Cloud9 Technologies ("Cloud9"), a leader in cloud-based communications, has completed a $17.5 million Series B funding round led by a strategic investment from UBS, with participation from existing investors including J.P. Morgan and Barclays.  Agility, mobility, and resilience have come into sharp focus at financial institutions, accelerating demand for flexible remote working tools on and off the trading floor and increasing the adoption of the industry’s only fully cloud-based voice communications solution.

Cloud9 has seen new business increase by over 50% since March, as it has onboarded several of the world's top global banks and investment management firms. The growing client demand reflects an increasing need for ‘anytime, anywhere’ access to a virtual trading floor and highlights the inherent benefits of an integrated, cloud-based environment.

“Our decision to invest in and partner with Cloud9 makes sense for many reasons. Not only are we committed to equipping our own traders with tools for seamless and agile communications - even more relevant today during the current COVID-19 crisis - but also because we see many benefits to a cloud-based environment and the data insights that come with it,” said Lee Fulmer, Global Head of Innovation Lab at UBS Investment Bank.  Lee will join Cloud9’s Board of Directors this year. Fulmer is responsible for UBS Investment Bank's innovation agenda, including the deployment of new third-party solutions that can enable enhanced performance through data and analytics.

“We have been strong supporters in Cloud9’s vision for cloud-enabled voice trading,” said Michael Elanjian, Head of Digital Innovation, Corporate & Investment Bank, J.P. Morgan.  “We’re at a turning point in how technology is transforming trading floors and Cloud9 is playing a critical role in the evolution of voice trading.”

“Whether it’s working from an office or from home, traders and financial institutions want optionality and that’s what we’re providing. The transition to a virtual, cloud-based trading floor is accelerating as the industry recognizes the importance of a more flexible and intelligent voice communications model,” said Jerry Starr, Chief Executive Officer at Cloud9.

Broadhaven Capital Partners served as financial advisor to Cloud9 and Kluk Farber Law served as legal counsel.

Unlike providers of remote log-in services, which still rely on physical servers at key locations, Cloud9 is the only fully compliant and cloud-based voice communication system that meets the complex needs of users from the largest global banks and specialist trading firms.

The integration of Troovo’s advanced Robotic Process Automation (RPA) engine with Amadeus’ B2B Wallet means the entire virtual payment flow can now be automated very quickly, helping the travel industry digitally transform B2B supplier payments. 

The way travel agencies pay travel providers, like airlines, is changing as virtual payments replace traditional methods and legacy payment processes. This move to virtual cards helps to reduce fraud, mitigate risks associated with supplier default, increase efficiency, and can even help to improve travel agency margins. While there are many advantages to virtual card payments, significant systems integration work has been necessary, until now.

The introduction of RPA means key data relating to each payment and booking can be moved between the booking system and the airline Passenger Service System (PSS) or the hotel Property Management System (PMS) automatically by a software robot. 

Software robots are a light-weight tool that can quickly be configured to complete basic business processes, such as entering a 16-digit virtual card number, or travel booking details, from a travel agency system into an airline or hotel system to complete a payment.  

This automation avoids error-prone human processes or traditional systems integration work, which can take longer. The data transferred includes virtual card information that is written back to the booking system as well as transaction data provided to the travel supplier and the card-issuing bank. 

When combined with Amadeus’ B2B Wallet solution, it offers the travel industry a leading combination of innovative technologies that enables travel agencies to pay suppliers using the right virtual card for that specific booking scenario whether pre-paid, credit or debit in the most efficient way. 

The partnership sees Troovo benefit from Amadeus’ global reach in travel as well as helping to deliver on specific customer requirements in the Asia-Pacific region.  The partnership also provides operational and finance teams at organisations using Amadeus’ B2B Wallet with a single point of processing and management of all virtual payments, delivering increased transparency and control.

“Even though our industry is in challenging and uncertain times, payment innovation has remained resilient given the typically low implementation burden and incremental contribution towards both cost reduction and revenue collection. As we navigate the pandemic and begin to reimagine how travel agencies pay providers, it’s important we strive for the most automated and efficient approach possible. We’re confident the integration of Troovo’s RPA engine will help our travel agency customers to benefit from virtual payments even faster.” Commented Damian Alonso, Head of Payer Services, Payments, Amadeus.

Troovo’s Co-Founder and CEO Kurt Knackstedt agrees: “Virtual payments with Amadeus’ B2B Wallet, processed via Troovo, eliminate inefficiencies while providing a whole new level of security, data richness and ease of use thanks to RPA. We look forward to working with the Amadeus team to boost their customers’ operational and commercial performance in payments across the globe.”

Troovo can be deployed easily within the travel provider’s payment processing workflow to provide a completely virtual solution for generating and processing payments. Amadeus B2B Wallet customers can now enjoy the significant commercial, risk management and data visibility benefits of B2B Wallet, alongside the operational cost savings and simple integration capabilities of Troovo Payments. 

Triple Point today announces a rapid turnaround investment initiative to help new start-ups launch, in recognition of the role innovation and technology will play in accelerating the UK’s economic recovery.

Periods of uncertainty and change often create significant opportunities for entrepreneurs to innovate. This has been seen during past economic downturns, when companies such as Uber, Slack, AirBnB and Pinterest were born. There is high potential for other ground-breaking businesses to be established now, as the COVID-19 impact accelerates change and creates opportunities for fresh business models and new disrupters.

The impact of the pandemic has lowered wage, rent and advertising costs, and businesses now have better access to the skilled human talent that they need. All these factors give early-stage companies a much better chance of accelerating their growth and driving their future commercial success. The entrepreneurs who succeed will choose to view this current crisis as an impetus to arrive at a breakthrough.

Critical for start-ups to fulfil their potential is access to funding. The Government has announced a range of measures to support growth businesses, which are welcome and much needed. These include the £500m Future Fund, which is focused on early stage companies. However, to qualify for investment from the Future Fund, businesses need to have raised at least £250,000 in private investment in the last five years, which still leaves many of the earliest stage start-ups struggling to access funding.

An illustration of the issue is the funding that UK start-ups raised in the first month of the lockdown. According to research from innovation centre Plexal and data provider Beauhurst, start-ups raised £663m in investment during this period. However, deal flow was down 39% year-on-year and of the total amount raised only £50.2m went to start-ups that had never raised funds before.

Triple Point’s investment initiative “Kick Start” is designed to target those very early stage businesses that have yet to raise funding. It will invest ticket sizes of between £100-£150k in companies with pre-money valuations of between £1m-£1.5m, usually as the first external money into a business.

Typically, the earlier in a growth company’s journey an investment is made, the greater the potential impact that investment can have, while also allowing investors the opportunity to see significant capital growth.

As part of their Kick Start initiative, Triple Point will be committed to providing founding teams with an investment decision within 10 days of applying, with the aim of signing terms within 14 days and deploying capital within 21 days. The firm will also launch a dedicated online application form (www.triplepoint.vc/kick-start-application/) so that interested startups can have the opportunity to apply for funding as well as to see Triple Point´s track record within the early stage sector.

The initiative will be led by the team that manages Triple Point’s successful venture capital funds. Triple Point has been investing in early stage businesses for over 15 years and has a track record of supporting innovators, building enduring partnerships as well as exceptional investments. This has led to over 130 early stage companies receiving funding and support from Triple Point in the past. The firm has £600m invested in young UK businesses, with over £1.5bn overall assets under management.

Ian McLennan, Partner at Triple Point, said: “High growth companies will be critical in driving the UK’s economic recovery, and early stage start-ups are the most exciting, innovative and dynamic companies in the country. Now is an opportune moment for investors to support compelling new investment opportunities, ensuring the best new start-ups have access to the vital early stage funding they need. Ensuring those start-ups have access to the funding they need is fundamental to them playing a full role in our economic and business revival. Triple Point is proud to play its part in this by deploying further investment dedicated to support start-ups and we encourage such businesses to get in touch and promise them a fast turnaround of their application and an investment decision within ten days.”

İşbank and Commerzbank have jointly run an international trade finance transaction based on distributed ledger technology (DLT). Payments were secured by digitally processing the related data transfer via Corda blockchain technology on the Marco Polo trade finance network.

İşbank is the first bank in Turkey to perform a trade finance transaction using blockchain technology. The transaction took place on 27 May 2020 between İşbank, Şişecam, Kuraray Europe GmbH, and Commerzbank AG and supported the trade of laminated glass interlayers from Germany to Turkey.

“Increasing security, speed, and operational efficiency in international trade, this technology is a paradigm change for foreign trade supply chains”, İşbank’s Deputy Chief Executive Şahismail Şimşek is convinced: “As İşbank, we offer innovative solutions to our customers’ financing needs with our firsts in technology. Now, with this pilot transaction using blockchain technology, we are starting a reliable and easier period based on matching data in foreign trade. We aim to offer new experiences to our customers by taking part in new technological developments in the world and developing foreign trade products over blockchain technology.”

Marco Polo is a collaboration network focussed on securing payments and financing of trade transactions. Its DLT allows foreign trade transactions to be financed securely and in a very efficient manner. Transactions are safe and transparent and can be processed in a trusted environment.

Thanks to R3’s Corda technology underpinning Marco Polo, the trade transaction data was only distributed to the parties along the workflow of the trade, making the settlement processes much quicker and more efficient. It is also possible to integrate third parties into the data flows where required by banks and trade partners. All parties involved were able to communicate and view trading data simultaneously.

“After having processed various Marco Polo Payment Commitment pilot transactions last year, we are now very happy to have piloted with İşbank an advanced pre-live version of the platform. We ensured the technical performance and validated the workflow with our corporates to pave the way to production,” underlines EnnoBurghard Weitzel, Head of Trade Product Management at Commerzbank.

“We were very excited and honored to take part in the Marco Polo project, as the technology of Marco Polo offers three big advantages. Firstly, it supports a trustful relationship between business partners and helps to offer unique services for our customers. Secondly, the platform supports our efforts to further digitalise business processes. Thirdly, Marco Polo Blockchain solution perfectly fits to one key part of Kuraray’s mission to use pioneering technologies”, remarks Juliane Löbig, Director Finance & Accounting, Kuraray Europe GmbH.

Şişecam’s Chief Financial Officer, Görkem Elverici, adds: “Şişecam Group is one of the most established businesses in Turkey and is a global player in all key areas of the glass industry, as well as soda and chromium chemicals. With a global footprint in over 150 markets, it conducts a significant volume of international trades on a weekly basis. Şişecam is excited to announce that it has undertaken the first blockchain transaction in Turkey through the use of the Marco Polo’s blockchain-based payment platform, and the Group continues to innovate and use all the digitally available solutions to provide the best service and experience to its overall ecosystem including its customers and suppliers.”

Saxo Bank and five Danish SDC member banks (Sparekassen Vendsyssel, Sparekassen Thy, Middelfart Sparekasse, Frøs Sparekasse and Jutlander Bank) have entered a partnership agreement, which will give the banks’ combined 500,000 clients access to Saxo Bank’s user-friendly and innovative trading and investment solutions.

SDC is jointly owned by the 120 member banks for the development, maintenance and joint purchase of IT systems and related services. The integration with SDC’s core banking systems makes it possible for the other member banks to opt-in and offer their clients similar digital investing and advisory solutions. As part of the partnership, Saxo is developing a digital advisory tool, which can work together with the banks’ existing systems. This tool will simplify processes for the banks’ financial advisors by providing them with a full and more detailed overview of their customers’ portfolios.

The deal is the culmination of long preliminary talks around developing a comprehensive digital investment solution that gives the banks access to Saxo Bank’s award-winning platforms as well as bespoke advisory solutions.

By partnering with Saxo Bank, the small and medium-sized banks under SDC can cut costs and complexity while providing their clients with a state-of-the-art investment experience with broad access to stocks, bonds, mutual funds and ETFs. This enables them to fully leverage Saxo’s technology and platforms to further improve and digitise engagement as well as build client experiences that are tailored to meet individual needs.

The technical integration will begin in the second half of 2020 and the solutions are expected to launch for the participating banks’ customers in the first half of 2021.

Commenting on the partnership, Kim Fournais, CEO and Founder of Saxo Bank, said:

“We are very proud to sign this landmark partnership with a group of Danish banks. It has been a very constructive process, where we have leveraged our expertise of building white label solutions and worked closely with the participating banks to fully understand their clients’ and advisors’ needs. The end-clients will gain access to our market-leading trading and investment platforms and our partners in SDC will save on IT-costs and cut complexity, which will enable them to focus even more on servicing their clients. At Saxo Bank we have always believed in the power of partnerships and that we achieve the best results when we build on each other’s strengths. This is what this agreement is all about and it is a true win-win situation for all parties. I am convinced that we will see more partnerships like this one across the European banking sector as clients demand more intelligent and digital investment solutions.”

Finastra has appointed Neil Blagden as Chief Customer Officer. He ultimately takes responsibility for customer success – overseeing everything Finastra does to design, deliver and enable excellent experiences for its customers. 

Neil brings deep expertise in this space, coupled with a wealth of knowledge in customer support, operations and digital transformation. Throughout his career he has focused on building agile ‘customer-first’ cultures, including working with teams to build solutions that harness AI and data to provide greater insight for businesses – enabling them to better engage and deliver compelling and meaningful customer experiences.

He joins Finastra from his post as Director of Customer Services, Operations & Digital at Vodafone UK, where he oversaw a number of areas, including customer experience for 24 million UK customers across mobile, broadband and Internet of Things (IoT) services. Prior to that, he worked at Direct Line Group as Director of Customer Experience & Conduct, progressing from his previous role as Director of Business Services. In the early part of his career he also held front-office consulting roles at Accenture, EY and PwC working with clients across multiple sectors.

Neil said, “I am passionate about customer experience, which has always been the key focus throughout my career, and I’m excited to bring my learnings to Finastra. The open innovation vision of the leadership team, and the value that the business places on ensuring the customer is at the heart of everything, is inspiring. I’m looking forward to accelerating that drive and deepening these relationships.”

Part of the Finastra Executive Leadership team, Neil is based in the company’s London office (working remotely at present, due to the pandemic situation). 

Simon Paris, CEO at Finastra said, “Neil brings with him significant insight into shaping customer experience with the help of innovative technologies. His enthusiasm for his craft and proven track record aligns with our commitment to shape our solutions and the way we work with our customers. We’ve always strived to build deep and long-lasting relationships with our customers, and long may this continue and evolve with Neil on board.”

CaixaBank, a leading financial institution in Spain and Portugal, serving more than 15.5 million customers, has announced an agreement with IBM Services (NYSE: IBM) to help accelerate its hybrid cloud journey and continue their work to increase the bank's capability to develop innovative, digital-first solutions to enhance client experiences.

CaixaBank will leverage IBM Cloud Pak for Applications running on Red Hat OpenShift to manage workloads and applications across its overall cloud infrastructure. The bank also agreed to continue to work with IBM in their joint innovation center to apply advanced technologies like AI, and additionally explore quantum computing and blockchain solutions. The companies will continue to seek to co-create new solutions for the banking industry with a goal to help quickly process a large number of transactions in an open, secure and scalable environment while delivering improved customer experiences.  

With a key focus on technological innovation for the industry, CaixaBank is Spain's leading digital financial services provider, serving more than 6.5 million digital clients. CaixaBank is also one of the pioneering banks in the application of artificial intelligence for financial services, developing one of the first virtual banking assistants created in Europe. Built with IBM Watson, the AI-based virtual assistant manages more than 1.5 million client conversations each month, handling a spectrum of tasks such as helping bank employees quickly obtain relevant detailed information about new client offerings and quickly assisting mobile customers via chat with day-to-day queries. This approach frees up employee time to focus on serving customers.

IBM has been a strategic technology provider for CaixaBank since 2011. Along with renewing their existing relationship, the recent agreements are also focused on accelerating innovation and digital transformation, while also strengthening the longtime collaboration between IBM and the bank, chaired by Jordi Gual and CEO Gonzalo Gortázar. 

"Our company, the leader in digital customers in Spain, has renewed our relationship with IBM to allow us to continue innovating and transforming the way we interact with our customers," said Gonzalo Gortázar, CaixaBank's CEO. "By strengthening and expanding the collaboration with a company that is a global model in innovation for the finance industry, we will accelerate, even further, our digital capabilities to continue developing innovative projects and services."

IBM is bringing its deep financial services industry experience to help generate long term value to CaixaBank and its clients. By leveraging IBM Cloud Pak for Applications, CaixaBank can modernize and create applications with increased agility and security while addressing compliance requirements within a hybrid cloud environment.

"We are pleased to be on this digital transformation journey with CaixaBank, an innovation leader in the banking industry," said Juan Zufiria, Senior Vice President, Global Technology Services. "With this collaboration, we are laying the foundation to build a model, not just for CaixaBank and its millions of customers, but also for the future of the industry. The open cloud environment can allow the bank to accelerate its innovation and offer a more agile way to bring new digital services to its customers with added flexibility and security."

Increased processing capacity and data storage capability
The IBM Cloud Pak for Applications solution is designed to help reduce risk and improve operational resiliency with an estimated processing power and data storage capability of 105,000 terabytes, a capacity equal to 200 times the volume of a digital library with all the books listed in the world in all languages. 

New projects for the joint Innovation Center
Researchers at the CaixaBank-IBM innovation center have previously been exploring technologies for the future of financial services and the recent agreement expands to include with blockchain and quantum computing. Recently, CaixaBank developed a prototype of a machine learning algorithm based on quantum computing to analyze customers based on credit risk. 

This agreement was signed during IBM's Q1, 2020.

Temenos (SIX: TEMN), the banking software company, today announced that Next Commercial Bank (Next Bank), has selected Temenos Transact to power its launch as one of Taiwan’s first neobanks and deliver digital banking experiences that challenge the status quo. Cloud-native, cloud-agnostic Temenos Transact will deliver rich, pre-configured banking functionality and compliance to support Next Bank’s rapid launch to market in 2020. Temenos’ market leading digital core product will underpin the bank’s entire operations, delivering scale, agility and efficiency and supporting it to reach one million customers within the first three years of operations.

In 2019, Next Bank became one of the first neobanks in Taiwan’s history to receive a virtual banking license from the national financial authorities. Next Bank is backed by local investment from Taiwan telecom operator, Chunghwa Telecom, among others, and will launch with capital around USD 332 million. This significant investment and Temenos’ cloud advanced technology will give the bank the resources to drive innovative banking products and services for retail and corporate customers.

Temenos’ broad banking functionality will support the simple creation and modification of new hyper-personalized products and services. Next Bank will initially deliver customer accounts, deposits and loans, and has plans to provide mortgages and wealth management in the future. The bank will leverage Temenos’ technology to implement an intuitive customer pricing model and consolidate consumer data into a single 360 degree view to drive efficiency and customer centricity across all its interactions. 

Next Bank will benefit from Temenos Transact’s pre-integrated compliance modules to address the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) and Common Reporting Standard (CRS). This out-of-the-box functionality will enable seamless compliance and support the bank’s ambitious 2020 launch timeframe.

Wang Tun Chou, Chief Information Officer, Next Bank, stated: “We are excited to partner with Temenos as we prepare to launch Next Bank in Taiwan. Temenos’ vast experience deploying digital banking software across Asia and in Taiwan itself means Next Bank will benefit from applied regional and local best practices and can expect a smooth launch later this year. As one of the first neobanks in Taiwan, we have a unique opportunity to raise the bar for banking in our region. Leveraging Temenos deep market experience and its advanced cloud-native, cloud-agnostic and API-first technology, Next Bank will set the standard for innovative digital banking and hyper-personalized customer experiences.”

Martin Frick, Managing Director – Asia Pacific, Temenos, commented: “We are delighted that Next Bank has chosen to build its greenfield operations on our market-leading, core banking product, Temenos Transact. Temenos has a strong and growing presence across Asia, serving 460 customers in 26 countries, and in these uncertain times, providing banks with a simple route to market for vital digital banking services has never been more important. Temenos’ technology offers the winning combination of advanced cloud-native, cloud-agnostic and API-first technology and the richest, broadest banking functionality. This is why we remain the partner of choice for challenger banks and incumbents around the world. Our software also delivers tangible business benefits and is proven to enable our top-performing clients to achieve cost-income ratios of 26.8%, half the industry average. Building on Temenos technology will allow Next Bank to achieve operational excellence and sustainable growth, both in today’s climate and in the future.”

Finland's biggest fintech start-up Enfuce has been accredited as an authorised payment institution by the Finnish Financial Supervisory Authority (FIN-FSA)*. Customers pursuing new opportunities introduced through the second Payment Services Directive (PSD2), can now perform account information and payment initiation services together with Enfuce. 

With the Payment Institution license, Enfuce can now unlock a variety of opportunities for its customers. A multitude of companies such as insurance companies, accounting bureaus and mobile network operators can now benefit from the PSD2 regulation through Enfuce offering.

Enfuce’s Open Banking Hub enables customers to retrieve account information and initiate payments from end users' bank accounts. The account information service provides access to a new set of data which has not been available before, and the payment initiation service can be integrated into existing payment processes in mobile apps and e-commerce sites. 

“Becoming an authorized payment institution is a major milestone for us. We can now serve an even wider group of customers and drive our vision of open banking for everyone,” said Denise Johansson, CEO and Co-Founder at Enfuce.

“In addition to delivering effective connectivity to our existing licensed customers with our Open Banking Hub, we can now introduce the same service to other customers. We manage the regulatory compliance and technical connectivity, letting our customers focus on designing the service experience and branding”, Johansson added.

Enfuce is currently onboarding customers to the service in the Nordics and expanding it to all countries within the European Union. 

*Enfuce License Services Ltd, which is part of Enfuce Financial Group, has been granted the Payment Institution license and is under the supervision of Finnish Financial Supervisory Authority.

Featurespace^™, the leading provider of Enterprise Financial Crime prevention software, has been recognised as a Representative Vendor in Gartner's 2020 Market Guide for Online Fraud Detection¹.

The report states, "online fraud detection is expanding beyond traditional use cases, and market overlap with identity proofing and authentication is growing. SRM leaders focused on fraud should select vendors based on desired business outcomes and recognize that orchestration has become a critical requirement."

Featurespace is recognised as a Representative Vendor in Online Fraud Detection: Event Monitoring Vendors With a Banking Focus - for its ARIC™ Risk Hub.

Powered by Adaptive Behavioral Analytics - a Featurespace invention - the ARIC™ Risk Hub uses advanced, explainable anomaly detection to enable financial institutions to automatically identify risk, catch new fraud attacks and identify suspicious activity in real time.

Featuring out-of-the-box models that use supervised and unsupervised techniques that automatically adapt to changes in behavior, ARIC Risk Hub also enables clients to create and deploy rules in real-time, as well as build and upload custom models into an Open Modelling Environment so that data science teams can conduct testing without impacting system performance.

"Our approach is unlike anything else in the industry because we focus on understanding good behaviors and adapt in real time so that the anomalies stand out. Due to the volume and unpredictable nature of online payments activity, this is impossible to achieve without adaptive behavioral analytics," said Dave Excell, Founder of Featurespace. "The other half of the equation is delivering these capabilities to our clients and providing them with maximum flexibility and control as they manage their unique fraud and risk strategies."

In a May 2020 Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey, which gauges a company's overall customer satisfaction with its product, service and willingness to recommend to others, Featurespace was rated well above the technology industry standard. In addition, according to customer feedback, it was the only company to have increased its model score performance amid the current period of changing spending behaviors, proving the company's ability to adapt and detect new fraud and suspicious activity in real time.

¹Gartner, “Market Guide for Online Fraud Detection” Akif Khan, Jonathan Care, 13 May 2020