Backbase today announces that Michigan-based Wildfire Credit Union (Wildfire) has selected the Backbase Digital-First Banking platform to drive their digital innovation and unify the member experience across all channels and touchpoints. On the Backbase platform Wildfire can release new features at the speed of digital, reducing their time to market and enabling them to meet the need for personalized banking of all of their members.

With a vision to build life-long relationships with their members and a mission to offer truly personal service, it is critical for Wildfire to optimize the member experience and ensure that each engagement is personal and frictionless. The richness of the out-of-the-box journeys and ready to go apps coupled with the flexibility and agility that the Backbase platform provides were among the key reasons to partner with Backbase. It provides both the speed and the flexibility that Wildfire was looking for to strengthen their services and become an even more integrated part of their member’s daily lives.

Mark Schuiling, Chief Technology Officer at Wildfire Credit Union, says: “Going forward, digital-first is a huge part of our strategy. We partnered with Backbase as a way to expand throughout Michigan and into other states without adding more physical branches, something that’s been on our minds during the pandemic. The Backbase approach stood out to us because of their flexibility and the level of control we will have once our new systems are rolled out. We’re not locked into a relationship with a cookie-cutter system and a big black box that we can’t modify. Now, we are confident we will be able to provide our members with the fast, intuitive, and seamless digital access that we strive to achieve.” 

The Backbase platform gives Wildfire access to cutting edge technology and continuous innovation and enables them to compete with banks and credit unions of any size. Running on a single platform with a unified architecture provides Wildfire with the scalability it needs to cater to both retail and business members, their employees, and for both digital servicing and digital sales.

Jouk Pleiter, CEO of Backbase, says: “Wildfire has a clear vision: create outstanding member engagements across all touchpoints. And they know that having the right technology will be pivotal to achieve this, both now and into their future. Our modular architecture gives Wildfire a chance to operate free of any restrictions that come with legacy infrastructure and allows them to start their digital transformation journey that is core to their growth. This partnership really brings cutting edge technology to community credit union members, and provides tailored solutions for their needs. It underscores the forward-looking marriage between technology and customer service.” 

SteelEye, the compliance technology and data analytics firm, has today announced the general release of its pioneering Auto-Trade Reconstruction technology, which reduces the time it takes for a firm to reconstruct a trade from days to seconds.

Under MiFID II, MAR, Dodd-Frank and other global regulations, authorised firms can be asked by the regulator at any point to reproduce the records that relate to a trade or client order, or a number of trades and orders over a particular time frame. This requires them to bring together all the transaction/order details, conversations, emails, meeting minutes and more to “reconstruct” the scenario. However, with datasets spread across siloed platforms, meeting the typical deadline of 72 hours is a significant challenge for most firms. 

By leveraging artificial intelligence, machine learning, and advanced data relationships all within a single platform, SteelEye makes trade reconstructions effortless ─ reducing the risk of regulatory scrutiny for firms and personal liability for senior managers. 

The SteelEye platform seamlessly captures all of a firm’s structured and unstructured data across any asset-class, communication type and system – unifying it under a single lens, where it is cleansed, normalised, indexed and made instantly retrievable. 

SteelEye’s Auto-Trade Reconstruction thereafter looks at any given scenario or piece of data and simultaneously brings together all information that is deemed to be relevant, such as related communications or transactions as well as independent pricing. By accepting or rejecting these "suggestions" the system learns as it goes along, becoming better at reconstructing each scenario. This means that firms can immediately dive into a trade or order and automatically see all the related phone calls, meetings, WhatsApp messages, as well as finding out information about the trade/order itself.

At the click of a button, these records can be added to an existing case or used to create a new case, and thereafter easily exported. SteelEye even brings in external market data and news to enable clients to monitor suspicious trading volumes, using data from sources such as social media Twitter feeds.

“The requirement to reconstruct all the conditions surrounding a trade or order requires firms to identify, locate and bring together a wide range of information, quickly. With many firms professing that such a request would take them over two weeks to complete, this has been an area bringing a lot of worry and stress to compliance teams,” says Matt Storey, Chief Product Officer at SteelEye. “With our auto-trade reconstruction this is now completely automated and effortless."

A new Nordic collaboration is on the rise as open banking platform Nordic API Gateway can add leading challenger bank Lunar to its list of Nordic banks already taking advantage of its open banking technology to create value-added, multi-banking features. This partnership enables Lunar to take an important step in becoming the primary banking interface for its more than 170,000 users. 

In the coming months, Lunar is set to activate multi-banking features and enable payments across Denmark, Sweden and Norway with Nordic API Gateway. As a result, Lunar becomes one of the first Danish banks with a fully functional combination of both account aggregation and payment initiation. 

The open banking partnership with Nordic API Gateway supports Lunar’s ambitions of creating a ‘financial super app’ for its rapidly growing customer base across the Nordics. By utilising Nordic API Gateway’s account aggregation and payment initiation services, the challenger bank will be able to provide customers with actionable open banking features that will allow them to not only view but also move money between accounts, as well as pay bills from accounts from other banks, in one app. 

Commenting on the partnership, Joachim Strøjer Hansen, CPO of Lunar, said: “We have a strong ambition to create a financial super app to let our users manage all their finances across banks in one place and become the go-to interface for handling everything related to our users’ financial life. To deliver the future of banking services, we’re creating a digital banking experience that is second to none and we are excited to work with Nordic API Gateway especially to offer payment initiation for our users. They bring extremely high quality and have proven high deliverance in a wide range of Nordic financial services.”

Rune Mai, CEO & Founder of Nordic API Gateway, also commented on the partnership saying: “We’re very happy to see that Lunar is taking its next step in the open banking journey with Nordic API Gateway. By leveraging open banking with our platform, Lunar will be able to fulfil their ambitious Nordic plans and create value with the best open banking capabilities the Nordics have to offer. We’re heavily focused on empowering Lunar on its journey to becoming the preferred banking choice by letting their customers experience the true value of open banking.”

The partnership will soon be pushed live to all Lunar customers in Denmark, with Sweden and Norway to follow.

Today IPOSUP (www.iposup.com), the financial technology company that allows businesses of all sizes but particularly micro-merchants to receive payments quickly and simply, is launching a free pre-Christmas offer for its next generation chip and PIN and contactless card payment device called ‘IPOS bric’ and its new ‘IPOS soft’ product for contactless only acceptance.

Both work with the accompanying IPOS WALLET mobile app.

With the launch of the free ‘IPOS bric’ card payments portable device, the London fintech company becomes the first business of its kind to offer a “PIN on Glass” standalone mobile payment solution that does not rely on an external expensive PIN entry device – instead the merchant’s Android smartphone is used to enter the cardholder PIN.

With the ‘IPOS soft’ solution, merchant’s Android NFC device integrated with an NFC contactless reader eliminates the need for an external card reader.

These new innovative IPOS bric and soft products developed, by the IPOSUP.com fintech team, which was previously responsible for developing 40% of the UK integrated chip and PIN and contactless payments market, are highly adapted to mobile environments such as  trades people, delivery services, and hospitality pay-at-table – with IPOS soft no external card reader is required, just an Android NFC smartphone providing added flexibility.

IPOSUP.com does not charge any fixed monthly fees. Instead we just charge 1.3% per card transaction for all debit and credit cards, Apple and Google Pay - allowing business owners to accept payments anytime, anyplace and anywhere on a pay-as-you-go pricing model.

All mobile payments are compliant to FCA PSD2 (Payment Services Directive 2) and are carried out in a secure manner, adopting whitebox technologies able to guarantee the safe authentication of the cardholder card and PIN data and to reduce, to the maximum extent possible, the risk of fraud.

The IPOSUP.com PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) based “SWIM” (software wireless identity module) platform ensures the highest degree of security and safety in terms of authentication, attestation and monitoring compliant to PCI-SPoC standards.

Dr Patni, CEO of IPOSUP.com, comments:

“We’re here to empower the world to accept card payments, no matter how unique or mobile your micro-business is. It’s crucial to us as a business that we allow any merchant to accept card payments and get settled immediately. This new generation of IPOS bric and soft mobile POS card terminals is yet another step on our mission to becoming the UK and Europe’s first globally-accepted payment provider.”

“We can’t wait for our free IPOS bric reader pre-Christmas to hit the market and enable our merchants across UK to accept card payments within seconds.”

TrueLayer, the leading technology company building financial infrastructure that’s open to any business, anywhere in the world, today announced its partnership and expansion with digital smart open banking app sync. 

They also announced that sync. will expand it’s list of supported banks to include those in Spain.

sync. offers their easy-to-use financial services across Europe, promising to manage every aspect of a user’s financial life in one place. Their ultimate goal is to help customers budget, manage and track their money from one dashboard, offering a unique user experience as a money management platform with tailored insights. 

Through its partnership with TrueLayer, the sync. app provides users with a single view across all of their bank accounts, allowing customers to consolidate and synchronise all of their finances. 

The sync. app already supports banks and Fintechs in the UK, and addition of Spanish banks marks their first Open Banking expansion into mainland Europe. 

sync. has already proved popular in Spain, and the option to add banks such as BBVA, Banco Santander, and CaixaBank will encourage more Spanish customers to use the app. 

TrueLayer is also supporting sync. with account-to-account payments, enabling users to send money to anyone, anywhere, without having to enter card details or share their bank credentials. sync. allows users to send money to other sync. users for free. 

With TrueLayer ensuring account information is updated quickly and securely, sync. users benefit from the app’s personalised insights into spending across accounts, credit cards and loans. It aids improved financial control and offers tailored recommendations to help users make more informed decisions. 

The sync. app moved to beta in August after the firm successfully completed its initial funding round, raising a total of £5.5m. 

Francesco Simoneschi, CEO and co-Founder of TrueLayer, commented: “sync. is a great example of a company who is leveraging the power of open banking to make money work better for consumers, helping them to get a better handle on their finances. We’re looking forward to working with sync., helping it to provide its users with greater financial insight through a transparent, secure, and seamless experience.” 

Ricky Lee, CEO of sync., said: “Syncing all your finances to manage your money in one app is at the heart of what we do, and TrueLayer enables us to give that vital information to our users. We are looking to expand our Open Banking offering massively in the upcoming weeks and months with more banks, credit card companies and countries. I was born in Spain myself and we have an office in Malaga, so I’m proud to say that our first Open Banking expansion will be across Spain.”

Openpay, the UK’s latest next-generation, interest-free payment solution, has today announced its newest signing The Hut Group (THG), the Manchester-based global e-commerce technology group and brand owner. The deal marks the latest growth phase for Openpay, the Australian fintech, which entered the UK market in 2019. The partnership will leverage THG’s large portfolio of prestigious brands including Myprotein and Lookfantastic.

THG operates more than 200 localised websites through its Ingenuity platform retailing goods in 169 countries. In the year to 31 December 2019, the Group grew total sales by 24% to £1.14bn.  THG Ingenuity is THG’s proprietary, end-to-end technology and operating platform that has enabled the group to successfully build and scale its own global, direct to consumer brands and a growing portfolio of brands for international consumer goods groups and retailers including Nestlé, Procter & Gamble, PZ Cussons Beauty, Johnson & Johnson and Nintendo.

The partnership affords thousands of THG’s customers the opportunity to benefit from Openpay’s flexible interest-free, and easy to use ‘Buy now. Pay smarter.’ payment plans. UK customers can select plan lengths of between one and six months allowing them to spread the cost of their purchase to suit their needs whilst paying no interest. Customers are required to make an initial down-payment at the point of purchase, encouraging responsible spending and minimising returns.

Andy Harding, UK Managing Director of Openpay, said: “THG is an international giant, and this deal signals how quickly we are growing both in the UK, and globally. The quality of high-end beauty, lifestyle, and nutrition products available from THG is rivalled by few and we’re excited to announce this partnership as part of our future vision for the company.”

Matthew Moulding, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of THG, said:“The agreement with Openpay will add further payment capabilities to our end-to-end ecommerce platform Ingenuity, and deliver additional payment opportunities for the benefit of our consumers.”

Openpay launched in the UK in early 2019, following a record period of growth in Australia. The company is set announce even more retail partners in the coming months.

Cardtronics, the world’s largest ATM owner/operator today announced it has taken over the management of Triodos Bank’s ATM network to provide the bank with a cost-effective way to maintain cash access for its customers. 

The outsourcing agreement between Triodos Bank and Cardtronics, which came into effect this month, sees the bank hand over responsibility for the maintenance and management of its ATM estate to Cardtronics. The agreement shows how forward-thinking banks like Triodos are increasingly moving toward ATM outsourcing to focus resources on value-added activities for their customers. Triodos’ customers will benefit from the enhanced service availability derived from the relationship with the global ATM leader. Triodos customers will also benefit from access to the Cardtronics network of over 1,000 ATMs across the country.

“Access to cash remains vital for so many Spanish citizens,” said Marc Terry, International Managing Director for Cardtronics. “This agreement with Triodos Bank will mean its customers will benefit from easier access to cash through our network of ATM machines across the country. The bank has trusted us with the outsourced management of its Spanish estate, leaving it free to focus on those activities that add real value for their customer base.”

Mikel García-Prieto, Triodos Bank Managing Director, said: “We chose Cardtronics because of its global expertise and strength in Spain. Access to cash is very important for our customers and us. Through this partnership, we can be sure that our ATMs are being managed in the best possible way, and our customers are getting access to their money at over 1,000 more ATMs.” 

Acronis, a global leader in cyber protection, today announced the release of Acronis True Image 2021. The new release integrates advanced cybersecurity capabilities with the best-of-breed personal backup to create the first complete personal cyber protection solution for home users, prosumers, and small businesses around the world.

Incorporating cybersecurity capabilities such as real-time antimalware protection, on-demand antivirus scans, web filtering, and videoconference protection into Acronis True Image ensures users have complete cyber protection. For individuals and small business users, unifying these vital capabilities in one solution makes their protection easier to manage and more affordable, while greatly improving the security of their data and devices.

Delivery of this comprehensive solution comes as the COVID-19 pandemic exposes gaps in traditional solutions and strategies. Securing home machines has never been more important, yet a recent Acronis survey found nearly half (47%) of remote workers never received clear guidance on working from home.

“As more people work or attend classes from home, the FBI documents a 400% increase in cyberattacks because hackers know home systems are not usually as well-defended as an office,” said Serguei “SB” Beloussov, founder and CEO of Acronis. “Backup without cybersecurity is an incomplete option in that situation, as is cybersecurity without backup. Acronis True Image 2021 delivers the easy, efficient, and secure cyber protection needed today.”

By integrating the company’s VB100-certified antimalware technology into its award-winning personal backup software, Acronis can uniquely offer one solution that tackles the complete range of modern data loss threats.

Standalone backup and cybersecurity are obsolete

With the modern reliance on everyday devices like computers, smartphones, and tablets, the data they contain has an inherent value. Cybercriminals are constantly evolving their attacks to reach that data, which is why security research firms such as AV-Test report more than 350,000 new malware threats every day.

Since backup software and files are often the targets of these new attacks to prevent recovery, backup alone no longer provides suitable protection for users. Similarly, conventional cybersecurity solutions do not provide the data protection and recovery capabilities users need following an attack.

Relying on multiple products that were not designed to work together creates security gaps, is more complex to manage, and is more costly.

As a single, integrated solution, Acronis True Image 2021 closes those gaps, making protection and security more effective, easier to manage, and more affordable. Users have authentic, unaltered data that’s free of malware for safe recoveries. They can proactively stop any malware attack and then quickly restore affected files. The single, intuitive interface reduces the complexity of managing their security and backups.

Integration delivers superior cyber protection

For the last few years, Acronis True Image has been the only personal backup solution with a built-in antiransomware that stops attacks in real-time, while automatically restoring any affected files.

With the launch of Acronis True Image 2021, those capabilities are expanded with the addition of the company’s advanced antimalware technology, which is currently deployed in Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud. This next-gen, full-stack antimalware has been shown by independent security labs such as Virus Bulletin and AV-Test to return a 100% detection rate with zero false-positives.

As a result, home users gain advanced capabilities with Acronis True Image 2021, including:

• Real-time protection, driven by AI-enhanced behavioral heuristics, which stops all malware – including zero-day attacks by never-before-seen threats
• On-demand antivirus scans of the full system or quick scans of at-risk files, either of which can be scheduled in advance or run instantly
• Web filtering that automatically blocks Windows users from accessing malicious websites that harbor malware, disinformation, scams, and phishing attacks
• Videoconference protection prevent hackers and malware injection attacks from exploiting popular apps like Zoom, Cisco Webex, and Microsoft Teams
• Comprehensive detection, with both behavioral analysis and signature-based analysis engines

These advanced antimalware capabilities are included with Advanced and Premium licenses, and offered as a three-month trial with Standard and Essential licenses.

Acronis True Image 2021 gives individuals and small businesses access to the same protection technologies relied on by global companies and top teams in the world’s most high-pressure professional sports.

“Cyber protection is a top priority for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing,” explains Bobby Rahal, co-owner of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. “For the past two years, we have relied on Acronis to protect our data and workloads with the latest cyber protection solutions. When our races were on pause, Acronis continued to provide protection for our team working remotely. Now, with Acronis True Image, everyone can safeguard their personal data against the worst-case scenario.”

Reliable as ever

The expansion of the built-in antimalware does not come at the expense of Acronis True Image’s backup capabilities, since risks such as disk failures, accidental deletions, and lost or stolen devices continue.

The new release features several enhancements, including:

• Resumable replication of backups. If a disconnection happens while data is being replicated in the cloud, the process resumes from the point of the interruption to avoid duplicating of previously replicated data.
• Quicker backup validation. Users can now choose to validate the latest version for their backup only, which significantly speeds up the standard process for validating the effectiveness of backups.
• Greater VM options. Users now have the ability for .tibx archives to be mounted, moved, renamed, and converted to the .vhd format – enabling them to be run as virtual machines.

Pricing and availability

Four versions of Acronis True Image are available: Standard, Essential, Advanced and Premium. One-computer licenses starting at £41.99 for Standard and £34.99 for Essential (including VAT). Special launch prices for Advanced and Premium licenses (starting at £48.99 and £69.99 including VAT, respectively) are available until November 2020, at which time the full MSRP will be in effect (starting at £62.99 and £87.49 including VAT, respectively).

FSS Technologies (Financial Software and Systems), a global leader in payment technology and a payment processing company launches Embark, an “Acquiring Platform as a Service” offering for Acquiring Banks, and Payment Aggregators. Embark facilitates digital inclusion of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME), with reliable, cost-efficient payment acceptance tools to expand addressable market, engage with customers in new ways and thrive in today’s digital economy.

MSME’s form the backbone of the economy -- representing an approximate 90% of businesses, generating over 50% of employment worldwide[i]. Formal SMEs contribute up to 40% of national income (GDP) in emerging economies.[ii] Yet, the segment remains underpenetrated. Person to business payments worldwide to medium, small-and-micro retailers amount to USD 18.8 T, and only 37% are made electronically^[iii]

Embark, a multi-sided payment acceptance platform, orchestrates interconnections between crucial ecosystem players – banks, processors, merchant acquiring institutions and MSMEs — to address this opportunity and create exponential value.

With Embark acquiring banks gain access to an underpenetrated MSME market via strategic partnerships, without having “feet on the street”, transforming the economics of MSME acquiring. This alleviates acquisition and servicing costs and brings efficiencies into a high-volume, low-value business. Payment Aggregators benefit as they do not have to tie-up with each bank individually. Embark provides a single-entry point that reduces the time and effort spent on complex integrations, enabling them to focus on core business activities.  

Speaking on the launch, K Srinivasan, Global Chief Revenue Officer FSS, stated: “Medium and small businesses are on the frontlines of the global economy. With Embark our objective is to bring MSMEs into the digital payment fold, a crucial step for sustainable economic and payments growth across markets.  We want banks and other ecosystem players to collaborate with us in this journey and create a true network effect that would encourage adoption of digital payments and spur local entrepreneurialism and commercial activity.”

Commenting on the latest offering, Sandeep Gomes, Global Business Head Acquiring FSS, stated: “The digital wave is reinventing the MSME marketplace across the globe. Embark offers industry players a real opportunity to profitably tap into the underserved MSME segment by adopting ecosystem models to create a ubiquitous payment acceptance network and achieve service differentiation on the strength of innovative products and superior business models.”    

An all-in-one acquiring platform, Embark brings the following benefits:

• Omni-channel digital payment acceptance capabilities– online, mobile in-store channels, and a range of payment methods on a single platform to expand into new markets and support new customer journeys.
• Complete set of transaction capabilities spanning processing, authentication, authorization, and settlement
• End-to-end operations support including payments integration, connectivity to card and other payment rails, terminal and security certification and compliance
• Access to innovative payment propositions enabling MSME’s to launch new services  
• Robust risk management and fraud detection capabilities to improve authorization rates 
• Unified reporting and built-in analytic tools for insights into business performance

An improved supply of reliable, easy-to-access payment services infrastructure unlocks new revenue opportunities and promotes growth. In addition, digital transactions leave an auditable trail that can be leveraged by credit constrained MSMEs to gain access to institutional finance for further business expansion. 

NICE Actimize (Nasdaq: NICE) today announced the launch of its newest platform, NICE Actimize Xceed, which integrates best-in-class AI, data intelligence, behavioral analytics, and insights within a unified cloud platform designed to bring agility to financial institutions of all sizes, including community and regional banks, that are looking to modernize their financial crime risk management solutions.

Xceed combines the most advanced capabilities of both Guardian Analytics and NICE Actimize providing full coverage for both anti-money laundering and fraud prevention.

With “Always On” AI-based technology, NICE Actimize Xceed’s self-learning capabilities immediately and autonomously adapt to new threats, helping financial institutions meet today’s dynamic risk management needs with laser accuracy, speed and simplicity, and without the need for a team of data scientists. The new platform, which includes the industry’s most advanced real-time behavioral analytics and machine learning capabilities, will offer simplified cloud deployments while optimizing operational resource efficiency.

The Xceed platform is the newest addition to the NICE Actimize offering and is joining X-Sight which is quickly becoming the leading platform for many of the largest financial services organizations worldwide. With the addition of Xceed, NICE Actimize now brings its unmatched AI and cloud technologies to financial services of any size, meeting the unique requirements of small and mid-size organizations that can now enjoy capabilities which up until now were available only for organizations at large scale.

“We are pleased to bring our customers the unique combination of proven expertise with best-in-class innovation in both Artificial Intelligence and the cloud, presenting a major opportunity to further support financial services organizations of all sizes. Xceed is based on the proven AI models deployed at hundreds of Guardian Analytics and Actimize customers, leveraging the best innovations of both and bringing the industry its most advanced machine learning capabilities for complete financial crime risk management coverage,” said Craig Costigan, CEO, NICE Actimize. 

To learn more about Xceed, please join the upcoming webinar: “Xceed - The Power of Always on AI” on September 1, 2020.  For additional information on NICE Actimize Xceed, please click here.