Home Credit Group, which lends to underserved customers with little or no credit history, has chosen FICO® Decision Optimizer to further improve its lending offers in multiple markets. The adoption of FICO’s AI-powered optimization follows a successful pilot in Russia, which delivered excellent results including significant profitability improvement on the targeted part of the loan portfolio, as well as an increase in new loan volumes.

“We pride ourselves on being a responsible lender whose decision-making in risk management is powered by advanced technology,” explained Radek Pluhar, Home Credit Group’s Chief Risk Officer. “We have a very clear understanding of the consumers we want to continue serving – they are often neglected by other lenders simply because of their lack of credit history. For them it’s vital that we are able to offer a loan with the best possible combination of the price and the loan size which fits their needs. FICO Decision Optimizer will help us to acquire these customers while meeting our demanding risk and reward targets. The advanced technology enables us to boost our competitive edge across our markets.”

Home Credit Group’s central team of data scientists and optimization experts will further develop country-specific solutions to optimize loan pricing in Kazakhstan and Vietnam initially, with plans to expand into other markets in the next phase.

“Pricing optimization can generate impressive results in just a few months,” said Petr Kapoun, Chief Risk Officer at Home Credit Russia. “FICO’s optimization approach brings a clear structure that easily accommodates numerous overlapping policy rules; at the same time, it builds our own analytics expertise into the final decision-making. Such a unique combination delivers truly significant business impact and we are continuously looking for its introduction into new applications areas.”

“We have built an excellent relationship with Home Credit Group’s risk team,” added Steve Hadaway, EMEA general manager for FICO. “They understand the potential that mathematical optimization can bring to an organization. Our pilot delivered outstanding results, giving the business the confidence to implement the solution for other markets targeted for growth amidst challenging environments.”

FICO® Decision Optimizer, part of the FICO® Platform, supports the entire lifecycle of designing, developing, executing and deploying decision optimization technology. Its advanced decision impact modelling, simulation and optimization techniques allow lenders to discover better decision strategies that balance trade-offs between cost, risk and reward, while also factoring in economic and market conditions.

SIA, a leading European hi-tech company in the payment services and infrastructures sector, controlled by CDP Equity, has signed a partnership agreement with Hex Trust, the leading fintech company in digital asset custody infrastructure for the banking sector, to provide digital asset services to European financial institutions enabling their customers to access new investments opportunities based on blockchain technology.

Through an innovative platform, SIA and Hex Trust will allow banks and financial institutions to manage and safekeep any kind of digital assets - such as security and utility tokens, central bank digital currencies and stablecoins created on a number of different blockchain protocols - and to offer custody services to their institutional, private banking and retail clients with the highest levels of security, control and scalability.

Furthermore, this custody platform connects financial institutions to digital asset intermediaries (including exchanges, brokers and lending platforms) within a secure custody framework complying with the most stringent Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing regulatory requirements.

The partnership between SIA and Hex Trust comes at an exciting time of growth in the digital assets market, as many first-tier banks and financial institutions are entering the industry and several Central Banks are also working to launch their digital currency pilots.

“The collaboration with Hex Trust further strengthens our expertise and primary role in designing and delivering innovative infrastructures for the European financial community. We aim to create an ecosystem where banks can manage their digital assets based on state-of-the-art technologies and comply with their internal procedures and regulatory requirements,” commented Daniele Savarè, Innovation & Business Solutions Director of SIA.

“This is a critical milestone as SIA and Hex Trust join forces to make a bank-grade solution for digital assets available to European financial institutions. The partnership comes at a key inflexion point in the market where digital assets have become a reality: the banking sector is requiring a clear strategy around them and we are perfectly positioned to support this transformation,” said Alessio Quaglini, CEO and Co-Founder of Hex Trust.

App Annie, the leading mobile data and analytics company, recently released a report on Generation Z, How to Build a Winning Gen Z Strategy on Mobile, that reveals the mobile habits of this generation to help businesses understand and cater to this group.

Gen Z is quickly becoming one of the world’s most powerful consumer segments - as one of the youngest generations, Gen Z amounts to a third of the world’s population and controls an estimated spending power of $143 billion annually. With 98 percent of Gen Z owning a smartphone, on average receiving their first at the age of ten, it’s clear that businesses looking to reach this demographic need to meet them on their mobile devices.

“Gen Z has never known a world without their smartphone. They see the world through this mobile first lens,” said Ted Krantz, CEO, App Annie. “As new consumers, businesses have an opportunity to earn their loyalty. App Annie connects brands to the mobile preferences of this generation.”

"Leveraging data to understand how to best reach consumers on mobile is more critical than ever, and Gen Z’s importance for marketers will only increase in 2021 and beyond. Businesses need to understand the values and user preferences of this audience to create truly engaging experiences on innovative platforms like Snapchat," said Skye Featherstone, Product Marketing Manager, Snap, Inc.

Key insights and statistics about Gen Z from the report include:

• On average Gen Z users spent 4.1hrs per month on apps (excluding games) in Q3 2020
• TikTok and Snapchat are the most over-indexed apps among Gen Z in nine out of ten markets analyzed, indicating the importance of a photo and video-first strategy
• The finance and shopping app categories have experienced the strongest growth YoY with the Gen Z audience, with a 60 percent increase versus Q3 2019
• Finance apps like Venmo and DANA are more likely to over-index on Gen Z in most markets, indicating an opportunity for mobile-first banks to capture Gen Z audiences
• Gen Z is less likely than average to use the top 20 shopping apps, indicating opportunity for brands to expand their Gen Z reach within this space
• Gen Z’s engagement is deeper in apps (excluding games), with 20 percent more sessions per user in top apps than older groups
• The Core action gaming genre (led by Battle Royale games such as PUBG Mobile and Free Fire) accounted for nearly 25 percent of time spent among Gen Z gamers

The How to Build a Winning Gen Z Strategy on Mobile report offers significant additional insight into the behaviors and preferences of Gen Z and where opportunities for brands lie within this critical audience, including how these attributes vary across different geographies and categories.

To learn more, download the report at:  https://www.appannie.com/en/insights/reports/how-to-build-a-winning-gen-z-strategy-on-mobile.

Leading trade digitisation technology provider Bolero International has announced significant new partnerships with CommChain and Envoy to embed electronic bill of lading into their blockchain based digital trade platforms built on R3’s Corda.

CommChain, based in Australia, and Envoy, based in Latin America, will use Bolero’s electronic bill of lading as-a-service in their highly advanced digital trade platforms built on distributed ledger technology. These partnerships confirm Bolero as the number one provider of electronic bills of lading (eBLs) to blockchain based trade and supply chain finance platforms.

As part of Bolero’s ambitious broader strategy to establish itself as the platform agnostic, interoperable eBL service specialist, Bolero continues to invest in global partnerships with trade platforms across all leading blockchain platforms such as Hyperledger, Corda and Ethereum. Bolero provides eBL as a service to Contour, a leading trade finance network, and earlier this year, became part of the Marco Polo Network, the world’s largest and fastest-growing trade finance and working capital network.

Bolero CEO, Andrew Raymond said: “Bolero is continuously investing in new technologies and innovating to keep pace with evolving business models in digital trade. These partnerships reinforce Bolero’s strategy of easing the adoption of eBL services globally and will help grow the Bolero network of banks, corporate and carriers. Collaborations with CommChain and Envoy are exciting because they share our vision of fully digital global trade finance flows with streamlined processes benefiting all parties.”

CommChain is transforming the processing of bulk commodity trades through the elimination of paper. It offers a secure digital solution with a suite of features that radically improve efficiency in the execution of logistics services and trade settlement.

Gary Zamel, Co-founder and Executive Chairman of CommChain, added: “It is an exciting move for CommChain to partner with Bolero – a company that has a tried-and-tested eBL solution that fits in perfectly with our aim of transforming the commodity trading industry through digitisation and the power of blockchain.”

Envoy Group employs blockchain technologies to bring significant efficiencies to global supply chain and trade finance, injecting vital and once-unobtainable liquidity into the system by means of decentralised finance (DeFi).

Lee Tarone, CEO of Envoy, said: “Like Bolero, we want to revolutionise global trade and its processes, opening up the system to provide thousands of companies with the finance they are currently denied. Our partnership with a proven expert such as Bolero is a big step forward in fulfilling our ambitions.”

Covid-19 remains one of the biggest global health issues we’ve seen in our lifetimes, and finding a vaccine is a cause that people all over the world want to support.

But, when it comes to donations to international organisations, most banks and payment providers don’t exchange money using the mid-market rate (the rate you find on Reuters, and Google). 

That means when people donate money to Covid-19 research efforts in another country, and the transfer provider doesn’t give them the real exchange rate, the full donation isn’t getting to their chosen organisation.

Today, TransferWise is launching it’s COVID-19 donation platform, partnering with 3 international organisations working to find a vaccine for COVID-19. Currently, these are: Gavi - the Vaccine alliance CEPI - the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness UNF - formal name for the World Health Organisation. We’re also waiving fees up to $20 million in donations - meaning the entire amount transferred will reach these organisations.

If you’d like to hear more about the issue of hidden fees in international donations, and specifically how it might impact Covid-19 efforts, we'll be happy to discuss, and potentially loop in some of our partners.

You can read more in the blog here.

Bottomline (NASDAQ: EPAY), a leading provider of financial technology that makes complex business payments simple, smart and secure, today commented on the launch of the Coronavirus Payment Plan, a debt management program offered by StepChange Debt Charity, and created in consultation with the UK Government. 

Bottomline’s PTX payment platform is enabling the StepChange program to collect available funds from individuals, manage debt payment plans and associated official correspondence, and disburse the agreed payments as negotiated with creditors across the country.

“Setting up mandates, managing payment plans, and collecting or paying variable amounts on a recurring basis can be a complicated and time-consuming process, aggravated by potential fraud and manual error if not managed properly,” said Nigel Savory, Managing Director of Europe, Bottomline. “Bottomline’s PTX payment platform provides a simple, smart and secure way to automate and ease that process.”

Responsible for managing StepChange’s technology and architecture, Lorna Allan, CIO of StepChange Debt Charity, explained: “The coronavirus pandemic has created a period of widespread financial instability for households, with many people receiving unforeseen knocks to their finances. That’s why we have developed CVPP, a product to help those who need to get back on their feet quickly. In a similar way to longer-term payment plans, StepChange will work with CVPP applicants to determine the number of creditors they have, what they owe, and what they are able to pay. StepChange will then liaise with all creditors on behalf of the client, who will be required to make one single payment per month to StepChange as per their agreed plan for the next 12 months – with the option to leave or to switch to a different debt solution if their circumstances change during that period.

“To manage these payments, we needed to rely on proven technology that could be rapidly deployed. Having worked with Bottomline for many years, we naturally turned to them to handle the seamless disbursement of our clients’ debts to their creditors. Their services have not let us down during our long relationship, and therefore it was a natural decision to work with Bottomline to implement PTX on CVPP to ensure the smooth and ongoing transfer of funds for our clients throughout their payment plans.”

Savory added: “It’s a privilege to be involved in this program with StepChange as they offer hundreds of thousands of individuals a way to help manage their debt during this difficult time.”

• 22.10.2020 -- 12:23 pm

Vijay Oddiraju is CEO of volante Technologies, a leading global provider of cloud payments and financial messaging solutions to accelerate digital transformation. They serve as a trusted partner to over 100 banks, financial institutions, market infrastructures, clearing houses, and corporate treasuries in 35 countries. Their solutions and services process millions of transactions and trillions in value every day, powering four of the top five corporate banks, 40% of all US commercial bank deposits, and 70% of worldwide card traffic.

Silverflow, a global payment technology company, is announcing a €2.6m seed funding round, led by UK-based seed-stage investor Crane Venture Partners with participation from INKEF Capital and notable angel investors and industry leaders from Pay.On, First Data, Booking.com and Adyen. With this seed round, Silverflow has now raised €3m in total funding.

Silverflow is a payments technology company building a modern and easy-to-use cloud platform for global cards processing with direct access into the card networks. Founded by long-time online payments industry veterans and seasoned startup founders CEO Anne-Willem de Vries (who was focused on card acquiring and processing at Adyen), CBDO Robert Kraal (former Adyen COO and EVP global card acquiring & processing of Adyen) and CTO Paul Buying (founder of acquired translation startup Livewords), Silverflow will launch its card payments processing technology in early 2021. 

Anne Willem de Vries, CEO and cofounder of Silverflow, commented: “Today’s card payment infrastructure is based on 30 to 40-year-old technology that’s still in use across the global payment landscape. The payment technology infrastructure costs everyone time and money: consumers, merchants, payment-service-providers, and banks. We founded Silverflow with the belief that  the payments technology stack needs an upgrade.”

Silverflow is the first card payments processor with a cloud-native platform built for today’s technology stack, with simple APIs and streamlined data flows, that is directly integrated into card networks. Silverflow is made for payment service processors (PSPs), acquirers and global top-market merchants that are seeing €500mn-10bn in annual transactions. Instead of customers needing to manage a complex network of acquirers across markets  and maintain dozens of bank and card network connections Silverflow provides card acquiring processing as a service that connects to card networks directly through a simple API.

Krishna Visvanathan, Partner at Crane Venture Partners, added: “Our mission at Crane is to back entrepreneurs who are redefining the enterprise technology stack and Silverflow epitomises this as it relates to global card processing. Whilst payments power the digital economy, existing backend processing technology is old, costly and inflexible - and ripe for reinvention. Silverflow’s founders are a powerhouse team of payments industry experts with a unique insight to building a product that transitions PSPs, acquirers, and merchants from inflexible legacy systems to a fully cloud-native modern architecture. We are proud to be supporting them as they launch and scale their card payments-as-a-service platform globally.”

Silverflow is a team of five employees based in Amsterdam. The new seed funding round will enable Silverflow to double its team by the end of 2020, adding new developers and a commercial director. Silverflow has been in development for over two years and will be ready to launch in early 2021. 

Angel investor Marcus Mosen, senior payment executive, industry advisor and  early investor in fintechs like Iyzico or N26, added: "I'm proud to support the founding team at Silverflow as they get ready to launch a truly innovative payments technology platform. Silverflow is the solution to bring innovation to the payments tech stack through intuitive card network connections and processing. Reducing the complexity and cost of managing a network of card processing solutions, Silverflow brings modern technology, smart data insights and the ability to roll out new products across markets with its new card payments processing technology."

FintechOS, the global technology provider for banks, insurance and financial services companies, today announced FinVision, a three-day virtual event that showcases successes, challenges and best practices for financial innovation. The event will run from November 17^th to 19^th and bring together impartial industry leaders, visionary speakers, and experts from the FintechOS community of banks, insurers, fintechs, investors and media.

FinVision will blend compelling content and networking opportunities to ignite relevant conversations, connections and innovation. The conference will include keynotes, panel debates, fireside chats, in-depth case studies, live Q&A sessions and 1-to-1 meetings with over 1,000 peers. Throughout the event, attendees will benefit from practical advice and use-cases from speakers that have achieved success in digital transformation, get insights on the latest trends in banking and insurance, and get a glimpse into the future of financial technology innovation.

Companies that will be speaking at the event include:

• 11:FS
• ClearBank
• Hyperion Insurance
• Mastercard
• Microsoft
• Societe Generale
• Uniqa Insurance Group

“The goal of this event is to spark discussions for curious-minds within the financial services sector,” said Teo Blidarus, Co-Founder & CEO at FintechOS. “We’ve seen firsthand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on those not digitally astute. The financial services sector needs to be less reactive and instead devise long-term proactive strategies that bring about clear change. Our industry needs to challenge the status quo more than ever and deliver more to our customers. To do this, we need to understand best practices and learn from our peers who are on the same journey. And this is where FinVision can make a very real difference.”

The first day of the event is focused on banks and will explore topics such as the shift from Open Banking to Open Finance, how to build the customer-centric bank of the future, the next generation of SME banking in the new reality, and much more. Day two is targeted and tailored for the insurance industry, with themes focusing on the importance of data-driven insurance and transformation for smarter customer strategies. The final day will focus on the technology innovations empowered by FintechOS and its ecosystem of partners and customers and feature hands-on product demos and selected customer cases across a series of virtual roundtables and webinars.

The FinVision agenda, registration details and further speaker opportunities can be found at the FintechOS website here: https://finvision.fintechos.com/.