RegulAItion’s 2020 Global Fintech Hackcelerator team was led by its CTO, Paul Lee-Simion. He is renowned across the industry for generating billion dollar revenue streams for banks and insurance companies and his work has dominated financial markets for 30 years. 

Other members of the team include Hirsh Pithadia, Head of R&D, who previously developed a blockchain system for data sharing in the context of the Bank of England and FCA’s famous Digital Regulatory Reporting initiative.

“We are absolutely honoured to have won this prestigious award. The MAS Global Fintech accelerator is the Oscars of financial services,” commented RegulAItion CEO, Sally Sfeir-Tait. “This win is a real testament to the progress we have made in disrupting the world of regulated data. It marks the beginning of our journey in the Asia financial and regulatory markets and we’ll have some more exciting news to share in 2021.”

In winning the 2020 Global Fintech Hackcelerator, RegulAItion receives a total of £39,500 in prize money and its application to receive grant funding under the MAS Financial Sector Technology and Innovation (FSTI) Proof-of-Concept Scheme is now set to be fast tracked.

IBS Intelligence (www.ibsintelligence.com) has been the world’s trusted source of Financial Technology News, Research & Advisory Services for almost 3 decades and their research reports are consumed by global banks, suppliers and investors. The IBSI Global Fintech Innovation Award is a distinguished recognition of project excellence and winners are determined based on solution originality, project impact, program complexity, adaptability of concept, speed to market, governance, best practices and tools adopted. The 2020 edition of the awards had global participation from 220 banks and technology vendors across 52 countries.

Fino Payments Bank, along with CustomerXPs bagged this premier award for ‘Best Project Implementation in Risk Management’ for flawlessly implementing + going live with Clari5 Enterprise-wide Fraud Management solution despite the challenging Covid situation – a testimony to our shared vision of execution excellence.