UK fintech Paymentology announces partnership with Finartex Fintech Solutions S.A. to bring data powered and scalable issuing payments solutions to financial institutions in Greece, Cyprus, South Eastern Europe, Eastern Africa, Belgium and Luxembourg.

This partnership will manage the delivery of Paymentology’s market-leading cloud- based card management product for issuing of credit, debit and prepaid. The product, which has been built from the beginning to be cloud agnostic, is helping retail banks, digital banks and EMIs to have control over the consumers transactions that it allows consumers greater flexibility in the use of their card products and management. These enhanced analytics (including AI based fraud controls) are vital for banks moving to digital in order to deliver real time consumer-centric finance solutions that are engaging and relevant. Paymentology processing engine for leading challenger banks such as Revolut, uses this technology to allow banks increase speed to market with reduced costs and to independently launch card products that satisfy the needs of their customers.

John Yeomans, chairman at Paymentology commented: “This collaboration will leverage the experience of the Finartix team and through them enable greater reach of our product capabilities into the region and bring this leading technology to the banks and other EMIs.”

“We are excited for partnering with the leading innovator in the sector” said Nikos Mavraganis, CEO at Finartix. “We see a lot of demand in the market and gap of legacy systems to perform super-fast, intra-spend, full transaction history analytics. Paymentology is offering to customers the opportunity to manage their transactions flexibly and reliably with any card-related product”.

OneStream Software, a leader in corporate performance management (CPM) solutions for mid-sized to very large enterprises, announced year-over-year revenue, customer, and partner growth in the first half of 2020. With the pandemic presenting unprecedented challenges and new responsibilities for CFOs and their teams, many finance leaders are turning to OneStream for unified, cloud-based solutions that increase the work-from-home efficiency and agility of finance teams and their business partners.

OneStream reported 75 percent growth in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) as of June 30th, demonstrating continued market demand for its solutions during uncertain times. The company also reported a 40 percent year-over-year growth in new customer acquisition, to well over 500, and a 67 percent increase in employees over that period. New customers added in the first half of 2020 include The Timken Company, Ontic Engineering & Manufacturing UK, Cronos Group, Buckeye Partners and Jardine Motors.

In addition, more than 50 existing customers added additional user licenses during the first six months of the year. OneStream continues to replace spreadsheets, multiple legacy applications such as Oracle Hyperion, SAP BPC, and IBM Cognos as well as cloud-based point solutions with its unified CPM platform to streamline processes such as financial close and consolidation, reporting, planning, forecasting and account reconciliations.

“Our continued growth is a true testament to the market opportunity and demand we see as the office of finance seeks to modernize their financial systems, embrace new workstyles, increase business insights and improve their ability to navigate quickly through market uncertainty," said Tom Shea, CEO of OneStream. “Our focus on delivering 100% customer success and on customer-driven innovations are enabling finance leaders to rapidly respond to market forces with confidence and create opportunities to move their businesses forward during challenging times."

OneStream added thirteen new partners in the past six months including Grant Thornton and a number of regional partners in North America and EMEA, strengthening its global ecosystem to 186 partners. OneStream also renewed its partnership and commitment to Microsoft Azure as its cloud platform.

During the first half of 2020 the company released several new solutions for the OneStream XF MarketPlace such as Predictive Analytics 123, empowering finance teams to incorporate predictive capabilities into financial plans and operational forecasts for faster, more informed decision-making. OneStream also launched its Transaction Matching solution. Downloadable from the XF MarketPlace, this solution enables finance leaders to collect and match large volumes of transactions from multiple sources to quickly resolve differences to accurately finalize period-end balances and accelerate the close process.

“Over the last few years finance professionals have been embracing or at least evaluating how new technology and innovation can help drive finance transformation, but the pandemic and subsequent rapidly changing business conditions have demonstrated how essential it is for finance teams to be able to quickly pivot, re-forecast frequently and model new scenarios,” said Craig Colby, President of OneStream Software. “OneStream’s cloud platform and built-in financial intelligence has proven to be integral in providing finance leaders with the ability to keep their teams connected and productive while working remotely, while also providing more frequent financial signals from transactional data to support faster more informed decision-making.”

In the first six months of 2020, OneStream strengthened its position as a leading provider of CPM solutions by through several industry recognitions, including:

·         Winner for support of the Office of Finance in Ventana Research’s 13th Annual Digital Innovation Awards

·         Recognized as a Leader and Earned a Perfect Recommend Score in Dresner Advisory Services’ EPM Market Study for Third Consecutive Year

·         Top ranks in thirty-eight of sixty categories in the BARC Planning Survey

·         The highest rating among all vendors and recognition as a Gartner Peer Insights Customers' Choice for Cloud Financial Close Solutions

·         Named a market leader in the 2020 Nucleus Research Value Matrix for CPM software for the 3rd consecutive year

OneStream was also named to Inc. Magazine’s List of Best Workplaces for 2020 and was named to the 2020 List of 100 Best Places to Work in IT by Insider Pro and Computerworld.

A schedule of upcoming Events is at https://onestreamsoftware.com/events/list/.

Acronis, a global leader in cyber protection, was positioned in the Visionaries quadrant in the Gartner 2020 Magic Quadrant for Data Centre Backup and Recovery Solutions.

According to the report, “the move toward public cloud, heightened concerns over ransomware, and complexities associated with backup and data management are forcing I&O leaders to rearchitect their backup infrastructure and explore alternative solutions. This research provides analyses of backup and recovery vendors.”

“Over the past several years, Acronis has shifted its focus from being a backup vendor to offering cyber protection, a holistic approach that combines data protection and cybersecurity. It is encouraging to be acknowledged as a Visionary by Gartner, and we see this recognition as validation of the critical interdependency between backup and cybersecurity,” said Acronis Founder and CEO Serguei “SB” Beloussov.

While the Gartner 2020 Magic Quadrant for Data Centre Backup and Recovery Solutions report is focused on the data centre, the primary focus for Acronis has always been protecting the edge and endpoint. Beloussov continues, “We have a unique ability to provide cyber protection for enterprises - focusing on edge and endpoint workloads. Our newest solution Acronis Cyber Protect provides AI-powered anti-malware protection, vulnerability assessments and patch management, continuous data protection, URL filtering and fast, reliable backup and disaster recovery, all from an easy-to-manage console.”

For more information on the Gartner 2020 Magic Quadrant for Data Centre Backup and Recovery Solutions, visit: https://www.gartner.com/document/3987618?ref=solrAll&refval=256789006 (Gartner Subscription Required).

Riverbed announced today that it is adding new cloud-based offerings into its arsenal of Riverbed Application Acceleration Solutions, all specifically built to help significantly accelerate and provide a consistent user experience for leading Microsoft collaboration, productivity and video streaming applications. As companies continue to provide broader flexibility for employees to work from anywhere, organizations can run Riverbed’s flexible SaaS offerings to optimize performance and productivity for leading SaaS apps across multiple office locations and for remote users regardless of location, bandwidth or latency. 

“With the overwhelming industry shift to SaaS applications and expected growth in hybrid work environments long-term even after COVID-19, there is a surge in enterprises using collaboration suites such as Microsoft O365 and leveraging video communications with Microsoft Teams and Stream for global employee engagement and collaboration. While these tools help companies to quickly scale and connect workforces that may be working from anywhere, in or outside the office, the value enterprises are able to achieve from these SaaS investments can be limited by the networks that connect us,” said Dante Malagrino, Chief Development Officer at Riverbed. “Riverbed’s Application Acceleration Solutions are flexible to suit the varying needs of today’s enterprises, and can be deployed immediately to augment the most popular Microsoft application suites and relieve the IT pain and productivity slowdowns caused by network latency, data congestion and overall connectivity.”

Riverbed SaaS Accelerator Boosts Performance of Microsoft Teams and Stream 

The release of SaaS Accelerator (available in Q3 2020) will provide new support for Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Stream live events and on-demand video, delivering increased performance for the best experience for users in any office, accessing video from any device. Microsoft has seen an explosive growth in collaboration and video applications, with Teams reporting more than 200 million meeting participants in a single day and over 75 million daily active users, with two-thirds of users having shared, collaborated, or interacted with files on Teams (April 2020 Microsoft earnings call). SaaS Accelerator eliminates the networking headaches inherent with corporate video communications with an enterprise-class SD-eCDN that can be deployed in minutes, reducing up to 99 percent of video data from corporate networks, enhancing the overall user experience. The SaaS Accelerator Manager (SAM) delivers comprehensive analytics for network teams and event owners, including bandwidth savings, quality of experience, reach, viewing duration and more.

Riverbed SaaS Accelerator, a fully cloud-based service, enables enterprises to ensure fast, consistent performance and user experience as demand for always-available enterprise SaaS applications continues to grow, and now scales to meet the needs of the largest enterprises in the world to support 50,000 concurrent users per accelerated app. In addition to adding new support for Microsoft Teams and Stream, SaaS Accelerator now also supports Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Additionally, Riverbed SaaS Accelerator continues to accelerate and boost the performance by up to 10x of other top enterprise collaboration applications: including Microsoft O365 apps–SharePoint, Exchange, Office WebApps; Salesforce; ServiceNow; Box and Veeva; and also integrates with any Riverbed client or branch endpoint for mobile and branch employees. Lab and real-world testing have also continuously shown up to a 99 percent data reduction for global file sharing with Microsoft applications such as SharePoint and OneDrive to maximize network efficiency.  

“Over the last several years, we’ve seen a significant increase in customers moving to the cloud, leveraging Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Teams and Stream to enhance collaboration and drive business outcomes,” said David Totten, CTO, US One Commercial Partner Microsoft. “Since networks that connect the cloud to users can be unpredictable at times, having solutions to address network complexity can greatly enhance the user experience. As a long-time partner to Riverbed, we’re pleased to see their new cloud-based application acceleration services support Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Teams and Stream, helping to eliminate network challenges and boost performance, allowing enterprises to reap the full benefit of critical SaaS investments.”

Riverbed Accelerator for O365 – Frictionless SaaS Offering Instantly Boosts O365 Performance 

The new Riverbed Accelerator for O365 is the first, end-to-end cloud service that maximizes Microsoft O365 performance for dynamic, global workforces and can be deployed in an instant without any hardware or endpoints. For enterprise application and end user services teams supporting strong usage of Microsoft O365 for file sharing across mobile workforces, this frictionless SaaS offering integrates acceleration for SharePoint, OneDrive and Office WebApps with a mobile client and can be deployed instantly anywhere in the world, making it simple and scalable solution.

“We have observed a meaningful enhancement in the performance of our cloud-based applications since we started using Riverbed SaaS Accelerator, in addition to a notable reduction in bandwidth consumption, together resulting in a more productive user experience,” said Ammar Ahmed, Head of Infrastructure at EFG Hermes. “With such enhancement, we were able to scale out and accommodate the increasing demand of internet bandwidth by our users.”

“The global pandemic forced the majority of knowledge workers globally to shift to a work from home model and leverage whatever connectivity was in place. According to ESG research 4 out of 10 survey respondents struggled with subpar internet connectivity, which resulted in problems during online video meetings and when using collaboration tools,” stated Bob Laliberte, Practice Director and Sr Analyst. “Having tested SaaS Accelerator globally in our own labs, these new Riverbed services are extremely well timed to enable all remote workers to dramatically improve their experience with popular Microsoft services regardless of where they are located or traveling throughout the world.”

SaaS Accelerator Performance Validated by Analyst Firm ESG

Analyst firm ESG recently validated the performance of SaaS Accelerator in their report published in June 2020, which tested the solution across 13 locations globally. According to the ESG report, files transfers that previously took minutes were reduced to seconds with reductions in file transfer times ranging from 79 percent in London, 89 percent in Dubai, 73 percent in New Delhi, 89 percent in Tokyo and an average of 79 percent across the five coast-to-coast U.S. cities tested. The report found that data reduction was remarkably consistent across all global test sites, averaging nearly 81 percent globally. ESG concluded that organizations using Riverbed Application Acceleration Solutions could save tens of thousands of hours annually, equating to millions of dollars in productivity savings.

Riverbed Application Acceleration Services 

Riverbed application and acceleration solutions are part of the company’s Network and Application Performance Platform, which enables organizations to maximize performance and visibility for networks and applications. These solutions include the new frictionless service, Riverbed Accelerator for O365, the flexible Accelerator service, as well as Client Accelerator and Cloud Accelerator offerings. SaaS Accelerator is a purpose-built, cloud-based solution, designed to ensure consistent performance of leading enterprise SaaS applications, such as Microsoft O365, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Box, now adding support for Microsoft Teams and Stream Live Events and On-Demand Video with a built-in eCDN, Dynamics CRM and more, delivering an average 10x increase in performance. Riverbed Client Accelerator (formerly called SteelHead Mobile) delivers leading-edge application acceleration to mobile workers anywhere, eliminating the unpredictability of dynamic network conditions that impede performance. 

For more information and to try a free trial of several Riverbed Application Acceleration Solutions visit: https://www.riverbed.com/solutions/at-home-workforce-productivity.html.

Further expanding the scope of many years of working together, Computop and Limonetik are excited to announce that they have signed an agreement for jointly providing marketplace payment services to their wide-ranging bases of European clients.

Marketplace platforms are the growing force in Europe and the services sold via those range from taxi rides to airplane engines, from consumer goods to hotel rooms, from B2C to B2B and B2B2C. According to some recently published market research, Marketplaces were responsible for over 1.6 trillion dollars of online sales in 2019 and these numbers are expected exceed 7 trillion dollars by 2024 (https://www.retail-systems.com/rs/iBe_Online_Marketplaces_Growth_Analysis.php).

Recent events have seen many retailers’ existing supply networks disrupted whilst many companies are looking to digitalise their channels and to expand their services. Marketplace platform is a solution that can be leveraged by retailers (wishing to allow others to sell directly via their websites), government (see www.Covid19.fr for example), local councils (e.g. shop local, providing high street shops an online marketplace to sell from), manufacturers and many more organisations who are positioned between buyers and sellers.

Our joint solution provides the best of both worlds: Computop is a well-established and respected European payment service provider and Limonetik is a fintech payment technology orchestrator who has been working with marketplaces in Europe from the early days of their development. Together we can deliver the best choice of payment methods whilst managing the complexities of multiple sellers, mixed baskets, split payments and various other platform specific requirements from PSD2 compliance to customer checkout preferences.

Stephan Kück, CEO at Computop, said: “With the growth in marketplaces and a clear demand for platforms that allow multiple sectors to take advantage of e-selling benefits, now is the apposite moment for us to work together with Limonetik. Our combined expertise will ensure first-class payment support for every sector and the reassurance of knowing they can rely on us as they expand their interests internationally.” 

“With platform economy expanding into every sector of commerce, be that between businesses, businesses and consumers or between individual contributors and consumers, such as is the case with the gig economy, a robust and flexible marketplace payment infrastructure is a key to success” adds Christophe Bourbier, CEO of Limonetik. “We are delighted to offer our joint solution with Computop to marketplaces, retailers, manufacturers and any other platform businesses in Germany, France, UK and other European markets. In the times when many platforms are looking for change and upgrade, we are here to help!”

CubeLogic, the market leading provider of enterprise risk management solutions for the energy, commodities, and financial services industries has hired David Baker as Group Chief Technology Officer and John Harris as Chief Operations Officer for the Americas region. These are both new roles which have been instated due to growing client demand and rapid business expansion.

David Baker joins CubeLogic from BP Trading & Shipping where he managed Enterprise Architecture, Credit and Market Risk. Previous roles were at Noble and ECTP. Reporting to Lee Campbell, CEO, David will head up CubeLogic’s technology strategy and direction. From the London office, he will work closely with the blue-chip client base to ensure that the vision and business goals of the clients is mapped to the RiskCubed technology roadmap.

David Baker comments, “I am very excited to join the CubeLogic team on the back of recent investment from Growth Capital Partners. I am looking forward to contributing to the progress of the award-winning RiskCubed platform through the next phase of its development”.

John will be based in the Houston office and joins with a strong industry reputation for providing skilled and practical guidance in the delivery of successful business and technology solutions. His comprehensive background in the energy sector spans 20 years and includes experience as Managing Director at Allegro, Director of the ERTM/CTRM Process Group at PwC and Vice President of Professional Services at SunGard Energy.

John comments, “I have known CubeLogic for a while and their growth is impressive. I am looking forward to working closely with Roderick (MD Americas) and the entire Professional Services team to enhance productivity and efficiency as we take on new clients and deepen existing relationships.”

Roderick Austin, MD Americas concludes. “The business is moving forward at quite a pace and it is essential that we hire the right people to lead the team. I am delighted to welcome both John and David, they each bring unique and highly valuable industry experience which we are certain will deliver more value to our all-important client base. As we look forward to the end of this year and moving into 2021 we have ambitious growth plans which involve the further development of our technology and business development in all sectors and regions. If COVID has had any positive impact, then it has really pushed risk management to the top of most board agendas. Our pipeline has reflected this trend and we believe that these two strategic hires will enable us to continue to deliver the most innovative and robust solutions supported with the highest level of service.”

LHV, the financial and payment services provider, is pleased to announce award-winning corporate pre-paid payments solution provider, B4B Payments (‘B4B’), has become the latest FinTech customer of its London branch. 

Since the launch of its London office in 2018, LHV has now quadrupled its client base to 120. Customers are predominantly financial institutions and FinTechs, who have been drawn to LHV’s value proposition, its ‘one stop shop’ offering that covers large scale banking service requirements, and its partnership model whereby LHV works closely with clients to develop custom made solutions that satisfy their individual requirements. 
 

FCA authorised B4B will gain access to LHV’s full service offering including state of the art payment infrastructure and real time Euro and Sterling payments capability via Single Euro Payment Area (‘SEPA’) Instant and Faster Payments schemes respectively. In addition, B4B will benefit from access to LHV’s Application Programming Interface ‘LHV Connect’, which offers a wide range of services, including GBP and EUR safeguarding accounts, Virtual IBANs, currency exchange, liquidity services and where appropriate financing.
 

B4B Payments, veteran prepaid payment provider in Europe, is going global, expanding operations in North America and opening its first US offices in Boston. The platform enables organisations of any size to manage expenses, simplify payroll, reimbursements, and offer employee rewards and incentives.
 

As a leader in Fintech and prepaid business payments for over 14 years and voted the Best Prepaid Product of the Year in 2019, B4B Payments continues to offer innovative, flexible, and time-saving solutions that streamline and eliminate antiquated finance and accounting processes.

Andres Kitter, Head of LHV’s UK Operations, said, “Our decision to establish a presence in London post the 2016 Brexit referendum was to increase our presence in what remains one of the leading financial and fintech sectors in the world and in the process attract customers of the calibre of B4B.  The company has been operating for fifteen years, which shows significant experience and market resilience and we are delighted that two profitable organisations are partnering for continued growth. In a little over two years, we have not only quadrupled customer numbers in our London office to 120 but also significantly diversified our client base so that the companies we serve range from payment service providers to FX brokers and from startups to established financial institutions and unicorns. All our clients are subjected to comprehensive onboarding procedures and due diligence and encouragingly we have a growing pipeline of potential customers currently undergoing this process.  I am therefore confident that the momentum behind our London operations will be maintained going forward.” 
 

B4B CEO and co-founder, Paul Swinton said, “We looked at a number of providers to provide safeguarding and virtual IBAN capabilities. LHV came out on top due to their flexibility, functionality and value proposition. We migrated our clients easily onto the platform and we are very happy with the service to date. LHV will also be able to support us when we establish our European operation later this month with a one stop solution.”

Cashfac, a leading provider of back-office operational cash management software, is pleased to announce the appointment of Angela Beswick as Managing Director of Asia Pacific, as the company’s business expansion plans gather pace to meet increasing global demand for their Virtual Bank Technology (VBT) platform.

Angela - who previously spent eight years at Cashfac before moving to New Zealand in 2012 - will be responsible for the day to day management of the Cashfac Pty team in Melbourne. The appointment is reflective of recent success for Cashfac in the region, and Angela will provide management oversight and responsibility to continue and grow Cashfac’s business operations and development in APAC.

Richard Cummings, CEO of Cashfac, said: “We are delighted to welcome Angela back to Cashfac in this important role, at an exciting time for the company in the APAC region. Her appointment is a significant step in Cashfac building upon the success our Melbourne Team has already achieved with our valued bank partners in Australia. Angela’s knowledge of Cashfac and her ability to establish and maintain partnerships will be a great asset in helpingus develop the business and meet the increasing demand for Cashfac VBT from banks and financial institutions across Asia Pacific”.

In the below interview, Angela outlines her plans for Cashfac in APAC, and tells us what it has been like re-joining Cashfac and integrating with her team during a global lockdown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FT0acIIxiNc&feature=youtu.be.

For more information on how Cashfac serves your bank or business in Asia Pacific, please contact through website at https://cashfac.com/contact-us/.

ACI Worldwide (NASDAQ: ACIW), a leading global provider of real-time electronic payment and banking solutions, today announced a strategic partnership with Arvato Financial Solutions to combat the rising levels of eCommerce fraud during the Covid-19 crisis.

As part of the collaboration, ACI is offering Arvato Financial Solutions’ best-in-class Manual Order Review service to all its merchant fraud customers globally. The solution enables merchants across all sectors to further optimize their fraud management performance.

Part of Germany’s Bertelsmann Group, Arvato Financial Solutions is a global provider of end-to-end financial services solutions, including fraud management and prevention. Its manual order review service is being used by some of the biggest global eCommerce companies and complements ACI’s award-winning fraud management capabilities in the ACI Secure eCommerce solution. The partnership enables ACI merchants to outsource their manual review process, which will help them to review and decision their challenge queue more quickly, while still retaining the high levels of fraud management performance provided by the ACI platform.

“Our aim is to provide a seamless and scalable manual review service for our customers, as merchants often do not have a sufficient pool of skilled staff available for reviews, especially during peak trading times,” said Fabian Gloerfeld, vice president, payments intelligence, ACI Worldwide. “The service aims to reduce the overall cost of operation for merchants by providing access to an extended team of skilled fraud professionals.”

“Manual order reviews are an important last line of defence against fraud. Even merchants with sophisticated fraud prevention solutions in place still benefit from having an individual review certain suspicious transactions,” said Florian Haubold, vice president, Arvato Financial Solutions. “Today’s digitally connected customers expect a seamless experience, and quick and accurate order review processing time is critical to compete in today’s fast-paced eCommerce world.”

Key features and benefits of the Manual Order Review solution:

• Integrates seamlessly with ACI Secure eCommerce; continuous, global, multilingual support is available to accommodate merchant needs wherever and whenever they trade

• Enables merchants to minimize risk and loss through improved accuracy and flexible resources to help prevent fraud and chargebacks, even in peak trading periods

• Reduces false positives by minimizing the volume of genuine orders that are cancelled

• Faster decisions help minimize friction in the customer experience and prevent delays in order fulfilment

• No technical integration is required, ensuring fast deployment, minimal investment and maximum ROI.

Atom, the UK’s first bank built for mobile, completed pricing this week on its third residential mortgage-backed securitisation (RMBS), Elvet Mortgages 2020-1.  

Atom have issued a third RMBS (part offered/part retained) backed by £770m of mortgage loans in order to support Atom’s continued growth. Atom is a regular RMBS issuer which, alongside its expanding suite of products, provides funding for long term, sustainable growth.

David McCarthy, Chief Finance Officer at Atom bank said: “We’re delighted to have completed our third residential mortgage-backed securitisation. Securitisation will continue to be one of the ways we deliver efficient funding for our business, contributing to our overall model of keeping costs low and passing value back to our customers.”

Atom has also been very active in supporting businesses through the economic impact of the pandemic.

Edward Twiddy, Chief Customer Officer at Atom bank said: “We’ve been accepting applications for secured CBILS loans since the start of June through our national network of 200+ independent brokers. We remain one of only a few banks open to new secured business lending under CBILS, and delighted to find strong demand for our simple, transparent and very competitively priced products.”

With the completion of a major re-platforming of the bank onto Google’s Cloud Platform and the adoption of leading UK fintech Thought Machine as their core banking partner, Atom are also launching a recruitment drive as they prepare to expand their range of products. 

Asked what opportunities these new roles will provide, Edward said: “This investment in technology and innovation will make our business more efficient and agile, resulting in a markedly better experience for our customers. For anyone wanting the chance to work with the best banking technology in the world and the most customer-centric bank in the UK, these new roles represent a great opportunity.”

To find out more about Atom, visit their website www.atombank.co.uk.