TransferGo, one of the world’s fastest growing money transfer companies, today partners with Visa, the world’s leader in digital payments, to bring real-time international money transfers to consumers’ bank cards. This service is currently live in 32 markets, including Germany, Spain, Romania, Poland, Ukraine and Turkey and has the potential to expand to a total of 178 countries in the future with additions such as the UK, Italy and Nigeria.
 
Together, TransferGo and Visa enable customers to send and receive funds through Visa’s real-time push payments platform, Visa Direct. This means that consumers using TransferGo to send or receive funds will benefit from the speed and security of the Visa network when sending or receiving money overseas. By using this solution, customers can send payments directly to a card without having to navigate online banking or find the International Banking Account Number (IBAN). It’s fast, convenient and provides customers with greater choice and accessibility in how they move their money.
 
This partnership helps TransferGo to take direct advantage of the availability of the Visa Direct service. Currently serving 32 countries, today’s announcement brings real-time payments to thousands of TransferGo users, while the prospect of increasing availability to 178 markets will mean that the partnership has a global focus, allowing many more to benefit from the speed and security of the service.
 
Commenting on the partnership, Daumantas Dvilinskas, CEO and Co-Founder of TransferGo, said: “We are committed to a constant cycle of innovation, meaning our customers and their needs are at the heart of everything we do. This is why it is important to us to ensure more people across more markets can experience the benefits of flexible international remittances through easier, faster, and more secure services like Visa Direct. What is more, as the service continues to grow, customers could see availability expand further into Africa, Southeast Asia and the Commonwealth of Independent States.”
 
“Now more than ever, people have a vital need to access fast, simple and secure ways to move their money across borders to support friends and family overseas,” said Tim Summers, Vice President, Visa Direct, Visa. “We look forward to continuing our ongoing work with TransferGo to make this possible through real-time payments to more consumers across the globe.”

This announcement comes at a time of growth for TransferGo, with over 2 million users and a $10 million investment boost that will enable the business to expand its global footprint and continue to launch new services on its cross-border payments platform. TransferGo also recently hired Edgardo Savoy as Chief Technology Officer and Francesco Fulcoli as Chief Compliance Officer to develop and implement its technology innovation roadmap.

The Emerging Payments Association (EPA), which promotes collaboration and innovation across payments, has today published a paper containing the community’s responses to HM Treasury's Payments Landscape Review: Call for Evidence, detailing recommendations on how to ensure the UK’s payments industry becomes progressive, world-leading and secure, and effective at serving the needs of everyone who pays and gets paid.

The paper describes some of the opportunities and challenges facing payments firms, including macro factors such as Brexit and changing regulations in the European Union (EU) to industry developments such as Open Banking and ISO202022. Furthermore, the consultation response details how technology-enabled developments like Central Bank Digital Currencies and QR-Code enabled payment platforms are enjoying widespread adoption in Asia.

The community’s response also considers the implications of changing consumer behaviour, as a result of the current pandemic and the importance of monitoring and evolving the roles and responsibilities of the different stakeholders leading and regulating payments in the UK.

Overall, the EPA believes that the Government is meeting its objective that UK payments networks operate for the benefit of end-users but that more can be done over time to create an even fairer playing field.

Tony Craddock, Director General of the Emerging Payments Association, commented: “The EPA welcomes the opportunity to contribute to HM Treasury’s Payments Landscape Review. The community’s responses reflect views expressed by our diverse members from across the payments value chain. It is testimony to the collegiate and collaborative nature of our industry, having been drafted by a member of our Project Regulator Team, and shaped and enhanced by contributions from the rest of the team and other volunteer members.”

Robert Courtneidge, Independent Industry Advisor and EPA Project Team Member, who drafted and coordinated the EPA’s response, added: “Once again the EPA’s Project Regulator Team has worked together on short notice to produce insights and opinions on how to keep the UK at the top of the World’s Fintech ladder.”

To download a copy of the paper, please visit: https://www.emergingpayments.org/whitepaper/epa-response-to-hmt-payments-landscape-review/.

For more information on the work and services of the EPA you can visit: www.emergingpayments.org you can speak directly to the EPA at: info@emergingpayments.org.

LUNU Solutions, the Berlin-based tech startup closing the gap between cryptocurrencies and the real world, announced their support for TBA21–Academy and its long-term commitment to fostering a deeper understanding of the ocean through the lens of art, science, and technology. Lunu becomes an official supporter of the Academy’s “Territorial Agency: Oceans in Transformation” exhibition synthesizing three years of intersectional research and its results, opening from August 27–November 29 at Ocean Space in the Chiesa di San Lorenzo in Venice and at www.ocean-archive.org.

Lunu’s overall support of the exhibition includes cross-marketing, a financial donation (made in cryptos and paid in Euros), and the production of a podcast about the potential of blockchain technology for environmental preservation, engaging TBA21–Academy’s extensive network of contemporary artists and other practitioners, produced in Venice during the exhibition 'Oceans in Transformation'. The podcast will address the relationship between art and creativity, the oceans, science, and the technology that will enable blockchain to bring about a more comprehensive global connectivity.

In addition, TBA21 – Academy becomes Lunu’s first placement of its processing technology and mobile terminal:  visitors can make donations to TBA21–Academy in cryptocurrencies with the Lunu Terminal. The Lunu online Widget will also enable donor contributions to the Academy in cryptos on the TBA21 – Academy website. 

“LUNU is giving birth to a new crypto ecosystem, so the connection between LUNU and the oceans – which connect everything on earth -- is symbolic of a nascent world with myriad possibilities,” commented Lunu Co-Founder and CEO  Artem Shaginyan. 

As a new brand entering a new space of global connectivity, Lunu recognizes its responsibility to act as a cultural agent, bringing to bear the powerful imaginaries of art with the profound insights of science to help resolve problems facing the world today. Chief among them: the plight of the world’s oceans – a  source of life and sustenance for living things. And deeply in peril. The name “Lunu” itself is derived from the Latin word for “moon” (Luna), the planet that controls the earth’s tides... and the oceans.

“Projects such as ‘Oceans in Transformation’ are key to what LUNU Solutions is about as a visionary brand,” said Vadim Grigoryan, LUNU Partner, and Chief Marketing Officer. “TBA21–Academy's project brings the plight of the oceans to public attention through cutting edge technology and scientific research while moving to action through art, design, and architecture,” he adds.

Supporters wishing to make an online donation in cryptos on the Academy’s website  should look for the link marked “Donate your cryptocurrency here, powered by LUNU, an official supporter of Oceans in Transformation.”

TBA21–Academy and Territorial Agency collaborated with a network of researchers and institutions for this exhibition to develop a deeper understanding and a body of knowledge assessing the latest scientific knowledge about the effects of a wide array of human-induced interferences on marine and coastal ecosystems. “TBA21–Academy is very pleased to have LUNU as a supporter of the Oceans in Transformation exhibition. We welcome Lunu’s commitment to contribute to the transformative power of art, science, and technology to change global attitudes to the Ocean,” Markus Reymann, Director, TBA21–Academy.

TBA21–Academy was founded in 2011 and brings together artists, researchers, and thinkers from various fields and draws on the arts as a vessel for communication, change, and action.

83% of UK SMEs believe it’s vital to commercialise IP, but there are too many barriers hindering these efforts, according to new research by R&D and IP specialists, GovGrant. From the responses of SME decision-makers across seven different sectors, the findings show 26% believe the lack of opportunity to patent and scope to innovate is to blame, while 21% claim it’s insufficiency of expertise. The data goes on to show 18% account cost as the biggest obstacle when it comes to business’ IP efforts. 

The study also found that just 15% of SMEs think the Government is creating an economic environment that encourages innovation, meaning it is only natural that the lack of opportunity to patent and scope to innovate are perceived as the biggest barriers to business’ IP efforts.

However, not all barriers are external, with the study showing that nearly half of businesses (42%)  do not have a representative at Board level responsible for IP commercialisation and strategy.

GovGrant’s research found that cost has also been cited by business as a barrier in the way of R&D and innovation activity. With 83% of businesses aware of the potential commercial benefits successful innovation can bring, this is something that needs to be urgently addressed by the government to further encourage innovation.

Luke Hamm, CEO, GovGrant, comments:

“Unfortunately, there are barriers to innovation at every level of the UK economy, from the banks’ lending conditions and Government policy, down to the experience and understanding of people within individual businesses. Action is needed from all parties if we are to unlock the economic and social benefits innovation can bring.

“SMEs citing lack of scope for innovation is proof that subject matter experts are not seeing the wood from the trees when it comes to their R&D activity. They need help recognising their own innovation in order to maximise the support available from Government, and these early conversations need to start including Patent Box to make organisations fully aware of the help available to them. If we’re going to put innovation at the heart of the recovery from COVID-19, we need to change the conversation around IP urgently, so the focus is on value creation, not simply protection.

“When there is a willingness to innovate, barriers can be removed, and with the Government’s commitment outlined in the R&D Roadmap, paired with business’ commitment as expressed to us in this study, I am certain the UK has a bright and innovative future ahead of us.”

Genesis, the global financial markets software firm, has appointed sales and product strategist, Martin Sreba as Global Head of Strategic Accounts.

In this new role, Sreba will be responsible for the firm’s global strategic accounts. Financial firms are keen to unlock opportunities for growth and also address the risk-ridden workflows ripe for automation. Sreba will work in partnership with clients to identify digitisation priorities, and by accelerating adoption of Genesis Low-Code Application Platform he will empower firms to build scalable, secure and resilient solutions at a fraction of the normal software development time. In addition, Sreba will support Genesis in further extending its footprint in the investment management space to meet the increasing demand for technology.

The appointment comes at a pivotal time for Genesis, having trebled growth in 2020 and recently announcing a strategic investment from Citi to leverage Genesis’ Low-Code Application Platform (LCAP) to drive key innovation priorities. 

Sreba brings a wealth of experience as a product strategist and in growing businesses. A highly respected leader in the financial software and services industry known for the global expansion of SS&C Advent. During his 18 year tenure he rose to Global Head of Product Strategy and Sales, responsible for business growth and product direction for various portfolio management solutions, including Geneva, the most widely leveraged investment management system in the alternative industry.

Across the industry, firms have been forced to adapt to remote working practices while still under pressure to digitise and deliver returns to clients. In response, firms’ awareness is growing of the significant advantages that Genesis LCAP can bring to overhaul legacy processes, mitigate risk and ultimately increase business workflow efficiencies and drive down cost.

The platform is an enterprise offering uniquely positioned with the extensive Genesis Application Library of pre-built solutions to help the financial markets address a spectrum of challenges. It is the only low-code platform built entirely for the specific requirements of the financial markets and is capable of delivering both the simple Business Process Management (BPM)  workflows as well as extending to the specific and often complex use cases such as electronic trading, handling real-time data distribution with low latency and high throughput in a performant and secure environment.

Stephen Murphy, Chief Executive Officer of Genesis, said: “I am delighted to welcome Martin to the team. His pedigree as an industry trailblazer, launching and successfully growing products will be invaluable as we support the digitisation imperatives of our global strategic clients. This year alone we have trebled growth which makes the timing of Martin’s appointment ideal as we scale further to meet industry demand for our technology.”

“As the industry has been forced to adapt, Genesis LCAP provides the building blocks to address very specific functions and processes and integrate seamlessly into a firm’s core infrastructure on average 80% faster than building an application from scratch.”

Martin Sreba, Global Head of Strategic Accounts, said: “I am incredibly excited to join Genesis, such an innovative and forward-looking firm, long overdue in the financial technology space. The timing of bringing to market a platform as-a-service offering to the industry could not be more ideal, as many financial institutions still struggle with antiquated legacy applications, outdated internal workflows and the incurred technical debt of their third party vendors. I am looking forward to heading our Global Strategic Accounts, focusing on expanding and nurturing our key partnerships as well as looking into the future for new opportunities.”

Specialist RegTech provider Shield today announced it has launched an enhanced solution that combines its Insider Trading and Information Handling models - INSIDERS, which answers market demands for greater surveillance to accompany increased remote working in the new normal.

The Shield INSIDERS™ solution is unique, having not only been built around the use of lexicons, but also combined with powerful AI, to provide a highly accurate integrated approach. The enhanced version supports firms that are under unprecedented pressure to monitor all relevant communication channels, whilst demonstrating to the Regulator that any potential avenues for Insider Trading are closed, despite the significant shift in working practices for many employees.

Shield’s INSIDERS solution considers all the intricate and complex details of Insider Lists, making accurate and reliable deductions through an automated approach which understands jargon, slang, and warning signs of potential market abuse. Because of its unique integrated approach and accuracy, it also greatly reduces the chances of time and resource-consuming false positive alerts.

Despite the considerable shift to remote working, regulators are still strictly enforcing the rules. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for example, has publicly commented that its virtual enforcement has seen an uptick of investigations and inquiries in insider trading and market manipulation matters, and that its enforcement of regulations continues at full speed, despite many of its own team also working remotely.

Shiran Weitzman, CEO and Co-Founder of Shield, comments: “Despite ongoing social distancing rules and home working, regulators including the SEC and UK FCA are still strictly enforcing financial firms’ obligations under Market Abuse related regulations, which means powerful and reliable automated surveillance is even more important than ever. The INSIDERS solution has been developed to ensure firms continue to stamp out market abuse, even when their employees are outside their direct view, whilst working away from company premises. The Shield platform orchestrates the complete communications lifecycle. From pre-integrated connectors, archiving, records management through data normalizations and enrichment, and advanced analytics, our out-of-the-box detection models automatically alert the Compliance team of any potential issues.”

Shiran adds: “The expanding range of eComms used in trading was already a significant challenge for firms when they were largely utilized on-site, but remote working has added a level of complexity that no human investigation team could be expected to accurately monitor. Our enhanced solution gives Compliance and Control Room teams the insights they need to ensure firms avoid potentially hefty fines and significant reputational damage from market abuse.”

He concludes: “The new normal is a challenging time for the whole financial industry, but Shield’s solutions ensure firms have a full view of all interactions, to ensure remote working allows a business to thrive and grow, rather than falling foul of the regulations.” 

For more details on the enhanced INSIDERS™ solution or to schedule a demo to see it in action, please contact Shield via email: info@shieldfc.com or visit www.shieldfc.com.

Building on its commitment to connect and advance the global financial community through data and analytics, Refinitiv today announced Country Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Scores as a pivotal data-metric in the transition to sustainable investing – providing comparisons at the country level for fund managers, advisors and investors.

The Country SDGs scores are informed by Refinitiv’s macroeconomic time series database Datastream®, and are available through Refinitiv Eikon. They are designed to transparently and objectively measure a country’s relative performance across each of the SDGs and sub-metrics. 

The Country SDGs scores cover 210 countries, 17 UN SDGs and 148 benchmarked metrics that compose the SDGs. They are calculated on an annual basis using the latest available information, providing an overall SDG level and individual metric level performance scores. In total, there are 242 detailed indicators that feed into each of the 17 SDGs. A bottom-up approach was taken to map each of the 242 indicators outlined in the framework against the 8.5 million active economic indicators available in Datastream. Where there are two or more countries with the same final score, further analysis and differentiation would take place on the underlying 17 SDG scores as per an investor’s preferences.

Leon Saunders Calvert, Head of Sustainable Investing, Lipper and I&A Insights, Refinitiv, said: “Sovereign issuance of capital is a critical component of sustainable financing and being able to quantify, for the purposes of investment allocation decisions, the ESG footprint of countries as well as of companies, makes this enhancement an important augmentation of the assets that Refinitiv continues to bring to bear to support the mainstreaming of ESG data into financial markets.”

Earlier this year, Refinitiv debuted Fund ESG Scores to facilitate industry transition to sustainable investing. In 2019, Refinitiv brought together its ESG Sustainable Investing and Lipper Fund Ratings businesses to increase focus on unearthing links between sustainable business strategies and financial performance.   

Will Jan, VP & Lead Analyst, Outsell, said: “With the call to action by all United Nations Member States to preserve the planet, end poverty, and ensure that global citizens have an opportunity at prosperity and peace by 2030, the role of the financial community becomes even more important in enabling the success of SDGs.”

Wally Okby, Senior Analyst, Aite Group, said: “The diligent bottom-up methodology underpinning Refinitiv’s new country SDG scores will help unleash a new level of ESG data clarity and standardization across the industry – a clear win for investors and their financial advisors keen to integrate ESG factors into investment selection.”

Will Trout, Head of Wealth Management, Celent, said: “As a global information services leader, Refintiv understands the opportunities afforded by ESG-related data, as well as the challenges involved in making that data actionable. These country-based SDG scores support goals of timeliness and comparability while delivering the depth of analysis that investors need to make informed decisions.”

Top 25 Countries with the highest SDG Scores (%): 

See more information about Refinitiv Country SDG Scores Methodology.

Refinitiv provides innovative indices and index-related services to the global financial community to help investors make better decisions. Our index clients and partners rely upon the unparalleled breath, depth, global network and vast data and content sets that only Refinitiv can provide. Backed by the content, data, independence and global information network of Refinitiv, our indices and index services are designed to suit any need.

Refinitiv has been serving the financial industry with ESG data and solutions for over 18 years and offers one of the richest ESG databases in the industry – a fully transparent resource that is trusted by investors and corporates to drive positive impact and provide comprehensive analysis. As members of the UN Global Compact, Refinitiv is part of a community of 9,000+ businesses across 135 countries that are committed to operating with responsible business practices at its core.

Refinitiv ESG data is designed to help investors make sound, sustainable investment decisions, our ESG data covers 80% of global market cap and over 450 metrics.

CloudBees, Inc., the enterprise software delivery company, today announced that global Fintech leader Broadridge Financial Solutions has leveraged CloudBees Software Delivery Automation solutions to further innovate and deliver products to customers faster with the advanced security, compliance and auditability necessary in a highly competitive and regulated market.

Broadridge, with over $4 billion in revenues, develops software solutions to drive business transformations for the world’s-leading companies and financial institutions. Its development and operations teams use CloudBees CI to deliver systems that automate the entire trade life cycle from handling millions of trades a day to communications that reach 75% of North American households. With CloudBees CI, Broadridge runs a centrally managed yet self-service experience for all development teams using Jenkins. Broadridge is able to continuously deliver new capabilities to customers and respond to market conditions more quickly and nimbly, while enhancing the company’s competitive advantage.

Broadridge delivers a wide range of products supported by a broad range of technologies. It utilizes a proven DevOps solution to help accelerate software delivery and create repeatable, traceable processes that are extended to all software delivery teams.

To keep pace with fast-moving financial markets, Broadridge enhanced its next-generation software delivery process that integrates into its existing infrastructure and tooling. Broadridge further optimized its software delivery process end-to-end with CloudBees CI across teams and technologies while leveraging investments previously made in the tooling and environment.

“This ongoing initiative is part of the overall technology transformation happening at Broadridge designed to improve our products and overall customer experience,” said Ali Mohammed, head of global technology infrastructure services at Broadridge. “The transformation is designed to better help us serve clients as an on-ramp to next-gen technologies and more rapidly help clients optimize their processes.”  

Broadridge has a flexible platform that enables innovation across teams and tools, yet also provides for the required repeatability, traceability and security controls. CloudBees CI provides the high level of audit and compliance support that financial services providers, such as Broadridge, require.

Additionally, when Broadridge transitioned its software delivery environment to the cloud, it was seamless to developers. It was still CloudBees CI orchestrating the process and there was no disruption to the software delivery process. Since this is a common pattern for enterprises, to migrate from on-premise to cloud environments, Broadridge is able to support other teams in future cloud migrations.

“Broadridge has fully embraced digital transformation in the context of enterprise complexity and market conditions. They have leveraged the power of CloudBees solutions and expertise to scale continuous integration, continuous delivery and DevOps across many teams already using Jenkins, without leaving behind the purpose-built tools that give teams the freedom to work the way they choose,” said Shawn Ahmed, senior vice president and general manager, Software Delivery Automation, CloudBees. “Broadridge fundamentally understands that developers want to write code and see their creations manifest in production as quickly as possible. They don’t want to be distracted by low-value tasks. Happy developers at Broadridge means higher quality and more secure software delivered faster to its customers, which translates into competitive advantage. Broadridge has an incredible drive to continuously improve and we are proud to partner with them on that journey.”

Broadridge was also the winner of the 2019 CloudBees Innovation Award for DevOps Automation Excellence at DevOps World.

·       Learn more about Broadridge Financial Solutions

·       Watch the Broadridge Financial Solutions customer video

·       Learn more about Software Delivery Automation

BlueVoyant, a cybersecurity services company, today announced a strategic partnership with Argos Risk, a leading provider of financial risk intelligence. The alliance will see data from Argos Risk’s AR Surveillance™ solution utilised in BlueVoyant’s third-party Cyber Risk Management (CRx) suite of services.

The aggregated, complementary third-party risk data will better enable BlueVoyant to provide customers with clarity into their own security posture, and visibility across their vendor ecosystem. This will be particularly valuable to high-target industries.

“Argos Risk feeds non-cyber related insights from key sectors into BlueVoyant’s CRx services, allowing for a more holistic view of a business’ third-party cyber risk security posture. This enables it to directly address its clients' exposure to cyber risk throughout the supply chain, enabling them to take immediate action,” says Jim Penrose, Chief Operating Officer at BlueVoyant.

“We are extremely excited to partner with a world-class cybersecurity organisation such as BlueVoyant,” says Lori Frank, President and CEO at Argos Risk. “Offering large enterprises impactful intelligence, utilising our data, further demonstrates BlueVoyant’s dedication and focus on delivering best-of-breed cybersecurity technology and outstanding customer service to businesses around the world,” added Frank.

BlueVoyant’s managed CRx services make it easier for organisations to quantify and manage third-party cybersecurity risks, to an agreed risk tolerance. This exceeds simply identifying cyber risk, which alone isn’t enough; it measurably reduces clients’ exposure to the real threats to their businesses.