MDOTM, the Fintech startup that leverages AI to develop investment strategies for institutional investors, wealth managers, and asset managers, appoints Simone Facchinato as its new Chief Investment Officer. This helps the fintech – which specializes in the rigorous application of the scientific method – to add a significant amount of expertise in developing quantitative investment solutions that can adapt to the ever-evolving nature of financial markets.

With 20+ years track record in the Finance and Asset Management industry, Facchinato has worked in several top-tier financial institutions as Head of Multi Asset at ANIMA SGR (personally overseeing € 30 Billion of assets) and previously as Chief Investment Officer at Amundi in Italy and Head of Institutional Business Development at Arca SGR. During his career, after graduating with honours in Mathematics, he acquired a broad expertise in many key areas of the asset management industry, and a deep knowledge of quantitative investment strategies and institutional investors’ needs and requirements.

Facchinato is a CFA charterholder and an active member of the academic investment community, with several published research papers and scientific articles. He is often called on to speak about macroeconomic topics and frequently joins industry-leading events as keynote speaker.

“Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning mark a decade-long transition in the Asset Management industry. From traditional statistical techniques to new complex models for decision-making, they will be fundamental in establishing a competitive advantage in the future. MDOTM’s approach and methodology follow this direction.” – says Facchinato – “The team’s enthusiasm is contagious, and I am looking forward to give my contribution to develop new investment strategies that can address the increasing complexity of financial markets”

Federico Mazzorin MDOTM’s CTO, Co-CIO & Co-Founder adds: “We are very proud that Simone has joined our team. In the last few years, Artificial Intelligence has made a giant leap forward, and to constantly add value there is a need for continuous investment in financial and computational research. In this sense, Simone’s skills and deep expertise will be fundamental to develop better and more efficient investment models”

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Austin-based Eventus Systems, Inc., a multi-award winning global trade surveillance and market risk software platform provider, today announced the appointment of two executives to key new roles at the firm. Eric Einfalt has joined as Chief Strategy Officer, and David Mitchell as Regional Sales Executive, North America. Together, they bring more than 45 years of financial services and markets experience.

Both based in Chicago, Einfalt reports to Eventus CEO Travis Schwab, and Mitchell reports to Scott Schroeder, Managing Director and Global Head of Sales.

The firm announced last month the completion of a $10.5 million Series A funding round to enable Eventus to grow its staff globally, along with enhancing its technology and fueling further growth.

Schwab said: “We’re really excited to bring onboard these seasoned professionals as one of the first steps in our expansion plan, with more new hires to come as we accelerate our global growth. Eric brings rich experience from senior, hands-on roles in the industry we serve, along with business strategy acumen and extraordinary relationships.  David’s tremendous background in a wide range of asset classes, understanding of our product and outstanding track record will enable us to build on the great progress we’ve made in North America over the past five years.”

“Eventus has built a world-class product in its Validus platform with a talented and seasoned team,” Einfalt said. “The firm is poised for explosive growth as we look to expand our presence across asset classes on a global scale. I look forward to playing a key role in that expansion, helping to scale the business and working with management and the board to help navigate the landscape along the way.”

Einfalt most recently served for nearly five years as Head of Strategic Development for XR Trading, LLC, where he drove new business line initiatives, identified strategic opportunities and managed relationships with a wide range of the firm’s trading counterparties across asset classes.  Previously he spent nearly seven years with Sun Trading, where he served as Chief Strategy Officer, after which he founded his own strategic advisory consulting firm.  Einfalt spent eight years in management positions at Pax Clearing and Merrill Lynch, which acquired Pax in 2005. He started his career at PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP (now PwC), managing audit engagements related to broker-dealers. In 2017, his industry peers selected Einfalt to serve on the Security Traders Association (STA) National Board of Governors. He was in the U.S. Army Reserve for eight years and served in Operation Desert Storm. A certified public accountant (CPA) in Illinois, Einfalt earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from Indiana University in Bloomington and an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management in Evanston, Illinois.

Mitchell has more than 25 years of experience with global financial markets businesses in Chicago and Sydney, including with exchanges, banks and major fintech and data firms.  He joined Eventus after serving since 2018 in Chicago as Regional Sales Executive, North America for G.H. Financials LLC, a futures and options clearing firm. He spent more than six years as Business Development Manager for Chi-X Australia in Sydney after a role as Regional Manager, North America for the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) US Inc. in Chicago. Mitchell began his career in Sydney, with [clearing and treasury] roles at several banks, including Deutsche Bank and the Industrial Bank of Japan, and at Bloomberg L.P. as a global data analytics and corporate action specialist. A native of Australia, Mitchell attended St. Joseph’s College in Hunter’s Hill, Australia and Southern Cross University in Sydney.

MSB, one of Vietnam’s leading commercial banks, has announced it will adopt Mambu’s cloud-native banking platform as its key technology solution to help the business undergo a radical digital transformation. MSB plans to launch Vietnam’s first digital bank by end of 2020.

Mambu’s composable banking platform will underpin MSB’s move to digital as the business aims to be the first to market with a cloud-based bank offering in the region. Mambu’s pure SaaS technology will be a critical tool to enable flexibility as MSB seeks to better understand customer needs and provide superior customer service.

Confirming the deal, Bryan Carroll, CDO of MSB, said: “There’s no denying that the future of banking is digital, and we want to be a big part of it. We’re investing heavily in our digital transformation and have also assigned significant resources to ensuring we have improved product offerings for our valuable customers. We’ve selected Mambu’s composable platform to build Vietnam’s first digital only bank as it is fully scalable, allowing us to grow quickly and respond with agility to customer needs as they arise. The Mambu platform is also completely configurable, meaning we can design it to meet our specific requirements.”

Myles Bertrand, Mambu’s Managing Director APAC, said: “MSB has a target of becoming the best commercial bank in Vietnam and we will have a hand in helping the business achieve its goal as it undergoes this exciting digital transformation. Mambu’s cloud-native technology is the ideal platform to consolidate MSB’s position as a first-mover in the digital banking landscape in Vietnam.”

Credit Ural Bank has become the first local bank in the Chelyabinsk Region to join the Fast Payment System (FPS). The bank’s entry into the FPS will enable its customers to make payments using their mobile phone numbers as a token.

“By joining the FPS we are not only speeding up the time it takes for our customers to make transfers, but also significantly simplifying the process for them,” said Sergey Posadsky, Deputy Chairman of the Board at Credit Ural Bank. “Everyone has access to their phones around the clock so by adding this as means to transfer funds we are offering something that will be welcomed widely.”

As the first bank in the region to join the FPS, the project, completed with support from Compass Plus, will provide an easy-to-use and secure payment tool to speed up transfers between individuals. Transfers will be made possible via mobile phones with Credit Ural Bank offering the service through its CUB-Direct and CUB-Mobile payment applications.

“Within the FPS, funds are instantly credited and debited from the accounts and it is a service that operates 24/7, all year-round,” said Alexey Osipov, Executive VP & MEA Managing Director at Compass Plus. “An additional bonus of the new solution is transfer fees at a lower rate when compared to interbank card transfers, leading to a more competitive service using the FPS.”

Using the National System of Payment Cards (NSPK) as an operational centre, Credit Ural Bank intends to develop the solution further this year to introduce Consumer to Business (C2B) services.

Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. (NYSE:BR), a global Fintech leader and part of the S&P 500® Index, has completed its previously announced acquisition of FundsLibrary, a leader in fund document and data dissemination in the European market. The acquisition accelerates Broadridge’s pan-European regulatory communications and digital data platform, supporting the lifecycle of fund data, documents, and regulatory reporting for the investment industry.

FundsLibrary’s solutions enable fund managers to increase distribution opportunities and help them comply with regulations such as Solvency II and MiFID II. The business will be combined with FundAssist, Broadridge’s existing European funds regulatory communications business. The combination of FundsLibrary’s data platform and technology with Broadridge’s existing fund calculation, document creation and translation capabilities, creates an end-to-end solution for fund managers and distributors, enabling them to respond to demanding regulatory requirements across multiple jurisdictions.

The combined business will be known as Broadridge Fund Communication Solutions, and will be led by Arun Sarwal, former CEO of FundsLibrary. Sarwal has extensive financial services industry and technology business leadership experience. He previously held roles as Senior Vice President of SS&C Technologies, CEO of DST Investment Management Solutions, COO at Scottish Widows Investment Partnership (SWIP), SVP within ABN AMRO’s Private Clients & Asset Management business and was one of the founders of Kurtosys Systems. 

“I am delighted to lead this exciting fund data and regulatory communications business for Broadridge as we expand and grow our footprint in international markets,” says Sarwal.  “This combined business will enable Broadridge clients to utilize a single provider for the creation and dissemination of fund marketing and regulatory documents so they can increase distribution opportunities and meet the demanding standards of regulation.”

Broadridge Fund Communication Solutions provides a comprehensive digital platform, supporting the lifecycle of fund data, documents and regulatory reporting for the global investment industry. The company manages and distributes data for some 700 global fund groups and supports over 200 million fund data requests each year. It is recognized for the breadth of its regulatory solutions, encompassing production and distribution of reports, including Key Information Documents (UCITs KIID & PRIIP KID), MiFiD II and Solvency II, for clients globally in over 35 languages.

Swisscard AECS GmbH, a leading credit card company in Switzerland, has optimized its early collections using FICO analytics leading to a 50 percent increase in revenue from billable collection expenses, a 40 percent reduction in net credit losses, a 30 percent reduction in account terminations whilst also lifting its Net Promotor Score for customers in collections by 11 points through improved customer interactions.

For its achievements, Swisscard won a 2019 FICO® Decisions Award for Debt Management.

Switzerland has a stable economy and low delinquency levels but Swisscard wanted to pursue a new growth strategy targeted at larger numbers of new and risk-appropriate consumers.

To achieve this, a joint team of Swisscard and FICO experts assessed the current state of the collections and recovery process and identified a number of key activities that would increase effectiveness across the debt management lifecycle. FICO recommended the introduction of analytically-driven treatment strategies which led to a more targeted collections focus, including earlier and stronger treatments for high risk accounts.

“With over 1.5 million cards in our portfolio and a 28 percent share of the market, our growth strategy meant taking on new customers with an optimized risk/return profile,” said Ignazio Provinzano, Head of Risk Operations at Swisscard. “We were concerned about the continuation of current high recovery results and higher collection account volumes as well as maintaining the high levels of service for which we are known, so we turned to FICO to help fine-tune our approach.”

Subsequently, a data driven segmentation strategy has been implemented facilitating a more targeted collections focus. This helped to overcome some of the early collections constraints such as collector capacity and limited use of self-servicing mechanisms such as two-way SMS and IVR.

Substantial additional productivity gains were made from improvements to existing dialler technology which saw a 60 percent increase in collector efficiency. A better customer experience was also established by better aligning customer communications with non-verbal collection actions such as late fee and card block.

“By making improvements across the business, the results have been spectacular,” said Jens Dauner, Managing Director DACH & Central Europe, FICO.  “The changes are both effective and multi-pronged; Swisscard has collected substantially more revenue, re-designed its customer communications to create a more consistent and positive customer journey and improved collector productivity.”

“Swisscard had a very clear objective for its business improvement project which helped them remain focused on the analytic techniques that would deliver the best outcomes,” said Leslie Parrish, analyst for retail banking at Aite and one of the FICO Decisions Awards judges. “Swisscard has maximized its ROI by letting the call agents focus on the most promising accounts instead of just following a list approach. By doing so, they positively influenced the behavior of their customers while preserving relationships, both of which can be very difficult in the collections context.”

Thought Machine raises $83m in series B funding to drive global growth and banking transformation mission.

Thought Machine, the cloud native core banking technology firm, has raised $83 million to drive the next phase of its growth. The funding will strengthen Thought Machine’s mission to transform banking by deploying modern cloud-native systems and continue investment in its core engineering capability. The funding will also be used to drive Thought Machine’s global expansion into Asia Pacific.

Founded in 2014 by entrepreneur and former Google engineer, Paul Taylor, Thought Machine has built a core banking solution entirely in the cloud. This solution, Vault, is enabling established and challenger banks to compete in the cloud-native era, and deliver the highest levels of scalability, resilience and security. Thought Machine counts Lloyds Banking Group, Standard Chartered, SEB and Atom Bank as clients.

Last year, Thought Machine announced a major expansion in Asia Pacific with the opening of Thought Machine Singapore, which covers sales and marketing, and a dedicated professional services function to oversee the delivery of successful deployments of Vault into banks in the region. Thought Machine also plans to launch in Australia and Japan. Later in 2020, Thought Machine will launch in North America.

Thought Machine headquarters in London has been undergoing rapid growth with the team growing from 50 in 2018 to more than 300 today. All of Thought Machine’s existing investors (Lloyds Banking Group, IQ Capital, Backed and Playfair Capital) have participated in the round, with IQ Capital contributing £15m from their new scale up fund.

Draper Esprit is a leading venture capital firm investing in and developing high growth digital technology businesses. The group has invested in a range of innovative fintech businesses from Revolut and N26 to TransferWise and Freetrade.

Paul Taylor, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Thought Machine, comments: “For the past six years, our purpose has been to offer banks a next-generation solution to liberate them from legacy systems which plague the financial services industry.

This funding round comes at a pivotal stage in the company’s growth. Thought Machine’s revenues are very healthy, as we see cloud native banking become the most common desired target architecture for the world’s banks. The customer demand is huge, and this investment allows us to grow rapidly enough to serve all our target markets. As well as international expansion, we will put further investment into our core technology, ensuring that banks will always have the best possible cloud native platform, and allow them to keep up with technology breakthroughs in the future which bring agility, security, resilience and good economics.”

Vinoth Jayakumar, Investment Director, Draper Esprit, comments: “We are delighted to be partnering with Thought Machine in this phase of their growth. Our investments in Revolut and N26 demonstrate how banking is undergoing a once in a generation transformation in the technology it uses and the benefit it confers to the customers of the bank. We continue to invest in our thesis of the technology layer that forms the backbone of banking.

Thought Machine stands out by way of the strength of its engineering capability, and is unique in being the only company in the banking technology space that has developed a platform capable of hosting and migrating international Tier 1 banks. This allows innovative banks to expand beyond digital retail propositions to being able to run every function and type of financial transaction in the cloud.”

Max Bautin, Founding Partner of IQ Capital, comments: “We first backed Thought Machine at seed stage in 2016 and have seen it grow from a startup to a 300-person strong global scaleup with a global customer base and potential to become one of the most valuable European fintech companies. I am delighted to continue to support Paul and the team on this journey, with an additional £15m investment from our £100m Growth Fund, aimed at our venture portfolio outperformers.”

MYHSM announced today that its cloud-based Payment Hardware Security Module (HSM) service can now be added to ACI Worldwide's solutions as a building block of a comprehensive cloud payments strategy for acquirers, issuers, payment processors and banks.

MYHSM’s Payment HSM as a Service provides online access to payShield Payment HSMs, manufactured by partner Thales. HSMs are cryptographic devices that protect card and mobile payments, the use of which is mandated by the PCI Security Standards Council. Traditionally, Payment HSMs have been purchased and operated by user organisations, but MYHSM’s approach promises significant savings in terms of investment, operational costs and timescales for deployment.

ACI's Universal Payments (UP) portfolio of solutions makes fast, simple and secure payments possible around the world by connecting more ways to pay with more payment capabilities than any other provider. ACI’s portfolio includes UP Payments Risk Management, a solution that delivers banks, financial intermediaries and merchants a cloud-based, 360-degree approach to enterprise fraud management. One of Microsoft’s top 10 global ISV partners in the financial services industry, ACI helps top tier banks on their cloud journey through its work with Microsoft Azure.

"Our collaboration with ACI facilitates the smooth implementation of an all-cloud solution, with mutual users set to benefit from reduced investment needs and cost of ownership, greater flexibility and agility, reduced regulatory burden and easy scalability,” said John Cragg, CEO, MYHSM. “While we believe that more banks will be pursuing cloud payment deployments in 2020 and beyond, those users that prefer to run ACI’s UP solutions on premise can still make use of the MYHSM service as a production platform for Payment HSMs and as a cost-effective, flexible testing facility.”

"More financial institutions are embracing full cloud or hybrid deployments as part of their digital transformation strategies, due to increased agility and reduced capital expenditure,” said Ciaran Chu, Head of Public Cloud, ACI Worldwide. “But to maximise the potential benefits requires cooperation and collaboration on the vendor side—especially when it comes to ensuring security. Together with MYHSM and its data centre partner Equinix, we can address this and help reduce the complexity of cloud deployments.”

Lloyd’s has launched a new insurance policy to protect cryptocurrency held in online wallets against theft or other malicious hacks.

The first of its kind liability policy, with flexible limits from as little as £1,000, was created by Lloyd’s syndicate Atrium in conjunction with Coincover to protect against losses arising from the theft of cryptocurrency held in online, hot wallets.

It is a new type of liability insurance policy with a dynamic limit that increases or decreases in line with the price changes of crypto assets. This means that the insured will always be indemnified for the underlying value of their asset even if this fluctuates over the policy period.

The policy is backed by a panel of other Lloyd’s insurers, which includes TMK and Markel, all of whom are members of Lloyd’s Product Innovation Facility (PIF).

As part of the Future at Lloyd’s ambition to be the world’s most customer-centric digital insurance platform, the Facility is an important step towards building a marketplace that offers better value for the changing and diverse needs of customers through highly-responsive, cutting-edge risk management products and services.

This is the second new insurance product to be backed by PIF members in recent months. The first – a profit protection policy for hotels with an innovative event-based trigger – was launched in September.

Matthew Greaves, Underwriter, Atrium, said:

“There is a growing demand for insurance that can protect cryptocurrency as it becomes increasingly popular. It is a testament to Lloyd’s that the market has put together an innovative solution to mitigate these new risks and protect against theft – from physical as well as online vaults – thereby providing customers with piece of mind that their assets are safe.”

David Janczewski, CEO, Coincover, commented:

“We are delighted to have worked with Atrium and the Lloyd’s PIF members to bring such a unique and timely solution to the crypto asset market. As the crypto asset market heats up again at the start of 2020, a new wave of crypto-curious customers are standing by at the ready to jump in, having previously been put off by the lack of adequate protection against theft and loss. With this innovative new policy, we can remove these barriers and broaden the appeal of crypto. It represents another step forward in enabling cryptocurrency adoption.”

James Gadbury, Senior Broker, Prospect, the insurance broker that worked with Atrium and Coincover to create the policy, said:

“We are delighted to have provided Coincover with this new insurance cover, which demonstrates the innovative and entrepreneurial spirit of Lloyd’s. We believe Prospect and the wider insurance market should support this rapidly developing sector as it moves into the mainstream.”

Trevor Maynard, Head of Innovation at Lloyd’s, added:

“As more money flows into the crypto asset market, losses from hacks are on the rise. Nevertheless, cryptocurrency companies have found ways to protect their digital assets from theft and, by working closely with Lloyd’s underwriters, to insure losses that do slip through the net.

“Lloyd’s is the natural home for insurance innovation because of the unique ability of syndicates to collaborate to insure new things. I am delighted that our Product Innovation Facility – now with almost £150 million of capacity and 27 underwriters, is providing a fast route to increase insurance capacity for difficult and hard-to-insure risks.”