A global leader in dispute management and mitigation, Chargebacks911, today announced the appointment of Jia Min Tan to the role of Director of Business Development, APAC, as part of its ongoing expansion in the region.

Singapore-based Jia Min’s appointment will help to facilitate the rapid growth, as well as being a strategic move aimed at overcoming any language barriers with partners to ensure a truly seamless end-to-end service.

Commenting on her new role, Jia Min said: “APAC is a fast-growing market with great potential for growth. We’re seeing a mass adoption of credit cards and digital payments in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, which naturally means we’re witnessing a spike in the reports of fraud.

“Despite the demand for dispute management specialists in the region, there has been a distinct lack of support and solutions available on the market, which presents an ideal opportunity for Chargebacks911. There has never been a better time for us to focus our attention on this under-serviced region.”

Jia Min brings a wealth of experience to the role, having worked across the dispute technology, fraud prevention and risk management industries, and a background in the increasing pre-transaction risks such as advertising fraud and loyalty membership fraud.

Her knowledge in eCommerce operations, challenges and trends, as well as strong networking abilities, will further bolster Chargebacks911’s already impressive APAC outfit. Her multi-lingual skill set will prove invaluable when bolstering Chargebacks911’s offering in the market.

Benjamin Bridwell, Chief of Staff at Chargebacks911 and Fi911, added: “We’re thrilled to welcome Jia Min to our APAC team, leading business development in such a crucial region for Chargebacks911 and Fi911. Not only does Jia Min understand the multifaceted challenges of this sector, but the opportunities it provides.

“We anticipate strong growth throughout 2021 and her wealth of experience and on-the-ground knowledge couldn’t be better placed to serve our current needs, and more importantly, those of businesses and our partners.”

To find out more about how Chargebacks911 and Fi911 help merchants and financial institutions both mitigate and manage chargebacks, visit chargebacks911.com and fi911.com.

Trade Ledger, the global technology provider to the commercial banking and financial services industry, today announced that Bibby Financial Services (BFS), a global SME financier, has adopted the Trade Ledger origination platform to streamline customer onboarding and operational processes.

Trade Ledger’s Lending-as-a-Service Platform allows funders to re-imagine business finance for the digital era, using cloud-native technologies, open banking APIs, and advanced analytics to power data-driven product innovation and process automation across the end-to-end financing process.

BFS will leverage the platform to enhance its e-apply functionality, speed up the application process and enable greater control for businesses seeking funding. Implemented in just 12 weeks and available from today, the service will provide a digital self-service onboarding and application journey directly from the BFS website with prospects able to view and manage applications in a single portal. The platform will connect directly to a business’s accounting systems and to a range of third-party data sources to provide the most comprehensive view of financial health and credit eligibility.

Martin McCann, CEO and co-founder of Trade Ledger, said: “We are delighted to be working with the team at Bibby Financial Services helping them to drive automation throughout their customer onboarding processes. As a global enterprise software provider, the large-scale complex lending operation of Bibby Financial Service is an ideal candidate for technology led, data-driven lending transformation. We are projecting significant cost efficiencies in operations and revenue growth due to enhanced customer experience.”

Edward Winterton, UK CEO of BFS, said: “Customer experience is at the heart of what we do and we are continuously looking for ways to enhance the way SMEs interact and transact with us online. Our partnership with Trade Ledger reflects this continuous improvement, enabling SMEs searching for finance to quickly and easily apply for the funding they need.”

Engagement Banking technology provider Backbase today announces the launch of its next-generation platform, as well as the release of its enhanced Backbase-as-a-Service (BaaS) offering. The announcement comes as Backbase hosts its annual event—Backbase Connect—which unites thousands of digital banking leaders virtually to discuss the future of banking and experience Backbase’s newest innovations.

The two launches mark an acceleration of the banking industry’s move towards a technology-led, single platform play—which is already a key disrupter in other industries. 

Backbase’s improved platform, as well as its enhanced BaaS offering, provides banks with the agility of a one-platform infrastructure, while enabling them to draw on the rapid innovation power of Backbase’s rapid release cycles and in-house teams. These two enhanced offerings will allow banks to take full control of customer engagement across their entire financial lifecycle, all in one place, while continuously adapting to customer needs by instantly executing new digital services.

The Engagement Banking Platform now incorporates upgraded features such as a unified security architecture, enhanced banking services, and seamless interoperability. This presents an instant transformation for banks, from technological laggards into state-of-the-art and holistic digital-first businesses. Free from siloes, the rich set of pre-built apps and journeys already enhanced every channel and line of business (Retail, SME, Corporate, Wealth) for customers—but now notably, also employees. 

With the addition of a unified Employee App, customer support staff are freed from laborious manual tasks and duplicated work. This next-level employee empowerment is key to Backbase’s 2021 strategy: provide financial institution employees with tools to focus on improved care and catered, personalized experiences for their customers.

Through the Engagement Banking Platform, banks will be able to orchestrate the complete journey of a customer from onboarding and account opening through to cross-selling and up-selling as financial needs change. Additionally, the platform allows banks to aggregate the value of Backbase’s wider fintech ecosystem by accessing their curated list of external partners, or giving banks the option of selecting their own.

In addition to the platform innovations, Backbase’s enhanced BaaS offering incorporates a key expansion of services – adding complete outsourced DevOps support to its existing managed hosting offering. The enhanced BaaS solution enables banks to maximize their speed of innovation and delivery, allowing them to launch new services faster than ever by drawing on the experience and best practices of Backbase’s in house DevOps experts. By leveraging the new BaaS solution, banks will benefit from increased innovation power, enhanced agility, and the ability to keep pace with market demand, all while lowering operational costs. By capitalizing on Backbase’s team to build, test and deploy digital services on their behalf, banks can shift their focus back to their core concern: the customer.

Jouk Pleiter, CEO of Backbase, comments: “The banking industry has no choice but to adapt to the one-platform play that BigTech has shown us is disrupting every single industry. Without it, banks as we know it will not survive. They need rapid digital execution power and instant innovation abilities if they are going to thrive in the platform economy, where speed is the new currency.

“For technology to truly drive growth, banks must experiment, learn, deploy and scale faster than ever. This is what we are making possible with the launch of our new Engagement Banking Platform and our enhanced BaaS solution. Customers are used to approaching everything in their lives the way they do with Netflix – through one seamless app. To match these expectations, banks need to replace their long-outdated systems and shift to a single platform approach, while innovating at the speed of digital. This is the only way to bring a genuinely customer-centric approach to the banking world and take full control of customers’ entire financial lives. If banks don’t take that control now, someone else will.”

Leading European fintechs Cobase and Ebury today announce a partnership which opens up Ebury’s FX services to the Cobase multi-banking platform.

Cobase, an innovative leader in cloud-based corporate multi-banking solutions, will offer its corporate treasury clients services from Ebury, a leading global FinTech backed by Santander Bank that specializes in cross-border financial services and risk management.

The partnership follows the launch of Cobase’s new Liquidity Forecasting and FX Exposure Management modules, which enable corporate treasuries to optimize cash positions or automatically hedge their FX risk on a continuous basis.

Adding Ebury’s services to Cobase’s platform will give clients broader access to more cost-effective FX services, and Cobase users will be able to receive competitive FX quotes from Ebury and book FX trades without the need to access any other system.

Users will also be able to receive real-time status of transactions and reporting to automate the reconciliation process within Cobase, all seamlessly integrated with other Cobase Cash Management and Treasury Management modules.

The partnership between Cobase and Ebury reflects a growing European ecosystem where fintechs are combining to offer international businesses a smoother banking experience.

Juan Lobato, Ebury’s co-founder and CEO, commented: “We believe that companies of all sizes will increasingly use aggregated platforms, such as Cobase, to access financial services and manage their treasury functions. Connecting Ebury’s competitive FX services with Cobase will make it easier for companies to access more automated FX services without any additional integrations.”

Joost Kevelam, Head of Financial Markets & Risk Solutions at Cobase: “Our aim is to make multi banking simple. By adding Ebury as a FX liquidity provider to our FX Exposure Management module, we offer our corporate clients more options to optimize their cross-border operations.”

ALPIMA, the B2B SaaS platform for investment management and product design, today launched ALPIMA Notebooks 2.0, an enhanced module that enables quant and development teams to build, develop and implement high-quality investment strategies – faster and better. ALPIMA Notebooks 2.0 supports rapid prototyping, strategy design and custom indexing for a wide group of users across banks, index providers, asset managers, wealth managers and asset owners.

Initially available to a small group of enterprise clients, a broader roll-out is scheduled for January 2021.

“ALPIMA Notebooks 2.0 provides quant and development teams with a highly flexible environment to accelerate the design, evaluation and implementation of rules-based investment strategies,” said Pierre Mendelsohn, Founder and CEO of ALPIMA. “It is great to be able to provide clients with a single, secure, web-based interface where they can perform all development steps and securely keep their code, images, comments, formulae and plots together.”

He added: “This launch is another step in our mission to help our clients harness the power of technology to accelerate product design and bring R&D closer to the end-customer.”

ALPIMA serves leading financial firms, working in partnership to provide a technology platform which enables them to design, build, test, optimise and implement personalised, dynamic strategies in minutes rather than days or months. 

ALPIMA Notebooks 2.0 is an easy to use, robust, and adaptive platform, designed to boost productivity. It is a fully-maintained Integrated Development Environment (IDE) on the cloud for data scientists and quantitative teams. Delivering the full power of programmable Notebooks, the platform allows clients to focus on value-added strategy design work, instead of the time-consuming task of having to manage a Notebook library.  Clients have complete access, control, and visibility of each step required to build and deploy investment strategies - from developing, documenting, and executing code, to communicating and sharing the results, all the way to implementation.

Exactpro, a leading software testing provider for financial market infrastructures, has today announced the launch of th2, its new, next-generation test automation toolkit for functional and non-functional testing of complex financial systems. 

The th2 toolkit is designed to enable efficient machine learning (ML)-driven testing for complex distributed transaction processing systems, such as securities trading systems and exchanges, banking, brokerage, post-trade (e.g. clearing, settlement, custody), and payments platforms.  

th2 can withstand heavy testing loads, improving test coverage, system quality, and resilience. This is complemented by a range of enhanced data capabilities including faster data processing and unified storage of test results. This provides the ability to perform the analysis of massive amounts of generated test evidence, ensuring regulatory compliance. 

th2 is a Kubernetes-driven microservices solution. It operates by leveraging a technology stack with an open interface, allowing users to adopt digital technology such as the cloud and distributed ledger technology (DLT). It can integrate with a wide range of existing test tools, frameworks, and network protocols.  

Users of th2 - software development engineers in test (SDET) professionals who can work equally and effectively as programmers, testers and data analysts - will be able to execute sophisticated test algorithms, collect and process distributed test data (e.g. for ML purposes), perform model-based testing, and analyse the behaviour of the systems under test.th2 microservices design allows implementing a large varietyof automated testing techniques and efficiently combining them to deal with very complex test cases and scenarios. 

th2 has already been successfully deployed in a number of use cases. Its first adopter - Airbus' subsidiary Skytra - harnessed the technology for its derivatives trading software; and its most recent implementation was for ML-driven testing of Quod Financial’s technology. 

Alexey Zverev, CEO and co-founder of Exactpro, said: “th2 represents the next generation of automated testing platforms. We believe its usage will eventually transform the way firms approach their functional and non-functional testing processes. We look forward to rolling the framework out over the coming months and developing further use cases with our clients and partners.” 

th2 source code is now hosted on GitHub and open for contributions from the software testing professional community. 

Worldline [Euronext: WLN], the European market leader in payment and transaction services, is proud to achieve “Platinum” level recognition Medal by the independent non-financial rating agency EcoVadis for the fifth year. With a 3-point improvement on its global ESG (Environment, Social, and Governance) performance compared to 2019, Worldline has recorded an overall score of 86/100 in recognition of the continued progress made through its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) approach.

With this ranking, the highest distinction awarded by EcoVadis, Worldline positions itself in the TOP 1% of the most sustainable companies assessed by the financial platform in all sectors. This award confirms the company’s long-term commitment to sustainable development, supported by its TRUST 2020 programme in the following areas assessed by EcoVadis: labour & human rights, ethics, environment and sustainable procurement.

Worldline has performed particularly well on social matters and especially in the area of Labor & human rights, improving significantly its performance with a 10-point gain compared to previous year, reaching a score of 90/100. This outstanding result is mainly due to the rigorous efforts made by the Company as part of its responsible employer strategy. A wide array of measures and actions have been reinforced and implemented, such as more formal processes for employee career and development management, strengthened actions to fight against discrimination and harassment, a reinforced interactive communication plan toward employees on well-being and working conditions especially during the COVID-19 pandemic period and the setting up of a negotiating group for the establishment of a European works council.

Regarding the environment, Worldline maintains its good score of 80/100 pursuing its trajectory towards a low-carbon company to fight against climate change by reducing, limiting and neutralizing carbon emissions linked to its activities. Since 2019, all emissions from Worldline data centers, offices, business travel and payment terminals have been offset, positioning the Company as the 1^st payments player to contribute to the carbon neutrality of the ecosystem. Worldline has also set new climate objectives aligned with the SBTi (Sciences Based Targets initiative [1]): 

-       Reduce its carbon intensity by 2.67% each year, in line with its objectives validated by the SBTi, i.e. -19% by 2025 and -45% by 2035, compared to 2018;

-       Continue the ISO 14001 certification of its strategic data centers and offices with more than 500 employees;

-       Achieve an average PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness [2]) of 1.65 by 2020 in its data centers;

-       Supply 100% renewable energy for the Group's electricity consumption;

-       Continue to contribute to carbon neutrality by offsetting 100% of residual CO₂ emissions related to its activities.

Regarding Ethics, Worldline once again received a score of 90/100 confirming its ability to promote and influence responsible behaviours and practices throughout its value chain.

Sébastien Mandron, Head of CSR at Worldline, said: "I am proud that once again this year, Worldline has been distinguished as one of EcoVadis-rated most sustainable companies. Our high score rewards the commitment and collective work of our teams and is even more important this year in the current macroeconomic context of the Covid-19 health crisis.

Worldline has an ambitious vision of its social and environmental responsibility, and we made it even more concrete in June 2020, when we officially launched our Company purpose (“raison d’être”) to gather the Worldline community around a long-term, coherent and shared vision." 

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[1] Learn more about SBTi initiative

[2] Power usage effectiveness (PUE) is a ratio that describes how efficiently a computer data center uses energy

QuantHouse, the global provider of end-to-end systematic trading solutions including innovative market data services, algo trading platform and infrastructure products and part of Iress (IRE.ASX), today announced that InfoReach Inc. (InfoReach) has integrated QuantHouse's API to power their Trade Management System (TMS) with high performance, global market data across equities, options and futures. 

InfoReach provides broker-neutral, multi-asset technology for global electronic trading and analysis to buy-side firms around the world. The InfoReach TMS provides pre/in/post trade analysis, pre-built and broker-provided algorithms, real-time, interactive charts and position monitoring, portfolio trading capabilities, order management and FIX connectivity in a multi-broker execution management system. The InfoReach and QuantHouse integration provides a proven solution for multi-asset buy side firms, offering both managed display and non-display capabilities for mutual clients. 

Through the QuantHouse/InfoReach partnership, end users can access data from over 150 sources. As automatic participants of the qh API Ecosystem, users also benefit from outright market data feeds and advanced analytics providers. By connecting to the QuantHouse single API, time to market and development resources are reduced when integrating new data sources. The InfoReach TMS can be accessed via QuantLINK, QuantHouse's global, low latency network, or deployed as standalone software at client facilities.

Salloum Abousaleh, Managing Director, Americas, QuantHouse, said: “We have built a long-standing, successful and proven relationship with InfoReach initially covering global futures markets, and are now excited to expand our partnership to cover global equities, options and futures. As a specialist data and technology provider with an extensive partner ecosystem, QuantHouse is well positioned to bridge the gap between buy-side firms and leading technology providers so they can focus on generating alpha. Combining our core offerings enables us to provide a fully end-to-end solution for market access, trading, execution and risk management.”

Allen Zaydlin, CEO, InfoReach, added: “After reviewing the wider market, it was a clear decision to expand our relationship to other asset classes. QuantHouse acts as a trusted partner understanding our business and the breadth of data and coverage required by our end customers. By working in partnership with QuantHouse, the headache of maintaining and managing relationships with external data providers is removed, costs are reduced and in our experience, the quality of QuantHouse data far outweighs data offered by other providers.”

Virgin Money has announced its API integration with technology experts Twenty7tec. The partnership will streamline the search and application process for intermediaries by removing the need to re-key data in multiple places.

The integration will be the first of its kind from a top 10 lender. Users can not only apply for a Decision in Principle from Virgin via this integration, but also submit a full mortgage application and make payments without needing to visit the Virgin Money portal.

Available across residential and Buy to Let, for both purchase and remortgage customers, this partnership revolutionises the application process. 

Intermediaries will also benefit from being able to view case tracking and case notes, which will deliver clear and consistent communication for them to manage cases and support their customers. It will also reduce the propensity for human error, therefore improving packaging and turnaround times for the intermediary and customer.

Initially the service will be made available to Connells and Mortgage Advice Bureau, before being rolled out to the wider market in early 2021.

Simon Wallace, Head of Mortgage Integration and Transformation at Virgin Money, said: “At Virgin Money we have made no secret of our ambition to drive change and innovation in the mortgage market. This exciting partnership with Twenty7tec will play a key part in achieving that goal.

“The APPLY platform will make it even easier for intermediaries to submit cases to us, saving them precious time, which could be better spent on helping their next client. We’re proud to offer our intermediary partners an end to end proposition, allowing them to submit both Decisions in Principle and full applications to Virgin Money.”

James Tucker, CEO of Twenty7Tec, noted: “Virgin Money has a great track record for innovating in the mortgage market and playing a huge role in delivering better customer service, so we’re over the moon to help them with this integration. As a result of this deal, Virgin Money Customers will experience a seamless experience from beginning to end – something which the Virgin brand is so closely allied with. We’re proud to be their partner in making the mortgage experience a little better for everyone involved.”

Ben Thompson, Deputy CEO of MAB, added: “This is a really progressive step, that we thoroughly welcome. Simplification of the mortgage process is very much needed, even more so in the current environment. This integration helps MAB to further progress its own technology agenda, freeing up more time for advisers to focus on advice, and customers to have a more straightforward and less duplicated process.”

Adrian Scott, Group Mortgage Services Director of Connells, concluded: “It is great to see yet another lender go live with the excellent APPLY, and to see Virgin Money working so well with Twenty7Tec to deliver the full end to end journey for the broker, and customer. This will make writing business with Virgin Money far more efficient, which is always an attractive proposition for any broker, but particularly at this time when the market is so busy."

Railsbank, the leading global open banking platform, today announced the appointment of Louisa Murray as its Chief Operating Officer (COO) for UK and Europe, effective immediately. The announcement follows the recent appointments of Dov Marmor as COO for North America and Justin Xiao as COO for Southeast Asia.

In this newly-created role, Murray will focus on driving Railsbank’s continued expansion and helping the company build on its hard-earned position as the pre-eminent Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) player in the region. The announcement follows Railsbank’s recent USD37 million growth funding round, co-led by MiddleGame Ventures and Ventura Capital.

Speaking of her appointment, Murray said: “I am honoured to take on this new role to help Railsbank execute its ambitious vision to democratise and embed financial services, and drive forward the open API economy.”

Prior to taking on her new role, Murray was Railsbank’s Head of Sales, leading the company's growth strategy across business units and regions, as well as overseeing global marketing activities.

The appointment builds on the company’s announcement in August about the acquisition of Wirecard Card Solutions’ card technology, UK and European clients and certain employees, making Railsbank the leading BaaS platform in Europe.

Nigel Verdon, co-founder and CEO of Railsbank, said: “Louisa has been a trusted and instrumental part of our team from pretty much the outset. She is a pioneer in our industry and will help take Railsbank to new heights. Not surprising for a former GB junior show jumping team member.”

Murray’s career spans more than 30 years in the financial services sector. She made her mark early on as one of the first female derivative traders at Barclays and CIBC and has been recently named a 'Rising Woman in Crypto' by Wirex and The Fintech Times.