Leading business banking firm Bruc Bond believes small businesses must be helped by fintechs to lessen shock of worldwide pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has severely crippled the global economy. While social distancing measures have been vital to securing people's lives and enabling effective governmental responses to the pandemic, SMEs around the world have been hit hard by these necessary measures.

Social distancing measures put in place in a majority of the world's economies have forced many small businesses to shut their doors and have brought many to the brink of collapse. As public health outcomes are improving, regulators and major financial institutions must turn to preserving the futures of SMEs in order to soften economic shocks.

SMEs and COVID-19

Globally, small and medium businesses (SMEs) account for more than half of most countries' GDP and provide 70% of jobs in a majority of economies. During this pandemic they have been hit from three directions, severely hampering their ability to continue operations and putting their futures at risk.

One, social distancing measures and closures have hurt the incomes of most SMEs, excluding those operating online only. Two, disrupted supply chains are impeding the ability of SMEs to resume normal operations even when restrictions are loosened. And, crucially, three, many SMEs are once again faced with inadequate access to banking services and financing. The latter of which is especially vital in the face of the pandemic and for any attempt at recovery.

Financing problems are nothing new

The problem of financing is not new, with less than 15% of SMEs in fast-growing economies having adequate access to financing before the pandemic. A May 2020 European Central Bank report indicates that even before the onset of the pandemic, European SMEs reported worsening access to financing, due to decreased willingness of banks to provide credit and their own worsening financial situations. In the wake of the pandemic the problem has only worsened due to a mix of inadequate government response and cautious financial institutions.

Konstatntin Bodragin, Business Analyst and Digital Marketing Officer at Bruc Bond comments: "With the coronavirus crisis unfolding, many countries have announced new lending and guarantee programmes dedicated to supporting businesses' access to finance. Preliminary assessments indicate that these programmes are having a net positive effect on employment and investment. However to fully capitalise on such programmes, fintechs must be embedded deeper into disbursement processes."

Fintechs can fill the lending gap

In recent years, a growing number of fintech lenders have stepped in to fill the gaps left by traditional finance institutions. Today's fintech lenders are gaining a much deeper understanding of SMEs, allowing them to establish businesses' creditworthiness, evaluate risk more easily, and issue loans in as little as 24 hours.

Regulators, tech giants, SME service providers, insurers, credit agencies, banks, financial institutions or alternative lenders in other sectors all have a responsibility to collaborate in order to close the SME credit gap. Their capabilities are crucial today for any attempt to prevent businesses from collapsing. Government agencies would do well to make use of these capabilities to shore up their own efforts.

While the immediate goal must be securing the stability of SMEs, a potential upside could be a rearrangement lending landscape that is better suited to the needs of businesses in the 21^st century.

TAS International SA, the wholly-owned subsidiary of TAS S.p.A., has today signed a binding agreement for the acquisition of the Swiss company, Infraxis AG, and its British subsidiary, Infraxis Ltd (UK).

Infraxis is a leading company in the Swiss and German payment markets, where in the latter its PayStorm processing solution currently authorizes payments for approximately 30% of all issued credit cards. PayStorm supports both card and instant payment solutions within a microservice, omni-channel framework, where ultimate flexibility, scalability and reliability are assured for deployments within private and public cloud networks. Infraxis also provides quality assurance and testing solutions based upon its enterprise-wide, on-demand testing solution IQS, which offers simulation and testing for all aspects of payment infrastructure.

With this acquisition, TAS Group increases its market coverage in both Switzerland and Germany, where it is already present within the Capital Markets sector. TAS will now offer agile processing solutions across all verticals of the payment market, increasing its offerings within existing countries of operation, such as its home market Italy, and empowering its expansion internationally.

The integration of the two companies is expected to result in significant growth for the combined business, primarily due to an increase in turnover at an international level. Significant synergies are envisaged linked to both cross-selling opportunities and platform rationalization in the areas of card program management, credit, debit and fuel card issuance, mobile payments and fuel payment processing. 

President Dario Pardi commented: "This acquisition forms part of the strategy laid out in the 2020-22 Business Plan, approved in March, where international expansion is one of the fundamental growth parameters. The acquisition of Infraxis is certainly an important step for TAS Group considering that with the new skills and solutions acquired, TAS will now play a primary role in the digital payments sector at a European level. The confident investment in the capital of TAS International by the current shareholders of Infraxis further confirms the validity of the business plan, and guarantees a combined contribution towards a successful and fruitful Business Integration".

CEO Valentino Bravi added: “We are now entering the concrete phase of the new TAS following the complete financial restructuring and the strengthening of our organisation. TAS is now a completely transformed business, capable of seizing every opportunity that our market offers. The acquisition of Infraxis represents a continuation of our rapid progress and it enriches us with new solutions in the world of Digital Payments, with unique specificities such as the one dedicated to the Fuel Card sector. Furthermore, it allows us to expand our presence in countries with high payment digitization rates, such as Switzerland and Germany. We view this acquisition as being the strategic starting point for further international momentum".

Manfred Thomi, CEO of Infraxis concluded: “The bringing together of Infraxis and TAS marks the start of the next exciting chapter for us. We at Infraxis are looking forward to offering our customers the benefits of a wider combined set of complementary payment solutions, which are backed up by a strong corporation with an international outlook. We are now perfectly positioned to better serve existing customers and to expand the TAS business internationally.” 
 

SEON, ‘the fraud fighters’, has announced the appointment of well-known industry powerhouse Jimmy Fong as Chief Commercial Officer.

Based in SEON’s new London offices, Jimmy will be responsible for the business’ sales and growth strategies as well as continuing to be a vocal advocate for innovative fraud prevention.

Jimmy’s experience and passion for progress makes him the ideal hire for a business like SEON that is on a mission to put the urgency back into fighting fraud. Having previously worked as Vice President of Sales for EMEA at InAuth (acquired by American Express) and Enterprise Sales Director for Cybersource (acquired by VISA) Jimmy brings a wealth of technical and marketplace experience to his new role.

For SEON it is not just about providing a technology solution and creating a successful business. From conception the business’ goal has been to motivate individuals and businesses of all sizes to combat fraud with the same diligence and commitment as fraudsters display.

After being head-hunted with the opportunity, Jimmy was in-post within a matter of days. This speed and decisiveness are notable characteristics of SEON’s dynamic business model.

Of his appointment, Mr Fong commented: “To fight a fraudster you have learn how to be one step ahead, this means becoming ruthless, innovative and relentless. This is a mindset my colleagues and SEON founders Bence and Tamas were forced to adopt when they saw that existing fraud prevention technology was failing.  I have worked in the fraud industry for many years and have seen first-hand the complacency that is endemic – even with some of the largest names. To work with SEON, where we are tailoring the solution to the actual fight we are facing, is refreshing and effective. The business is already reaping the rewards of its laser-focused approach; profitable within 2 years and a 200% revenue increase in 2019. I look forward to being part of a team that improves on the fight against fraud and protects online business properly.”

Tamas Kadar, CEO of SEON commented: “To say that it was perfect timing when we discovered Jimmy is not an understatement. His experience and enthusiasm make him uniquely placed to perform the role of Chief Commercial Officer, and we are delighted to have him onboard. With a team as exciting as this, we are convinced SEON is set to become a world-class company that is top of mind when it comes to an end-to-end fraud prevention solution.”

To learn more about SEON’s services, visit: https://seon.io/

The newly published Data Centres Construction Market Report by AMA Research has revealed that since 2015, the data centre construction market has grown from around £1 billion at installed values to £1.24 billion in 2019, this is largely underpinned by high levels of take-up in the co-location sector, with a growing adoption of Cloud computing technology. Increasing Cloud take-up is supporting the growth of this commercial and colocation sector, as it reduces the need for businesses to own and maintain their own IT infrastructure.

However, overall growth rates have been constrained by declining levels of investment in public sector data centres. This has been primarily because of the Government’s long-term Cloud-first policy which favours outsourcing to wholesale and co-location providers in order to reduce expenditure on operating its own data centres.

The impact of the covid-19 outbreak is expected to severely hamper growth in data centre construction output in 2020. However, once the epidemic is over, strong growth will resume, underpinned by the underlying factors driving up greater IT and Internet usage. Demand for data storage, processing and storage is being driven by the increasing levels of online activity, huge growth in the number of connected devices and changes in the way online services are delivered will again only strengthen the usage of colocation as businesses adapt to where the new normal will take us.

London and the M25 region remains the largest data centre cluster, although recently there has been rapid growth elsewhere, with new clusters in Wiltshire, Leicestershire, South Wales and Cambridgeshire. Manchester and Scotland are also becoming more established data centre markets. This been driven by a combination of lower costs, compared to the M25 region and improvements in technology.

The data centre contracting market is very fragmented. While most large M&E contracting businesses are key players, companies involved in data centre construction range from major building contracting groups and commercial developers, to data centre specialists and operators, modular building manufacturers and IT equipment suppliers.

For more information or to purchase this report please visit www.amaresearch.co.uk or call us on 01242 235724. 

Vivid Money, a Berlin-based digital banking service, is launching in partnership with solarisBank and Visa. The company claims to be the first mobile-first full-service banking solution, offering cashback programs, sub-accounts in foreign currencies and eventually, investment products, in a single app.

Founded in 2019 by Artem Yamanov and Alexander Emeshev, the fintech company already employs over 130 people as it launches into its first market. Both founders previously worked for Russian banks and met at Tinkoff, an online financial and lifestyle services provider run by TCS Group Holding. TCS has agreed to become an anchor seed investor, though the investment amount was not disclosed.

Vivid is working with solarisBank, which provides a fully licensed Banking-as-a-Service platform through which Vivid can operate. “We reduce time to market significantly and enable Vivid Money to compose an attractive offering that allows them to grow fast,” says Roland Folz, CEO of solarisBank.

The app is also launching with Visa as an exclusive payment technology partner for Europe. After opening an account, Vivid users will receive an anonymized, metal Visa debit card.

“The payment behavior in Germany is currently changing rapidly – consumers increasingly want to pay digitally – mobile and contactless. This is why the launch of the mobile-first Visa Debit card by Vivid comes exactly at the right point in time,” says Albrecht Kiel, Visa’s regional managing director of central Europe.

After 18 very successful years as Chief Executive of Sopra Steria UK and Asia, John Torrie has decided to step back from operational responsibility in the UK with effect from 1 July 2020.  He will move into a non-executive role of Chairman of Sopra Steria UK and Asia and will remain Deputy Chief Executive of Sopra Steria Group alongside Vincent Paris, CEO of Sopra Steria Group.

John Neilson will take over from John Torrie as CEO of Sopra Steria UK and Asia on that date.  He will also join the Group Executive Committee.  John has been with Sopra Steria since 2001 and has most recently held the role of Deputy Chief Executive of Sopra Steria UK and Head of Public Sector. 

Alibaba Cloud today announced it is aiming to recruit 5,000 technology talents worldwide from now until the end of the financial year, in areas including network, database, servers, chips and artificial intelligence. This commitment for job creation follows the announcement in April that the cloud computing giant would invest additional RMB200 billion (US$28 billion) in the next three years to build the next-generation datacentres.

“The digital transformation journey for businesses in China, which was previously expected to take three to five years, is now likely to be accelerated to be completed within one year.” said Jeff Zhang, President of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence. “In light of the fast-growing demand of digital shift from global clients in all sectors, we are continuing with our commitment to offering world-class cloud services. To move forward in full speed, we are not only building trusted cloud technologies and services, but also investing in worldwide IT talents who are pioneering the development of cutting-edge cloud and data intelligence technologies.”

Alibaba has been committed to talent development and frontier research for long. In 2017, Alibaba established Alibaba DAMO Academy, which gathers global talents for fundamental technology research in areas such as machine intelligence, vision computing, natural language processing, human-machine interactions, IoT and financial technology.

Pioneering technologies from Alibaba DAMO Academy, including speech AI, image search, and CT image analytics, have been introduced to Alibaba Cloud’s clients worldwide over the past years. More advanced technologies are expected to meet the fast-growing demand of digital shift from clients especially businesses from APAC, where Alibaba Cloud is ranked the No. 1 public cloud service provider.

Xignite, Inc., a provider of market data distribution and management solutions for financial services and technology companies, announced today enhancements for two of its financial data cloud APIs. Now offering functionality built for greater speed and specificity, these APIs enable fintechs to provide their users with the ability to follow worldwide business news and track upcoming earnings announcements. Demand for these capabilities has increased significantly since the pandemic started as COVID-19 has had a dramatic impact on corporate financials. 

Unlike other financial data APIs, Xignite’s APIs are cloud native and offer a robust selection of use case-based end points. These end points are ready-to-use pieces of code that developers can easily integrate into their product or app, regardless of type, amount or frequency of data, without the need for any complex integration logic. In addition, Xignite APIs offer institutional-quality data and global coverage. They are endlessly scalable, offer multiple delivery options and include flexible, use case-based pricing and unlimited usage, adding up to a transformative financial and market data solution that fintechs can leverage in countless ways to build a better experience for their end users.

Xignite financial data API customers include leading fintechs such as Betterment, Personal Capital, Robinhood, StockCharts, Wealthfront, Wealthsimple and SoFi.

Additional detail on the enhanced APIs:

• XigniteGlobalNews – This API offers news headlines and summaries for articles related to the economy, business or the financial sector. It includes coverage across over 1,200 publications and websites, drastically reducing time to market for apps that need news and press release content. Headlines and summaries are tagged by sectors covered, company name and more, making them easy to sift through. With the enhancement, firms can now embed functionality to allow users to query headlines by keyword, allowing them to stay up to date on COVID-19 news or any other topic of particular importance to their investment decisions.
• XigniteEarningsCalendar – This API provides forward-looking earnings, dividend data and events calendar data for trading and risk, encompassing 6,300 companies traded on U.S. and global exchanges. This provides users with critical information to inform their investments and drastically reduces time to market for apps that need earnings calendar data. With the enhancement, firms can now embed functionality to allow users to retrieve multiple earnings calendar items for multiple securities with a single query. 

In addition to the enhancements, Xignite will offer a one-month free trial of XigniteGlobalNews so that developers can test the new functionality. Register for Trial

“Since the global pandemic started our clients have been making significant adjustments to their solutions in response to user demand and we have been following suit,” said Stephane Dubois, CEO and Founder of Xignite. “Our added functionality endpoints will help people stay on top of the company financial news and global headlines they are most interested in. This is an environment in which conditions and narratives can change at a moment’s notice, and we are pleased that our highly scalable, battle-tested APIs can now play an even bigger role in helping both our clients and their end users navigate this challenging time.”

This is just the latest example of Xignite’s ability to innovate. Earlier this year, the firm received a patent for its market alerts technology.

Technology firm Peasy is offering businesses the chance to dramatically improve their cash flow as we emerge from the pandemic, by launching a system that offers rewards, typically between 1 and 5 per cent of the invoice values they’re paying, depending on how early they settle.

Offering incentives to clients is a proven method of getting invoices paid quickly, and far more effective than cash. Peasy manages the entire process as soon as the invoice is raised, and requires no further administration.

In trials with the National Association of Shopfitters (NAS), payments received within terms were 40 per cent above the national average.

Cash flow is a huge concern for businesses. Even before the pandemic, 24 per cent of UK businesses report late payments as a threat to survival[1]. Today, more than two thirds (68 per cent), of UK entrepreneurs cite cashflow concerns[2]. Reducing late payments improves cashflow, allowing businesses to invest in growth, create more jobs, rely less on government support and – generally – improve the economy. It also saves time and the costs associated with having to chase debtors and allows businesses to focus on what really matters - rebuilding their business.

Now Peasy empowers businesses to incentivise customers to pay earlier. The quicker they pay, the bigger the reward - and the greater their loyalty. Peasy’s system can also strengthen relationships between businesses and their clients as both sides benefit when invoices are settled early.

Peasy has partnered with Avios to offer rewards for travel, although businesses can elect to donate the value to Peasy’s partner charities, including: NHS Charities, Cancer Research UK and Trees for Cities. Just like business credit card points, anyone authorised within the organisation can draw down rewards, share them or spread them as they prefer. Companies issuing the invoices can also earn points.

Peasy connects to all major accounting software, is quick and simple to link, and just requires the invoicing business to decide the overall level of rewards (as a percentage of invoice value). As each invoice is raised, Peasy then presents the customer with a dynamically reducing incentive according to how quickly the invoice is paid. The entire process is seamless and automated.

Peasy is free to use and requires no long-term commitment. The only cost is the value of rewards when a customer pays early, so if it doesn’t achieve the improved cashflow, there are absolutely no costs.

David Landsberg, co-founder and managing director, comments: “We’re excited to be launching Peasy – a first-of-its-kind. The platform is designed to give businesses an edge and level the playing field so businesses with access to funds are incentivised to prioritise paying those without. Conducting the trial with NAS early this year not only demonstrated how compelling offering early payment incentives should be, but also how forward thinking as an industry body they are. Late payments is an issue that has long blighted industry trade bodies across many sectors. We believe that as businesses return to a sense of normality following lockdown, they can leave behind their old collection practices and focus on improving their cashflow and strengthening the economy without having the distraction of chasing debtors. It really is time for businesses to draw a line in the sand and take control of their cashflow for greater certainty ahead.”

It takes just a few seconds to sign up and connect to Peasy. Go to https://app.peasy.com/signup for more information, or email carrot@peasy.com for further information.

1https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/745639/creating-a-responsible-payment-culture-call-for-evidence.pdf

2https://www.business-school.ed.ac.uk/about/news/nationwide-survey-of-covid-19-impact

MIAMI--(BUSINESS WIRE)--NYMBUS®, a provider of the world’s most advanced financial services platform, today announced it has completed $12 million in a new financing round led by the company’s major shareholders of Insight Partners and Vensure Enterprises. The focus of the investment will be used to support rapid market penetration for the NYMBUS SmartEcosystem™ that is in overwhelming demand as more financial institutions are in the critical position to digitize their banking operations and customer-facing channels that consumers depend on now more than ever.

A revolutionary alternative to outdated legacy technology, NYMBUS’ cloud-based SmartEcosystem allows every size of financial institution to buy back decades of lost time and get to market almost instantly with modern digital-first solutions. It uniquely unifies all of their required banking functions and operational services at a fraction of the time and cost previously available to engage and support the entire digital customer journey.

“This latest funding points to confidence and demand in the marketplace for innovative solutions that financial institutions can rapidly deploy in order to thrive in a digital-dependent world,” said Scott Killoh, CEO and Founder of NYMBUS. “Time is of essence as COVID-19 has amplified this urgency for seamless digital banking experiences. NYMBUS is fortunate to have the proven products and tools in place to make digital transformation immediately available for more banks and credit unions, and with this funding, the financial backing to drive our growth at scale.”

The company’s SmartLaunch™ model has gained tremendous momentum for providing the bundled technology, complete operational support, and full-service digital marketing and integrated CRM solutions to quickly stand up a fully-outsourced digital bank. Similarly, NYMBUS most recently introduced SmartLenders™ as soon as Congress passed the CARES Act on March 27, to help make the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan process simple and fast for participating banks and credit unions to urgently help their local communities and small businesses. The unified solution transforms institutions’ legacy technology infrastructure for this urgent use case into a rapid deploy PPP solution where banks require no knowledge or skills to operate the system. NYMBUS handles everything as a service, no core conversion or additional staff are required.

“We've increased our commitment to NYMBUS as they continue to build out a full ecosystem of products and services that is being overwhelmingly received within the market as a proven alternative to the traditional banking model,” said Peter Sobiloff, Manager Director at Insight Partners. “The company’s robust pipeline has further been bolstered by COVID-19 due to demand for advanced digital lending and banking services under the CARES Act and its turnkey SmartLenders solution. We are confident in our investment to support an accelerated scale-up and delivery of their solutions for penetrating the market with immediate and future banking success.”